Aw come PBMW, it is Sunday evening and you want deep thinking? ![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.png)
I have encountered a few of those DHAC types you describe, and the garage-shop undercutters Mr Hotey describes.
Based on people I have met and what I have read here I think a lot of people have the dream of running their own shop but do not recognize just what is involved when you are setting up for the long haul. Most seem to consider price only, and, never mind thinking about where they might be in three years, they don't even think seriously about the next six months.
Experience is an important component but I also think that personality (?) comes into it. I put the (?) because I am not sure that is the correct word. I think you have to be able to separate what 'you' (think) want from what the 'business' needs. In the early days of starting a business, you are the business, but this situation is going to develop in two possible ways: You are going to limp along never getting further ahead until you are burnt out and quit to find a job. Or, you are going to grow, and the business becomes something more or less independent of you, you were essential to its genesis and initial growth but somewhere along the way it outgrew you. The funny thing about growing a successful business is that the more successful it is the less necessary you are.
This is why I say personality comes into it. Right from the get-go you have to be able to differentiate between what you can afford and/or want, and what the business needs; but I think most people cannot split their thinking that way. You also need to recognise that sometimes you are going to become a slave to the business, and put in far more effort than you dream you are capable of, to get it over humps. There is a bit of advice you sometimes read in business magazines about remembering to 'pay number one first' where the number one is you. Wrong, in the early stages of a business, the business is number one. Later on, when the business is successful you don't need the advice about paying yourself as number one; that is a given.
And I think I may have drifted sideways to the topic. That is what happens with age a couple of glasses of wine.
Twin spindle live-tooled? Maybe in a year or so I will send you a sample of one or two of my parts and pay you to develop a good time/cost estimate for doing them. I considered going this route a few years back and came to the conclusion that the best approach was separate lathe and mill. Best meaning initial cost, production time, flexibility of machine use, etc. Of course our environment is different, we make our own designed product so we know what is coming up and have control over timing. But is still wonder if I was out-to-lunch on my decision years ago...we are sort of committed now.
An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.