MakerBot Industries

17 Comments so far

• Tim

  January 22, 2011 at 2:22 am

   

  Hey Bre. Do you think the thin-o-matic will ever be under $1000 so that you can once again say that it’s under $1000?? I know you love to be able to say that in interviews.

  -Tim

   

• Luke

  January 22, 2011 at 3:38 pm

   

  They’ve got the cupcake for a 3D printer that’s under $1k, so he can still say that they have them. Just because their best offering is at a slightly higher price point doesn’t devalue the cupcake.

  In regards to the Thing-O-Matic, is it still a 7-week lead time on them? Cheers!

  Luke

   

• tre3

  January 22, 2011 at 9:10 pm

   

  Luke, the blog post says there’s only 250 more Cupcakes remaining…. Unless this is a Cher concert, I expect “last” to mean “not coming back” :p

   

• MauiMaker

  January 22, 2011 at 10:46 pm

   

  There is something rather ironic about this post for a personal fabricator being out of stock and long delays before more will be available.

   

• coasterman

  January 22, 2011 at 11:15 pm

   

  Does this mean the end of the Cupcakes after the last 250? If so, *cries*

   

• Coolaba

  January 23, 2011 at 12:53 am

   

  Once again, a pitch on the Thing-O-Matic, but don’t plan on getting one in your hands in less than 7 weeks. They took a week off to Vegas to promote even more sales- went on CNN, but actually making and shipping these things is not the priority. Wait- so I just saw “the latest thing” but in no way shape or form can you actually get one in your hands- and even the old version is out of stock?

  Real support answer- so you ordered your T-O-M in December- yeah that won’t ship out at best till MID February. We posted the 7 week lead time on the website-yeah and you charged my credit card too. But we have cupcake ultimates on sale-oh wait we don’t have those either. Facepalm…..

   

• Chooch

  January 23, 2011 at 8:11 am

   

  Everyone relax, Makerbot industries is not perfect. They are still a small start up and definitely not a big manufacturing company. They do what they can and are constantly hiring to help alleviate lead times and try to plan for shortages, but when they run out of something, they don’t currently have the resources to make some of the parts they offer. So, they have to outsource and outsourcing always has issues, because you have to rely on other companies that sometimes don’t care about your deadlines or are too slow to complete orders or doing something wrong and have to start over etc.

  Now, if you want a Cupcake or Thingomatic that bad…It’s open source, build one yourself!

  I think it’s completely possible to build a Cupcake, before spring, yourself. You’ve got ~15 weekends and a few holidays before spring plus time after work or school.

  Cheers,

  Brian

   

• Cupcakeless

  January 23, 2011 at 10:50 am

   

  Just wish they had watch the inventory better…. Because now I can get one for months….

   

• Coolaba

  January 23, 2011 at 11:02 am

   

  Cooch entirely missed the point defending the “Makerbot Team”.

  It’s a matter of responsibility as a business. You don’t go to Vegas to party and try to promote a product you can’t possibly manufacture in the quantities you’re promoting. If your small company is short staffed- you don’t take some of them to VEGAS with you instead of working on production of sold and PAID for machines ($1225 is a decent house payment for most). You also don’t go on CNN and talk about a manufacturing revolution when you can’t ship a product you make in less than a month to a customer. I think everyone understood when the T-O-M first came out they were waiting on custom parts-once we got past that and the backlog- what’s the deal? Either they don’t have some part and it takes 7 weeks to get (cough,BS,cough), or they are short staffed and cannot build kits fast enough. If it’s problem 2, I’d be posting pictures of the whole team building kits and posting how proud they are of how many of the flagship product I shipped. Unfortunately, what we get is Bre’s picture in Vegas, and CNN- and now a message saying they are waiting on cupcake parts too. Now if there’s some great work being done in the background-great-post up a quick message saying we’re working on a new extruder to fix all the DC motor issues (AKA MK6), or we finished the design for the servo drivers-expect to have the boards up in the store in a few weeks, but that’s not what’s happening. I get the impression these guys-and really Bre, have partied like a rock star since Christmas on customer’s money-maybe to finance some research- but with little to no explanation to this point. I mean orders are coming in-they discontinued the Cupcake and sold all the stock they had. At $900 for the Ultimates, and $1225 for the T-O-M (7 weeks of interest), these guys have got to be sitting on some serious cash right now.

  Look at the blog posts since December. Not a single thing about T-O-M (the flagship product, production or even the new research and products- just shot’s from events were Bre and team are promoting sales or going to conventions and parties. I see why they have an open position for marketing because they really need more advertising.

  And you missed the point- if they can’t get the parts(which is what they claim takes 7 weeks or is now the delay on the last 250 cupcakes) how are you supposed to build one?

   

• Coolaba

  January 23, 2011 at 2:11 pm

   

  And sorry to Chooch- I can’t type. The rant was directed at Bre, mostly since he is the Face of the company. I’m sure he’s got good reason to be promoting sales-just lack of updates lately on T-O-M issues (production, motor problems, electronics)leaves both current and new customers hanging. Then add to that they are stopping the Cupcake-fine- can you get a T-O-M in a reasonable timeframe or is it delayed too because of the issues? Silence is not good.

   

• MauiMaker

  January 23, 2011 at 3:52 pm

   

  Makerbot Industries seems to be facing the problems of many successful small businesses – too much success. Their products fit a niche market that is set to expand. The trick is to expand the production side of business while keeping the marketing up. Great engineering companies fail to do the latter and then fail due to lack of new business. On the other hand, too much marketing hype can kill a business if it cant deliver. Other companies are starting to notice MI success and targeting the upper ends of the market (more $, less tweaking needed). I certainly wish the MI team well. Its hard to run a small business.

   

• Coolaba

  January 23, 2011 at 8:51 pm

   

  And I wish them well also. I started a computer business upon leaving the military on my last $2000, so I know what startups are all about. That business has been going since 2003 and opened several locations.

  To date my total spending Makerbot since October 2010 is $4,769, so I’m not just some guy who bought one cupcake basic and is complaining. I’m pretty sure they actually went to Vegas on some of my money.

   

• Chooch

  January 24, 2011 at 1:36 pm

   

  Hi Coolaba, no offense taken. I’m a former Marine and that being said I have the drive to accomplish any task presented to me and have that SITFU mentality sometimes.

  I just got to thinking, if you have money to throw around…Maybe, I can help you. I have plenty of design/R&D experience.

  What do you need from MBI, A Thingomatic a Cupcake? Something bigger and better than both? Why not make your own printer, rather than wait?

  A “Coolabamatic” may be an even better printer than the thingomatic, then you could even create a side business selling them…this is how competition is created.

  Yeah, I’ve been frustrated with MBI in the past too, but I did something about it and started designing and building, instead of venting.

  Contact me on thingiverse, if you want to get something going.

  http://www.thingiverse.com/Chooch

  Cheers,

  Brian

   
• 

  Bre Pettis

  January 24, 2011 at 7:04 pm

   

  So I see a few issues here.

  Will the cupcake be back? Yes! Will it be done when the last 250 are sold. Yes! I love the Cupcake, but once we sell the last cupcake, I hope to never see a Z rod again. We have over 100 suppliers right now and sometimes they care about our lead times and most of the time they don’t. We do our best to make the supply chain all work out, but then sometimes it doesn’t.

  What’s up with the long lead time on the Thing-O-Matic? We have been able to beat that 7 week lead time lately, but we’ve been getting spikes of sales and so we haven’t changed the lead time on the site. We know that it sucks to wait for your machine and we’re doing our best! It’s a tricky thing because we have to order parts before we know how many we are going to sell. Our operations team pushes our suppliers every day to get parts in!

  Did we go to Vegas to party? Nope. We went to Vegas to blow other people’s minds. In a show filled with 3d tvs, ipad clones, and cellphones, we showed up with a machine made out of wood. Our mission at CES was to get attention and build awareness of MakerBot 3D printing in the consumer space. Most nights, after talking to thousands of people and standing up all day and running 11 bots, it was all we could do to go to the Excalibur’s buffet and eat before crashing out. (We did get to go to the Lenovo party where they had free drinks and their test rigs for testing their products which was cool. They test their laptop opening up and closing 30,000 times to make sure it won’t break) I don’t gamble and I’m a vegetarian so there is almost nothing for me to eat in Vegas, but I’m proud that we went and represented 3D printing for consumers. We were the first last year and this year we were still the only 3D printer company there.

   

• tre3

  January 24, 2011 at 9:05 pm

   

  Wow, this thread blew up…

  I’m not affiliated with MBI (but have been to the botcave and am impressed), but can echo Bre from a dealing with mfr vendor POV… Manufacturing/selling hardware is nothing like selling a service, software or even just reselling someone else’s product (lead time on egg bots short). That’s not a slight on anyone that opens up a computer business, but I ask you to consider the costs associated with hardware manufacturing.

  The costs of manufacturing hardware are enormous! That’s why there’s a pre-order and why your credit card gets hit up before it ships. During that 7 week lead time, vendors have already been paid – new companies go out of business because they can’t get the capitol to float their company during mfr.

  The iPad is a recent relevant example… How do you sell 1 million iPads in under a month? You have to make 1 million iPads before they go on sale as it takes a few months to ship. iSuppli estimates a cost of $260 to make an iPad… That ties up over a quarter billion dollars of capitol before a single unit goes on sale. Sure, MBI isn’t apple – but these factors are very significant and very real.

  I’m willing to bet… While at Vegas, MBI had much of your pre-order cash tied up in vendors/suppliers.

  The alternative… MBI could take out large bridge loans, raise the price of their product (loans aren’t free and add considerable risk) and potentially cut down lead times to near zero. That’s basically what pre-orders do, except you’re doing it interest free with reduced risk.

  And that ends the rant of this engineer who is somewhat angry on his trip to China because vendors aren’t meeting deadlines because workers quit right before Chinese New Year.

   

• Coolaba

  January 25, 2011 at 10:18 am

   

  First to Bre, thanks for the explanation-I was out of line-but just trying to make a point.

  Further, I think you should actually make a blog post talking about your flagship product. I’m day and night in the forums trying to help solve some of the issues with the T-O-Ms but we’ve yet to hear a word from you about new development or even what’s up with the problems. I know you’ve got some stuff up even on the Wiki that is not yet advertised. All I’m saying is that since the new year- the blog is full of everything but posts about the company and it’s selling products. I mean the post about tuning your machine is stuff that is old and in the Wiki anyway, the objects others have done is good, Revar’s fabber is awesome, but no real posts from you (other than your supply problems). You guys have already worked out the details of the LCD control panel for the T-O-M, you’ve got new servo drivers done-even with board pics, so post some of that up and promote to the community showing how hard your team is working. Your team is doing amazing work- but I feel like you are taking some of the credit with your public appearances.
  Seriously- even a post saying we’ve shipped XXX number of T-O-Ms since release would be impressive and give props to your team doing it. And maybe you are doing that other places but this Blog is your face to customers. Please take this as friendly advice, you might be doing all of that stuff- just that’s my impression of MakerBot as a company of late. Seriously- throw some teasers out there about the work your team is doing- that’s more sales incentive than going on CNN. Do a five minute interview with the staff shipping and packing kits-that’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about. If I was a new customer to MakerBot and saw a 7 week lead time and no more cupcakes but the company showed pictures of a line of kits being packed and saying how the team is working day and night- that’s good sales image. Even a message about why all the electronics are out of stock- and say you’ll post back when they are available. I’m just saying the image looks bad right now-and these are some things to help out.

   

• Pingu

  January 25, 2011 at 4:11 pm