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Hello,

I’ve been thinking of starting a 3d printing hobby and maybe business at some point. It would be nice to hear other people experiences of how your own business started and what are your backgrounds.

I myself am a UI/UX designer and have a little experience of 3d modelling. So maybe there’s a change to have some designs at some point.

Thank you for your stories in advance!

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Hey Terppa,

I myself haven’t started a company or business with 3D printing, but I’ve helped many people start up their own.

These people ha e come from different backgrounds, but there are some things you should consider.

Although 3D printers are popular on sites like this, not a lot people seem to know about them. To effectively advertise your business to people you must first give them a bit of knowledge to explain what your actually doing. Until people see examples of work and know what they may do with it, they won’t really care about it. Engage your customers.

Another essential factor is cuatomer service. As printers can take a while to produce products then you’ve got to have excellent customer service as the customers may get impatient and stressed when you don’t keep them updated. Just an emails at each stage of the service will help satisfy the customer.

If you’d like any assistance or advice then I’d be happy to help you. I could offer my services with 3D design if you need help or even teach you what you’d need to know if you’d like to do the models yourself.

Just let me know what you think. Good luck with the business.

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Thank you for great tips!

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Glad I could help

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Hi Terppa,

Glad you are interested in starting the Business. Somethings you should know are is 3D Hubs is a great service to use lots of Jobs come my way a little too much (Don’t really print for my self anymore). I would say go for it though I am a high school student who learned about the technology and how affordable it is a Brandeis University (Shoutout to them and their maker lab) and since then 2 Years later it has made me a lot of $$$ and has gotten me jobs in really cool places of work like the Naval Surface Warfare center and the NIH 3D Print Exchange. The best advice I can give is Micro Center their brand printer works great and it is cheap and they have filament rolls that are consistent and cost $15 /kg. The other printer I recommend for starters (don’t know how much money you want to spend) is the Pursia Research MK2. Don’t worry about the modeling part I know 7 different modeling softwares and besides when I do it for people like the Navy and NIH they have the models they want and there is nothing you have to do beside set up the printer.

Let me know if you have other questions,

Jacob

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Hello Jacob,

Thanks for your reply! The more information I have been learning about 3d printing, the more questions I have faced. Like:

- What should the printing technique?

- Should I wait other techniques to get affordable

- What is the most reliable printer? (can be really frustrating if print jobs fails)

- Can I achieve the desirable print quality?

- Can I really make money out from this business?

- Affordable and good enough 3d scanners?

- What should be the focus on my business? (some own designs I hope)

Well there’s few of my questions :slight_smile:

About the printer itself I have been looking reviews of the Ultimaker 3 (extended). So I guess the money I can spend to it goes somewhere around that printers price.

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Hi Terppa,

I am kind of confused by the first question, but I am assuming you mean what type of 3D printing and I recommend FDM which is the kind of printing that is most common (same as the ultimaker). I would say there is no real need to wait FDM works great and I see plenty of orders with FDM it is also the safest and less frustrating than other 3D printer types. As far as reliability goes The New Makerbots are pretty reliable they claim they are the most reliable printers on the market and I have seen very little to disprove that. The printer that I own that works 98% of the time is actually a rip off of the maker bot made by Micro center is Power Spec Pro 3D printer (I have the first version but they have made a 2 but I can not speak to that.) Just keep in mind failing is part of 3D printing, and you can’t print every day without failing slightly. Things to keep in mind to prevent failing tho is Simplify3D (software) and Buildtak (adheisive for build plate. It is really easy to achieve good quality as long as you have a good printer in fact people don’t notice when I show them prints of different qualities. How much money are you wanting to make? I run the 3D printing business as a side thing and make around $500 per month (not all of which comes from 3D hubs), but I have been thinking about ways I could make more money, but if that happens I want to do it not some one else, so I will keep that to my self. For your second to last question there is no such thing the technology is no there yet. If you are going to do your business through 3D hubs you can say you offer modeling and occasionally people will ask you to model things. The most important is QUALITY. Also I would not waste the money on the Ultimaker if I were you I would get a couple of Pursia MK2’s with your money or a couple of Power Spec Pros with your money instead or get a Makerbot or a lulzbot Taz 6

Let me know if you have anything else,

Jacob

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Hi Jacob,

Thank you again for your comments! Yes I meant the type of 3d printing. I would say that somewhere around $500 would be really good for me as well since I would do this as a side thing also. But obviously that amount of money is not anywhere close in the beginning. You probably do not want to answer this but can I ask where does that $500 comes from? And this is one thing also, giving the right price to the products. I was actually looking few reviews of that Lulzbot Taz 6 and it seems to be pretty good solution for 3d printer.

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Hi Terppa,

75% of it comes from 3D hubs and other services like it and the rest comes from family orders and orders from friends and things my school pays me to print. The Taz 6 is a good printer a little tricky in the begging, but I can give you some tips.

Jacob

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Ok, thanks! I’ll let you know when decide to order it (or some else printer)

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Hi Terppa!

I’m a high school student myself. I have had 3D printers for almost 2 years now, and I’m on 3D hubs from day one. I would love to maybe make it a business one day too, for now, I’m doing everything through 3D Hubs wich is going very good so far. But I think there are a few thing you should keep in mind when thinking about starting a 3D printing business.

- The most used method on 3D Hubs is FDM printing. I mostly get small orders, wich are no more than 15€. This will not be enough to maintain your business. You should have to look at different 3D printing techniques as SLS. These printing methods are used by big company’s for prototyping and could get you some very large orders.

- I’ve learned through 3D Hubs that cheap and a lot of orders is way better than expensive and not so much orders. I was 4x as expensive as I’m now when I started. I barely got 1 order/month. Now, with way better pricing, I’ve completed 10 orders over 2 weeks, and it just keeps raising. This is a lot more profitable.

- Be passionate about it. It will not work if you do it only for money. You need to love it yourself, to deliver a great service to the customer.

That’s what I learned at least. Hope it helps a little :slight_smile:

Andreas

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Hello Andreas,

Thank you for your sharing your little story =) Many small orders with reasonable price is the thing for me. I cannot say that this is not going to be a full time job for me because I don’t know it yet. The thing is in 3d printing that it is very interesting and it can give me plenty of possibilities to create something you really cannot create otherwise. I like to tinker stuff! I definitely am passionate about it already but why don’t make some money out of it also.