I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months
wespiser.com
wespiser.com
- $3666 total revenue
- $3352 in expenses
- ~50 orders fulfilled
- ~3000 hours of logged print time.
This tells the whole story... these numbers are so far off from what they should be that this is not a business, but a charity cosplaying as a business. It's a pity you are going to drop this, I think if you adjust your pricing and become a bit more efficient you can easily make it work. But great you're sharing your numbers, you really just need better customers.
Rules of thumb: 10x on materials, base fee of $3 / hour of print time, $100 / hour design time if < 1000 parts, above that you can start pricing it into the job total.
Still, six figure income, but what is the margin?
Looks very good though. And: very, very hard to injection mold that product (internal structure is something 3D printers excel at).
> Expanding your plastic filament palette requires upfront investment
Just a guess, but the number includes buying an entire 3D printer which you don’t have to keep doing.
This is either a bad choice of printer, some kind of user error, or supreme bad luck.
I don't even know how to get a clog printing with PLA.
If you load your printer with one 10kg spool of PLA, odds are good you'll go a while without issues.
It got him way fewer new printers and more work compared to working at McDonalds and buying the printer with the salary. Opportunity cost.
1. It was never a business for the reasons you brought up
2. The appeal seems to depend heavily on trademark infringement that would make it even less of a viable business long-term
3. I hate to be mean to OP but the print quality of these products look pretty darn low and undesirable. And yes, I do realize the Celtics photo was an example of a "before" result.
So much of the article talks about the printer breaking down and clogging all the time and it sounds like the author's got some really bad equipment or is otherwise doing something wrong here. 50 orders and 3000 hours of runtime doesn't usually get you busted motors and a major need to have spare parts on hand like the article describes.
Agreed that stuff shouldn't be breaking over that kind of runtime. But the article leaves out a lot of detail that would have helped identifying what is going wrong with the printers, but that's not the main reason this did not work, the main reason is a lack of business sense.
For the most part, my X1C + AMS set up was just plug and play, and I tried to use the Celtics print as an example of pushing that system beyond what it could do, and how struggling through that lead to specific adaptations in the process.
My focus was really getting prints out the door to hit shipping windows, so delays were felt by the customer and the reputation of my partner. Just the overall production pressure, it's a different experience than most prints I do for fun, where a failure is an opportunity to learn, and there's time to try alternatives.
As for the 0.2mm clog, I'm nearly certain it was an issue with the specific roll of filament I was using, Overature Matte PLA in the "forrest" green color they have. Other colors in that print worked. Usually PLA clogs are cooling issues, but optimizing the print profile would have been a big slow down.
All logos were supplied by the customers, and a lot of them were custom logos. The real value, IMO, was the name written in text, which is what I'm censoring out in each of the photos. There's still enough demand using alternative logos, since the "job to be done" is providing a trading card dealer with a way to show off their name/logo in pictures of their wares.
I wouldn't describe the situation as "the printer breaks down all the time". Stuff, like plates, or PFTE tube, or nozzles would wear out and break. It's not a regular occurrence, but it does happen, and it's enough of an issue when you are trying to hit a shipping window that you'll want to take steps to avoid it. From a story/narrative perspective, that's the stuff I tend to remember, not the other 99% of prints that turn out well.
The Bambu X1C is reliable, you just can't run it 24/7 and not run into issues. The most unreliable component is probably the AMS, something about that, plus matte PLA, was causing clogs where you had to take apart the AMS and fish out the broken filament. That happened to me maybe 3 times.
In those 50 orders, most of them were for 5-10 actual card stands, and throughput was enough of an issue that I bought a second printer.
As for the clogs, that's really specific to the 0.2mm nozzle, not the 0.4mm nozzle I used after the jam. Unjamming a 0.2mm is much more difficult, since the hole is so much smaller. I did try cold pulls, and several other techniques, but I do think the root cause was one roll of matte PLA filament. Sure, there was more stuff to try, but I didn't want to sink more than one night on the problem.
As for the quality of prints? I stand by the quality of prints as good examples of what can be done on consumer hardware. Consistent matte finish, even layer lines, bold, vivid logos that matched the input pics.I'm happy to design and print something people want, and my problem was never lack of demand.
They did crowdfunding via Wefunder, so their financial docs performance is available online: https://wefunder.com/whiteclouds
They seem to have found some high-margin value-add niches in doing large signs, tradeshow displays, topographical maps, etc. Seems like there can be some nice SMB opportunities in the space if you can carve out some specialty services & attract repeat customers.
As of today, I've sold more than 800 machines at an average of $80 per machine and an average profit of $30 (approximately). That's around $24,000 of profit over the last three years or so. It covers all the costs of its own inventory, parts, losses (e. g. some machines just never make it to sale), and it's built a lot of fun community relationships. Plus, I've helped a lot of people get access to a working computer at a low cost!
This would never, ever scale beyond me doing it. The moment I had to employ a person, pay rent on a space, or start offering warranties and free returns and so on, that profit margin would vanish. That's why it's a hobby, not a full-time job. I do it on nights, weekends, and in between working my day job (e. g. I'll have a Windows install going in the background while I code).
But it's fun, it's valuable, I've learned a lot about running a business, and it's paid my car payment a few times. It's also nice to have a 'job' that is very different from my day job: much more hands on, not as much complex thinking required, and more immediately rewarding. (At least for me. I just love when a broken thing starts to work again.) The hardest part is the customers, especially when things don't go well (e. g. are my fault) or they are in a bad mood.
I think more people should do things like this. It doesn't have to be the thing that gives you the money you live on to be valuable.
Most of my machines come with at least some defects. Some are ready to go in a few minutes, some take several hours or days. I mainly do it because I enjoy it. I try to not lose money on parts or other inputs, besides my time.
I'm interested how others think about this boundary, at what point does something go from “side project” to “business”? And how do you tell if it’s worth trying to scale vs just leaving as is?
“ This 3D printing business started with the help of my dog, at the time a puppy, and his desire to see my neighbor’s puppy. We (the humans) began talking, and as we ran through a conversation about dogs, the topic came to his trading card business. He’d source cards all over the internet for his daily WhatNot auctions with thousands of followers. Impressive—not only a home business doing real volume, but a lens into a world I had no idea existed.
I eventually noticed he had a 3D printed card stand, and with a printer at home, I offered to make him one myself. “Great,” he said, “I can sell them.””
So a guy selling playing cards started selling the things you 3D printed?
Is that the business?
I'd argue that's a "business", there were sales, supplies, a bottom line, et cetera, it's just the front-end part of the business was in collaboration with someone else.
It was pretty random, but there's all sorts of other 3D printing businesses like this for D&D supplies, tool attachments, et cetera.
I'm still 3D printing, but now focused on problems like dog and kids toys where I can give away the results.
Because you need your business to be big enough to pay your bills, not just theoretically net positive.
I have made some designs that I thought of selling too. For something like that to work, you need thousands of customers over the time.
It's ok to spend an year or two of weekends working into something that can replace some of your main income. It's really not ok to do that for something that can't.
I see that as a bit of a trap, because people pass on what (to me) seems to be fulfilling work that could support a modest lifestyle and make big-growth choices that either crash them out or saddle their business with debt its market can't sustain.
> suppose you've grown big enough to pay the bills. Does the business still need to scale?
No, that's the acceptable size.
Anything gated by the founder's personal availability is what the VCs used to call (dismissively) a lifestyle business.
When you get serious about making a substantial profit.
> And how do you tell if it’s worth trying to scale vs just leaving as is?
If you can make more money flipping burgers at McDonald's than the business, I'd try something else.
If you can make the same or slightly less money way more leisurly and with way less demands on you than working a McDonalds, it's still a fine lifestyle for many.
Thing is as many pointed out it's either to expensive compared to molding, simply the wrong choice of material or to labor intensive to actually turn a profit.
As things advanced, we had people ask for logos, and recreating them is really what took time.
There is still one lever here, and that was to increase the price to make that design time actually worth it. If I had to continue, that's what I would have done, but I was still losing my weekends and my free time was just more valuable.
The one real optimization here, would be a tool that converts a logo into a multi-color print. There are some solutions like HugeForge that use height maps, or hacks you can do with an svg to convert it to an STL (shape) file, but I never found one that works. As with all this generation stuff, the killer is really the details: if things don't look good and you don't have an easy way to edit it, it's never going to work for the customer. Tracing is also just one step in the process, you still have to position it on the card stand and set up the multi-color print. That said, for complex logos, SVG -> STL might make sense.
I'm convinced I could vibe code something over the weekend that takes a logo, maps it to a set of colors using some sort of segmentation, then export that as a series of STL files that can be imported into Bambu Studio (or orca slicer) and then mapped on to a card stand.
If someone is looking for a project, an end to end "make a coffee table coaster from an image" would be a great web tool (or even CLI). Especially if you could enter the number of colors (or colors you have), modify the generated traces, and and export as a single 3MF file you can import into your slicer. That's complicated, but probably do-able in a few days.
It all looks ... well, it all looks sort of cheap. Unless you're printing at incredibly high quality, you can always tell that it was 3D printed, and half the people selling things don't even bother to do much clean up of the print after the fact - a little sanding would go a long way, but they don't bother.
It ends up just being cheap plastic trinkets that I wouldn't buy even if I didn't have a 3D printer of my own.
Just something to watch out for, should anyone here be inspired; you might think your print looks good, but you need to run it by someone who's willing to tell you to your face that it looks crap.
For most 3D printing, there are a couple ways around this: sanding + painting like you mentioned, then also sanding + casting into resin or metal. For a topomap project, I experimented with acetone smoothing, but ultimately used "adaptive" layer lines that made the layers hard to see. Another "print only" option is fuzzy skin, which does a lot to obscure the shiny plastic trinket look. All of these options take extra work, though.
With the card stands, the plastic aesthetic was less of a concern, since it was a vehicle for a vendor to get their logo in every picture/video of trading cards they took for cliens. The two things that helped me make the stands feel less cheap where using plastic with a matte finish (less "shiny plastic"), and adding 2oz worth of weights, so at least when you picked up the card stand it felt heavy.
Where I lean in with my printing now is to focus on things that are so personalized that folks get over the plastic (topography maps from home areas, card stands with their name/logo), and then audiences that don't care: children and pets.
Anyway, these posts always make me think of this https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/142eg6r/...
If there's already income paying the pesky mortgage, you start up an official business as a side hustle. As long as you are showing income even if at a loss, you then get to use that loss as a deduction. If it never pans out to be profitable to the point the tax man strongly suggests the business should close, you close it. In the mean time, you've followed a passion, that even as a loss, still gives financial benefit helping with the pesky mortgage.
It is called the Shoemakers paradox, where the shoemakers kids go barefoot.
Also, the same reason why CNC Milling factories don't tend to produce paperclips. =3
Rule #23: Don't compete to be at the bottom, as you just might actually win.
There are many people that can afford a <$400 printer, yet at that price range it might be totally inadequate for what is actually needed. Some people are willing to not spend that money for a one/two off project in that manner, but would rather spend that money with someone that already has the right gear and experience using that gear to just produce the thing needed.
3D printing is also fundamentally a small-run slow process, and can't match injection molded versions outputting 30000 pcs/month.
Market fragmentation means low-margin business plans won't survive very long. ymmv =3
Correction, it was only a $389.00 USD option before coupon code "$10OFF"
People grumble about planned obsolescence but the reality is that there are people who will repair them, if you are willing to pay. But when repairs cost a significant chunk of the price of a new appliance, most people opt to replace.
I see some light from a door down a narrow alley from the main shopping street, I knew this building was empty for a decade and the store front was still covered in wood planks. Curious I walk into the alley to check out what was going on.
I see a guy jumping around as if dancing with the largest bouquet of flowers I have ever seen. Around him 5-7 similar giant vases with layered compositions. Each with enormous exotic flowers in the center.
Woah, what is that? I asked. He looked up and said loudly this is me!
I said it looked stunning and asked how long he was doing this. He said, I will only do this for 2 weeks and ill be happy when it is over! I asked, is there no money in it?
He said, I charge an ungodly amount of money for these. You cant buy anything like it anywhere.
Then why only 2 weeks? I'm not going to trap myself! 2 weeks, a vacation, then ill do something else entirely.
While talking his hands moved at lightning speed adding and removing different flowers.
He ended the conversation with: I have to get these finished then I have to deliver them as fast as possible as fresh as possible. I didn't sleep for days! Cant wait for it to be over!
My slacker life style allowed me to think about this strange encounter for a few days. I decided he was still doing it wrong but it looked absolutely beautiful. I'm happy he doesn't get it.
If you have any interest in doing custom B2C instead of B2B, there's Somerville Open Studios. I did that one year (2019) before we moved to Vermont just before things went to shit in 2020. I also noted that Somerville Open Container Day (aka Porchfest) would be a great time to have something going (a demo maybe?) at our house given the huge foot traffic. I think you'd get a lot more folks passing by rather than the folks already committed to visiting art and craft studios specifically.
Don't let your likely lousy space be a barrier. We had my furniture on display in our living room (aka: our furniture) and I gave people tours of our basement which had my bench, my table saw, and damn little else. People kind of dig it. Small and scrappy is kind of expected for these kind of events.
Good luck if you try to give a go at it from another angle! And if you stick with software, that's cool too.
I thought Youtube was going to be sued into oblivion.
I thought Uber was going to be regulated into oblivion.
etc.
Money obviously can overcome existing laws, but if you're not prepared for those laws, you will be in for a world of hurt.
Any less money or worse lawyers, and youtube would have been sued into oblivion.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/mar/14/copyright...
> Uber is regulated because they got big enough to notice.
Nobody in their right mind thinks that Uber suffers under the same level of restriction as taxi drivers historically did.
> because they got big enough to notice.
Nobody who paid attention to the shameful RIAA shenanigans a couple of decades ago can possibly believe that "big enough to notice" was anything more than sharing one song.
Sure, you can share with your friends all you want now, because all the songs are freely available due to an uneasy truce, but the default posture of IP lawyers is to sue them all now, and sort them out later.
Filament printing, on the other hand, makes sense to do yourself quite often. A $200 printer will do an excellent job of most things you can throw at it, it doesn’t take up much space, is quite safe unless you’re using weird filaments, and even a kid can learn the basics in a couple days.
The current meta is to license (or steal) 3D toy models and then market them relentlessly on social media. It's a marketing and social media game most of all. These shops have tens of printers set up in a room printing plates full of little toys, a web shop or social media shop to pick colors, and then they spend their days monitoring printers and packing up orders. There's not much 3D printing or design fun in the job because it's mostly a social media and logistics operation.
I have just about no interest in pumping out flexi-dragons, although I do have a tupperware container full of them to give to house guests and family.
The 3D printing businesses I admire are all folks who are incredibly good designers making fun and unique products that they sell it before it's ripped off. That, plus some social media content to drive organic content can work, but it would take me years of design work to get there.
The card stands were a lot of fun, but most of what I print now are dog toys and gifts for my niece and nephew. It's nice to roll up to a family holiday, and have something interesting and unique you can just hand out.
You could get started doing that for just a couple hundred bucks and some desk space!
I would argue that they didn't. 25$ per hour for custom design work seems very low, I understand maybe trying to get a customer base but at that rate you are just going to get repeat customers who want the same low cost labor. Where 3d printing is great is if you can create truly custom things, not knick knacks that can be copied and mass produced by someone else. Selling the plastic itself is a no go, you have to go mixed materials, mixed colorways, things that take time to assemble, and then charge out the wazoo for custom work because the people that really want the custom stuff, will find a way to pay for it.
In terms of plastic, yes, it does come across as lower value, but if you can put someones logo on it you can make something unique that they love.
I had the impression that they're busy full-time but I have no idea really. They have some nice designs though.
I'm surprised they're completely focused on DnD though. Hopefully they have another business doing war hammer, etc. (although maybe everything in war hammer is copyrighted?)
Examples of what they pull when someone tries to do that:
https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2024/01/24/printed-minis-and...
https://freelancerpress.com/arts/2025/06/04/games-workshop-i...
They could have 20 sites all dedicated to a single theme. Probably best for SEO and customer satisfaction if your site is dedicated rather than a hodge podge of different themes.
Oh no!
I get it, you already had a job. And this sounds like a job with a fragile profit margin, so not as good as your main job. But still, discovering a way to trade your work for money is a good thing.
Two different angles on the problem, but both are using YT for at least some of their distribution problem. I'm not a big fan of 20 printers + flex-dragons sold on social media, since it feels like a low-skill hustle, but adding content creation seems like it could work. Thanks for pointing that out!
But then again some people can't reason their way out of a paper bag. Like people who struggle to put together a computer...yes, the green colored square shaped plug goes in the green coloured square shaped socket! Wow.
The "trick" was finding a weight that would work, which needed to be purchased for cheap and installed easily.
"All of this happened over text—not an organized workflow system, but good enough to handle a weekend’s worth of work, one weekend at a time. For a moment, the business worked. In reality, this was the easy part."
And
"The logo was the Boston Celtics logo. The problem? It’s not a minimal, modern logo; it’s a detailed, hand-drawn image from 1946."
have a pretty AI like cadence.
edit: No shade to OP....I'm glad it's not AI, but I'm sad my default is assuming AI now :/
I saw it too and OP has likely picked up these idioms from the sheer amount of AI-assisted or generated writing out there.
I think that's a convenient post hoc justification. I could as easily say the LLM wrote it that way because that's how people actually write.
I even have a plug-in that converts some hyphens to em dashes on my blog.
Rendering judgment on someone who published something on their own site without knowing their stack reflects more on you than him.
I am merely stating how people now view em-dashes, not how I wish things were.
Sorry, you're just plain wrong.
I used to most-often write the em-dash as two juxtaposed dashes, which was kind of half-assed.
But now, I've repurposed the otherwise-disused right-hand Windows key to be Compose. So I thus get go full-assed with them — at least at home.
Thanks!
Are they? Do I know what “““people””” are doing?
But I thought they couldn’t write it to begin with? So what is there to abandon?
> And despite there being no em-dash key on a keyboard, the appearance of em-dashes in text created by members of the non-HN universe is definitely not cause for suspicion? Why would I be sarcastic /sarc
Were you dizzy when you wrote this?
Where are you right now? You are on HN. There is a whole em-dash meme on this board, HN, about how these trivial to produce symbols—for people who do way more complicated things with computers—are LLM tells.
You thought I wouldn’t have a reply to that?
What place are you posting on? The place where people make their own operating systems, solder their own electronics, make up their own fantasy realms (world building), make their own markup languages for their own static blogs, make up their own programming languages to solve Advent of Code... but having a disproportinate amount of people who use the Compose key (Linux), have programmable keyboards, configure their keyboard in software, maybe use a plugin to write HN comments in a text editor where they can get certain symbols via `--` or whatever—woah, that’s just an impossibility in your mind.
> This is the home of the writing luminaries that can’t imagine outputting em-dashes by hand.
↑ That thing right there.
HN users are much more technical than most people.
Your bot detector is broken.