Some good answers here and I'll chime in for you. I am a small business owner, not woodworking, but I own a design company. There is one BIG thing that usually separates the success and failures IMO, and that is overhead/expenses starting out. To explain, when I started my company it was nothing more than me and a computer and software, very low overhead. My father has a concrete company in a warehouse in a good end of town, and I was fortunate enough to put my desk in there when I needed to meet clients, etc. So I still kept my overhead low. He is retired, runs the business for fun, and the warehouse is paid for, so he has no need for me to pay rent or anything, and I am only out there every once an a while meeting a client. Point is, lets take a competitor that has employees, a big office with a huge rent payment, and 10X the equipment I do, well he may make more gross income, but HE HAS TOO because of the overhead. Guess what I am getting at, is the less overhead you have the more chance you have to be successful. This will be something you do for fun, so as long as you do not run out, buy a building, stock it with 100,000 dollars of the best stuff, I think you will make enough (if your good) to at a minimum break even and get all future tool purchases out of it, and at a maximum a good retirement income. So I guess the key is, if you don't "have" to make money to live, then just about anything you make over the wood you use for a customer is profit, b/c all your stuff is paid for, so just have fun and don't get in over your head. Most of the huge successful companies started out in a basement or a garage and only after they had an influx of customers did they grow. That is why so many resturaunts go under, before they are even open they are a fortune in debt just to be able to get started. Sorry for the rambling but I really believe that is the secret of anything you do for money yourself being successful and not stressful. Good Luck!