Maker Block | MakerBlock

Advice for MakerBot based businesses

I am also attempting to start up a small business with the focus on providing low cost, custom parts. I have one customer now but have struggled trying to “reach the masses”. Any thoughts?

Hi Pete!

Well, you asked for it!

First and foremost, absolutely, positively, get a copy of Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check. At $20, it is the best investments you’re going to make in your business, hands down. This book distills his advice from his several other books and insanely fantastic blog posts on starting a business, business development, etc. He gives simple actual concrete advice on how to take yourself from someone with an idea to a person who has their own business. I own two of his books and follow his blog and the ideas and suggestions in his book have been invaluable to me as a small businessperson and entrepreneur. You’re going to read and re-read this book, refer back to it, pour over it’s index, write in the margins, and dogear pages. It’s that good.
Invest in your own domain name, installation of WordPress, and a new theme. It’s cheap and seems more professional. There are hundreds and thousands of free themes. Once you get people to your website, you want them to stick around.
Tell people about yourself! Blog, tweet, and other stuff! Talk about the things about your MakerBot you’re enthusiastic about. Your enthusiasm will show through. Don’t just re-post or post a link to someone else’s information. Blogs are so much more than that. Put your own spin on it. They’re additive forms of communication, people keep building on things others have said or done and contribute to the conversation. You’ve posted a link because you find it interesting – tell us why.
Every week more and more people are searching for information about MakerBots and RepRap. What is a MakerBot’s print resolution? How hard is it to put a MakerBot together? What do I need to build a RepRap? Answer the questions your potential customers have and they will come to you.
One of Kawaskai’s best bits of advice is, “Let a thousand flowers bloom.” Basically, try anything, try everything, see what works, what doesn’t, learn and improve. I’ve done some prototyping for people with my MakerBot and am now running a pseudo-auction for a 3x2x1 Rubik’s Cube. I didn’t plan on selling this prototype – but it occurred to me that it was a fairly popular thing on Thingiverse, I won’t have need of this as I work on better designs, perhaps someone would like to own it? Try out some new ideas. You could focus on printing small-run custom parts – but what if there’s a better use or market for your MakerBot? Perhaps you might find it more lucrative to print Mendel or Mini-Mendel parts. Keep your eyes and ears open for new possibilities and new ideas and new markets.
Use your existing customer. Ask your current customer what they want, how they use things, how you can help them more, what other ideas they have.
I recently posted the results from my MakerBot poll. There’s a lot of good information in there about what people like about MakerBots and why they’re interested. This would be a good resource if you wanted to create a business geared towards these people or just write more content you think they would enjoy.

Designing with a MakerBot

After playing with this puzzle for a few days I’m really happy with how it turned out and I think the above improvements will make the next version a little bit better. This reminds me of Forrest Higgs’ recent commentary on engineering with a RepRap in the design cycle. It’s so easy to test out a new design that I don’t hesitate to whip something up, print it off, SEE and FEEL how it works and any unintended nuances of that design, and then redesign with these revelations in mind.

On Open Data

I saw this video the other day (I think as a result of someone’s Tweet?) and just around to watching it now. The things people built using data that had been opened up from the government was pretty incredible.

Interestingly, I have a totally different website that operates by only using data that is already freely available from the government. If I had more data from the government, my site would be even more useful to my demographic.1

All of this, the video, my own website, got me thinking – if the data from the government can be released as “open data” – in what ways is our government already open source? We know the laws that supposedly govern us and our administrators… I suppose, open source is the ideal upon which our government was founded in the first place.

Video from Streetfilms covered by PlanetGreen/Discovery.com Tweeted by PlanetGreen RT’d by clothbot.

There’s a MUCH longer story in there that’s not very interesting. [↩]

Thingiverse based business?

I just had an idea for a mini-business!

I think there are enough interesting things on Thingiverse that a MakerBot/RepRap operator could make a little bit of money printing some Thingiverse models for a fee.

Yes, I will fix your computer

I have a rule for all of my friends. I will fix their computers for free, twice. :)

It’s a good rule and it has helped my friends and myself on many an occasion. Contrary to the impressions of those unfamiliar with the inner workings of their own computers, diagnosing and fixing a computer problem is not a matter of innate knowledge. It’s basically 50% making common sense interpretations of errors and common sense changes to settings and 50% Googling for the answer.

Given fixing computers can be tremendously time consuming, WHY would I spend my free time fixing them for free? Simple. My rule is, I’ll fix your computer twice. First time, you give me your broke down computer and I get the OS working, repair whatever it is, and give it back to you good as new(ish) and if there’s a problem with it again, you give it to me to fix again. Second time, you give me your broke down computer and I get the OS working, repair whatever it is, and I keep it.

Oh, and if you want to know why you should never help someone with their computer problems unless it is really dire, check out this Dilbert comic.

Do you want one of these?

This 3x2x1 Rubik's Cube could be yours!!!

I’ve printed up this 3x2x1 Rubik’s puzzle cube, but I’m looking to improve it. The colored sides consist of little bits of nearly-square paper I colored with crayons and glued onto the cube surfaces. If you wanted to improve it you could just peel them off, sand them down a little, and apply better looking stickers. It’s not without it’s flaws, but it is functional. 1

I’d like to try a little experiment and see if anyone wants to buy this prototype off me. I don’t want to spend the time to set up an Etsy account, eBay auction, or any other of the variants out there. So, is anyone interested in buying this first draft?

If you’re interested, please leave a “bid” in the comments. I’ll ship anywhere in the U.S. for $2.00. Highest bidder at the end of seven days from now will be the proud owner of this one-of-a-kind item.

Edit: Payment via PayPal, please!

Update: 8/4/2010 a top bid of $10!

It is a first draft/prototype after all. [↩]

Revising the 3x2x1 Rubik’s “Cube”

I finally found the time to print a copy of my 3x2x1 Rubik’s Cube. Having printed it, I’d make a number of improvements in the next design iteration. I would:

Make the circular slots in the center cubes smaller or the circular tabs in the four outside cubes larger.
Enlargen the holes for the nut and bolt.
Make these cubes solid so that they slide against each other easier.1
Consider replacing the entire nut/bolt requirement with a connection similar to the becco block connectors. This would make for a totally printable solution.
Print the cubes two at a time to minimize warping without a heated build platform.

It slides reasonably well and is certainly functional. However, after several center cube rotations I will tighten the center bolt.2

The four cube sections at the extremities are hollow. [↩]
The hole for the nut is tight enough that it doesn’t rotate as I turn the bolt. [↩]

MakerBot Toy Repair

Magnetic Sketcher

I had previously fixed a toy fire truck by modeling a broken swivel and printing a new one.

Today I discovered a handle had broken off a magnetic drawing toy. The yellow handle is hollow and separate from the red plastic body. It is held in place by plastic tabs that slot into body and protrude into the handle. The plastic tabs that held the handle in place were themselves hollow – and cracked right where the handle met the body.

I measured the broken part, modeled it in Sketchup, duplicated it, exported to an STL, put through the brand new RepG, printed, opened the toy, inserted the printed parts, put it back together, and DONE. Since the printed tabs are on the inside, it is functionally perfect and cosmetically indistinguishable with an off-the-shelf model.

Without a MakerBot, it would have been either cosmetically unsightly or prohibitively expensive to repair. Win.

Long week

It’s been a long week and I’ve been very very glad of this weekend. Unfortunately, a big fat chunk of this Saturday was also devoted to work-like stuff. I didn’t get a chance to design or print much this month.

Once I get some time, I’d really like to get a MakerBot heated build platform. The only problem is they’ve been out of their SMT kit for a while now. And, without the SMT kit, I can’t assemble the HBP kit, so I won’t need the new relay kit.

Author: Maker Block