GeekDad: You’ve raised half a million dollars (or more) for a Kickstarter project — you’ve mentioned elsewhere that you were simply hoping for maybe 50 units to be purchased. How do you feel about 700+ units?
Brook Drumm: Stoked. Absolutely thrilled. The work ahead does give me pause, of course, but I feel ready. People may not know that I have been planning to launch this business for months. From the beginning, I have been fixated on scalability. I am sure there will be lots of surprises and road blocks, but I love the challenge. This is gonna be one wild ride.
GD: Once the printrbots are in the backer’s hands, you’ve basically got an instant-community on your hands — you have a Wiki page, but are there any other ideas or projects in the works you can leverage given the large number of folks who will own printrbots?
BD: We believe that every member of our community can make a difference. Some will be great at teaching – so we are providing a forum to promote those helping others. We will foster a self-supporting community on our website.
Others in our growing community need to be tapped for special projects. We want to provide the plans and files needed to build the various printrbot models in popular file formats, but we need help with the conversion and documentation.
We also will be organizing an effort to use 3D printing to solve real world problems – even third world problems. This won’t be exclusive to printrbot – we invite all 3D printing enthusiasts to get involved. Watch printrbot.com for more info.
GD: Time is short, so what can you tell those folks who want to buy but may not be able to do so at this time? Will the printrbot be able to be purchased again at a later time online or will they only be produced in limited runs?
BD: Yes! Beginning December 18th, you will be able to place a deposit to reserve your place in line to buy one of our printers at printrbot.com. After we deliver every last reward to our faithful Kickstarter backers, we will start shipping product to the public. Plastic will also be available so you can stock up before your printr arrives. We are on a mission to make 3D printers more accessible and affordable. We are just getting started.
GD: You mentioned a goal of getting these into schools — have you given any more thought on how to make that happen? Or how printrbot owners might be able to assist you with that goal?
BD: Schools will get special pricing (TBA), but that isn’t enough. There are unique challenges specific to supporting the needs of educational institutions. We need the help of teachers and organizations that already have lasting relationships with schools. We are open to partnering with companies, organizations and leaders who share our passion for education.
We believe 3D printing is perfect for schools since it involves a variety of disciplines – design, art, math, science, physics, and computers. It can be used to teach about manufacturing, business, teamwork, problem solving, creativity, craftsmanship, even patience. It forces students to think in abstract concepts, but rewards them with physical results in the REAL world.
So how do we get there? Printrbot owners have two jobs – educate and donate.
Take your printrbot to school. Do demos. Answer questions. Loan it out. A big part of the 3D printing movement is education about what 3D printing is, what it can do, and how it can change the world.
The least that any 3D printer owner can do is print a set of parts and give them to an interested teacher. You can gift one of our printrbots, or give them yours and upgrade! Be sure you are giving to someone who is engaged, though. Engagement is key.
GD: As of October 2011, MakerBot Industries has sold just over 6,000 MakerBots since April 2009. You might be approaching 800+ in less than 60 days. What factors do you see, other than a lower cost, as being attractive to your backers?
BD: Simplicity. Expandability. Larger print area. Smaller footprint. Faster build time. There is some sort of happy collision between market demand and the incremental improvements we have come up with that resulted in a sweet spot that got the public’s attention.
One other note – ugly things don’t sell. It’s unfortunate, because there are some amazing repraps out there that look like dangerous science experiments – they perform beautifully but just aren’t pretty. My Prusa Mendel 3D printer – a brilliant simplification of previous, more complex models – instantly overwhelmed my wife when she laid eyes on it for the first time. My friends look at that thing and think, “What in the world is going on there?” I aspired to make the printrbot cute and approachable. Those two qualities are lost on a lot of engineers, but I think it struck a chord with our backers.
GD: In terms of behind-the-scenes development, what parts of the printrbot design/prototyping process have been the most enjoyable? The most difficult?
BD: What did I enjoy most? Simplifying. Minimalism excites me. If you can do something with less parts, you should. Less is (almost) always more. I went through hundreds of prototype parts that took hours to print, then I would take it off the printer and realize I can shave a millimeter. So I would throw it in my recycle box, do a design change and print another one. That process of shaving off the unnecessary parts and pieces is really gratifying. The result is a printrbot that only includes the absolutely necessary.
The most difficult thing for me was balancing the trade-offs between performance, cost, and size. Balancing trade-offs is almost an art form. For instance, to simplify the mechanism that supports the print bed on the printrbot, I had to make the bed longer than the print area and offset the print head. Some would argue I wasted space or materials, but the overall reduction of supporting structure was worth it to me. My goals did not include ultra-fast speed or incredible rigidity. I wanted a simple, small, affordable printer that would sell.
GD: Can you share any details about your online store? Besides an increased printing size, what other upgrades or equipment might you be selling to printrbot owners post-purchase?
BD: We will keep the store simple. We will sell our 3D printers, upgrades, and plastic to feed them. Very little more.
Our goal will be to first answer these questions: Do you want a small printer or a large one? Do you want it made out of plastic, wood, or (eventually) metal? A box, or no?
To be a little more precise, we will provide kits to upgrade the printrbot to a “plus size” (or beyond), kits to move from a plastic printer to laser cut wood or metal construction, enclosure boxes for the printrs, and kits to expand the capabilities of your printrbot by mounting different style heads on the print carriage.
GD: MakerBot owners like to paint their MakerBots and customize them a bit — is there any chance of this with the printrbot?
BD: Yes, the laser cut version lends itself to a splash of color. If you need a bigger canvas, grab one of our enclosure boxes. These boxes are designed with plenty of real estate to customize. BTW – we want EVERYONE to name their printrbot, so name tags are required!
GD: You’re definitely a geek dad, so what would you say to a fellow geek dad who is on the fence about backing your project? What’s the most geeky project you can think of that a geek dad with a Printrbot might be able to undertake?
BD: Without any hesitation whatsoever, the geekiest project is to print and build another printrbot WITH your printrbot. Reprap means “replicating rapid prototyper.” When I explain that to people, their heads explode! It’s a great project to do with kids, too. We will issue 3D printed credit-card-sized cards that proudly read “printrbot nation” for those that can send a picture of their printrbot and its first-born spawn. I love the thought of elite Geek Dads being card-carrying members of the printrbot nation!
GD: You’ve been very good about updating your Kickstarter project with new images, lots of information, and personal feedback to your backers — with production ready to begin, will you have the time to continue to provide the frequent updates and one-on-one communication with your backers? Are you worried that printrbot may be growing too fast, too soon? (A good problem to have, by the way…)
BD: Yes. And yes.
Communication is huge. It is job #2. Shipping product is job #1. I will be enlisting some great help to keep the communication flowing, though. Specifically, building a thorough FAQ and pointing people there. Often. We also will use Twitter and Google+ to give real time responses to great questions and to update people on recent events. We also want to do weekly hangouts and video podcast updates – down and dirty videos, nothing overly produced. Our goal is to give great detail on our website about the progress of individual orders to keep people informed on their shipment… and have fun doing it.
Are we growing fast? Heck, yeah. We crushed any known sales records to date for zero to 800+ sales of DIY 3D printers. For that, we are proud and frankly a bit mystified. That’s a fact and you can’t take that away from us. That just happened. We are loving it.
Is it too fast? Maybe. Promises and intentions are pretty worthless if these beloved backers don’t get their printr in a timely fashion. How we handle this rocket-like kickstart will speak for itself in a few weeks. You won’t have to wait long to get your answer.
GD: In closing, is there anything you’d like to add about either the printrbot or the Kickstarter experience in general?
BD: The single greatest thrill is the people… the blossoming community. I was stressed out the first few days scrambling to answer every email and question. Then a beautiful thing happened – people started talking to each other. There was this subtle mood that “we are in this together – isn’t this exciting?!” They were right, too. I could never do this alone. I have a team of wicked smart people around me, and a growing crowd of people pitching ALL-IN for this brave new world. This, my friend, is the real accomplishment – valuing people and helping them accomplish THEIR goals.
