Digitizing software question

6 months will go by pretty quickly... In my opinion you should spend every free moment reading books on business.... with 90 percent of startups failing in the first year a bit of studying could save you a lot of money! I think starting an embroidery business is a great idea.. so not trying to discourage that... I just think that your digitizing is what will help set your quality apart from your competition and you are not going to learn enough in 6 months to have any sort of quality (sorry)..... but you can do some market analysis and complete a proper business plan and research all the sales stuff... get your name, business cards, letterhead... website? , forms to use for orders and invoicing, what your policies will be for payment, mistakes and how you plan to market.... etc... so much to do in just 6 months!

I just don't see anyone getting great quality in that short of time... I am talking about manual digitizing... I would NOT even consider automatic vectorized digitizing unless you like FLAT BORING embroidery that will not help you gain clients... spend some money and shop around 5 digitizers... find what they are good at.. then when you get a job farm out the digitizing to whichever is best suited for that particular type of embroidery... ie, fur effect, puff, small lettering, applique, etc... you are not going to beat your competitors if you don't have outstanding digitizing and you are not going to learn enough in several YEARS... sorry, but that is reality.. .so many people buy software only to figure this out after the fact and wish they had that money back for marketing or thread or something else.

Tracie, I wish you the best in your new endeavor. You are getting some really good info from Robert! Well i will tell you what I have experienced I am by no means and expert but i have learned from my mistakes. I started out in the business with a 6 needle machine that I paid for. I had a ok customer base and all but then I thought that by having more i could get more business. So i purchased a Amaya XT, this is a wonderful machine but i purchase it too soon. What i am saying is this, take your time and get what you need to start out and add as you go along. It takes time to build up a good customer based, if you have never done this before there will be a host of other things you will have to learn before hand. I read that you will be working to intern with friends and that is great just make sure you are comfortable and not overloading yourself.

I agree with what has been said. Your time will be better spent working on other aspects of starting your business. When it comes to digitizing, what you see in the software isn't necessarily what is embroidered (it doesn't always look the same). Without being able to embroidery your designs you won't be aware of some of your mistakes. I would contract out your digitizing for at least two years while you're learning the different parts of your business. There are free trade magazines (Stitches for example) that contain a wealth of information. Also, join different embroidery forums. Helen Hart has written two books on the business that I've heard are very through reference books. Although they are not inexpensive, I'm sure they contain a wealth of valuable information:

http://www.helenhart.com/page/page/1749255.htm