Dave Wentz has always worked with his hands. After working in a canvas shop for 20 years he worked at a metal stamping factory – with a tool and die apprenticeship – and a smaller machine shop, all before going out on his own. “I had designed and developed my own product, and when I had the opportunity to do fabrication on my own, I decided to go for it.”

In an attempt to maximize work space, Eric Tate of Tate Machine Works took to finding a new place for his Tormach Jog Shuttle. And the Shuttle Stow was born.

Prototyping can be a challenge. We live in an era of fast-moving start-ups and Kickstarter revolutions, which leads to specialized machining and short turn-arounds. Chris Rauch keeps his “dual aspect engineering company” running steadily, thanks to both a lathe and mill from Tormach.

Luke Colby is a veteran of the space industry – he has both a BS and MS in Aerospace Engineering, he founded the BU Rocket Team at Boston University, worked in the combustion lab as a Master’s student at Georgia Tech, previously worked for Scaled Composites (an aerospace company owned by Northrop Grumman), and now he’s the president and CEO of Triton Space Technologies.

As many brick-and-mortar stores are seeing sales drift online and websites like Kickstarter are helping to decide where the market is headed, personal manufacturing has moved from the wave of the future to a tool of production. The “Now Economy” has produced consumers that expect their goods to be high-quality and arrive quickly, which can sometimes be a challenge for traditional manufacturers.

Starting a business can be a daunting task. One of the biggest challenges can be gauging excitement with decision-making, and making sure those decisions are what’s best for the business. While starting a business can be stressful, becoming your own boss has an array of fantastic rewards, as well. To help navigate the best practices for a startup, we asked a few of our in-house experts for some insight and tips on starting a machining business.