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I was wondering when someone was going to mention Proto Labs.

I don't have nearly as much experience as you, but I think you make a great point. I tried Plethora about a year ago and was disappointed it couldn't make a single part I needed, and that it had such limited materials.

Although I wish Plethora the best, they do seem to have fallen into the mindset of thinking they're different when they appear to be reinventing the wheel (and making it worse). My guess is Animats has it right and they're hoping to get acquired by Autodesk. I'm surprised how many startups today are designed solely to be acquired (I doubt Plethora started with this mindset), and if they fail at that then they have zero chance of going public as they have no chance of sustaining profits.

Of course, maybe I'm wrong and they know something I don't. I always love to be proven wrong by someone succeeding.

There's nothing wrong with trying to make things better. There are real problems in manufacturing. Manufacturing is hard and can range from relatively simple to mind-numbing complex.

The solutions to these problems are not going to come from sipping latte's in San Francisco while asking why manufacturing can't be more like software development.

That's misguided Silicon Valley hubris. It's an echo chamber that funds and produces tons of bullshit startups and sometimes gets lucky. When it comes to hardware they almost always seem to be getting it wrong.

This is probably because they insist on rejecting experience and filling their ranks with fresh grads who know nothing about nothing and can, within their version of reality, conclude that software will solve all problems.

Here's a hint: Want to make products that truly serve humanity (whether it's manufacturing or something else) rather than better and more clever ways to get people to click on buttons, get addicted to stupid games or social platforms?

Simple. Hire or fund people older than, say, 40 years of age who come armed with experience and common sense. Yes, give them a team of young hot-shots with the crazy ideas to try and find some of out-of-the-box stuff. Just don't setup startup after startup that looks more like a remake of Lord of the Flies rather than a real business.

You have companies like Google and Facebook who brilliantly showcase how horrible these young, socially untrained, ethically inept and often maladjusted people can be. They think it's OK to do such things as to use an algorithm to completely shutdown someone's business (Google AdSense and FB Ads) and, at the same time, provide exactly zero customer service or the ability to have a business-like conversation to try to rectify whatever might have triggered the issue. This is deranged lunatic territory and it seems to permeate some of the culture coming out of these startups. They know everything and they don't want to hear from anyone who might actually know something. What a waste of human talent.

While I'm not sure they are tackling it the right way (haven't really looked in to it), that manufacturers in the west can't competitively run prototyping or other small production runs is a real problem. Unpredictable quotes, lead times, high MOQs, tooling costs in the west or the language barrier and shipping cost/time in asia doesn't provide any value in itself.

The problems in the West are far more complex than simply making better CAM software.

Our supply chain is long and expensive. Start there. And by this I mean everything, from raw materials, components and sub-assemblies to tooling, equipment and consumables. The length and complexity of our supply pipe can easily double or triple a manufacturer's costs and impose very high inventory costs.

Our regulations are crippling. For example, try to get a steel weldment porcelain enamel coated. In China, no problem. In the US. Nearly impossible and definitely not even in the realm of being competitive.

Our unions have done of good job of helping kill-off industries. Union leaders (not union members, leaders) succeeded at pressing companies so hard without regards for long term viability that they eventually forced some of them out of business or out of the country.

Taxes are ridiculous. One way to look at it is how much of the year is devoted to, effectively, working for the government. In other words, in order to earn the tax money paid to the government you have to work.

Well, at a 39% corporate tax rate the entire company is working for the federal government for approximately the first 4.7 months of the year. After that they get to keep their profits.

In Ireland, with a rate of 12.5%, the people in a company work for the government for 1.5 months and the rest of the year they get to keep their profits.

So, taxes in the US means you are working 5 months to pay them vs. less than 2 in Ireland. That is horrific.

Liability and tort reform is a huge deal. As a manufacturer you are incredibly exposed to being sued out of existence (or out of being able to compete due to financially crippling lawsuits).

Labor force education and availability is becoming a greater issue every year. Skills development has stagnated over the years. We don't have a modern tech savvy workforce. Schools don't teach any of that stuff any more. As a software guy the "hour of code" is great but as a hardware guy I think the "hour of drilling a hole and cutting wood" is equally important.

So, again, there is so much more to making a product beyond rapid prototyping that at some point you have to wonder if people understand that there are far more pressing areas to be optimized, areas with far more significant impact on the bigger picture.

You know they're serious when they have a Bridgeport at home. (Not a Jet.)

Want a business that's machining-based but needs better software? Design and make injection molding molds automatically. Injection molding is incredibly cheap per unit, but the molds cost too much (average is around $12,000) and may not work right the first time. Mold design requires highly experienced mold designers.

Make that process easier. Be able to start from 3D printer type models. Advise the naive user interactively on how to modify their part for easier injection molding. Figure out all the flow and cooling and release stuff automatically.

Yes. Injection molding is a dark art. One feature in the design can take your mold from a simple tool to a huge monster with side actions, multiple injection ports and all kinds of injection mold voodoo costing tens of thousands of dollars.

Love the Bridgeport. I have somehow resisted the temptation to convert it to CNC.

Another reason I love it is that I use my garage shop in mentoring a group of kids at the local high school robotics team. Nothing like making parts on a manual mill and lathe to learn about the real world of "just 'cause you can draw it in Solidworks it doesn't mean you can make it that way". One of my favorite moments to witness with the kids is when the make two parts that are to be bolted to each other and they can't. The holes a don't line-up and the hole diameters are not what they expected. What follows is a chat about Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (Light Edition). Fun stuff.

Off-topic: what should TechShop get as a small SMT reflow oven? TechShop bought $200 T962 IR reflow ovens for all the TechShop locations. They're useless because the heat distribution is so non-uniform that they scorch the center of the board. There are various hobbyist mods available, and toaster oven conversions, but they need a low cost, robust, off the shelf product. I've convinced them that what they have is no good, but don't have an alternative to recommend.

This is a tough question to answer because the answer is likely to be larger and far more expensive machines. We use SMT lines that are over 50 feet long with pick and place at one end and AOI (Automated Optical Inspection) and x-ray inspection at the other end.

That said, back when I was still bootstrapping my business in the garage I reflowed SMT boards with everything from toaster ovens to hot plates. I have to say that my favorite budget reflow tool back then was a hot plate with a really thick top. There are some that have a metal cover box that will make a little oven-like environment. None of these are 100% reliable, of course, and a lot depends on the nature of the board, size, type and mass of components, etc. What you do get is precise temperature set points.

I'll see if I can ask our manufacturing engineers tomorrow and see if there is such a thing as a cheap lab-class reflow oven that does a decent job. It isn't going to be $200, I can tell you that much.

Disclaimer I don't know anything about manufacturing, but let me pose a challenge to your assertion that manufacturing has nothing to learn from the software industry.

Elon Musk seems to have taken many ideas from the software industry to manufacturing at Tesla and SpaceX. My understanding is that manufacturing uses more of what we software developers would call a waterfall method of development. Long upfront phase with research and detailed specifications before manufacture. Elon Musk seems to have favored a more software like approach of rapid iterations and feedback. E.g. trying out more risky things, see it break and go back to the drawing board. They also seems to have borrowed the idea of platforms from the software business. Where you gradually refine an established system. E.g. I read that in comparison to other auto manufacturers they create detailed specs for all their parts and fan out the production to all sorts of contractors. These guys might not get used in the next round, in the next model. So you can't e.g. gradually refine and upgrade the software systems of the car in the same manner in traditional manufacturing. Mind you I am not doing a great job of explaining these details, if you don't know what I am talking about, better to read up other accounts of the differences between Tesla and other auto manufacturers as well as SpaceX and other rocket makers.

To be fair this isn't the same as discussed in this article which is more about what happens at the part level. What Tesla and SpaceX has changed is what happens at the over organizational level. Doing more manufacturing in house and relying on off the shelf parts rather than getting them made according to some spec. E.g. SpaceX uses seatbelts manufactured for race car drivers as their astronaut seatbelts rather than using magnitudes more expensive and custom made astronaut seatbelts.

I am intimately familiar with the philosophy you describe.

Let me just say this. There are certain realities in every business. If you are baking cookies in your kitchen you can get away with doing things a certain way. You scoff at the guys making cookies using contract kitchens. Your ways are better. Until you hit a certain scale. Once you hit that scale you'll be the one talking to the contract kitchens and you'll have to learn and accept the way they work.

Now you laugh at the folks making cookies in their kitchens and still think the large multinational operations are archaic, old-school, slow and inefficient.

Until you reach a new scale. And now you have to make things in the millions. And the consequences of making mistakes can end your business. So you seek to learn and adopt the process the large organizations use to reliably manufacture process at a scale you never dreamed of.

And that's when you finally understand and realize things were not really as bad as you thought when you were in the kitchen. There's a "form follows function" reality to manufacturing at different scales.

Tesla can do things the way they do because their scale allows them to operate this way. And also because they are making electric cars, which are a LOT easier than gas powered cars. By switching to an electric motor the complexity of the manufacturing process changes to the extent that eliminating a couple of thousand mechanical components allows. Electric motors are simple and manufacturing electronic motor controllers is far more efficient than assembling and testing internal combustion engines.

Yet, if Tesla ever achieves the same scale as a Ford, GM or others it is very likely they will have to operate almost exactly the same way as the large companies do. You can't iterate fast when you are making a million units of a design per year. Making mistakes can cost your company. And, when that's the context, you go slow, you plan everything, create detailed specifications, recruit and verify suppliers, order things a year in advance, etc.

With regards to such things as racing seat belts vs. aerospace seat belts, well, it's a great way to feel "rogue" and fantastic for press releases. In the context of a twenty five million dollar rocket and one where the consequence of being "hip" and a maverick is that people die, things, I'll be you, are far more like traditional aerospace than not. Things in aerospace aren't expensive just to be expensive. No, they cost money because the are generally unique, they have to meet certain specification and, in some cases, people's lives depend on them. Just like in Medical.

Bottom line: You can be a maverick and cut corners when you are in the garage. As things get "real" you will end-up making pretty much all of the same decisions everyone before you made before you thought everyone was stupid and incompetent.

And that's the problem I have with a lot of these things. These ridiculous echo chambers starts off assuming everyone before them was stupid and didn't know how to innovate (or didn't care to). And that's patently false. Innovation is part of every day engineering. But it has to be constrained by limitations of the realities within which they exist.

A book titled "The innovator's dilemma" is a great read that covers part of the reason companies are not able to destroy it all and do something different. Hint: Good management is the reason companies don't adopt every possible shift in technology.

If these guys were talking about making metal-based 3D printing simple and inexpensive and that's all they focused on I'd be singing their praises. If I could buy a metal 3D printer today for, say $50K to $100K, with better throughput, reliability, accuracy and operating cost than compared to a VMC (and the ability to work with a dozen different materials) I'd be first in line buying half a dozen of them. What they are talking about instead is just silly.

(Plethora Founder/CEO here)

No - we aren't fucking kidding you, RebootTheSystem - we actually are making it a lot easier! ;-)

We usually find the most resistance to our ideas from within the industry itself and among people with experience, which is why it's not changing. It's like the cab drivers complaining about Uber.

We've got a ton of great customers (world class names, to people in their garage) who love us and our revenue is growing like crazy. That's how I know we're on to something.

If making hardware was solved, why isn't everyone able to execute on it? Why is iterating physical products so slow and expensive? We were able to easily raise money because VCs saw the hardware startups struggling.

There is so much room to go in making manufacturing / physical engineering easier - Moore's Law has barely made a dent in manufacturing. I'm excited for our journey ahead!

> Why is iterating physical products so slow and expensive?

Because you are moving molecules, not electrons and the cost of mistakes can range from financially crippling to causing a company to go bankrupt to killing people.

Example: Takada Airbags.

Do you really think it matters one iota if they had better rapid prototyping or a better version of Proto Labs or a better CAM software package?

Or, how about manufacturing a VW car? How many billions are they losing because of software? How significant do you think eliminating the machinist (or whatever) might have been in this case?

Or how about these issues:

https://goo.gl/5QHpz4

The resistance you are seeing is from people who exist well outside the echo chamber you are in. I mean, listen to yourself, you are comparing Moore's Law to manufacturing? Again. Are you fucking kidding me? Please get that out of your head.

Funding? Funding means nothing. Funding doesn't mean an idea or a product is good or will be successful. It just means you were good at selling what you wanted to do to investors. And, in some cases, absolutely clueless investors (not saying that's the case here). That's it.

Again, you are in an echo chamber. Funding means nothing. Fan boys mean nothing. Here's a list for you:

https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/biggest-startup-failures/

Many more like that one.

Look, where you lose someone like me is when you start to spew this nonsense about Moore's Law and manufacturing or the software engineering process and manufacturing.

> It's like the cab drivers complaining about Uber.

Another nonsensical example.

And, yet again, this betrays your lack of understanding of the problems faced in real product manufacturing. And your other comments showcase your disdain towards those who, unlike you, have been busy making real progress in a range of industries, from consumer electronics, to brick manufacturing to medical, aerospace and everything in between.

Manufacturing is always progressing because it is often the largest portion of the cost of getting a product to market. And so, the motivation to optimize manufacturing for cost, speed, efficiency, reliability, throughput and quality has been there for centuries. One could not be competitive to day with the processes and tools used 20 years ago.

Yet you somehow reduce the totality of the manufacturing problem to "we need to CNC machine prototypes as fast as software teams iterate code". Who gives a fuck? Really? That problem is solved, to a large extent, by both technologies and companies.

I can 3D print complex parts in metal while I sleep. I can have a complex 5-axis parts machined perfectly and in my hands in three days and at a reasonable cost. You are creating a solution for a non-existing problem.

I just don't see it.

Want to solve a real problem? Solve all the nagging friggin problems in 3D printing plastics. From speed to quality to dimensional accuracy and repeatability and more. There are real problems that need solving in that industry. The other stuff, what you are talking about, is a waste of time and money.

Anyhow, we obviously disagree. I wish you the best.

Having a growing list of real customers isn't an echo chamber. It's reality and means we're solving a real problem.

Hardware isn't hard because it's physical. It's hard because there's still a lot more progress left to go. There are no physics limits to making it orders of magnitude better on many dimensions. We just need to revitalize a stagnant industry.

"Moore's Law to manufacturing" means taking the gains of computers and applying them to manufacturing where they're vastly under applied. Visit IMTS or Fabtech and you'll see how behind everything is - machines and software designed 10-30 years ago.

Plethora is more than putting CNC machining on the internet. It's a new way of thinking about manufacturing. About taking the analogies of software and porting them to the manufacturing world.

We've made a debugger, compiler, simulator, etc. for manufacturing CNC machined parts, but that's 1% of what we'll do.

In the end, I suspect you're reacting to our optimism about radically changing a system - which I find funny for a user with the handle "RebootTheSystem" :-) Have fun out there.

Let's just agree to disagree. Keep my posts. You'll understand just what I meant when you fail. Or when you have to make a significant pivot because your original assumptions were wrong (and, they are).

I visit IMTS every year. Progress is significant and steady.

Many years ago I tried to lead a "movement" to stop using G-code and go with something that made much more sense to me. I wanted something closer to a modern programming language, something that, in my mind, worked better.

In the end I failed because of a simple reason: I wanted a solution to a non-existing problem. Yeah, G-code is "unrefined" and cave-man-ish but, in the greater context of things, G-code is an insignificant part of the equation. It's a solved problem. And I was trying to solve it all over again.

That's just one example.

You are beating your head against a wall.

It's really funny to read your comments about machines and software designed 10 to 30 years ago.

First of all, you are wrong. These systems are always being improved. Every year. The problem you don't seem to understand is that manufacturing isn't like buying a bunch of PC's and upgrading them every year.

I can't throw away a dozen Haas CNC machines of different types every two years to adopt someone's hair-brained scheme. I can't dispose of my very expensive automated SMT assembly and optical inspection lines because some kid in Silicon Valley decided they want manufacturing to be hip.

No sir, this isn't a hobby. If you want me or anyone else to shift into new equipment just because the UI is cooler, well you lost right there.

If you, on the other hand, came up with, as you said, "orders of magnitude" better manufacturing, well maybe you have something.

You do know that an order of magnitude is 10 times better and "orders of magnitude" is at least 100 times better, right? See, this is where you lose me. The only way I can put such a statement is that is it ignorant of reality to an incredible degree. Naive beyond description.

Just what do you think people have been doing for the last 30 years? Waiting for you to come along while using stone-age tools to manufacture product so you could make things 100 times better?

Again, echo chamber. I don't think you understand just how incredibly stupid some of these things sound to someone who lives in the real world making real products with real modern manufacturing. You really don't have a clue, do you?

OK, here's another challenge for you. Since you seem to be focusing so much on IMTS and arcane CNC machines.

Show up at the next IMTS with a next generation CNC vertical machining center and lathe of your design. Demonstrate how your hardware and software combination is "orders of magnitude" better than prior approaches. I'll let you slide and say, just show me an improvement of 10x. That's it. Show me how you can make things 10x better by designing new machines with new software.

Your statement was "you'll see how behind everything is - machines and software designed 10-30 years ago.". OK, great. Show-up at the next IMTS and be the beacon of light with machines and process that is at least 10x better.

Of course, I fully expect the exact opposite to be the case. If you attempt to do such a thing you will soon discover just how little you know about manufacturing and how much more you have to learn. I feel sorry for your investors. As for your "growing customer list", it'd be very interesting to learn who they might be. I have a feeling I know.

As for "rebootthesystem". Well, you are reading too much into that. It's just a name, not a cult. What you have is a cult. I am all for driving progress but it has to be in the realm of the plausible. One requirement there is to create attainable solutions for real problems.

This isn't about old school clashing with new ideas. I know you and your team are painting my feedback as "typical old-fart who doesn't understand". Have a good time laughing at my expense. No problem. I have exactly zero problem with developing ground breaking modern solutions and questioning everything in the process. That is exactly what I do each day. And, guess what, manufacturing isn't where the problems are. Could it be better? Sure. 10x better. That is impossible. 100x better? C'mon, get real.

While I think you have some good points, and I'm not a huge fan of Plethora (like I said, their service was unusable for me), I think what we have here is people coming from different perspectives.

You understand real hardcore manufacturing and have a lot of experience in that realm. Plethora seems to be targeting people that don't know anything about manufacturing but want an easy way to build parts in small quantities. I don't know how they plan to scale to full manufacturing, and I don't know their numbers (the real question is retention, how many customers are coming back with larger order numbers), they may have found a niche by targeting customers that just don't know any better. I assume this market is small and I am skeptical of its value at all, since I know it's easier to just hire someone internally or just outsource it to a competent shop, but something Silicon Valley can do like nobody else is hype itself up. What that means is a lot of things, but it includes pumping up valuations for an eventual acquisition.

Is Plethora creating real value? I'm extremely skeptical. Are they attempting to create a company that can be sold for a profit? That seems pretty likely to me, and that's what the overwhelming majority of investors care about.

I think part of the problem is Nick sounds like he's pitching investors in this thread, when he's talking to people that are experienced in manufacturing. You're not his target audience. Then again, I doubt he's planning on showing this to investors, so I'm not really sure what his goal is here (unless he's just defensive, which is a really bad sign for him being able to see the forest for the trees).

Absolutely agreed with all of your points.

While, admittedly, my tone has been rather aggressive it has not been my intention to aggressively do anything than to say "you are making a big mistake". Making an "orders of magnitude" claim in a field like manufacturing can only happen if your customers are utterly ignorant.

Find a tribe deep in some unknown forest who knows nothing about modern technology. Show up with a box of matches. You've made fire-starting "orders of magnitude" easier.

Today I had a meeting with my local Haas representative. Yes, it's Sunday. I'm buying another machine and he is very accommodating due to year-end needs. We had an interesting conversation about improvements in the industry. Haas introduced an updated control about a year ago. If you look around on the 'net there are people who hate it. Some even talk about having returned machines due to the new control (and buying used machines with the old software).

Are the controls that different? No, not really. However, to an experienced machinist who has been running these machines daily for years their "muscle memory" gets them into trouble when using the new control. I would compare it to switching between Mac and PC keyboards. I do that all the time and it can be a pain in the ass. When developing iOS code I have to use a Mac while all other tools are on our PC's including such things as Photoshop. My solution was to install a piece of software that allows me to remap the keyboard on the Mac to match a PC with sufficient fidelity to eliminate the cognitive load of using both platforms back-to-back.

Imagine now having a shop with half a million dollars of machines you know how to use like you are playing a piano and the "new and improved" version of the machine has you making mistakes and feeling like you don't know what you are doing. It isn't that bad but there's enough of a cognitive load for some (not all, a few) of those who have to deal with this to not be happy with Haas.

Another example is when MS switched-up the UI from Office 2003 to 2007. I felt like moron for a few weeks.

And then we have someone come along and suggest they are going to make things more like software development and achieve an "orders of magnitude" improvement in manufacturing. While, in the real world, a highly experienced, well respected, leading-edge manufacturing company has to take baby steps to improve the UI and control of their $100K to $500K machines. The reality of manufacturing is that people need to make things, not play with toys (hardware or software) every time a new shiny thing is put on the table.

I wish these guys the best but their messaging is horrible. To anyone who knows manufacturing it screams "I don't know what I am talking about". I am sure there are a bunch of Kickstarter projects that could use help. If they can build a business around that, fantastic.

Hey jayjay71 - thanks for your comments - let me clarify some of your questions!

Our core customers are actually experienced engineers, but our publicly exposed product (CAD Add-in, site, etc.) isn't the offering where we're currently making most of our revenue, but in Q1 it will be. We'll announce the specifics publicly, so stay tuned. I suspect you'll be happy with what this has. Unless you have a exotic needs, we'll be able to make it.

We essentially decided that it's more important to satisfy our early enterprise customers using a lot of hand-selling until the CAD Add-in is fully there - which is the slow part because the computational geometry is quite tricky to get the experience you want for instant quotes / feedback that are meaningful.

We are NOT building this to flip. There are far easier companies to start if you're looking to make a quick buck, and Founders Fund / Lux don't invest in companies with a small vision. We haven't talked a lot publicly about our long-term vision, but it's a core piece of our DNA.

Happy to answer more questions.

I want more materials (ie stainless steel, brass), greater capabilities (ie 5 axis mill, welding), and it would be nice to have guaranteed compliance for regulated industries (ie food, medicine).

Other than that, you are more expensive than hiring a machinist the old-fashioned way for one-off parts. Apparently I just don't understand your business, because I'm clearly not your customer.

Also please don't name drop your investors - nobody cares. Funding is a vanity metric. Focus on how you can be profitable when your business is no longer subsidized by external funding - that's what will make you successful. Growth is great but it doesn't help if you can't ever sell at a profit.

Anyway, while I may not understand your business, I wish you luck. If you can truly revolutionize manufacturing the way you say that would be great.

Yea, your list of materials / complexity is actually what we offer now in private (including turning, mill-turning) - public release coming in January. Certs for aerospace, etc. are coming in 2017.

From our price studies, we're on par with other fast turn shops and faster than all of them with big high mix orders. You can get cheaper parts slowly, but we focus on people with more money than time.

Ha, funding isn't a vanity metric when your company needs financing. If you're doing a really big project in a high-growth competitive market, you'll very often need to go the VC route. Bootstrapping doesn't work for this.

If you've ever done it, you know that raising angel/VC money is hard work. I respect people who are able to raise funding, and far more I respect when they turn that into great products that help a lot of people.

Yea, I think making manufacturing better is a big deal, and there is much work to do. Thanks for all of your feedback!

"From our price studies, we're on par with other fast turn shops"

Your studies are cherry-picked to make you look good then, as that just isn't true.

"funding isn't a vanity metric when your company needs financing"

Needing to raise money and bragging about it as a sign of success are very different things.

Turn off the pitch, dude. I've already told you several times I'm not your customer. I'm bowing out of this conversation now.