Key talking points

• 3D printing industry overview• Technical specifications• Market structure• Business models• Opportunities• Trends

TechHub Meetup InsightsHow it all started

• The story with 3D printing started in ‘79, and for the general public in ‘84, when the tech behind 3d printing was developed, at first being called stereolithography.

• The founder of 3D Systems Corp., the biggest player in the market, got this field recognition from the inventors’ community: Chuck Hull was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame earlier this year.

• Until recently, 3D Systems had all the patents for 3D printing and exclusivity on their printers

• A few years back, the boom in 3D printing happened because these patents expired (circa 2007-2008), so plenty of startups got into this field.

• 3D printing is still an infant industry, but this year had been revolutionary! There are already patterns evolving in the industry and 250 3D printing producers have appeared in just 4 years.

• In 2014 two other patents expired. One is for auto polymers and there are already 20 producers for that technology. The patent for metal 3D printing also expired and in 6 months we’ll probably have 5 really low cost metal 3d printers

• Imagine that we’ll be able to do prototypes of airplane parts and other ambitious projects such as that.

TechHub Meetup InsightsPricing in 3D printing

• It’s difficult to tell what low cost means in 3D printing, because you need to assess the price/quality ratio.

• It’s difficult to define low cost in this emergent industry and it’s difficult to validate it, because you can’t compare too many products.

• This is an industry in which you have to experiement, to take chances, to be curious.

• It’s difficult to decide who is right and who is wrong, because there are no benchmarks yet.

• In Romania, for example, there are a lot of people who build or buy 3D printers for fun, but there are just a few people who dare try to build a business in this field.

• There are 5-6 labs in Romania that actually use 3D printing to somehow build a business, but there’s plenty of equipment sitting in labs, unsued.

TechHub Meetup InsightsFields that 3D printing will have the biggest impact on

• There are printers used in nuclear research which print atom by atom.• Thare are bioprinters that will be able to print organs and body parts

from a person’s cells in the future.• The debate will get more intense between clasic manufacturing

versus rapid manufacturing/prototyping. This year, a 3D printing company managed to outrun the ultra-efective Chinese injection moldin process by 3 seconds in producind a type of lens.

• In the next 5 years it might be possible that 3D printing will get into factories.

• Better planning will reduce the cost for 3D printing.• There are satellites in space which have been 3D printed• Sugar 3D printers, wax 3D printers, chocolate 3D printers, pasta 3D

printers – they all exist and these are just for fun. But food 3D printing can have a massive impact on the world, if businessmen understand its potential and get involved.

TechHub Meetup InsightsSoftware & customers

• There will be interesting progress in this field as well. • For example, Autodesk is trying to build an ecosystem for 3D printing • They are trying to integrate software, so they can make it as easy as

possible for anyone to download or create models that they can later print.

• They started working with 3D printing companies to see what they need. • Autodesk also integrated a checking software that verifies the product

before printing. • As fir applications, 3D printed objects can be integrated in many ways. • For example, you can use 3D printed objects to integrate things such as

tiny solar panels and also use them in a functional manner. • You can design specific bits that you need and can’t fiind elsewhere, thus

putiing creativity to work. • • Our guest’s main clients are engineers, architects, and advertising

agencies, which are early adopters of this technology and have the financial means to test its potential.

TechHub Meetup InsightsBuilding a startup in 3D printing

Starting a 3D printing business is a bold move, and required a thrist for knwledge. You can access EU funds, invest your own money or look for investment, but you need to know what you’re going to do exactly, which if very difficult in the beginning. You need to think like a kid and experiment, be curious. In the first 6 months, budget salaries and the costs of the technology, because you won’t get any revenue. Also keep in mind that, according to Google, there’s a lot of competition, but when you got to the market and see who uses the technology, you realize that there are very few people who actually do use it for a business purpose or at all.There is a learning curve involved and you must be aware of that.

On digital rights management (DRM): 3D printing will innovate in the legal field as well, because it’s a completely different ecosystem that will bring up unique issues.

TechHub Meetup InsightsOpportunitites in 3D printing

• One thing to keep in mind: people are more important than tech! • There’s a huge amount of opportunitites n this field, but you won’t be able to

turn a profit over night. • You need a lot of passion to keep you motivated, to keep you going. • Be very flexible – this is an opportunity to test your flexibility (every day

you’ll get a new idea and you’ll see different successes in different areas). • Be prepared to be able to filter what’s good and what’s bad for your business

from all the new things that arise. • The good part is that you can be in 3D printing no matter what your passion

is. • 3D printing as a field will grow a lot and in Romania it will most likely work in

the industrial field. • Prices for 3D printers did not go down as expected though. Some printers,

the quality ones, will get more expensive, because of the innovation they bring.

• The consumer market is a jungle and it’s going to be a while until things start settling down. One thing is sure though: affordable printers will invade the market.

TechHub Meetup InsightsPIRX – the low cost 3D printer

Kaja Szymanska, COO PIRXPIRX, a Polish startup, is building one of the cheapest 3D printers on the market, priced like a middle range laptop . Their goal is to put a 3d printer in every house! An investors’ perspectiveInvestors are interested in 3D printing, but don’t understand the field and its possibilities. They don’t know how can people can use the technology and they don’t trust the idea as quickly as startups would want them to. Everyone’s learning in their own pace and as business models start to become more reliable, investors will also start paying more attention to 3D printing startups. Tech challenges PIRX’s current challeng eis multicolor printing. They are working on this feature and hope that the next version of their printer will have this feature included.

TechHub Meetup InsightsPIRX – the low cost 3D printer

Potential business models in 3D printing: - Building printers- Prototyping- Modelling and design. The possibilities brought on by 3D printing are empowering small businesses to do things that they usually externalize, thus reducing costs and helping them be more creative & dynamic.The PIRX team tries to experiment a lot and put their ideas into action. Biggest impact:3D printing is yet to make it biggest impact, but medicine seems like the most likely field for this to happen. Also, future generations will influence the most the way this technology is used.

TechHub Meetup InsightsPIRX – the low cost 3D printer

Because we wanted to find aut more about what it takes to build a low cost printer, here’s some more info we got from PIRX’s COO, Kaja Szymanska:

What is Pirx doing to decrease the cost of building a 3D printer and how do you manage to build up to such an affordable price?

The printer is optimized in terms of price-to-quality ratio. Cutting the cost we did not pay much attention to the design, but focused solely on the quality and affordability of the device.

What type of skills do you need in order to start building a business in the world of 3D printing?

Apart from the usual set of skills you need to launch any other kind of business, you need to be a bit of a geek, a bit of a visionary and have a lot of charisma. Why is that? Because unlike notebooks or smartphones, 3D printing is a totally new concept to most people. So although many of them have already heard something about it, the vast majority of your customers to be have no idea whatsoever how they can use this technology in their own lives or businesses. Therefore, in order to succeed, you need to educate your customers, or to put it differently: you need to bring up the first generation of 3D printers users.

TechHub Meetup InsightsPIRX – the low cost 3D printer

What business models do you believe will be successful in the next few years in the world of 3D printing?

We believe that in the long term there are countless perspectives for 3D printing related to cooperation with other fields, like medicine, dental prosthetics, prototyping for industry and so on. However, these branches require a lot of R&D investments and operations before you are ready to offer your customers a technology advanced enough to meet their needs and expectations.

For now, the most successful business model is the one that connects end users with 3D printers manufacturers, that is distributing printers and printing supplies or organizing paid events like 3D printing workshops for children, schools, universities and the like. Doing the latter thing you also boost people's awareness of this technology and its capabilities and thus raise the number of potential 3D printers users. This is of great importance, if you also intend to make profit distributing the devices or offering 3D printing services to other businesses or individual customers.

TechHub Meetup InsightsResources

Read more about 3D printing here:

• http://www.toptechnews.com/article/index.php?story_id=13000CYQOFIG• http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/10/3d-marketplace-3dlt-talks-about-selling-

the-first-3d-printed-gear-on-amazon/• http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/11/intel-capital-invests-in-two-3d-printing-

marketplaces/

• http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/17/4741264/plastic-piracy-drm-wont-cripple-3d-printing

• https://ro.stiri.yahoo.com/oasele-viitorului-se-produc-la-cluj-directorul-proiectului-184847591.html?cmp=rofb

• http://readwrite.com/2014/02/14/3d-printing-printers-projects-applications-prints#awesm=~oFyPjrfeKydSqj

• http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/29/3d-printing-limbs-cars-selfies

• http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/04/the-father-of-3d-printing-is-being-inducted-into-the-national-inventors-hall-of-fame

TechHub Meetup Insights

A big THANK YOU to our great guests for being so generous in sharing their experience and knowledge!

If you’d like to find aut more about them, see the links below:

Enevo Group (FabCad)

PIRX 3D

PS: The TechHub Bucharest team is happy to have a keepsake as a result of this meetup: an Antichron.

See you at our next event! Bucharest.TechHub.com

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