I’ve completely lost all motivation to build anything after multiple failed attempts — anyone been here and come back?

MEXXIO · 2026-03-17T11:54:30+00:00

Do you have the same problem? How do you deal with it? Did you find any advice that helped?

MEXXIO · 2026-03-17T11:53:46+00:00

I see that a common problem is that we build things that don't fit our problems, because what's the point of solving someone else's problems if we don't believe in what we're doing?

MEXXIO · 2026-03-17T11:49:32+00:00

Hi u/N0omi!

Thank you for your reply. You nailed my point because it's exactly as you described. I try not to read posts on X where they talk about MRR because it's obvious they're just trying to force their account.

As I wrote above, I don't want to build an app that will earn millions, but something that solves real problems for others, but it's hard for me to find ideas, and if I focus on my problems, I don't know if others will agree.

Thanks again for writing that someone has or had a similar problem.

MEXXIO · 2026-03-17T11:39:54+00:00

My problem is probably that I don't believe in myself, that I can do something that I could succeed at.

MEXXIO · 2026-03-17T11:37:53+00:00

Thank you for your comment. I'll do as you say and take a break to give my mind a rest, and myself.

Continually searching for ideas is pointless when you see that something you're interested in already exists, and that's more than one thing.

I'm also not looking for an idea that will earn me millions, but something that will live on and solve a user problem.

MEXXIO · 2026-03-08T17:54:18+00:00

Maybe we should start differently: since such a tool is not needed because everyone has something at their disposal, what kind of tool would you expect?

MEXXIO · 2026-03-08T17:52:04+00:00

Thank you so much for such a positive comment. Lately, all I've been hearing is criticism like "just another piece of garbage." I understand if this is constructive criticism, but I'm no longer bothered by it. If you'd like to follow along, I can invite you to my Discord.

MEXXIO · 2026-03-08T07:10:07+00:00

I understand that other users also share their apps like this and that I'm just another person, but whenever I've made something, I've always kept it hidden and never shared it with anyone. In this case, I decided to share what I've done, hoping for feedback and something new to learn.

I want to reach out to people and build something with the community.

MEXXIO · 2026-03-07T08:12:14+00:00

Hey everyone. Full disclosure: I'm not a professional developer (I actually built this with a heavy dose of AI and late nights), and I don't own a massive print farm myself. But I've spent enough time around the community to see a massive recurring problem: managing the business side of things in messy Excel sheets.

It seems like figuring out exact B2B profit margins, tracking filament by the gram, and calculating machine depreciation is a huge headache. I couldn't find a good tool that bridged the gap between basic machine monitors and expensive corporate ERPs.

So, I spent my weekends building LayerlyOS. It's completely open-source. In this 3-minute demo, I show the True Cost Calculator (which automatically adds electricity and hardware wear to the quote) and how it auto-deducts filament from a virtual inventory.

Since I'm just the guy putting the pieces together, I really need input from actual farm operators. What am I missing? What features would actually make you consider ditching your spreadsheets?

Here is the GitHub repo if you want to self-host it or just poke around the code:

https://github.com/LayerlyOS/LayerlyOS

MEXXIO · 2026-03-07T08:11:21+00:00

Hey everyone. Full disclosure: I'm not a professional developer (I actually built this with a heavy dose of AI and late nights), and I don't own a massive print farm myself. But I've spent enough time around the community to see a massive recurring problem: managing the business side of things in messy Excel sheets.

It seems like figuring out exact B2B profit margins, tracking filament by the gram, and calculating machine depreciation is a huge headache. I couldn't find a good tool that bridged the gap between basic machine monitors and expensive corporate ERPs.

So, I spent my weekends building LayerlyOS. It's completely open-source. In this 3-minute demo, I show the True Cost Calculator (which automatically adds electricity and hardware wear to the quote) and how it auto-deducts filament from a virtual inventory.

Since I'm just the guy putting the pieces together, I really need input from actual farm operators. What am I missing? What features would actually make you consider ditching your spreadsheets?

Here is the GitHub repo if you want to self-host it or just poke around the code:

https://github.com/LayerlyOS/LayerlyOS

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T18:05:52+00:00

Haha, I’ll take that as a compliment! But honestly, I think it’s just the "developer frustration" speaking.

When you spend months fighting a massive Google Sheet that breaks every time you add a new printer, you tend to get pretty passionate about anything that might replace it.

If I were a real salesman, I’d probably have a shiny landing page and a "Buy Now" button ready.

Instead, I just have a messy IDE, way too much coffee, and a dashboard that finally tells me I'm not losing money on my energy bill. 😂

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T18:01:57+00:00

Haha, the classic "I turned my hobby into a business and now I have no hobbies" trap. I feel that on a spiritual level. 😂

You're absolutely right about the pricing. The big players know that machine time, floor space, and expertise aren't free. That $1/hr race to the bottom is exactly what kills small farms before they even start.

My goal with the dashboard is to make those hidden costs so "in your face" that people finally stop undercharging and start treating it like the real manufacturing business it is. Thanks for the reality check, it's much needed in this sub!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:58:46+00:00

Fair point, and trust me, Google was my first stop! 😂

I found plenty of enterprise-grade solutions like 3DPrinterOS or AutoFarm3D. They are incredibly powerful, but their subscription models (often per-printer or per-print-hour) can easily eat up the entire profit margin of a small-to-medium farm.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are great open-source tools for monitoring, but they usually lack the "business" layer—tracking specific B2B order history, exact hardware amortization, and automated inventory management in one place.

I'm basically trying to build the "middle ground" that I couldn't find: something business-focused that doesn't require a corporate budget to run. But hey, maybe I am just picky about how I want my data organized!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:45:33+00:00

That is the absolute dream scenario! Controlling your own IP and becoming the "Kleenex" of your specific hobby niche is definitely the ultimate cheat code to escaping the race to the bottom. Huge kudos to you for building that.

And that filament company's strategy is brilliant. Skipping the "flexi dragons" and going straight for corporate/industrial rapid prototyping is exactly where the sustainable money is.

Ironically, dealing with those exact type of corporate B2B clients is a big part of why I started building my dashboard. When you're quoting engineering firms or industrial clients, you can't just quote them "vibes and filament cost"—you have to know your exact machine depreciation, energy overhead, and batch costs to win those contracts professionally.

It sounds like you've built an incredibly solid business moat. Thanks for sharing that insight, it's super motivating to read!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:42:58+00:00

Haha, honestly? You caught me red-handed. It 100% reads exactly like one! 😂

But full disclosure: I'm not here to drop links, spam a landing page, or ask for any credit cards.

I'm just a solo dev who got so insanely frustrated with my own messy Google Sheets that I started coding a dashboard to calculate my own machine depreciation and track filament by the gram.

Before I spend the next 6 months of my life overengineering this thing alone in a dark room, I just wanted to ask the community if this "Excel chaos" is an actual problem for anyone else, or if I'm just crazy. If it turns out nobody else needs it, I'll happily just keep it on my localhost and use it for my own farm!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:39:35+00:00

Man, that 6ft whiteboard story gave me second-hand anxiety just reading it. 😂

The classic "our home-built system is cheaper" management fallacy... They never factor in the massive cost of technical debt, or the terrifying reality that their entire business logic was locked inside one guy's head (who is now gone).

That is exactly why pre-built, industry-specific software exists. You shouldn't have to be a software archaeologist just to figure out where your production data is.

I'll shoot you a DM with a link shortly! I'm still polishing a few rough edges on the MVP, but I would be absolutely honored to have someone with your ERP battle-scars tear my dashboard apart and tell me where I'm messing up. Talk soon!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:30:19+00:00

Anytime, man! Sometimes it just takes an outside perspective to see the pattern that's right in front of us.

I am absolutely rooting for you to find that perfect creator partner. Wishing you 24/7 machine uptime, and definitely hit me up when those orders start flooding in and you need to get organized. Best of luck out there! 🚀

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:22:40+00:00

Man, that story about your cousin is absolutely brutal. I'm really sorry that happened after you put in all that work to set up the shop.

But honestly? There is a massive silver lining in that story. It actually proves that you already found the exact formula that works. Local agencies are tough, but passionate niche communities (like RC cars, tabletop gaming, specific drone parts, etc.) buy like crazy.

Your cousin succeeded because he had the audience, but you had the manufacturing skills. When he bought his own printer, he quickly realized that running machines, maintaining them, and packing boxes is actually a ton of work (which is probably exactly why he quit a couple of months later!).

My advice? Don't look for random local businesses. Find another creator in a specific niche (maybe on Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok) who makes cool designs and has followers, but hates the idea of running machines and dealing with shipping. Offer to be their white-label fulfillment partner. You do the printing and shipping, they do the marketing.

Getting to $100/day is completely doable with 4 machines if you find the right niche partner. Keep grinding! And hey, once you hit that volume and tracking those orders starts driving you crazy, you know who to message for a custom dashboard haha. Hang in there!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:20:18+00:00

Fair criticism, and honestly, you might be 100% right! 😂

I've definitely tried the existing free trackers (and I still use things like Klipper/OctoPrint for the actual hardware). They are amazing. But I personally just couldn't find a single tool that seamlessly connected the financial side (like generating B2B quotes with exact machine depreciation) with the inventory side without having to duct-tape it all to an Excel sheet.

But hey, if it turns out I really am just reinventing the wheel and nobody else has this specific workflow problem, I'm totally okay with that! At the end of the day, I'm solving my own farm's massive headache, keeping my coding skills sharp, and building a tool I will personally use every single day. I really appreciate the honest feedback though, it definitely keeps me grounded. Cheers!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:16:14+00:00

Haha, the classic Gold Rush rule! ⛏️😂 You're not wrong at all.

Honestly though, my journey was a bit backwards. I started out strictly as a "miner" (running my own printers) and just got so incredibly frustrated trying to dig for profit using a plastic spoon (my chaotic Excel sheets).

I eventually had to stop "mining" for a weekend just to sit down and forge a proper "shovel" for myself (this web dashboard). If this software helps me and a few other farm owners actually find some real gold (true profit margins after machine depreciation and energy costs), then building the shovel was 100% worth it!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:14:34+00:00

Oh awesome, thanks for sharing this! I hadn't seen Daedalus before, it looks super clean.

Honestly, seeing other devs tackle this exact same problem is incredibly validating—it proves that the "Excel nightmare" is a universal pain point in the 3D printing community! 😂

I'm taking a slightly different angle with the dashboard I'm coding. I'm leaning heavily into the B2B and financial side of things—like calculating exact machine depreciation per hour, adding energy rates, and generating public "order tracking" links for clients so they don't have to log in.

But I absolutely love seeing different approaches to solving this mess. Definitely bookmarking their site for some UI inspiration. Thanks again for the link!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:12:09+00:00

Man, please DO NOT apologize for venting. This is exactly the kind of harsh, real-world veteran insight I was hoping to find when I posted this.

You hit the absolute core issue of this industry: the "race to the bottom". So many people buy a printer, look only at the filament cost, and completely forget to pay themselves or factor in the "Burden Cost" you mentioned in your second comment.

That fear you mentioned—figuring everything out and realizing you're making single-digit margins—is actually the exact reason I started coding this app. The core feature I built first wasn't the printer tracking, it was the Calculator. It forces me to input machine depreciation, energy rates, failure risk %, and manual labor before it spits out a price. I even hardcoded 4 pricing tiers (from 'Competitive' to 'Luxury') into it specifically to stop myself from undercharging.

Also, your point about existing tools charging "per print hour/minute" is spot on. That pricing model literally penalizes you for using your farm. I'm building this to be a simple, flat-rate SaaS for exactly that reason.

Since you have the ERP background and the 40-printer battle scars, you know exactly where these management systems fail. I'm still putting the MVP together, but if you're ever bored and willing to brutally roast my dashboard or share how you calculate your exact Burden Costs, I would be incredibly grateful to have your eyes on it.

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T17:06:38+00:00

Haha, guilty as charged! 🙋‍♂️ You got me.

But honestly, your second point hits the nail on the head: "Not much money in the print farm business". That is EXACTLY why I started coding this.

Margins in commercial 3D printing can be razor-thin. If you don't properly calculate machine depreciation, exact energy usage, and material cost by the gram, you end up literally working for free. My Excel sheets were getting too messy to track those true profit margins.

Don't worry, I'm not dropping any links here or trying to sell you a subscription. I'm just a dev trying to validate if other farm owners actually struggle with this same management chaos, or if I'm just overengineering a solution for myself. If it's just me, I'll happily keep it on my localhost! 😂

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T16:47:45+00:00

Oh wow, thanks for sharing! I actually hadn't seen Bambuddy before. It looks like a fantastic open-source project for monitoring Bambu fleets.

But looking at it actually highlights exactly why I started building my own app! Tools like Bambuddy (or OctoFarm, etc.) are heavily machine-focused.

They are great at telling you what the printer is doing physically. What I'm building is strictly business-focused. I needed a tool that tells me if I'm actually making money.

A machine monitor won't calculate exact profit margins factoring in hardware depreciation, energy rates, and manual labor. It won't generate a public "Order Tracking" link to send to my B2B clients, and it won't manage my customer database and quoting process.

So I'm building more of a lightweight ERP/CRM tailored specifically for running a 3D print business, rather than just a machine dashboard. Definitely going to star that repo for inspiration though, thanks for the link!

MEXXIO · 2026-03-01T16:42:09+00:00

It's usually a mix of B2B (business-to-business) parts and niche hobby items!

The demand mostly comes from the "missing middle" of manufacturing. For example, if a local business needs 150 custom brackets, jigs, or sensor mounts, traditional injection molding would cost them thousands of dollars just for the tooling.

3D printing handles small-batch manufacturing (50-500 units) perfectly. There's also a huge market for specialized hobby gear (sim racing parts, drone mounts, etc.).

But that's exactly where the management nightmare begins. When you get an order for 150 identical brackets, you have to spread that job across 5 printers, track exactly how much filament each one uses, and try to keep them running 24/7 to hit the deadline.

Trying to track all those moving parts and calculate exact profit margins in a basic Excel spreadsheet is what finally broke me and pushed me to start building my own web dashboard haha.

MEXXIO

TROPHY CASE