Crowdfunding a Retail 3D Printing Store

[Dusty]

Hi there! I'm doing something that you guys and girls may find interesting. I'm opening a physical retail store for 3d printing and 3d printed merchandise. Check out this news article written about my venture:

http://on3dprinting.com/2013/11/16/c...new-hampshire/

Essentially I'm offering space on my shelves for you to sell your 3d printable creations in exchange for helping me get off the ground. I've already gotten 'Acuity Design' to agree to re-sell their Helix 3d printer in my store when it gets started. BTW, my goal is to become thee place for customers to shop for 3d printers and ask questions about them, so I'm open to any other re-seller agreement.

Anyway, thanks for letting me post!

[JohnA136]

While I wish you the best of luck with your endeavor, I see a couple pf obstacles. First, I do not think a sound business plan would be started with only $30,000.00? It does not sound like enough for rent, machines, fixtures, insurance, utilities and salaries. Typically, you should have a bankroll that would pay for all of these for at least 6 months before starting a business.

Second, it may be overly optimistic to expect strangers to gift you money for your business with no tangible payout? What would be their motivation? I might fund a kickstarter project where there is a product that I might receive at the end but giving money away to a business that you have no stake in just does not make any sense to me?

[Dusty]

Thanks for asking about my business plan. I've included an excel sheet that shows my budget on my fundraiser page. Since I will be starting as a kiosk/cart in the mall I won't need to pay for utilities. I met with the mall representative and she made sure I was calculating the correct rent correctly.

As far as expecting people to just donate money without anything in return, I'm not! Never would. I apologize if there was any confusion. I'm using the crowd funding service fundable.com to raise my funds. There, I am offering rewards for everyone. For artist, I will place there 3d printable creation on my shelf and give them a portion of profits every time it sells. That could make someone a pretty penny. For non-artist I'm offering employee discounts, something that could pay for itself in no time.

Please check out my fundraiser www.fundable.com/3d-print-it to see all the awesome stuff I'm offering to contributors.