Materials Change

I'll go see what he has to say. He wants to make money, I want to make money, maybe we'll have something in common.

I don't think I received an e-mail about the E-meet and greet with the new Shapeways CEO Greg Kress. Does anyone have a link to where we can watch/listen?

Yes, me too, this is completely new to me!

It might be, uh, invitation-only.

The communication was directly done to some of the people discussing here. Also the invitation was personal.
I also asked him to start an announcement here to give some insights in the ongoing changes to all forum members.

Out of my observations I would state the followings:
- SW has raised several funds during the last years. Also recently. 3d printing is said to be an merging technology over the last years, so finding investors willing to put money in it is possible. But they want to see some plans for making profit.
- From the profit point of view I don't have an idea where they are standing and if they make proper profit at all.
- The materials were dropped since SW was not able to offer them with revenue. Seems that the costs were significantly higher then earnings.
- Yes there is a need to earn money, since salaries and other costs need to be paid at the end of the month. To this point no profit is made at all. Since there was also a staff cut they are also reducing costs here.
- Still completely unanswered for me is the value of shop owners for SW. Due to the short handed information we get very often I would assume it's not that big as we think. Otherwise they would deal more with our issues. Maybe shops are mainly an advertisement to many others to create something and buy for own needs or fun.

Woody64

P.S.: I found this picture which maybe answers my last statement.


https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/analysis-future-shapeways-77105/

Yes, that's the mystery: what 's the split between selling models to designers vs. to lay customers? And what do they want that split to be?

There was a distinct moment several years ago, well before the media boom peaked, when it felt like the designer market had become saturated: every designer who needed to hear about Shapeways had at least looked at it, and going forward the only growth on that side would be new designers coming into existence. Which they do at a steady pace, but it's not the pace of viral marketing. If SW's investors are still expecting that, they'll be sadly disappointed. Nothing in the current state of 3DP technological development is changing that right now.

The non-designer customer side is more mysterious to me. There's still a steady drip of people who are, just now today for the first time, seeing what 3DP can do and getting tripped out by it. (I know this because they email me.) Do they represent a large untapped market? Surely larger than the number of designers who haven't yet heard of SW. But consumers are a wily lot, they're price-sensitive and disloyal and don't buy volume. And the market for them is infinitely crowded, while the market for designers has a finite number of known players.

I don't think the place SW is in is inherently unprofitable or doomed. This is a nice steady business, if it can get to a place of living within its means and chipping away at the fixes and improvements it needs. But it's not a bright outlook if what you're expecting is exponential growth...my best guess is that the challenge Kress faces is expectations management of investors, and maybe we've come to the point where SW can't kick that can any further down the road.

I doubt shopowners will see much improvement until that situation resolves, just because there's no mindshare left to give to us. I mainly hope that SW doesn't get killed out of disappointment and spite. I bet it's a perfectly reasonable business, if everyone can adult up about the facts: it is the size it is, and the go-go years here are over.

I'm not sure what that Service Bureau portion represents. Is a big chunk of that designers purchasing their own designs, perhaps to be able to photograph them to have photos for their shops? It's always been stressed that photos lead to more sales but at some point most people are likely to realize that in itself is a long term money losing proposition in many cases. A lot of people arrive dreaming of making big bucks but might only earn $100 per year while spending more for photographable print examples, and that's not including the expense of time spent managing their stores or keeping up with Shapeways shop changes. I can definitely see shop owners phasing out purchases of their offered designs after a bit of time and just living with renders. It also seems like the most reliable sales are generated by requested designs or modifications to items in stores. Is that "Service Bureau"? Is it sales arising from the designer for hire stuff?

Other print services seem to have moved towards servicing commercial accounts and including nice things like volume discounts. Is that type of market considered "Service Bureau"? Shapeways seems to have only recently shifted towards that types of business, at least according to banners on the site. My guess is there's a decent market for startups having components printed out in lower volumes before moving to injection molding or more advanced machining methods.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I agree, there's no way that selling sample models to hopeful designers is sustainable business. I went with renders for most of my stuff eons ago and have never regretted it. Ain't got time for that.

Does SW want to go back to being mostly a service bureau? I totally agree the answer is, from our point of view, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

I feel like right now is a good time to check out of micromanaging one's shop for a while.

"Service bureau" is bound to include all those who sell through Etsy or their own shops, so their own "marketplace" is just one facet of indirect sales to third parties. And at least in Europe my impression is that there is more than enough competition both for small-scale industrial production and "conventional" rapid prototyping work. For hobbyists and small designers, shapeways' advantage over the well-known competitors at least in my opinion has mostly been price and breadth of portfolio. Now it is beginning to look as if all of the magic of shapeways, both innovation and lower prices, has been achieved solely through burning investor money rather than any inherent technological or commercial advantage, selling below cost to gain an ultimately unsustainable market share.
Also this is by far not the first time in recent years that they have made sudden, poorly announced and poorly executed changes that were certain to hurt a significant proportion of their customer base.

The people you see on the forum and the facebook group are a very tiny group of the Shapeways customers. When Shapeways started, a handful of shopowners was making a difference. Someone selling a few thousand dices? Amazing! But Shapeways has grown, and needed to grow, to a size that one person doesn't make a difference. As designers, we're just drops in a bucket. A bucket that has been cherished and cared for by a whole community team and many other employees. But to keep up and pay off those expensive printers with relatively cheap prints, it needs to rain.

Designers create and sell the most awesome stuff you can imagine. But for every customer item that is sold in a shop, there is a (failed) prototype, or a business order, or someone just tipping its toe in 3D modelling and printing.* To give a nice example: I consider myself an active shop owner and shapie. I opened my first shop in 2011, have currently 4 shops and for the last 3 years Shapeways was my job, hobby and responsible for a big chunk of my social circle. I have an estimate of how much Shapeways has earned because of me due to shop orders and my own orders. Yet, for all that effort and dedication, financially I am insignificant to Shapeways. Two weeks ago I was at a job interview at an engineering company and they showed me how they used 3D printing. What they spend in the last year, as a small company with no real interest in 3DP beside being just a means to an end, makes my earnings of the past 7 years laughable.

So the 3D Printing market has finally hit puberty. Companies are picking it up and it's being used for more than decorative purposes only. Most customers still think of 3D printing as that desktop printer their geeky friend has at home. I don't think Shapeways will lose it's touch with consumers. Because putting individuals in contact with 3D printing can create companies. Companies that create personalised, unique,awesome (consumer focused) products.
And even though I cared for everyone within Shapeways focused on being in touch with the community, I can see why these roles would be eliminated the first if cuts have to been made. It's time to make it rain.

And then the question is, how? First of all, not through shitty communication to everyone who helped Shapeways to get what it is now. Just something that I can't stress enough. But to look forward, there is a huge market of people that would like to have their personal products. However, as every designer here knows, you don't just create a 3D model without having any skill. To get where most designers are today, they have spend hours and hours with software. Being a good 3D modeler takes years. That's too much effort for someone who just wants to have that perfect Valentine gift. Good 3D modelling is a craftsmanship with many different fields of expertise. And even if it is really easy, for someone who has never done it before, it can seem overwhelming and scary.

So to get to a point where everyone can have their perfect product for an affordable price without investors who keep pulling their wallet, we need to work together. Shapeways provides the prints, designers provide the skill, and together we can make customers happy. It's not about having the best features on the website for managing shops, but having a good infrastructure to bring 3D printing to every single customer who wants a unique or personal product.

Just another example I want to share: A while back Shapeways was interviewing customers in NY. I happened to be there and see what was going on. This customer was talking about her products and how she used 'designers for hire' to create her products. At some point, an employee referred to the person she hired as 'the designer'. The customer got fierce and said 'He's not the designer, I am! He's just the 3D modeller!' I was flabbergasted. This specific designer is one of the best I know. His work is famous in my mind. There's even a meeting room named after him! Back in the day (think 2008), Shapeways used products of designers for their logo and on the Shapeways clothing. Products of this designers are on old Shapeways hoodies. And she just called him 'just a 3D modeller'. As a designer, I almost felt insulted on his behalve. Except, she was right. It was her design that he was making into a printable 3D model. Everyone can be a designer. And we as skilled 3D modellers can make that happen. And we need to make it happen. Because not everyone can and will spend all the effort to gain the skills.

The growth for Shapeways doesn't have to be in becoming a print service for companies. And I didn't get the feeling that that is the direction that Shapeways want to go. But if we want to have affordable prints and a functional easy to use website, Shapeways needs to keep growing. So I hope we can work together on this. That requires an effort in listening to each other and wanting to understand each other. Shapeways (and I mean @gregorykress + @Pshores and her team), use the insight that the community offers. Listen. Talk to designers before taking decisions. I am not asking you to give up control, I know that is not your style. I am asking you to use the community to your advantage. Designers don't need to be cuddled and told they do a good job. No customer hugging. Be honest, so we can be honest back. Use that Dutch directness.



*Don't take this literal, I'm not giving any actual ratio of sort of order

I too am not sure about the 'Shapeways wants to be a enterprise print service'. I am not a prolific designer nor an expert 3D modeler but Shapeways saw what I did and I was invited to participate in a pilot program in conjunction with the marketing team and web team, I don't know who they all are and I am not sure just how far this initiative will go within Shapeways, but I do know that it is specifically geared to us designers. Well maybe not all of us, the ones a bit less savvy on the finer points of Marketing, Social Media, SEO, Web Design and eCommerce in general. I really believe that Shapeways is not abandoning the designers that have carried some of the water along the way. Sometimes a step back has to be taken and directions they may have originally thought the 3D printersphere was headed toward is not really where it is going. It would be worse for everyone involved if Shapeways simply did nothing and continued on with blinders merrily moving in the same direction it started in even they are swimming against the tide. Better that they correct course now and avoid the dangers in the water so that they can survive and by extension we can also come along for the ride.

When I started this post my intent wasn't to use so many metaphors, senility must be setting in in my old age.

I have not been here as long as many of you have, started my shop in January of 2015 and got my first payment in March of the same year, so I am well past the wild frontier that Shapeways and in turn you guys were exploring. But I have never felt, even for a moment that Shapeways didn't care about my business, whether as a customer or as a designer. I have been disappointed and sometimes even angry over decisions that Shapeways has made, but I tried to not impute bad motives as the reason for those choices.

To Daphne, with respect to your example about designer vs. modeler. I consider myself both, as I am sure the top designer you mention also considers himself. If I come up with an idea (even derivative) I consider myself the "designer" always. If someone says, "I have an idea can you make it happen?" then I consider myself the modeler or CAD operator only sometimes as the co-designer depending on how much effort I have to put in to making it work.

I think there are all pet issues we have that we would like to see addressed, all these things take time and sometimes the answers are not exactly what we wanted or expected. When is it ever a good time to give someone bad news? But I am hoping that this open discussion with Mr Kress can be the start of successful dialogues where our concerns are met with attentive ears. But we need to be adults too, we can't just poop on everything and prophesy gloom and doom over every decision that we don't like or don't fully understand.

The one thing that's always so very frustrating about operating a Shapeways shop is some systemic change that requires you to revisit just about every model in your shop about once each year. Every.Single.Year. If it's not changing offered materials it's poorly implemented material pricing changes, or changes in image handling (both renders and uploads), and now material name changes and changing offered materials. Design rules can also change, for example with required sprue diameters. Anyway it always causes too much turmoil and you generally need to revisit everything just to re-establish proper settings, descriptions, defaults, links, and whatnot. In more severe cases some people have had to redesign many of their models, and then do it again not much later because of some other change they found out about because of a rejection. While I wouldn't expect things to be completely set-it-and-forget-it I wouldn't mind a bit more backwards compatibility over time.

I've probably generated more sales by agreeing to modify or do some custom designs for someone when they approach me to do so. Not just random people who are (mildly) inspired by items in my shop but by people I know in real life and consider me to be their "3D modeller" go-to-guy. I could probably do more of that if I wanted to do so but then that time needed to re-tweak the ever-changing shop issues rears its ugly head. I'm glad it's just an interesting hobby as opposed to a money generating necessity. The only reason I would ever get more serious about this stuff is the development of improved printers with improved materials that might approach the qualities of injection molded mono-color plastics, or robust full color plastic materials. Some price decreases would also be nice but I don't see that happening. At best I see prices remaining constant and allowing the slow roll of inflation to makes things a wee bit more affordable over time.

@MrNibbles, from seeing many of your comments I can tell you have been here for quite some time. I can also tell you are passionate about the issues you face as a shopkeeper on Shapeways. I have had some of the same issues as you have. I have been bit by the sprue change and by material specification changes. My approach has been to prioritize the more popular models ahead of those that sold one copy two years ago. I also have a couple of models that required redesign and one that just fell off the map after the recent material changes.

At this point, I have a mix of returning customers that I speak to on a regular basis on other forums related to my product niche, that have ideas they would like to see implemented. I have a few random requests for other things too. So far most people I have spoken to or met have been very cooperative, even to the point of lending me product to 'reverse engineer' portions to fulfill their requests. I actually use this to platform to provide a good chunk of income. I can't quit my job nor can my wife, but I can pay a few bills with Shapeways and better yet keep me up to date on my chosen hobby. So for me it is imperitive that I keep up with all the changes that Shapeways makes.

I would love to see some of what you just asked for imporved materials, which the HP Multi Jet Fusion may provide. I have been informed that Shapeways is expecting to pilot dark blue, dark green and a few other darker colors of raw material from HP. Price decreases on the HP stuff would be nice too, like you I don't expect anything anytime soon or even at all.

I am hoping to hear that Shapeways is aware of the issues all of us have expressed here and that they have a desire for better transparancy into their decision making process.

Our local CEO actually complained that I was "harsh" in an email, without, mind you, showing any concern about the damage he has done to a years-long investment of mine, much less to the rest of the community here.

This sort of personality habitually complains about those who complain about the damage they do. I call this the "hit-and-run driver" myopia. Just keep riders focused anywhere but on the rear view mirror, and they'll soon forget about the sickening meaty crunchy thud that might have been something they loved.

Hah! I hadn't even gotten around to satire.

But now I have.

I hope this brings a smile to all concerned.

FUD is definitely NOT an alternative für the transparent resin. I´ve designed many windows for my trams for this material. FUD is too milky for a window, maybe useful for a toilet windows ;-)

Hi all! For anyone that's interested in future e-meet and greets with Greg, please email me at Lise@shapeways.com. Invites for the initial two were extended to folks who were recently vocal in the community. We'd love to have you all join us for the next one!