The hardest thing about using lasers is choosing and learning a piece of CAD software. It can be pretty intimidating because the user interface can seem pretty complex. What I have found for myself, unless you really get into designing is that you dont actually need a lot of the bells and whistles found on a lot of CAD programs. Once you can trace an item and do some basic editing you are ready to start cutting. You have a few hours of steep learning curve and then little bumps as you discover new things that you want to do. I use A9cad and Inkscape as they are free, relatively simple and in the case of Inkscape there are online tutorials. I have one of the Chinese K40 CO2 lasers. They cut well and have enough power but need some modification to get the most out of them. There is also the matter of setting up water cooling. For a person starting out I would recommend one of the diode lasers that have come out since I bought mine. Even with the diode lasers you will still want some sort of enclosure for handling smoke and other fumes. There is a CAD forum on this site. There are also websites aimed at makers that are laser focused. there are even some facebook groups.