Evolution of CNCKingdom.com: First 60 posts

For years I’ve been trying to think of a way to bring CNC equipment, the designers making products with them and the entrepreneurs who put the two together to generate sales and salaries together. Where CNCKing.com was focused on providing files for entrepreneurs and teaching designers how to make what I provide… there was a missing piece that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I tried directories, I tried marketplaces but none of them seemed to jive with me… it was like I was trying to force a puzzle piece into the wrong space. I think I finally found my groove with CNCKingdom.com… it has evolved quite a bit over the years, many failures, relaunches etc… but I knew eventually I’d hit on something.

Some Interesting Stats

• I’ve interviewed 38 designers and entrepreneurs… they are vital to this ecosystem, a flower is useless without a stem, it needs nourishment in order to bloom.
• I have a better than 50% success rate – meaning more than half of the people who agree to be interviewed actually send me back their answers! I’d say offhand that about a quarter of the people I send interview requests to reply back in some manner.
• I’ve already generated machine and product sales and helped other businesses grow by making introductions where I saw a mutually beneficial relationships.

So, where do we go from here? Well, the people I interview and products I review on this site have a few things in common other than audience. Time. I’m so happy when somebody accepts being interviewed by me, some of these guys and gals are INCREDIBLY BUSY to say the least, the fact that they take time out of their day to share their knowledge with me and the readers on this site is something that I deeply appreciate. That being said, some of these posts are well over 4K words long – I try to ask relevant questions and as these are passionate people, they just write and write which is great but some visitors might not feel like reading a book. As such, I’ll be adding key takeaways at the start of every interview.

Another area I’m actively exploring is podcasting, lots of great stuff out there already but it’s either way too long or just not in the niche I’m interested in. This will have a few “unique features” though as with everybody, time is a valuable resource you spend but never get to buy back!

• No longer than 20 minutes!
• Full transcripts upon release on this site
• Key takeaways (just like the interviews)

Although these interviews and product line reviews are fun, I’m really not looking for things to take-up more of my time – so the production will be as straight forward as possible and done via Skype. I think a lot of personality and small details are lost in my limiting myself to under 10 questions for the written interviews but audio is the best format. You can really plow through a ton of stuff in a short period of time!

Why an audio, not video podcast?

The key reason is I don’t watch video podcasts generally, I listen to the audio. I don’t see the value in watching somebody talk to somebody else when I can get some work done while listening to their voices. It’s not like people magically transform during the course of the interview, the talking head I see at the beginning is the same I’ll see at the end. What’s the point of spending all that extra time editing and post-production? I don’t see it as being a major plus that really ads all that much value at the end of the day.

My philosophy on working is simple, you can generally achieve your 70% results using 50% of your time, afterwards, each % increase uses exponentially more time and effort. During that 70% though, you are 100% in the zone though. I used this while I was in university and it worked very well – it gave me time to teach myself 3D animation, build a business and get a lot achieved. So, audio podcasting allows me to achieve my intended goal without having to spend all the extra time and money that I’d have to using video.

Overall goal

My goal with CNCKingdom.com is to create a resource that I never had growing-up… access to incredible designers, their thoughts and their methodology and entrepreneurs, their business savy and marketing strategies – both are incredibly passionate about what they do and I learn so much in the entire process.