How Has MakerBot Supported You? Tell Your Story

keithCl Wrote:
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> thanks for the contribution John. good to see
> another Irishman on here fighting the cause.

And thanks for the welcome. (just logged in properly, as I seem to be spending too much time here to keep lurking)

> Makerbot screwed up and as a result lost their
> customers/prospective customers. selling a machine
> with a very good chance of needing support from
> the manufacturer then charge for that support is
> ridiculous.

Agreed.. To a point.
The big question is... Who is their customer? Becasue I don't think we are any more.

I saw makerbot and the like a few years ago on Hack a day and Make and the like. Then I saw the price.. Personally, I'm not now, nor have I ever been their customer.

I am however, in the final "talking myself into it" stage of getting a Reprap. I reckon I will have convinced me before Christmas. I know how to wear me down.

For makerbot's potential customers, Dave Jones of EEV blog fame, had a good point. They are most likely going after small business rather than hobbyists/tinkerers like us. So the all inclusive package is an attractive thing. Becasue lets face it.. over two grand is a bit beyond impulse purchase for most of us. And once one starts researcing the topic, Rep Rap and others come up, at a much lower price, for the same or better results.

Problem with chasing business customers, is that they are going up against the likes of Up. who have I think got way more experience in the field, and perhaps better (easier) software. Certainly better support and better infrastructure than Makerbot is likely to have for some time. And the likes of that new resin laser printer thingy.. Even if I had to leave it overnight, if I was a product designer making a prototype, or an arcitecht looking to impress a customer, I'd prefer to give them an exquisetely detailed resin model than a less polished filliment based print. And for business customers, They are going to have to have fully functional unpack it, and install the software solutions. No calibrations, no tweaking the printer to suit the filiment, no changing the extruder when a bit of plastic gets caught up in it. Not an easy crowd.

> Makerbot investors WILL expect new revenue streams
> so either get out your credit card or get involved
> in one of the new thingiverse alternatives out
> there.

And that is the downside of VC that many fail to see. THey are nto giving a group of people money, tey are buying part of the company.

Here.. have this lovely money..
Oh.. by the way.. a few tiiiiiiiny little changes we'd like you to make..

Sad really. Especially for a company that was so vocal in open hardware. Shoud be interesting seeing how they deal with the OSHW conference... Especially the Q&A session. Hope somene puts it up for viewing.

Hamster you hit the nail on the head: us tinkerers are not the target market for the rep2. It's for people/business who want the rapid prototyping capability, and want it to "just work" every time. They don't want to burn business hours fussing with the machine. Their support contract is a very strong indicator that this is their target market.

As others have pointed out, the rep2 is technically less advanced than their replicator. I think you could make a pretty good argument that this is because it needs to be more reliable for the market it's aimed at. It's not cutting edge, but it does enough, and does it reliably enough, that it is still attractive and still fills a niche for businesses.

They obviously did switch target audiences with the Rep2, but unsuccesfully IMHO because they failed to ahdere to their primary source of income and made the drastic switch to CS hardware. In other words they dropped US and are now trying to pickup with the 5-Star corporations without first building a fanbase with them or at least supporting their previous source of revenue first.

This drastic switch could be their downfall because it takes time to make new soruces in a business and it takes money to keep a business running. They have to be feeling it right now, with hundreds of formerly loyal customers suddenly no longer purchasing anything from them. Sales in filament probably dropped like a stone as will their previous line of Kits. Now they need to push the Rep2 and the target audience doesnt even know it exists yet.

The revenue drop from loyal customer loss, loss of reccommendations from Word-Of-Mouth, soon a lack of revenue for endorsements and then for advertising could kill the whole company in as little as a year.

Well, if they fail within a year, that would demo the delicacy of changing from open source to closed source for certain...

Scratch that theory. Looks like I didnt know the whole story. They could be running at a loss for years with funding like that.

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-Tom

They have supported me by leaving a huge hole in the market