I Tried Starting A 3D Printing Business In 7 Days

*LEARN MORE*

*STOCKS AND CRYPTO*

*ENTREPRENEURSHIP*

*ETSY*

*FILMMAKING*

*SOCIALS*

*DISCLAIMER*
The inclusion of Interactive Brokers’ (IBKR) name, logo or weblinks is present pursuant to an advertising arrangement only. IBKR is not a contributor, reviewer, provider or sponsor of content published on this site, and is not responsible for the accuracy of any products or services discussed.

----

*VIDEO SUMMARY*
Today, I’m going to try to start a 3D Printing Business In 7 Days. I’ll be going over the whole process, from designing, to printing, to selling. With people reportedly making tens of thousands of dollars, let’s see how much money I can make.

#bambulab #bambulabA1 #bambulabX1 #bambulabP1S

*STARRING*

*FOOTAGE USED UNDER FAIR USE*
Short video clips from other YouTube channels were used under the fair use legal doctrine. Shoutout to David Choi, Made with Layers (Thomas Sanladerer), CNC Kitchen, Zack Freedman, NeedItMakeIt, PixelForge Lab, Make It Lab, Morley Kert, Triple G Workshop, Not Very Good Guy, and Protolabs!

*WEBSITES & TOOLS MENTIONED*

*3D MODELS*

[jensentung]

Should I try selling a 3D printed product for 30 days?

Edit: The cost of electricity to print the vase is $0.13. The A1 3D Printer consumed around 1.14kWh over 12 hours. In Vancouver, the cost of electricity is $0.1097/kWh. 1.14kWh x $0.1097 = $0.13

[dPrinterLife]

As someone with multiple 3d printers, Here are some things you could do different. When printing the vases, in the Vase creator, make it Vase mode. Then, in your slicer, turn off infill and top layers. That way, your Vase will print a lot faster. Also, get some high speed PLA. The bambu labs pla and petg you used were only suitable for 300 mm/s printing, but filaments like Elegoo rapid pla can print at 500 mm/s, which is the top speed of Bambu lab printers. Also, create an Etsy store and charge 20$ for those vases.

[egmccann]

yeah. I have thoughts with this.

I *really* kind of don't like the "Can I start this from scratch and make a business in a week?" for 3d printing, whether filament or resin based. Especially starting with "... but I don't know what I'm going to sell." I can see this sort of approach frankly hurting people who try it, even ignoring the "And I'll sell through my mom" angle.

I absolutely encourage people to get into 3d printing. And I've gotten to love the Bambu Lab printers. They're excellent for getting set up and getting in the hobby. Unless something's broken out of the box - and they do an excellent job with their packaging - you're pretty much guaranteed to be printing away within an hour. (And yeah, your first several prints will probably be stuff for the printer.)

But honestly the path of "Ooh, I have this printer, and I've learned to use it, and I have an idea of something that I found really useful and made and think other people will like and pay for!" is a *much* better start than "I need to start a business with this and have no clue what I'm getting into." On the first, you get an idea of what the printer can do, the *time* it takes and the shortcomings and are going into it with both eyes open to everything - including cost, maybe getting more printers for a print farm, how long it will take, etc. The latter? It's just a recipe for disappointment and frustration.

And yeah, I have thoughts - and issues - with your "And I made $8" at the end. Well, you didn't start a business. OK, you were up front with the actual costs and such... to a point. But one big thing you didn't put in was *your time.* You have to value your time at something. At minimum wage- which, the lowest minimum wage in the USA is $7.25/hr (federally, ) means that 12 hours you spent learning the software cost $87 at least. You didn't mention the time setting up the printer, installing the software (granted, fast) or doing research, even if we ignore the day plus spent printing the lego man as a test. If you continue doing this? You're going to spend time testing other filaments (someone may want a blue/purple vase that would look nice in one of the silk PLA or PETG filaments, which - filament is another cost, learning *that* filament's quirks is time and cost, test printing and so forth) - and you'll probably need to spend time designing other vases, not to mention other products...

What is your time worth?

Yeah. I'd want to see at least a 30, if not 90, day followup being very blunt about what your costs (your time, how much your electric bill went up, how often you bought filament, how much you wasted on bad prints, setting up some means to sell other than your mom, etc.) really were and if you came anywhere close to even breaking even.

[kingsidorak]

With this vase situation, you can use 3D printing to create molds to then make the vases out of concrete, and charge more

[davehudson]

Here’s a tip for you… take an existing product or the one you made and make it customizable…. for example a name plate that you can attach to it. I did this for dog food bowls.. i created a bone shaped plaque that they can add their dogs name. A plaque only takes about 20 minutes to print and can be added to the product! I just use adhesive tape to attach it… instead of names you could also add “themes” like “love”, “peace”, etc

[Saladcreamsandwiches]

I think possibly the main error was picking an orchid vase. You said it perfectly about how people who are more likely to spend more on an orchid vase than any other. I think customers would see that, really like it then go look closer and see it is plastic and change their mind.

People also have 3d printing business without actually selling the physical product, they master the software and design files and then they sell the files to others. There’s lots of free ones but a good example was my brother really wanted this specific incense holder thing and I looked for a free file everywhere and no luck. I only ended up paying less £5 which is less than $10 I think.

On that one I purchased it had over 500 reviews, that is at least £2500($5000) when it cost them no materials, only time the software cost which they would have made back with just that singular product.

[christiansotomayor]

You could’ve continued the print with the torso that stopped. PLA does a good job and adhering to itself when stopping the print. Also, you can add auto supports for all your prints in the Bambu slicer. There’s an option for it and it auto populates and you can select tree support and your support option. Does a pretty good job at it

[HrvojeLivnjak]

would love to see the 30 days 🤩 as it looks like a cool venture

[AFAR]

cheat code used. you sell through your mom. i'd to see you do the marketing. I've been in this for 4 months. its not easy when you factor in marketing, establishing SOPs and hiring people

[eduardocostadamattabastos]

The line on the bottom is due to the time taken to print the last layer of the "floor" of the vase. To fix it you can add a fillet to the inner edge of it

[GamesGraphicsHDPRO]

(4:22) that's a Oreo grinder...for weed 😂😂😂

[imagineelm]

Depending on the plastic used you can smooth it with things like acetone for a finish thats equivalent to injection molding. For PLA and PETG specifically I personally just make a holder for the part out of clay and put it in my oven at around 350f checking it every 5 minutes to make sure the shape and structure stays perfect. Its not a foolproof method but if you stay on top of checking on the part it'll work. The structure wont degrade and youll have a smooth part in 15-20 minutes. Ive also heard of wraping the part in aluminum foil and then using a heat gun but I personally dont trust that as aluminum foil doesnt usually wrap around something perfectly and you could apply to much heat in the wrong spot leaving the part warped or liquified.

[ambusherlol]

Love the fact that you reflect on your mistakes, very insightful

[Adrien_]

Personalized products are much more profitable from the vases for example I made an order of 100 18 year old medals for a birthday it cost me barely $ 15 and I sold it for $ 80. So I frankly advise you to make personalized products rather than easily reproducible products at a lower cost.

[ellissara]

I tried starting a laser engraving business and went with the Monport Mega—it was way easier to get going than I expected. With features like auto-focus, quiet operation, and built-in flame detection, it’s reliable and beginner-friendly right out of the box.

[themineralhunter]

Interesting video. Thank you!

A critical 4th prerequisite was missed that I'd like to point out - your product choice based on time+complexity. The product print cost/time = height x complexity x support needed + material qty used. This must be a key factor when picking a product(s). Object height might just be the #1 consideration. The lower the height, generally the faster the print. Signage, bottle openers and keychains are great examples of this. Fewer layers=less time=more profit!

The large LEGO head is a great example to reduce support time+material required. Do this by slicing the print in half horizontally, in the slicer app, and print the halves on the seam to minimize any support material needed, and eliminate support contact defects. This alone greatly lowers FDM print time+material cost. When completed, just adhere the two parts together. You can also print raw kits like that require zero post work by you. The customer puts it together and paints themselves. Easy and more $$$ for you!

At your retail price point of $15 per vase, you'd make about $30 a day minus the cost of your time and any wholesale. You are also depending on someone else to do your sales vs adding your product to as many online stores as possible. Some apps even let you post products to multiple platforms at once such as Etsy and eBay. More eyes=more sales!

In my experience, 3D printing is most profitable when your billable printing time+materials averages around $15-$25 an hour. In contrast, with a 10 hours print time, the vase product is generating around $1.50 an hour. It'll take years to pay for the printer, power, your time and materials. Yikes!

Resin printing can be more challenging, but compare the efficiencies to FDM printing. Resin has no additional time for each layer since every layer is exposed at once. This means that you can fill the print volume with products with no additional print time - just uses more resin. This should be another key criteria when choosing your product choice. Does your product work in resin?

In summary, choose a product that prints fast, isn't very tall, requires little or no support, can be printed in easily assembled parts by you or the customer, allows the customer to finish themselves, sells itself online, and has little or no need for internal support or post processing that eats up time and material, and consider using resin instead of FDM.

Good work and keep it coming.

Profitable 3D printing is all about the layers!

[tylerlastname]

If you want this to be a lot more efficient, you should get a larger nozzle, print at a thicker layer height, and use vase mode. Use designs that compliment the visible layer lines, or use the fuzzy skin option to hide them. You could get the print time per vase down to a fraction of that 12 hours with those adjustments.

[Larimuss]

The question is, cost per printer, cost plastic, cost of electricity. Cost of time. Cost of posting, cost of sale. Unless your selling them for $30 a piece its not worth the effort if any profit. If you can post 200x a day maybe. But you also have to keep up with demand changes.

[ZacLeeDesigns]

I learned that smaller products can be more profitable.

[life.flavour]

It's easy set the customisation for vases with person names or flowers names so people can offer them and feel tempted to buy them sell emotions it's easy little words like: love, joy, beautiful, etc..