How My Search for Efficiency Made My 3D Business Better

Remote project management [Image: MakerOS]

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Imagine this: you’re running a 3D printing business and you just landed a Fortune 500 client with a huge order. Time to celebrate, right? Wrong. You realize that you have a backlog of clients who want their projects ASAP.

As some of those projects progressed, things changed over time as they inevitably do. Updates come in. Some of those updates are organized in your inbox, some are recorded in Google spreadsheets, while others are noted in Trello or Asana by another member of your team.

With those changes came updated quotes. Were the new quotes communicated with the client? Were pricing expectations updated and properly reset? Now you have to spend time making sure everything’s in order for your existing clients before tackling your new, huge order.

Does this sound familiar?

If the answer’s yes, you’re not alone. This scenario is exactly what happened to me while I was running my 3D printing business in Detroit. I had all of the tools that any 3D printing business needs. A project management tool, an online invoicing tool, an autoqutoer, a CRM, a VOIP system, and a 3D File Viewer.

There was no doubt that these tools were necessary for my 3D printing business, but having them be separate from one another proved to be inefficient. I kept experiencing the issues I described earlier. Changes were requested and then lost in the shuffle. Details weren’t fully communicated. Updates weren’t tracked.

Hours of machine time were wasted because of these issues, and that’s when I realized: my company’s efficiency was limited by the tools at my disposal.

I looked for a solution and quickly realized that none existed, so I sought out to solve it myself. While running my 3D printing business in Detroit, my team of experienced engineers and I began to build what would eventually become MakerOS, an efficiency platform with all of the custom order management features a 3D printing business needs to collaborate with clients and better their workflow. It consolidates all of our day-to-day tasks into a simple online interface where all customer and team communication and collaboration can be tracked and measured in one place.

The MakerOS Autoquoter platform [Image: MakerOS]

I personally interviewed over one hundred other small and medium-sized businesses to validate that they too were affected by the pain points that we were solving for. The more we began to build the software, the more we understood how powerful this solution could be for other 3D printing, engineering, and fabrication businesses. My research, combined with the fact that I was actively running a 3D printing service, and our previous experience running a fabrication business, informed the perfect formula to build a custom solution: MakerOS.

One of the very first businesses that used the platform was able to increase their revenue by 10X within the first year of implementing the platform. They got rid of many of their other, more expensive platforms while freeing up time to manage and delight their clients.

MakerOS is the turnkey solution that I was looking for. The platform is the means and solution to the scalability problem for 3D printing service businesses.

I’m proud of what my team’s built and to be able to share it with you. Request a demo to learn more and see how MakerOS can make your business better.

Via MakerOS