What kind of materials can Shapeways use for its 3D printing?
The main materials are plastics, stainless steel, silver, ceramics, and glass, with different finishes for each. The maximum size depends on the material—the biggest is the size of a chair, in plastic. Silver is probably the smallest, but that’s also affected by price. Shapeways creates 30,000 unique products per month.
How far can it go?
I think this is just the beginning. Since Shapeways started its service we’ve seen steady growth, and the growth is accelerating. If you want to see where we’re going, you have to step back and see why the service is so compelling. People don’t like mass-produced stuff, because it relies on finding a common taste, and people don’t have common tastes. 3D printing moves us past that. People can customize what they want. If you look at the behavior of people, they like unique objects—it’s true about gifts, jewelry, accessories, even hobbies, although it’s probably less true about more utilitarian items. If you look at the 30,000 per month figure and then consider that people will want to create unique items for up to 10% of what they consume, that figure could go up to millions of products a month.
When we started we had only one material that people could choose from, a rather unattractive plastic. After just three years, we have 20 different types and finishes. The printing companies ask us what materials we’re interested in, so we see an acceleration of the technology based on what people want. We’re going to get much more exciting materials—beautiful plastics, metals, and glass. It becomes really interesting if you start mixing materials, because most products are a mix of materials. Can you imagine when we can mix materials and print electronics? We can print a laptop! People are discovering that this could be a multi-billion dollar market, and we’re just getting started.
How did you get into the business of letting consumers do their own manufacturing?
When I started to look into this in 2007, 3D printers had already been around for 18 years. They were used beginning in 1989, mostly for prototyping products. I thought we could optimize these machines to bring down prices so that everyone could afford to use them. The technology was there; we just found a way to make it affordable.
The other aspect of course is making it easy to use. We made some huge leaps. For instance, if you upload your design, we have software that helps you get your item printed correctly. If you don’t have programming experience, we have software that can help you create a product. One early object was our Lightpoem, a decorative candleholder made out of text customers select that can be printed for as little as $49. So you can type a poem and make it into a candleholder. When I first tried to explain the technology to my mother, she said it was too complicated, but then I asked her to choose a poem, and when it came out as an object she was amazed. You can customize your own cufflinks, rings, earrings, etc. There’s a huge market of people who just want to customize and personalize products.
So your primary customers don't necessarily know how to use 3D design software?
When we started, it was mainly 3D software users. But in 2008 we developed product configurators that allowed people to customize existing designs, and that brought in the non-designers. Then in January 2009 we launched our shop concept. The shops are the platform where people can sell their products, which is how we bring the more advanced designers into contact with the market. Now it’s divided about 50/50 between sophisticated designers and what you might call hobbyists without software skills. What’s interesting is that the introduction of free 3D software packages like Google SketchUp and Autodesk 123D has increased the number of people who can use 3D software. There were one million in 2007; now we estimate there are around five million.
In the beginning, did you envision Shapeways more as a place where people could invent things for their own use, or as a place where people could market new products?
Neither and both. I envisioned Shapeways as a place where everybody could make whatever they wanted, and do what they wanted with it. Maybe you are smart enough to use 3D software, or you use the configurator, or you work with designers—we envisioned all those scenarios. There may even be more scenarios that we didn’t think of. What I want is for people to get meaningful products that they really care about, whether they make it for themselves or for other people. Sometimes I’ll need a designer to get what I want. Other times I’ll do it myself, and if I can’t use 3D modeling software, I find someone who does. We are often more talented than we think—it’s just a matter of finding the tools to get it out of us.
Do you work with other companies for production, or do you do the printing in-house?
We work with partners and we do some in-house. We need to understand the technology well because we want to keep learning what we can and can’t make for our users. Our partners allow us to scale much faster and they’re developing the technology. They like working with us because they have access to our market, and it’s getting pretty big. It does make sense to do some of the production ourselves; we don’t make the machines, but we do run them. We use two types of American printers, Stratesis and 3D Systems, and we work with EOS of Germany and Objet of Isreal. Those are high-end machines. Now we’re seeing new consumer machines like MakerBot, Ultimaker, and Fab@Home that let people print right at home.
Shapeways is part of a larger movement of technology-driven DIY culture. Beyond manufacturing, what’s next?
What’s happening with the democratization of production is game changing. With this at your fingertips, the world is a different place. Having access to this kind of technology will change the way products are consumed and developed. Think of the fact that you can mix materials on an almost molecular level. Next, you’ll be able to create new materials that we’ve never had before. You can mix strong and soft materials. You can engineer how a product will break if you put too much stress on it. Mix electronics into it, and we’ll see things you can’t even imagine now. Look at the Shapeways products in my office—you could make them all in traditional ways. But the next level will be things that are exclusively producible through new technology. With 3D printing you can get feedback and improve design after producing just one object. Your minimum run is one. So products can evolve much quicker. Mix this with the opening up of design—what open-source did for software, 3D printing can do for product design. I don’t know what we’re going to create, but it will be amazing.
How is this changing the larger design industry?
Designers used to have a hard time selling their designs and products. They have to establish a credit line, find a manufacturer and a marketer, and usually end up licensing to a big company, receiving a tiny amount of money from them for what they’d designed. Or they were already working for a big company. Now they can go to Shapeways and do it all themselves. Over 3,000 designers have opened a shop at Shapeways and are making money. So it’s not only that everybody can be a designer, it’s that designers can be more successful.
What’s the most complex object you’ve printed?
The Animaris Geneticus Parvus has 70 moving parts. It’s printed in one single process, not in multiple processes with the assembly of moving parts. With 3D printing, you can make mechanically articulated moving parts. Of course, I didn’t think of this when we started Shapeways. This is already ten times better than our first objects. That’s what happens when you open up tech to everyone.
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