I have been using TinkerCAD for years now, and am quite proficient. I’m quite interested in finding a good parametric app that is actually affordable!

I am good enough to produce products for sale, but only in marketplaces like Etsy (think board game inserts/organizers). Something like Shapr3D would be great, but $500/yr is prohibitive and the free version won’t work for designs intended to be sold commercially.

What are people using in cases like this? I truly appreciate any insights.

Here's my son Ridit, experimenting with solid mechanical design using Blender. He created this mechanical toy and named it Flippy. He did it 5 years ago when he was in Class V. He is now building his skills in computer graphics software, which he wants to pursue as a career. Parenthood taught me that early exposure is important to build real expertise, especially in the tech field.

I am designing a game in which users will need to rearrange physical items in slots on a tray. If they get the items in the right order, they pass the level and gain a point. I'm trying to figure out how to build the puzzle so that users can manipulate physical objects, but the result would be checked digitally and the points awarded on their phone. I was hoping to put something on the bottoms of the items and the tops of each of the slots, perhaps NFC tags, but my fiancé isn't sure that they will work. Is there a better way of digitally tracking an item's physical placement?

Thanks in advance!

3 months ago, I quit my job at Google as a product designer. Not because the job was bad. Honestly, it was great. Great people, great perks, great work. I'm genuinely luck to be there. The part that wasn’t great was me and my mind.

Since I moved to the US 10 years ago, I’ve always wanted to make things. Not just software. I wanted to make T-shirts, music, animations, games, art, stories, events, weird little products, tea maker, Men shoes… basically anything that I found interesting. I don’t really care about the format. I just like the feeling of having an idea in my head and somehow turning it into something that exists in the real world. For the last 10 years, though, I mostly put that side of me on hold. There are terms for it some people call it multi passionate or creative entrepreneur or crazy...

I worked really hard to become the best product designer I could be, eventually working at FAANG companies. And honestly, I don’t regret it. Working at a company like Google was a dream of mine. It was actually one of the reasons I moved to the US in the first place. I wanted to see how these huge companies worked from the inside.

But I kept having ideas and I kept telling myself, “I’ll do it later.”. Eventually I started trying to do them after work. My workday ended around 6. I’d rest, eat, spend some time with my family, and then around 9pm I’d force myself to work on my own ideas... 9 to 10:30. That was my tiny creative window and honestly, it wasn’t enough. My brain was already fried from the day. I was thinking about the fact that I had to start working at 9 while I was supposed to be relaxing from 6 to 9. Weekends weren’t much better because I was either working on ideas or thinking about working on ideas.

So after a lot of planning of quit my the job 3 months ago to go full time on: "Make things I enjoy and make a good living from it".
I’m in my mid-30s, married, no kids, and I felt like I had a window in my life where I could take a real shot at this before we have a kid and things get serious.
My ultimate dream is to have a creative studio where I can make different things, sell them, and eventually bring other creative people into the studio who also want to make their own weird, interesting projects.

3 months in, I’ve learned that this sounds much more romantic than it actually is. Here are some things I’m struggling with:

1. Being a multi passionate maker is hard.

I’m not really the typical “start a company, raise money, grow 100x, sell it” type. I want a lifestyle business. Something that makes enough money, that I enjoy working on, and that I don’t feel desperate to sell. And I think having a laser-focused goal like “I want to build a billion-dollar company” probably makes some decisions easier. I don’t have that. I just want to make cool things and build a good life around it. 

2. I need help with marketing.

Right now I’m doing everything. Ideation. Design. Building. Marketing. Customer support. Content. Ads. And every one of those things can be a full-time job. The problem is that if you only create and don’t market, you’re basically creating in a vacuum. So I started a social channel where I share what I’m making and I’ve been experimenting with small-budget ads to see how people react. These days that making is much easier taste and marketing are even much more important than before. I highly recommend figuring this part out if you staring this journey. If you know someone or you are great at it lets chat.

3. Eventually, money matters.

I’m fortunate that money isn’t an immediate concern for the next year or two as my wife also working which I'm super thankful :D But eventually, the things I make need to earn money if I want to keep doing this. I think I have a tendency to jump to the next idea too quickly. But maybe I need to spend more time marketing each thing, getting feedback, improving it, and giving it a real chance to find an audience. That’s something I’m actively trying to work on.

4. I don’t really have a role model for this.

Most of the people I look up to went very deep into one thing and that makes sense. Going deep is probably one of the reasons they became successful but I keep wanting to go wide. I want to explore and I think that can be a super power too. To be so good at creating different things. Meanwhile, I think the key is to create one at a time not all together. We have role models in each industry but someone who is multi passionate is much rare and this make your mind questioning your path.

5. I overthink everything.

“What if I do this?” “What if I focus on making money for half the year and spend the other half on crazy projects?” “What if I pick one thing?” “What if I’m wasting time?” “What if I’m not building enough?”

I’ve realized that having complete freedom also means having an endless number of ways to spend your time. And that can be surprisingly difficult. I decided only once a week answer to these question not every single day.

6. It’s fun… until it isn’t.

This one surprised me the most. When I had my job, there were days I woke up thinking: “I really don’t want to work today.” and I used to think maybe that was because it wasn’t my project. Now I’m working on my own ideas... guess what? Some mornings I still don’t want to work. Sometimes I just want to go outside, hang out with my wife, play games, watch something, or do absolutely nothing. It made me realize that even if you build your dream life, you’re still a human being. It’s not going to feel exciting every day.

So far, I’ve managed to stick to my routine. But I’ve also stopped expecting this to be some glamorous creative life where I wake up every morning overflowing with inspiration. Some days you just have to sit down and do the work.

7. I’m trying to remember that my worth isn’t what I create.

This one might be the most important. It’s easy for me to make my identity about what I’m building, how successful it is, how many people use it, or whether I’m making money from it. I’m trying to remind myself that life is much bigger than that. I'm a person, husband, brother, son and friend before I’m a maker. My worth doesn’t go up or down based on what I managed to create today. There is so much more life beyond creating things and I remind my self to enjoy life while I go through the journey. Journaling helping on this part alot...

What I’m happy about

I’m happy I made the leap.

I didn’t quit randomly. I planned for it. I miss Google and I miss my coworkers, but honestly, I’m kind of living the dream I had in my head for years. I wake up and get to work on something I actually chose to make. I wrap up the work at 6 feel good that I worked on something I wanted and then I go with the rest of my life. That’s pretty special.

I’m learning A LOT.

I’ve learned things I never had to think about as a product designer. Learned many of the AI tools that made me dramatically more capable as a solo maker. I’m learning Meta ads, which, by the way, are ridiculously confusing :D I’m learning marketing, distribution, business, customer support, content, and what it actually means to take an idea all the way from “what if…” to something another human being can experience. It’s forcing me to think beyond my product-design box.

And I’m appreciating small things more.

I notice little things now that I used to rush past. I wake up and actually smell the tea I’m making. When I exercise, I pay attention to my muscles working instead of just trying to finish the workout. I have more moments where I’m actually there. I feel more calm overall. I came into this wanting to make things But I think I’m also trying to figure out how I want to live.

By no means am I encouraging anyone to do the same or quit their job without a clear plan. For me, it was a relatively low-risk decision because I had savings and a plan. I told myself that even if I made no money from this, I could still look back and say: I learned a lot, I tried something I had always wanted to try, and I gave myself the chance to move on to the next chapter without regret.

The harder part is figuring out how to sustain this long-term. Especially in this economy, I might eventually need to find another job or spend 50% of my time freelancing to fund the other 50%, the part where I get to keep making things I care about.
I have no idea where I’ll be a year from now. And honestly, I’m okay with that too. I’m still figuring it out But please don't rage quit your job because you boss is annoying.

how are you guys going through life these days? Are you doing what you actually want to be doing? feel free to ask me anything. I’m happy to share what I’m learning.

Thanks for reading this ridiculously long post.