u/ghostofwinter88

Hi everyone

Am an Engineer in the mechanical sector.
Recently have been asked to take over my family business as my parents want to retire.

The company is in electronics and communications. It is small (6 employees) but it is stable, no debt, annual net profit is in the six digit realm. There is a defensible moat (regulatory) and switching cost is high hence customers tend to stay. The company has secured multi-year contracts and has predictable revenue up to 2031.

I am ok to take over although it means a career pivot into a field I am totally new in. Part of me is abit sad to leave my own field but also abit nervous because there is a technical part to this business that I am not familiar with. I don’t know if I can earn the respect of the current workers because I’m coming in not knowing anything but also to eventually take over. Also somewhat scared if I cannot maintain the company business past the next 5 years.

Any advice for someone in my situation?

Hi everyone

Am an Engineer in the mechanical sector.
Recently have been asked to take over my family business as my parents want to retire.

The company is in electronics and communications. It is small (6 employees) but it is stable, no debt, annual net profit is in the six digit realm. There is a defensible moat (regulatory) and switching cost is high hence customers tend to stay. The company has secured multi-year contracts and has predictable revenue up to 2031.

I am ok to take over although it means a career pivot into a field I am totally new in. Part of me is abit sad to leave my own field but also abit nervous because there is a technical part to this business that I am not familiar with. I don’t know if I can earn the respect of the current workers because I’m coming in not knowing anything but also to eventually take over. Also somewhat scared if I cannot maintain the company business past the next 5 years.

Any advice for someone in my situation?

As per title.

My company is in the B2B space. We provide engineering and print services to the healthcare/med device sector, also have a dedicated ceramic print arm for defence/semiconductor work.

We inherited a Formlabs fuse 1+ with nitrogen generator and sift station a small sandblast system that used to run PA12. Humidity is high in my environment so we do not like to leave powder in the hoppers when idle.

Problem is we generally don’t run a ton of SLS prints as we are mainly fdm/sla/polyjet. Outsourced SLS / MJF has become really cheap and to my mind there doesn’t seem like a point to make the space and switch this machine on. What would you do?