Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have a little extra money, and one sure way to make it is with a side gig at home. If you’re looking for a job that’s creatively as well as financially rewarding and you have design skills combined with a fascination with technology, consider purchasing a 3D printer. 3D printers have proven themselves useful in multiple ways, and making yourself and your machine available will open new venues for you and your career. Here are a few ways a 3D printer can help you start a home business.
Pop Cultural Totems
One of the more common uses of 3D printers out there is the production of pop cultural items prized by collectors. While there may be licensing issues involved with producing statuettes and other 3D-printed merchandise portraying well-known characters, it is possible to produce original characters on demand for clients as well as copyright-free characters that have lapsed into the public domain. Imagine expanding this into creating personalized items, gifts, and rewards for business clients that reflect or parody popular characters and the like. The market is out there!
Print Marketing Materials
A business card is handy. But a business card that can open a bottle, hold up a smartphone, or even store other business cards is likely to be held on to and shown to others, thereby delivering further impressions. 3D printers can turn out bottle openers, card holders, key chains, fobs, gift boxes, and more, all displaying your or your clients’ name, logo, address, contact information, website, and more. A card can get lost, but a useful tool will be found and reused repeatedly.
Produce Models and Prototypes
Here’s one of the big ways a 3D printer can help you start a home business. Engineers, artists, and designers are called on to produce models and prototypes of their ideas, to give the people they’re pitching a better impression of what their product looks like, what it can do, and what is involved in mass producing or building it for real. Make your 3D printer available to job-seeking designers who need a bigger wow factor in their portfolio, smaller companies just getting started, and inventors who need something they can point to in a presentation. Choose your 3D printer materials wisely, especially if you’re creating working models for a client.
Tools and Parts
The sky is the limit when it comes to 3D printing tools and parts. If you find a niche in your business community, fill it. Some smaller local factories and facilities may need certain parts on demand—be their connection. Go the arts and crafts route and sell cookie cutters and similar baking tools at the church fair or local flea market on the weekends, or Etsy and other sites the rest of the time. Use your imagination and your 3D printer will help you build your dreams.
