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"  &amp;quot;This!&amp;quot; shouts Patrick Buckley, &amp;quot;is the Big! Robot! Room!&amp;quot; Buckley is whisking me through the 10,000-square-foot factory his company,DODOcase, operates in an industrial area of San Francisco. We&amp;#039;ve stopped to admire the 32-year-old CEO&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Ferrari.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s not an Italian sports car, but a very loud programmable CNC router with about the same footprint, and half the price tag. Right now the $98,000, red and white SCM Pratix is cutting precision details into 18 bamboo frames held in place by a vacuum-sealed jig. Ultimately, each 8 x 10\u2014inch rectangle will be glued into a handmade book cover. The final product: a $60 iPad case. Resembling a Moleskine notebook, the DODOcase has exploded in popularity since debuting alongside the iPad in April 2010. Within a month, orders spiked from 10 to 900 a day. Retailers like J. Crew carry them, and President Obama keeps one on his desk. DODOcase hasn&amp;#039;t always had a big robot room. Or its own bookbindery. Or 25 full-time employees. When Buckleyand co-founders Craig Dalton and Mark Manning started the company, it seemed more like a hobby than an assembly line. They cut bamboo on routers at the DIY hackerspace TechShop, outsourced covers to a local bookbinder, and assembled the cases in Buckley&amp;#039;s basement. Three years later, DODOcase has grown into a model of success for a new breed of small-scale manufacturers. They&amp;#039;re not alone. Manufacturing used to require lots of capital and scale. But new technology is making it easier, faster, and cheaper to transform an idea into a business. Free, easy-touse computer-aided design (CAD) programs and inexpensive 3D printers help entrepreneurs prototype quickly. Shared R&amp;amp;amp;D spaces such as NextFab and TechShop give anyone access to expensive tools for around $100 a month. And crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter let innovators raise capital quickly while maintaining control of their companies. Starting a business still takes plenty of sweat equity and a bit of luck. But if you want to graduate from spare-time tinkerer to full-time manufacturer, there has never been a better time to do it. Here are five essential strategies for getting started. 7 Easy Steps for Launching a Startup &amp;amp;gt;  Lesson 1: Build Connections. Manufacturing hasn&amp;#039;t always been a welcoming industry for small-batch entrepreneurs. Equipment and resources were most available to companies that produce hundreds of thousands of products, leaving the little guy on his own. The rise of shared workspaces for innovators is changing that. In 1997 Edmund Villarreal began crafting magnesium fire starters on his apartment balcony in Euless, Texas. Featuring a handle cut from specialty woods such as hickory, dogwood, and mesquite, the screwdriver-size All-Weather Firestarters weren&amp;#039;t that complicated to produce. He had his own magnesium cutter and band saw. But it was time-consuming. At best, Villarreal could crank out one Firestarter every 20 to 30 minutes. After a decade of doing odd jobs during the day and making Firestarters at night, he had managed to sell a respectable 20,000 units, but he was maxed out. &amp;quot;I needed to manufacture these things on a bigger scale, but I just didn&amp;#039;t know how,&amp;quot; he says. In 2009, after moving to Raleigh, N.C., Villarreal posted an ad on Craigslist, hoping to find an out-of-work engineer to cut his magnesium. He scored one\u2014and more. The engineer turned out to be a member of TechShop. Villarreal joined TechShop, too, and other members soon offered helpful tips: Don&amp;#039;t swap out bits every time you drill a countersinker. Try a bit with an integrated countersink! Don&amp;#039;t polish and cut the magnesium one piece at a time. Automate! Villarreal gained instant access to high-end equipment and skilled tradespeople. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m learning how to work smarter, not harder,&amp;quot; he says. Today, whenever he gets an order, he hires an ad hoc team of four parttime engineers to set up and run a custom line at TechShop. The guy who programs the ShopBot PRSalpha router gets $50 an hour, but it&amp;#039;s worth the money. The team produces one Firestarter every 10 minutes. Sales have picked up too. In 2012 Villarreal sold 5000 Firestarters. Lesson 2: Keep Inventory Lean. Matching supply to demand is the most critical balancing act in business. Ramping up production requires investments in equipment, materials, and staff. For companies that are just getting off the ground, gauging demand often amounts to a lot of guesswork. The fundraising website Kickstarter fundamentally flips that equation, with small investors promising money up front for early access to goods that haven&amp;#039;t been produced yet. It&amp;#039;s a transformative idea, and it&amp;#039;s launched a lot of little companies into the big time faster than they expected. Last spring the smart-watch startup Pebble began a campaign on the site to raise $100,000 but raised 100 times that amount. The company suddenly had an obligation to produce 85,000 smart watches. So instead of continuing in its small factory in San Jose, Calif., where the team had made its batch of 1500 samples, the founders turned to Dragon Innovation, a firm that helps companies outsource manufacturing to Asia. But an initial flood of orders doesn&amp;#039;t guarantee long-term success. In 2011 Dave Petrillo and his partner started a Kickstarter campaign for Coffee Joulies, stainless-steel beans filled with a phase-change material to keep coffee at a desired temperature. They planned to raise $9500 to cover half the initial cost of tooling, but the company ended up with $306,944. That&amp;#039;s when they decided to set up manufacturing in a 110-year-old silverware plant in Sherrill, N.Y. Six months later the company had filled the 4818 Kickstarter orders. But then it hit a speed bump. After the holidays demand slowed but the factory didn&amp;#039;t\u2014soon the company had a backlog of 32,000 unsold units. &amp;quot;Just when we got into a comfortable work pace, we had to stop. We underestimated the seasonality of our product,&amp;quot; Petrillo says. Good PR saved the day\u2014after a January 2013 appearance on the ABC show Shark Tank, sales boomed, and now Joulies are on back order. The perfect balance, according to DODOcase&amp;#039;s Buckley, is to link production to demand. &amp;quot;We control the manufacturing process. We can turn our machines on and off whenever we want,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;We won&amp;#039;t ever have more than two weeks of inventory.&amp;quot;  &amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt; Meet the Entrepreneurs   Lesson 3: Get Parts-Savvy &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;   Lesson 3: Get Parts-Savvy. Even the leanest production process relies upon a supply chain of parts and materials. Before the Internet, finding reliable suppliers could take years of relationship building. Now it takes seconds. Websites such as MFG.com automate the search for manufacturers and suppliers, and build in quality control with user reviews and a five-star rating system. The supplier culture is changing too. Entrenched vendors are more willing to work with startups. The runs may be small, and there&amp;#039;s no guarantee that the products will lead to further orders, but vendors often have no choice. Many big manufacturers have cut back since the economic downturn, and factories are seeking to make up the loss of big orders with many smaller projects. The result is the growth of an ecosystem that lives and breathes small batches. &amp;quot;Finding vendors for this project has been easier than anything I&amp;#039;ve ever worked on,&amp;quot; says Benjamin Cohen, who founded a bicycle-headlight company called Blink/Steady in Brooklyn, N.Y., with two robotics engineers who formerly had freelanced for NASA. &amp;quot;The old guard is stepping back, and the younger people at these companies are willing to work with you.&amp;quot; In July Blink/Steady filled the first orders of its $95 (now $125) bicycle headlight, a multisensor device that automatically turns on when the bicycle is in motion or it&amp;#039;s dark outside. The product is constructed with a sleek aluminum body (anodized in Pittsburgh) that&amp;#039;s been laser-etched (in Wallingford, Conn.), outfitted with a waterproof O-ring (fabricated in Lancaster, N.Y.), and stocked with a circuit board (assembled in San Jose and programmed in Brooklyn). Knowing how your parts are designed is just as important as knowing where to get them\u2014especially when it comes to electronics. George Yu is the CEO of Variable Technologies, a startup in Chattanooga, Tenn., that makes a wireless iPhone accessory called NODE. &amp;quot;The whole world of circuit-board assembly is a little mysterious to smallbatch creators,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Vendors are not geared toward amateurs or beginners at all.&amp;quot; NODE, which packs together sensors for measuring data such as light, motion, and temperature, is only 3 inches long, so the circuit board had to be designed tightly. Yu had earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech, but he had no clue how circuit boards are mass-produced. So he spent days watching videos of circuit board pick-and-place machines on YouTube and scouring websites for written information. He arrived at two ahas: 1) pick-and-place machines employ different-size nozzles to pick up parts, and 2) changing those nozzles impacts cost. Therefore, Yu realized, if he designed every part and resistor on his circuit board to be roughly the same size, there would be no need to change nozzles. Ultimately, that insight streamlined the process of manufacturing NODE, saving Yu time, effort, and money. 7 Easy Steps for Launching a Startup &amp;amp;gt;  Lesson 4: If America Can Build It, Build It In America. Your heart says build in the U.S.A., while the economics of international labor markets say build in China. But as Dave Petrillo and David Jackson discovered when they decided to make Coffee Joulies domestically, the logistics of smallbatch manufacturing are more complicated than that. &amp;quot;Our decision wasn&amp;#039;t patriotic, as nice as that would sound,&amp;quot; Petrillo says. &amp;quot;But manufacturing in the U.S. can be an asset.&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s no language barrier. No 12- to 15-hour time change to contend with. And no international airline tickets to eat into your budget. Whether you&amp;#039;re in Asia or Arkansas, setting up a new manufacturing line requires a lot of trial and error. Then comes more back-and-forth once production begins. Long distances and time zone changes can clog up the process. Scott Miller, the CEO of Dragon Innovation, is an expert in offshore outsourcing, but even he tells many small startups not to produce in Asia. He points out that many factories in China impose a &amp;quot;magic number&amp;quot; threshold that small companies can&amp;#039;t meet. Volume producers may require a minimum order quantity (MOQ) of 5000. Even if your small batch meets that number, do the math to make sure you&amp;#039;re really coming out ahead by outsourcing abroad: Miller assembles a decision matrix weighing factors such as margins, labor rates, and the price of components. Products that have to ramp up quickly, such as Pebble, may need to take advantage of the massive manufacturing capabilities in Asia. Likewise, products that require a lot of manual labor are cheaper to make in China\u2014but that may not be true for long. In 2001 the average manufacturing wage there was 58 cents an hour. Today it&amp;#039;s closer to $3 an hour. The Boston Consulting Group predicts that there may be no economic advantage to producing in China by 2015. That&amp;#039;s why even big companies are following small manufacturers back to North America. Companies such as Ford and GE are &amp;quot;re-shoring&amp;quot; some of their production to the U.S. For some small manufacturers, the best strategy takes advantage of the U.S.&amp;#039;s friendly trade relationships with its neighbors. 3D Robotics, launched in 2009 by Chris Anderson, then Wired editor-in chief, sells both assembled and DIY unmanned aerial vehicles. The company initially used circuit boards assembled in China. But by 2010 Anderson&amp;#039;s co-founder Jordi Mu\u00F1oz had learned how to construct custom boards at home. After months of soldering by hand, Mu\u00F1oz spent $3000 on eBay for a used pick-and-place machine to create the boards faster. The company graduated from a tiny garage to a warehouse in San Diego. When it needed to expand to a second facility, the founders looked south\u2014to a 14,000-square-foot factory in Tijuana, Mexico, where Mu\u00F1oz was born. In 2012 Anderson quit his day job. &amp;quot;The day I finally decided maybe it was time to consider leaving Wired was the day Jordi sent me a picture of our forklift,&amp;quot; Anderson says with a laugh. &amp;quot;Real companies have forklifts.&amp;quot; Lesson 5: Prepare to Pivot. Even if you achieve success with your first small-batch widget, a number of factors can throw a kink in your business plan. Unexpected competitors, market changes,or technological shifts can demand new products or a change of design. Anderson says that the same general-purpose, digitally controlled manufacturing tools that enable small-batch production also allow entrepreneurs to be nimble. &amp;quot;With older, analog methods such as injection molding you get great economies of scale,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;But the downside is that once you&amp;#039;ve made a part, you don&amp;#039;t dare change the design, because it&amp;#039;s expensive. With digital manufacturing tools, you can change the design every day.&amp;quot; Buckley from DODOcase agrees: &amp;quot;I come from the startup world where we&amp;#039;re constantly thinking, &amp;#039;What&amp;#039;s the pivot?&amp;#039; If all of a sudden our iPad business dried up, we would start trying new stuff.&amp;quot; He&amp;#039;s already doing just that. As my tour wraps up, I notice a surfboard sitting in a dusty corner of DODOcase&amp;#039;s woodshop. Buckley tells me he assembled the 5-foot 7-inch board using the same bamboo he uses for iPad cases. Eventually he wants to commercialize a line of DIY, home-assembly surfboards. All he has to do is upload a new file to his Ferrari. Instead of automatically cutting 18 DODOcases, that SCM Pratix could just as easily mill the dimensions of, say, eight 6-foot surfboards. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s my dream,&amp;quot; he says. That could be the ultimate attraction of the flexible, smallbatch model: Once you succeed with your first product, it&amp;#039;s even easier to get cranking on your next great idea.  &amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt; Get Startup Savvy   How to Talk 21st-Century Shop &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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