Duane Gitzel is a Canadian industrial mechanic. He's also a talented design entrepreneur who launched a business called 3 Five Design, which allows him to make money in a relatively risk-free way while also indulging his passion. "I'm a small time Digital Creator for 3D Printing," Gitzel writes. "I love playing board games and tabletop wargaming. I run my business out of my basement office."

Tabletop gamers are a fertile subcultural market. To serve them, Gitzel designs and prototypes 3D printed transportation and organization cases for gaming accessories—products he himself uses. These modular cases feature a variety of slide-out trays, drawers and compartments for holding dice, gaming figurines, books, et cetera. Because Gitzel is a gamer himself, he understands what fellow gamers want and need, and perfectly designs to market.

The brilliant part is, he doesn't actually sell the products. Instead he holds a Kickstarter to sell the .stl files for the products; his last, for his War-Ganizer 3.0 case, brought in roughly USD $12,000. He also sells his designs—again, just the .stl files—on 3 Five Design's Etsy page.

By not selling the physical products, offloading the production to the hobbyist end user instead, Gitzel wipes out all of the major hassles of running a product business: Production, inventory, fulfillment, shipping. Risk and up-front capital requirements are nil. Gitzel gets to focus on just the design, and creating the ideal object for himself.

Gitzel does request that purchasers of his .stl files use them for personal use only, not for production or re-sale. I did spot another Etsy user selling the physical version of Gitzel's War-Ganizer design, but that seller states that he has licensed the design from Gitzel. Which opens up another revenue stream. My hat's off to 3 Five Design.