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Part Time Plastics

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Who here has a part time plastic business meaning you have another full time job and do plastics on the side to make extra money.?

I was wondering because it seems really difficult to make a full time job out of soft plastic baits.

Who here has had money success with a part time and or a full time soft plastic business?

Also has anyone here or know of anyone who started small then blew up with success or been bought out by a larger company?

I seem to remember the money swim bait started off small then was bought out by a larger company, also does being bought out mean making money?

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Just like 152nd Baits said, you need to market your product. If your designing and making baits, building your website, doing packaging and marketing you'll be REALLY busy even with no orders.

There are no needs for better or different compounds, in my opinion. If you don't like what's available you could blend 2 different compounds or just add hardener or softener as needed to get the desired consistency.

As for equipment, if your just starting out you need to take advantage of what is currently on the market and let the business create a demand for bigger and better equipment, more molds, etc.

Jeff

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IMO you need to be different. That means your own custom molds of your own designs.

Too many guys making the same ol stuff from the same common molds.

....Bill

While I agree to a point I dont agree in a way. Yes it is nice to have custom molds, but marketing is hard. I have molds that are available to everyone, that is how to get your foot in the door but not with the same colors you make colors that are not available. Then slowly get them into the new stuff. In this time you will be working and turning some plastics and not just setting on the new stuff with no following. Trying to create a need with a small shortage will help too. Never have pegs full all the time it need to look like you are the chosen one and shortage means it is being used and in short supply. Really hard to do that on the internet. Frank

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We started out with me just doing hand pours for myself, then a couple of fishing buddies wanted them. Then a couple of stores found out about them, then the next thing you know we have a business. Then after several years, approximately 8 years, demand increased so we came up with the idea of buying large production molds and an injection machine. Now we have two machines and only manufacture for other companies. We currently work for six companies with four more coming on board this year. That being said, it is possible to go from a hobby to a part time business to a full time business. But you've already received some great advice. Jeff is right you need to really be sure of what you're doing and take into consideration all aspects of the industry, and I mean all aspects of the industry. And 152nd St. is also right about marketing being a very big part of your business and a very expensive part of your business. Also I agree with Frank, you need to hunt for a niche that no one else is willing to fill. Be it design or different colors. That's the main way I got my foot in the door of most stores when I was doing hand pours. Also unique designs will carry you far in this business but with this also comes a considerable amount of expense. For a unique design you have to do one of two things, you have to spend a large amount of money for patents and then have a large amount of money to protect your patents. A patent is worth nothing if it can't be protected and this is a huge expense. Your other choice with a unique design is to make sure that you have enough product that if it does go big, you're able to flood the market and meet the immediate demand. This is also very expensive, remember it takes most large companies 3-6 months to get a mold made and product produced to knock you off, this 3-6 month period and can be up to a year is your money making time. And as far a people blowing up with success in this business, I feel the Sweet Beaver and the Alabama rig are two prime examples of this. When it comes to bigger companies buying you out or making the little guy rich, you just don't hear that much of it. Big companies want you to put in all the expense and time, they want you to do all the hard work, get things to a profitable point, that's when they want to make their purchase. And some people do get large amounts of money, but they almost never get paid for their efforts and hard work from a buyout. I have a customer who is a prime example of this. I won't name his company, but his first 11 months of business, his total purchases from us was well over $100,000.00. So along comes Stanley Bait company and offers him $100,000.00 with a small percentage for x number of years, of course my customer declined the offer. And the thing about it is, Stanley acted like they were doing him a favor. Then they knocked his product off and their product failed. In this industry, too big too fast will bring you down. Always be open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. Look for fill in areas. Find your niche. Do your homework, see what people want that they can't get and help them meet their needs. Always make sure, no matter how big or small you are to keep a hands on attitude, good quality products are very important. These are just some of the things that we did in order to become a full time business. Work your butt off and be careful what you wish for. Good luck, if there's ever anything I can do to help, don't hesitate to ask.

Mike

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When we started out, I told my partners " when you own your own business, you only have to work 1/2 a day, just pick what 12 hours you want to work!!" We started with the same molds everybody else used and then after a few stores started carring our product, we designed our own bait. Bob Jones made our custom molds for us and it was off and running to tournaments, boat shows, tackle showes, and shops for seminars.Working 7 days a week plus our full time jobs, travel, meals, and hotels with no money comming in will put a strain on your body and mind. We went from 0 to 127 stores in a little over 4 years.It takes a lot of work but in my opinion, it is well worth it. We still don't make a "Killing" but we have fun and are close to retiring from our full time jobs.As long as you are willing to put in the work, you will be sucessfull and possibly get a good buy out from one of the big boys. Good Luck.

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I do not make any baits yet. I'm a rookie of all rookies. But what I do have is several years of experience helping a good friend and many hours helping him build his wholesale fishing tackle business. I even sold his products to retail tackle stores as an independant owner with a business license. I've learned alot and even now he has the rights to a very catchy lure name I gave to him as I would never use it myself. He mainly makes his own Beetle Jig Spins, something like the "Beetle Spin". He custon pours the small bodies himself and the one thing that sets him apart is the look of everything he puts out that represents his business and his product. You look at his baits and or even just his paperwork and you'd swear it was from a bigger company.

That all boils down to attention to detail......... Have a business name and names for your product so others know it relates to fishing. 1 more thing - How often have you walked thru your smaller tackle shops and seen lures made in the local area? Now do you remember what the packaging looked like. Did it look like something someone made with a desktop computer? Not so impressive. BUT that too can be done and look like it was made by huge companies too. The look of your procuct is what catches the eye of the fisherman,. Yes they do need to catch fish. Surely everone knows the key phrase "the lures catch the fisherman, fisherman catch the fish. Shaby looking products that are dull to look at and doesn't stand out from the others sitting on the shelf will get overlooked most of them. Exceptions are if they are the hottest local bait and the maker doesn't care how the package looks and goes the cheapest route to put a thin one colored cardboard lable on it.

Hope this helps some. It does relate to wholeselling baits to stores. Just so you know. Selling to the public is a different business than selling to retail operations. 2 entirely different business and require seperate book keeping to boot.

Good Luck

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