3D Printing Brings Cosplay Into 21st Century

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

With a 3D printer and sense of imagination, a California natural gas industry worker takes superhero DIY cosplay to a whole new level. That's right, we're gonna talk about cosplay. Last year he brought in $100,000 on the side through a variety of revenue streams, including selling designs, selling actual costumes, and an active Patreon campaign. Now for a quick rundown on cosplay, if this is new to you, check out episode 933, "Star Wars Fan Forges Lightsaber Empire," or episode 119, way back in our first year, cosplay photographer earns $47,000 from epic "Star Wars" portraits. Now cosplay is not all about "Star Wars," though.

Wikipedia defines it as the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game. It originally comes from Japan, but is now popular worldwide. In fact, I think it's safe to say that it's almost mainstream now, or if it's not totally mainstream, it at least is very widely known. So this guy is using a 3D printer to create better costumes, essentially, and he's doing pretty well for himself. So I'll tell you all about how that works, give you the details of his business, and if you want a super cool Halloween costume this year, you might be interested in this story as well.

So stay tuned, it's all coming right up. [Music]

For his day job, Nico Mendoza controls natural gas lines to make sure they're safe. And, like a lot of parents who work long hours, he's always looking for a way to make the time he has to spend with his kids really count. Two years ago, this desire converged with another goal of his, to earn a substantial income apart from his day job. His two young kids loved dressing up in costumes, superheroes being a particular favorite.

Iron Man was especially loved, so he wanted to build an Iron Man suit. And he did. His first full suit was crafted from foam floor mats. It looked okay for an initial attempt, but he wanted to improve. When he found an Instagram post showing an Iron Man suit with incredible detail, Nico was intrigued.

He reached out to the creator who told him the suit was 3D printed. This led to a better costume for his kids and what he called Nico Industries in December, 2017. It started by reselling designs for others to purchase and then used to print out their own costumes and props. He made a website using Wix and ran a Facebook group where he promoted his designs. Startup costs were a little over $1,000, including $800 for a 3D printer.

He used a pre-order method for his designs so that there was no out-of-pocket expense. On the website, he sells digital files. The orders are fulfilled by Wix and he uses PayPal and Stripe to process payments. Realizing that not many people own 3D printers, Nico also decided to print out the designs and offer them for sale through an Etsy store. The designs cost him between $13 and $20 to print and they sell for $75 to $100.

When he first opened his store, he set his goals low, hoping to bring in around $200 in the first month. But Nico clearly underestimated his customer's desire for costumes that would blow typical cosplay outfits out of the water. He ended up bringing in $2,000 that first month. He actually had to halt the growth of the store for a bit to figure out how he could run it with his day job and time with his family, but he figured that out too. Now, the cosplay world can be a fickle one where there is always something new just around the corner.

A self-described nerd, Nico has a good sense of what others in the community will like, but no one can get it right all the time. For example, he felt certain that a figurine of a popular female cosplayer and a Batman design would sell like crazy, but in fact, both of them proved to be unpopular sellers. It just goes to show that it's important to test because sometimes your most confident assumptions could be incorrect. In order to promote the business, Nico turned to YouTube. A large portion of his sales comes from selling his design files and using a 3D printer takes some time to master, so he made a YouTube channel filled with tutorials on how to create costumes with a 3D printer.

Nico tries to post a new video at least twice a month, which is good because YouTube now drives most of the traffic to his site. Because his project is in such a niche market, his videos are front and center when people search 3D printed cosplay through Google and YouTube. Fellow cosplay YouTubers have even given him shout outs on their own channels. In addition, his original Facebook group is still up and running, and it allows 3D printed cosplay enthusiasts to swap ideas and find solutions when they need help. Nico monetizes his Facebook and YouTube pages with Patreon.

And let's talk about that, monetization. Nico's business has several revenue streams. Most significantly, sales from the website are currently earning $6,000 a month, and his Patreon page brings in an additional $2,500 a month. All told, in his first year, he had revenue of $50,000, but reinvested earnings back into the business. This year, he's on track for revenue of $100,000, doubling sales in a year without spending a dime on advertising.

After paying expenses and continuing to reinvest, he's now taking home a profit of $3,000 or more each month. This additional income is allowing him to pay off debt incurred by a previously failed side hustle, a fitness bootcamp which saw him lose more than $100,000. So here's a good lesson, right? Don't do that. Don't spend more than $100,000 on your side hustle.

Spend about $1,000, which is exactly what he did. He's also using the money to take his kids on vacations and save for a new home. You can't manufacture money using a 3D printer, but this might be the next best thing. [Music]

So when new technologies interact with rapidly growing hobbies, there are always opportunities to make money. It's exactly what you see in this episode.

A new technology is essentially 3D printing. Now I realize it's not new new in the sense that it wasn't invented this year, but now it's much more accessible. It's much more affordable. You can buy a 3D printer, you know, in this episode, this example, he bought it for less than $1,000. Whereas I think even just a few years ago, 3D printers existed, but they were $10,000 or more.

Then you've got the rapidly growing hobby of cosplay, which again, not new, it's been around for a long time, but much more mainstream. As I said, Comic Con this past year had 135,000 attendees, 135,000 people coming to celebrate, you know, all kinds of fictional worlds and characters and universes and so on. That's not counting all the regional shows. There are lots of little Comic Cons elsewhere. There are other conventions.

So lots and lots of people are adapting and embracing this hobby. So you've got more and more people doing this. You've got this new technology. 3D printers can make better costumes cheaper. So I'm not surprised at all that Nico is doing well.

It definitely seems like the kind of thing that could actually take off much further. And there are probably lots of other opportunities out there for other people. There's probably some other educational opportunities like this whole thing about tutorials, you know, for using 3D printers, you know, to create cosplay outfits. There's probably other opportunities for design files, that whole thing, the whole Etsy side of actually going and making the costumes and then selling them probably some completely different stuff as well. Maybe something about community, maybe some kind of forum thing.

Maybe I, you know, like, I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of different opportunities. And to look at it from an even higher level perspective, you know, go back to where I started, new technologies interacting with a rapidly growing hobby, there could be something else entirely. Like this is just an example of 3D printing and cosplay. What else is out there?

What other new technology combined with another rapidly growing hobby could present an opportunity for you perhaps to create your own income generating project? So you have a sustainable income apart from your day job. So you can do what is important to you. You have options and possibility for your future, which is what Side Hustle School is all about. I'm gonna leave you with that today.

I hope you enjoyed this one. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes. All right, sidehustleschool.com/977. Thank you so much for listening, my friends.

Be back again tomorrow and I hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.