I am supposed to be writing about how I am successful with my Aeon Laser. But what is success? Success can take so many different forms and what success is can be so different for so many people, so, I am choosing to tell you how I paid for my laser using five sheets of Plywood.
Many people will tell you about how quickly they paid off their new laser. The problem I find with many of these stories is there are so many factors that can impact this. I got my Aeon Mira 9 in late October right as my busy season for my brand-new ornament business was picking up. So I was able to pay off my laser in a matter of weeks, but, let’s take a step back to where it all started.
In 2017 we joined our local maker space and fell in love with the laser (they had three Thunder lasers) we learned what we liked to make and how to use Adobe Illustrator to design. In 2020 when the pandemic hit, the maker space shut down along with the rest of the world. We had been discussing the possibility of getting a laser and I ordered a Glowforge basic as the price and size seemed like a good test to see if we actually like having a laser in our house. At the beginning of 2022 when discussing our goals, we decided that an ornament business would be a good fit for us. We already had a small side business making other wood products, however, we didn’t see that business ever going anywhere except for a small side business. We were rapidly outgrowing our Glowforge and knew we needed an upgrade. We booked a flight to visit Aeon Headquarters in Florida to see a Mira in action plus we got to make it a trip to Disney as well. We placed our order in April 2022. We ultimately decided on and ordered an Aeon Mira 9. It arrived on October 26, 2022. Between April and October, we were busy preparing for the new laser and the start of a new business by preparing designs and were ready to hit the ground running when the laser arrived. We had the laser up and running within 24 hours of arrival at our house.
I don’t want to set unrealistic expectations about how quickly a laser can be paid off just because mine happened to come at the most convenient moment. Instead of measuring in the number of months, weeks, or days, to pay off the laser as most do, let's look at the number of sheets of plywood it took. This takes the time frame out of the equation and may make it easier for you to figure out how long it may take you. As I mentioned above, we have a Christmas ornament business, that currently sells nothing but Christmas ornaments. For simple math let’s say our ornaments measure approximately 3in by 3 in. Of course, some of our offerings are slightly larger and some are slightly smaller. In addition, some can nest on a sheet more efficiently than others but that is a discussion for a different post. Assuming a standardized average of 3 in by 3 in and two layers we can fit approximately 250 per sheet. Now, let’s say after we take into account shipping cost, packaging, material costs, etc. let say we are making approximately $10 per ornament. We paid approximately $12,000 for our laser plus homemade stand plus air compressor plus upgraded hose plus a few other random things. So using the formula $12,000 (cost of laser plus accessories)/ ($10 (profit from ornament) *250 (number of ornaments that fit per sheet)) = 4.8 So, five sheets of plywood were needed to pay off our laser. We got super lucky with timing and were able to sell 1,200 ornaments within just a few weeks of the laser arriving.
As of the writing of this blog post our Mira 9 laser is still super new. We are currently setting new goals to see what we can continue to do with this laser. There are so many new possibilities for this laser that we simply could not do with our Glowforge. We are so excited to test it out and see what the future holds for us!
If you would like more information on the Mira 9, visit the Aeon website.