Our first 6 months.

This last January we seriously started thinking of what starting our business would be.  We thought about what we wanted to sell, what printers liked using and what platforms we would want to use.

We love going to local craft fairs and seeing the different booths and makers.  So we decided that trying local craft fairs would be the main platform we would use.  In February we got all of our paper work filed and complete.  We were officially in business!

We printed model after model.  Our product development team ( our two daughters ) helped us decide colors and models.  They would tell us if they liked something or not.  Was it cute?  Was it fun?  We spent March and April printing up lots of fun items to sell at our first event.

We chose to go to our first event the first weekend in May.  It was a big event and that came with a big price tag.  We were nervous!  Would we sell anything?  My oldest daughter came up the night before to help set up the booth. It was a two day event.  We made our booth fee back the first day.  The second day was actually a little slower than anticipated.  But we made back enough to buy more filament and keep moving along!

We had some good takeaways from our first event.  We evaluated what worked, what didn't and what could.  We got our next event lined up for the first part of June.  It was the Utah Kids Fair Summer Palooza!!  The product development team was pumped!  They would definitely be attending.  We continued to print and expand our inventory.  We needed the next event to go well.

Summer Palooza was here!  Another two day event.  We were right by the food trucks.   We had to endure the smells from hot dogs and tacos all day long.  We had a fantastic time at this event.  We had fun interacting with kids and parents.  Educating people on 3D printing and what we love about it.  This was a successful event that allowed us to expand our product line.  We stocked up on filament and new models.  

Our next event was scheduled for the end of June.  The Lehi Round Up days.  We had only two weeks to replenish our stocks.  We got pretty low on inventory from the Summer Palooza event.  We were nervous.  Was it going to be busy?  Would it be a bust?  This was a lowest cost event to get into so far, so maybe we would do ok.  We printed and printed to hopefully make it a successful event.

Lehi Round Up days.  We arrived and set up shop.  I was nervous for another two day event.  We got a nice semi-shady spot across from a puppy petting booth.  First we were right by the mouth-watering food, now we were by super cute puppies.  Sigh.  We made it though.  We had our most successful event of the year.  The crowds were great.  The kids and parents were so fun to interact with at this event.  The smiles on the faces everywhere.  This event really helped us to realize the potential to show others our love for 3D printing and everything that it is capable of.  If we can help deliver smiles along the way, we are all winning.  

We have expanded our printers from 2 printers in January to 4 printers working full time.  We are working on a better website.  We did create a small Etsy shop with a few items.  But setting up a new business has taken a lot of time.  We have a lot of interest at our booths about our website.  I know we need a better one and we are working on it.  We hope to expand our product line and have great ideas for the future.

Our next event will be Salem Days, August 11th - 12th.

Come see us and say hi!

The Colledge Family