I too am starting a 3D printing company. I turned 18 back in July and in August we went corporate. Now I’ve got a lot of experience with philanthropy from the past, since 2008 my charity raised over 30 000$ for my local hospitals paediatric and paediatric oncology wards to help purchase the kids toys. I also received the eastern Canada Youth in Philanthropy award as well as an honorable citizen award given to my by my towns mayor that same year. I have to be honest, I started with very little funding. In fact, my first 300$ into a prusa I3 clone was pretty well the only investment, aside from maybe a couple hundred bucks in filament I put in myself. Other than that, I have been building the business off of its own revenues. Mind you, I put a ton of effort in and never take any funds our for personal use. We’re sitting strong now at 5 printers and expanding, I’ve got my own custom printer design just about complete, and a complete automation system in the final design stages that we will be building so it’s quite exciting. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you set your mind to it and put all the effort you can into it you can accomplish it even without any mass amount of funding. Mind you, don’t be expecting to make any money from it right away, but that should be the case with any business startup.
Apologies for the lack of organization on that one, I had tabbing and paragraphs but they always seem to disappear when you send a message on mobile. Just to add in case anyone is curious, I’m a freshmen at the University of Windsor, cuffently studying Computer science at the time of this post, but I’m switching into Mechanical engineering hopefully as of second semester!
This really is inspirational. I hope to get started quick, because of the opportunity in the medical field. I do have a lot of help because of the program I’m in, but it’s an expensive path.
It’s true, but I started with just a 300$ machine. Sure it was more work than buying say an ultimaker, but I didn’t have a couple grand to throw away. It printed the same quality if you put the effort into calibrating and making sure it’s running properly. I guess my point is you don’t need all the bells and whistles to get started. Your setup in the beginning may not be perfect, but that always leaves you something to strive for!
Right. I do have fall back plans as the program does provide a $500 “loan.” The more expensive path was suggested heavily by my mentor. Do you have any cheap printers I can get for around $500?
Honestly this is the part where your own research will bed fit your needs. I’d suggest looking through the 3D hubs printer guide and seeing what is available for that price, honestly it’s most likely going to be a self assembly kit which is good as it will teach you a lot about how printers work and how to maintain them. Once you have one or a few you have in mind, Google it or search on YouTube for some honest reviews about that printer. Once it’s all said and done you should have what will hopefully be the best printer for your exact current needs. Hope this helps! Also I don’t have a link to the printer guide, but I’m sure someone on here could be kind enough to post it
