Entrepreneurship and Authorship

I made this — and I took the picture

For the last year or so, I’ve been trying to start a small business that’s very different from what I’ve done in the past. I’m making physical things and trying to sell them, mostly in person and a bit online.

Now, my son started the business but discovered that he didn’t have the time for it, so he got me to take it over. At first, I was making the same products he did and playing a bit with extending/expanding in some ways. All the products were (and are) laser cut. When I took over, they were mostly made of wood (typically 3mm plywood), but we did a few things out of leather. Bracelets and keychains were the main ones.

The leather stuff was very basic and simple. I expanded a bit and added a few more pieces, but it was all pre-dyed leather bought from a supplier in Alberta. I found I was enjoying playing with the leather a lot and wanted to learn how to do more, so I bought some veg-tan undyed leather and started dying it. Turned out it’s pretty easy to do and a lot of fun. After a bit, I stopped buying anything pre-dyed. That made my leather cheaper (but increased my effort, obviously), but it also gave me a lot more flexibility and meant that I would always have the colours I wanted.

The other part was stitching. Now, everything I was making was put together with rivets or Chicago screws. That limits what you can make, but I knew…