CNCKing.com: 2017 A New Beginning in Creativity and Passion

It’s quite incredible how long this website (and business) has lasted, I started almost a decade ago knowing nothing about design, CNC machines or having resources to guide me along this journey. Along the way, I created my own references for designing for CNC machines, met awesome people across the industry and grew CNCKing.com to one of the largest sites of its kind on the internet… and we aren’t done yet!

For the past year, after starting CNCROi.com, I had to put all my time and energy into building that business, it’s pretty nuts what I did looking back. I bought the best CNC laser engraver in the world, a Trotec Speedy 400 flexx and came back to my hometown with it without any clients, shop and to make it even more interesting, after haven been gone for almost a decade!

As such, during that time of building, CNCKing.com was allowed to stay alive without much happening to it, I had honestly written it off, the market at the time wasn’t doing so well as I’ve documented various times on this blog and my energy and focus was elsewhere… but something happened. What was that? Well, over the past two years, overall aggregate sales kept on going up! Doing nothing and still making money is counter-intuitive. All my metrics were going up even with all the problems the CNC industry had been having digitally.

The only “slowing down” time just happen to be NOW between the holidays, so I decided that instead of just polishing an old car, it was time to just get a new one, with an new engine, paint and “way of being”. Suffice it to say, I was tired of my old website, it wasn’t efficient, for instance, I had to add 3 “product information files” for every one product, editing was a mess and customers were always having problems downloading their files.

I looked in the market and found a solution that fit me wonderfully and allowed me to finally, after years of searching, to integrate my blog with the e-commerce aspect of CNCKing.com! A perfect win for my customers and myself! Technology has evolved tremendously from the days that I started CNCKing.com as WoodMarvels back a decade ago.

While I was furiously copying and pasting information from my old CNCKing.com website to this one, I noticed there was A LOT of updating needing done, video embed links from old sites like Revver.com and Blip.tv that have since gone the way of the dodo bird, replaced by YouTube.com to imagery and a host of other issues. So, I took advantage of this to update things, I will be re-rendering and updating product pictures and where relevant files, that haven’t been touched in over a decade as well! Will be an interesting journey back in time to bring this to date!

Here’s a great example of something I’m updating right now, my good old Volcano Bank, here’s the 3D animation I made for it which will be updated finally to new 1080HD among a few other streamlined promotional pics.

What’s interesting is that, from memory, that animation above of the Volcano Bank that I designed is taking about the same amount today as way back when, the difference is image quality, it’s night and day how fast the computer world has evolved in the years since this was first designed and animated by me.

It’s also a great opportunity to replace the branding of WoodMarvels.com with CNCKing.com… to help lessen the confusion new customers who haven’t been following me through these years.

As for me, CNCKing.com will be an ongoing project now, I really enjoy CNCROi.com and helping customers and see an opportunity to help bring the two sites closer together as essentially, I now see how one compliments the other which is ironic, considering the domains both mean the same thing (King in French is Roi by the way).

The creativity and passion I’ve had for doing this kind of stuff is in full display here on this site and at the other end of the spectrum, companies and clients around the world allow me to make unique projects for them as well over at the other. I really enjoy both activities and find now, that one is a great way to refresh the mind from the other. The markets are different as are the demographics but the creativity and passion are now the same.

I should be done the major updates (content wise, not render or imagery) by the end of the year to truly make 2017 A New Beginning in Creativity and Passion for CNCKing.com. I have a lot of designer with content wanting to go on this website as well, that I had to push off for one reason or the other than I look forward to adding to this website shortly.

It’s great to be given the opportunity to step back, for literally two years, to refresh my mental batteries, and then dive right back in. I really enjoy working on this business that’s full of creativity both from my customers and myself.