Starting a Business

So what your saying is so far have just assumed that people will want to buy '3d things'... so therefore.. time to set up a business ?

I'd just be guessing myself - but maybe a bit more concrete of an idea about what it is you want to build as a business before shopping for input.

e.g.. you planning to sell '3d printing' to consumers who supply their own STL/Models ?
Do you intend to spend time fixing them? - as lots will not be mainifold/mesh properly.
Have you factored the large amount of effort there when dealing with 'random' designs?
Have you considered the amount of 'failed prints/wastage' that will occur as a result of unknown models... or is the plan to say 'thats what you gave me, thats what I printed'? 'actual' cost to fixup models at a low hourly 'self-cost' rate can still run into the hundreds of dollars... for something thats entirely intangible to the end-users and thus difficult to equate in the cost of goods ("Yes sir - Your $25 print cost $300 in fixup....")....

Are you planning to just use models found on Thingiverse? Let customers choose, and then you'll print it? See my first question about preparedness to fix it up (lots on thingiverse wont print without effort/fixes... lots will, but lots wont)? Since you'll be selling the 'print service' - I'm assuming you'll deal with all the CC licence attribution issues when displaying the models etc ?

Are you going to print with decent quality - and thus - factored in the "1-to-possibly-14-or-20-hours" it will take to print?

Have you thought about how to deal with customers placing orders then having to come back 2-3-7 days later ? Are they likely to do that ? Or were you hoping to print it in under 20 minutes or something ?

What about storage - prints can be delicate and bulky; so where to keep those prints for when the person comes back in 2-3-7-14-21 days later ?

Will you have a battery of printers - to deal with the fact a printer can be tied up printing for that entire time?

Have you done a strong assessment of what the established print services such as Shapeways charge/offer/have to deal with support wise (and I dont mean model support )?

How do you intend to manage customer expectations - of both requirements for a succesful print, and for the often 'oh, i thought it would look more - i dunno - injection molded' type remarks/concerns?

What materials will you offer to print in? Straight ABS? PLA? Nylon? Polycarb? Let me guess - all of them?

How about the 3D Scanner services everyones offering this week? Setup a booth? Kinect & Reconstructme, Cubify Sense or something a bit flashier like Structure Light Scanning?

Oh - and you've of course searched for and read the couple of threads on the forum here that offer links to books about establishing a 3d printer business?

Anyway.. thats just some immediate thoughts...

There is something I am missing I think. I uploaded a model to shapeways... the price would have been $160 for a small ABS model. I then checked the model on cura which tells me how much material I will use, and come out to nothing... a few dollars at most... Which means shapeways is taking thousands of percent proffit.  If I were doing an online business, I looks like it would be so easy just to price them out of the market?

What am I missing?

The tutorials on shapeways that explains that you want to ideally produce a specifically hollow model as the price you where quoted was for a solid block of nylon (or whatever).

http://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/crea … ow-objects

So yeah - Its not all beer and skittles (or rainbows and flowers if you prefer) - and no, they aren't making 1000's of percent markup - thats the actual cost of a solid model at shapeways (who don't make a profit, and are into their latest round of $30million of VC money....)

Anyway - I was more inferring to examine their business and consumer operation models (and bleeding of cash despite being extremely well represented) - not for you to compare prices - since they offer a superior printing quality based on the very different printing technology in use compared to FDM...

Does anyone here have a 3D printing business?

The best approach would be to offer some range of objects that can be customized or personalized in a few minutes.  Then print those, or have a service like Shapeways print and deliver them.   A mall kiosk type example would be name plates of some kind.  If your name is Dave, they always have one for you, but if your name is Norbert you are out of luck.  In the US there are stores in the mall that do laser engraving of a variety of keepsakes and gifts.  That would be the closest example to look at.

I do have a 3D printing business, about $300/month in sales right now across 20 different products listed on eBay. I get about 1 a month custom requests as well.

My suggestion based upon your opening a stand in a mall is have products already printed that a customer would want to buy, whether they are custom license plate holders, phone cases, key chains, toys, etc and offer additional services to have someone provide a design file to be printed or have something that you can quickly change the characters on it.

As others have said, do your market research locally to see if it is worthwhile. For me in the US, it would cost too much for a stand in a mall and customers wouldn't want to wait 1-3 hours for their print to be finished and I'd be competing with mass-produced stuff. My business model is print stuff I would use, offer it to sale for others and keep a fair amount on hand to ship out quickly. PM me if you want to discuss further.

I see a lot of people on ebay selling printed parts for 3dprinters, rc  stuff, trinket stuff... most of the things I see are all from the same files or a slightly modified copy of the same file although there are a few original ideas out there... but not for long usually.

I think that you should start of just listing your printer on something like http://www.makexyz.com/ ... If you are selling your own items designed and printed in house then start with ebay.

Just my 2 cents.