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Key Takeaways During the pandemic, Street suffered a stroke that required him to retire from bedside nursing.
He decided to return to a beloved hobby, crafting, for fun — and demand for his goods grew.
Today, Street continues to build the business, which sees six-figure annual sales.
This as-told-to story is based on a conversation with Eric Street, a registered nurse who has scaled his Indiana-based custom goods business, LaserCraftworks, to more than $100,000 in annual sales using xTool’s Apparel Printer. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.
Image Credit: LaserCraftworks. Eric Street.
My dream was always to be a nurse. I went to nursing school, did well, graduated and started working as a nurse. Then Covid hit. Unfortunately, in the height of Covid, I had a pretty massive stroke in my brain stem, and that retired me from the bedside. So I was bored. As a nurse, the first thing I’m going to do is research. People who find hobbies do a lot better in recovery than people who just sit around. So I started looking into things that I was interested in.
I’d always loved crafting, but I’d never really dived in in a big way. I discovered laser-cut acrylic and wood goods and fell into the xTool ecosystem because they make it so easy to create them. On YouTube, I saw a lot of people using lasers on there, several different brands, but the software looked easy to learn. I wanted to find the best intro model, but also one that would be good for business. I bought a P2 laser cutter for $4,329 that seemed reliable and easy to use.
Combining a nursing passion with a fun hobby
I wanted to stay connected to medicine because, obviously, I’m very passionate about nursing. So I started making gifts for my friends: acrylic badge backers that I’d cut out with the laser. Covid was a depressing time, so I wanted to do something to cheer up my friends and give them a little bit of glitter and glitz on their badges. And then people started asking if I did shirts. When xTool came out with an apparel printer, I invested in that. It cost $8,000 and gave the ability for same-day turnaround instead of outsourcing.
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