u/nicholomo

I run a small craft-based business through Squarespace and have been trying to get a better handle on the operations side, specifically around inventory and raw material tracking/planning.

For those of you also running craft-based businesses, how are you managing or tracking your raw materials and inventory behind the scenes?

Are you using any tools or software alongside your store? What’s working well, and what feels limiting?

One thing I’ve been struggling with is planning around shared materials. Where the same supplies are used across multiple products, but in different quantities depending on what sells. How are you all thinking about when and how much to restock of each raw material in that kind of situation?

I’m trying to improve the operations side of my small woodworking side hustle and would love to hear how others are managing things.

For those of you who sell woodworking projects (especially online or made-to-order), how are you tracking and managing your raw materials and inventory?

Are there any tools or software you use? What do you like or dislike about them?

Also, since different projects use different amounts of materials, how do you decide when and how much to restock things like wood, hardware, finishes, etc - especially when those same materials are shared across multiple products, but in different quantities depending on what you’re making.

I've been doing leather craft for probably six years, and I have been selling my stuff online for a couple. I am trying to figure out a way to manage the business side a little bit better now. I am specifically curious about how others in the leather craft community that also sell their stuff e-commerce track and manage their raw materials and inventory.

Are there any tools/software out there? What do people like/dislike about them?

How do you plan and manage restocking of raw materials and supplies when they're shared across multiple product types with varying usage? Like bags vs wallets.

I'm in a UX class right now, going through some UX projects. Doing the whole process - research -> design -> testing etc..

I'm realizing how difficult it is to find participants for user interviews, especially at the beginning of a project when you need quality insights to define your problem and 'how might we' statements.

What's more realistic at an actual company for getting qualitative data? Doing legit user interviews or performing secondary research like going on social media threads and taking screenshots of people talking about their past experiences?

I'm a product designer - currently in a UI/UX class. Looking for a real world client project but I'm totally happy not to be paid cause I just want experience. I'd be working with an experienced designer on this and it would go on my portfolio at the end of the day.

I've done freelance work in the past for physical product development, now I'm venturing into digital UX design.

If you've got a small business with a strong sense of branding and you've got a problem on your website or app; maybe high bounce rates, low signups or form submissions, low conversion rates etc.. I would love to see if I can help - again, completely free of charge.

Comment below if you're interested.

I'm a product designer - currently in a UI/UX class. Looking for a real world client project but I'm totally happy not to be paid cause I just want experience. I'd be working with an experienced designer on this and it would go on my portfolio at the end of the day.

I've done freelance work in the past for physical product development, now I'm venturing into digital UX design.

If you've got a small business with a strong sense of branding and you've got a problem on your website or app; maybe high bounce rates, low signups or form submissions, low conversion rates etc.. I would love to see if I can help - again, completely free of charge.

Comment below if you're interested.

I've been selling leather goods on Shopify for about a year, and I'm wondering what ways there are to keep track of raw materials and how much of x product you can make before you need to go buy more materials?

For example I have a couple wallets, and they each use different amounts of materials, different amounts of supplies like thread, glue, dyes etc..

How do people keep track of this stuff?

I've been selling leather goods e-commerce for about a year, and I'm wondering what ways there are to keep track of raw materials and how much of x product you can make before you need to go buy more materials?

For example I have a couple wallets, and they each use different amounts of materials, different amounts of supplies like thread, glue, dyes etc..

How do people keep track of this stuff?

Does anyone have or is starting a craft-based product business. This could be ceramics, clothes, fashion/accessories, woodworking etc.. Do you makes things and sell them?

1. Where do you sell? Etsy, Shopify? etc.
2. Tell me about your business. What's your role?
3. How do you keep track of and organize your raw materials?
4. Do you use any existing tools or software to do this?
5. What do you like and dislike about those tools?
6. How do you know when to buy more materials/supplies?

Asking anyone who has tried to create a product for real, physical or digital, but needed help from another discipline; eg (your a designer and you need help from a programmer, mechanical engineer, etc).

Maybe your a legit start-up founder, maybe you're working on a personal creative project and you need advice from someone more experienced in a particular field. Maybe you've gone to ADP list, Indie Hackers, or Reddit for help.

1. Curious to know what people's experiences are in doing things like this?

2. What's helped, what hasn't?

I'm fairly new to posting on Instagram. Never been into social media in general until the past couple months. I'm a product Designer trying to start my Instagram to get some freelance clients and build a personal brand - it'll be a long term attempt.

I've been posting reels about Product Design content for the past couple weeks, both digital UX and physical industrial design type of stuff. People who are good at organic social media marketing always say pick a niche, cause it's the best way for Instagram to know who to show your content to and to gain followers.

I'm not expecting success right off the bat, but is Product Design too broad of a niche? For example, one video idea I have is educating people on which kinds of plastics are recyclable (industrial design stuff), and another I have is showing examples of cool branded websites (UX design stuff). Both are in the product design niche, but will Instagram be confused as to how these ideas are related and who to show this to?

Should I have one account for physical product design and another for digital? How do I know if Instagram knows what my niche is?

I also think about accounts in my feed who have tons of followers that post about the most random stuff and get tons of likes and views. Those accounts don't seem to have a niche, so I'm confused as to how they're doing so well.

I'm a product designer, and I've been thinking about this creative collaboration app idea for while, but I'm not sure if it makes sense conceptually.

I think it would be cool if there was an app that could connect students and other creatives to collaborate on eachothers projects.

Let's say you're a student trying to build your creative portfolio, but you need a mechanical engineer to take your project to the next level. Especially in this increasingly competitive job market, realistic case studies are always better. You could go to places like Fiverr, but you likely don't have a lot of money to spend and do you really want to risk hiring someone you don't know for a portfolio project?

What if there was an app that connected students from different disciplines like industrial design, ux design, mechanical engineering, etc, who are also in need of case studies on their portfolio to either find client work or a regular job?

The idea would be that people from different disciplines would collaborate on someone's idea and then they'd all have a portfolio case study.

Nobody would be paid, which would be the point. Everybody would just benefit from team collaboration and having those more in depth case studies.

Curious for anyone's thoughts.