We started this because the answer kept being no.
Small businesses and startups need contract manufacturing too. Somebody had to say yes to the small run.
The gap we kept running into
There is a specific kind of frustration that comes with needing 40 of something. Not one — you can print one yourself. Not 40,000 — that gets you a warm welcome from any factory on earth. Forty.
Call a moulder and you will be quoted a tool before anyone asks what the part does. Call a machine shop and the setup cost alone makes the maths absurd. Call overseas and the minimum is a thousand pieces, twelve weeks out, and good luck with the revision you will inevitably need. Most of the time nobody even calls back, because a small order is not worth the paperwork to them.
I started Hefty Ventures because I saw that need and nobody was serving it. Small businesses and startups need contract manufacturing just as much as large ones do — arguably more, because they cannot afford to get it wrong. But no one wants to do the small run, and when someone does, it is priced as an inconvenience rather than a job.
So we built a shop around the small run instead of tolerating it. Our quoting engine prices a single piece as readily as five hundred. Our setup cost is one modest fee per part, not a tooling programme. A design revision between runs costs nothing. And the answer to "can you make just a few?" is simply yes.
How the work actually gets done
We do it all in house in Toronto. The printers are ours, the finishing bench is ours, and the person you email has handled your parts. That is deliberate — it is the only way to promise a date and keep it.
Anything we cannot do ourselves, we have partners for — locally where speed and oversight matter, and overseas where cost is the deciding factor. CNC machining, sheet metal, anodising, resin, nylon, silicone moulding, the occasional volume injection tool. You still get one contact and one invoice, and we stay accountable for the whole job rather than handing you a phone number.
All assembly is done in Canada. Components may travel, but the finished thing is put together, inspected and packed here. If a customer asks where their product was assembled, you get to give a straight answer.
Four commitments, and we mean them literally
Say yes to small
One piece or five hundred, the process is the same and the price is worked out the same way. Nobody gets treated like a nuisance for ordering a sensible quantity.
Show the price
Material, machine time, labour, setup. The quoting tool does the arithmetic in the open, so you can see exactly why quantity ten costs what it does.
Own the whole job
If a partner is involved, that is our problem to manage, not yours. One contact, one invoice, one company answerable for the outcome.
Assemble in Canada
Every finished assembly is put together and inspected here. It keeps quality in our hands and keeps the work local.
Send us the thing nobody else would quote
An STL for an instant price, a STEP file and a drawing for a production enquiry, or a photo of a broken part you need ten of. All three are a normal Tuesday here.