Bambu Lab’s new crowdfunding feature offers a lot of potential for makers, but why introduce it?
Last week, Bambu Lab announced a new beta-level feature for their popular MakerWorld 3D model site: crowdfunding.
The concept is to allow designers to request funding from MakerWorld users to help achieve business success. It’s extremely similar to Kickstarter, but focused here on 3D print projects.
Like Kickstarter, it really isn’t about investing in a company or project. The practical reality is that crowdfunding has become an alternate approach for placing orders for new products. For manufacturers, it is a way to verify the demand for a product before committing huge resources. In other words, if few want to buy the product, then they don’t build it.
And that’s really why I think Bambu Lab is going in this direction. Selling products has long been a feature on MakerWorld: you simply price a 3D model and users can buy it.
However, the difference here is that prior to crowdfunding, the maker would have to actually design and mostly complete the product before putting it on sale.
With the crowdfunding model, that is no longer necessary: only a description is required, and orders can then be made. The product can be completed later — when there is confirmation that people actually want it. By “confirmation”, I mean folks have committed real cash towards the product.
The crowdfunding aligns with Bambu Lab’s technology: their 3D printers are capable of producing very high-quality parts in engineering materials, which could be used in new and complex projects. But how do those projects get designed?
I believe the crowdfunding feature is one of Bambu Lab’s strategies for breaking through that barrier. It will create a path for designers to develop much more complex 3D models that would ultimately be produced on Bambu Lab equipment.
This is confirmed by Bambu Lab’s statement in their announcement:
“We’re hoping to see crowdfunding campaigns for projects that require real thought, design, and engineering. These are often the projects that don’t get made because they’re just too much work for one person without knowing if anyone will appreciate the effort. Crowdfunding changes that.
Honestly, we’re excited to see what happens. We don’t know what kind of projects creators will come up with, or what the community will support most. Will this lead to more collaboration between creators? We sure hope so! The future will tell us, and that’s part of what makes this exciting.”
For now, the crowdfunding feature is available only by invitation, although anyone can request one with a proper description of an interesting project.
Today on MakerWorld, you can see several crowdfunding projects that they’ve selected, and these indeed include some rather complex projects. However, the direction of the crowdfunded content is ultimately up to the designers themselves.
One item I could not find was any reference to fees for the crowdfunding feature. If there are none, then it differentiates MakerWorld from Kickstarter, which does collect a percentage of sales from campaigns.
Were MakerWorld to introduce fees, then they would effectively be a direct competitor to Kickstarter (for 3D content), and eventually become a source of revenue for Bambu Lab. It may even evolve into a platform for non-3D content, just like Kickstarter: they’ve already built the bones for this.
Via Bambu Lab
