I’ve been working in software and machine learning for about 10 years. After the exit event at the end of the 2024 from the last company I cofounded, I started looking for my next venture. I was thinking about getting into robotics first but when I started to dig deeper I realized that the US is on a brink of a precision manufacturing crisis. Here are some of the facts from recent research by Contrary:
- US global manufacturing share dropped from 40% (1950s) to 16% (2021)
- Average machine shop operator age is 63
- 615000 manufacturing jobs unfilled (45% of positions)
- 10% of machinists leave the industry each year
- Supply chain still relies on 1960s processes (phone, fax, email orders)
- Equipment uptime is only around 30%
I felt like this was it - I would open my own cnc shop, address the inefficiencies by using modern software stack, implement parts of it myself if needed, and serve my local community. I didn’t know anything about machining, so I found a local garage shop and asked to work there as a cnc machinist for free, just to learn, and found myself liking it more and more after every passing day.
In parallel I was researching all other aspects of opening a shop from the facility requirements, permits, financing, cnc machines and tooling to the acquisition of materials without getting price gouged and securing orders. I have to admit that there’s a lot and at some point my plan of opening a single shop evolved into something bigger. We need much more new shops, many new young driven shop owners and we need it as soon as possible. In order to do that I believe we need to make the barrier of entry lower and survivability rate higher. Research backs up the collaborative models for that - we can achieve resilience at scale. This way the idea of creating a decentralized network of small local low volume high mix cnc shops was born.
I want to scale it using the franchise model - so called “McDonalds for manufacturing”. Everyone will get a blueprint, modern software stack with continuous updates, training, help with the machines and financing, access to supply chain in order to get the lower prices on materials (because we can buy together in bulk), and a network to share orders if needed and working practices.
The next step is to open the first shop, refine the blueprint and start scaling. In the meantime, reach out on X if you want to chat!