Reportback on my private tour with Dustin Hartlyn of C4 Labs on Tuesday May 5, 2026

After learning about C4 Labs’ imminent closure, including the sale of their equipment, I reached out to the company through their contact page and set up a meeting with the owner, Dustin. I was hoping to see what he might let the equipment go for, and to see if he would be open to a class tour for folks to see inside a local production business.

Dustin has some pretty sick equipment. The core of his workflow are his:

• CO2 lasers (3)
• large-format UV printer
• large-format CNC router

Other equipment includes various fabrication equipment, an acrylic bender, a stain room, and workstations for product assembly, stockkeeping, and shipping. He also sublets portions of his 9,000 sq ft facility to other companies, such as a man who operates aquariums to breed fish and plants for retailers.

Some key facts I learned about his business is that while it is profitable, it has several challenges:

• Demand for his products (computer cases and tabletop gaming accessories) has dropped since its peak in the pandemic as the day-to-day economy suffers. He has gone from 6 full-time employees to 1 part-time employee over the past 4 years.
• Lasercut products are easily duped by imitators and difficult to trademark the designs for if they fall into a category of similar products with limited structural changes. While Dustin is able to be competitive by adding more equipment to his workflow such as a UV printer which makes full-color designs printed directly onto wood and MDF, the best competitive edge comes from new designs.
• As Dustin has taken on almost all of the business solo, he has become increasingly burnt out on the grind of retail business and this time burden and exhaustion has prevented him from having the time to develop new designs while shipping his current products, which in a feedback loop increases his reliance on his existing products.
• Dustin’s landlord, a real estate developer who has purchased a number of industrial/commercial buildings in Tacoma’s south downtown/UW/museum district, is increasing the rent.
• Materials never get any cheaper

It has remained profitable because:

• Dustin has many high-quality products that he has improved over the years.
• He has added more machines that allow for greater variety in his products and greater profitability by limiting the outsourcing of parts of his manufacturing process.
• Because he owns all his equipment (purchased used often at auctions and repaired as needed by himself), runs the place himself without paying expensive technicians required by some larger brands in the business, and purchases supplies in large quantities an large sheets from suppliers without paying the middlemen selling “laserable” products online cut into convenient-sized sheets and shipped, he keeps his costs low.
• He makes all of his own designs and does not pay for any licenses from large franchises like Dungeons and Dragons, so he has no licensing fees.
• Many brands do not make their own products, but design them and have them fabricated by another company, which usually requires them to pay for a large batch at a time. This means they have to move large quantities of stock AND pay large amounts upfront to have that stock available. Dustin can produce designs efficiently in small batches, leading to more custom and on-demand work, allowing him to stock more products with minimal investment, and allowing him to target more niche markets such as HAM radio enthusiasts who provide reliable sales at a small enough volume that the designs are not desireable enough for other companies to poach.

Despite his success, Dustin is closing C4 due to burnout. He is, over 10 years from its founding, at a very different place in his life and is now married with a young child. He can’t put in 60-70 hours a week to run the business and still be able to make his own designs, so he made the decision to step away and continue to develop his designs as a hobby.

In the past week since this meeting (as of this writing on 5/12), we have come to an agreement for me to take over running a significant portion of this business, beginning with building sweat equity–learning how to operate his admin workflows, manage his employee’s daily workflow, and operate his machines, in exchange for machine access, with the goal of taking over daily operations by July, when he intends to take a month off completely. I will be seeking additional commercial customers of my own, as well as developing my own retail products.