Advice on starting a ski building business?

[petemorgan(pmoskico)]

I have been building skis for a couple years now as a hobby, and as a side business to my regular job as an CNC programmer in aerospace manufacturing.

I have been playing around with the idea of opening up a legitimate ski building operation and I was wondering if you guys had any advice for me.

What types of industry regulations do I have to comply with? Where can I find this information?

Are there ASTM standards that the skis have to comply with?

Are there safety tests that the skis have to undergo?

Are there patents on certain types of manufacturing equipment or ski designs that I should watch out for?

Any advice on working with insurance for manufacturing sporting equipment that people could potentially get hurt using?

What other questions should I be asking?

Thanks

[MontuckyMadman]

don't make your tip and tail 5mm thick.
get general product liability for skis. will cost you $3500-5K per year.
Every rocker camber shape profile is already patented so you will be in violation on virtually anything you make.
Unless you think you will be grossing over 30K a year at this, don't bother IMO.
Market saturation is a real thing.

[knightsofnii]

everyone seriously wants your product, but only a fraction of a percent of them will pull the trigger.
Alot of them want it for free, alot more want it heavily discounted.
If you figure out how to sell them to strangers, your friends will come around too .

[skidesmond]

I second what MM and Knights said. Liability ins is a killer. If 10% of the people who gave compliments on your skis bought them, then I'd say go for it. Just about everything in the design area has been patented. But I wouldn't worry about that unless you try to lay claim that you design is totally unique, it's probably patented.

But don't get discouraged, have realistic financial goals. Everyone will want them at cost. But once you set a realistic price you're no competing with the big buys who have a proven track record. Why should they chance dropping $$$$ on your skis when they can get a proven product for the same? Solve that and you got it made.

[vinman]

The ins. Piece is the keystone to the whole issue. The overhead on the liability is a tough issue to get though. If you can get a quote for something reasonable then your volume and retail price won't need to be so high. If you can't pull off a reasonable ins. Quote then it might not be worth doing it if you cant sell enough skis to cover your overhead. There is no sense in losing your shirt over a couple pair of skis if you don't have ins. And someone gets injured on your product and takes you for everything.

If you go though with it, forming a LLC and keeping your business assets and personal assets totally separate is a must. Also don't employ your wife even if you do form your LLC. There are ways for your LLC to be pierced (piercing the corporate veil). Follow your states LLC regs to the letter and don't mix personal and business assets.

Find a good business attorney and develop a good buyer contract and waiver form.

[petemorgan(pmoskico)]

thanks for the replies. montucky always the voice of reason...

It seems like the best tactic would be to set up a job-shop that could take on a variety of projects for a variety of industries and have ski building as a small aspect of it. possible even have it as a pull-production system ( where you only make skis when someone wants to buy them) thats how im operating right now. all of my "speculation" skis (speculating that they will sell) end up just picking up dust because all of my clients want something unique and also want to help in the layup. its filling an interesting niche.

i think the key would be versatility, because there is no way you could make very much money selling just skis, especially in the first year. but if you had that as like 10% of revenue and a lot of other means, then everything could grow, and you could lean one way or another depending on demand.

vince at miller studios who has been in the business for 30 years told me he has seen numerous ski companies come and go within a year, go bankrupt then move on. its true, that the market is saturated. and it would be hard to compete with the big guys, and what if you ended up having a quality issue in the first year... then game over for-sure

cubicle life-style seems to be effecting my healthy adversely though, and it might be time to move on to a more healthy lifestyle.... and if its really only a life-style job-shop without the stressful ambitions to "make-it big" then maybe it is a feasible goal...

[skidesmond]

Cubicle life can be pretty dull, but it's paid for all my hobbies including ski building. I think diversifying is a good move. I bike a lot and have been thinking of making wood bike fenders, handle bars, etc and eventually bike frames.

[falls]

Buy a CNC machine and make it your core business. Use it to build skis when it isn't making you money on paid jobs.
People's projects with CNC are pretty varied and usually somewhat interesting.

[sammer]

Buy a CNC machine and make it your core business. Use it to build skis when it isn't making you money on paid jobs.
People's projects with CNC are pretty varied and usually somewhat interesting.

I've thought this exact same thing a few times now.

sam

[MadRussian]

What other questions should I be asking?

Thanks

cubicle life-style seems to be effecting my healthy adversely though, and it might be time to move on to a more healthy lifestyle.... and if its really only a life-style job-shop without the stressful ambitions to "make-it big" then maybe it is a feasible goal...

In my opinion you asked all wrong questions. and give all the wrong reasons.
Usually going into business ANY BUSINESS decision mostly emotional. People forgot it's all about money and under estimate their abilities. This why most of new businesses fail within three years.
Business is not about making a product it about selling it. How many skis you need to sell to cover expenses and make some profit? Profit is not a dirty word
General rule: you need to have enough cash to cover all your expenses like shop rental, material, equipment etc. plus living expenses to be conservative should be enough for 2-3 years without taking any money out of the business .
Another very crucial part future success of new business, usually overlooked by most of the people, is marketing strategy.
Who is your customer? What product/service do they want? where you can find that customer? Who is the competition? Can environment, where impact of competition becoming minimal, can be created?
next important item is sales. Can you sell? Can you sell to a strangers? Do you have any experience in sales? If you have do you like it?

I'm not qualified to give specific advice on ski manufacturing business. In same time general principle remains the same apply to any business startup

" this all I have to say about that"