Former Pixar artist and university professor Noah Hornberger has taken his twenty year passion for 3D modelling and design and turned it into a business, and he’s done it without creating his own store or website.
Hornberger’s brand of 3D printed home and office products and designs is called “MeshCloud”. He has a very clear aesthetic full of classic geometric shapes and patterns mixed with modern grids and materials. He says that he hopes that he’s created products that people have never seen before, and he creates them specifically to be 3D printed.
MeshCloud started just this summer when Hornberger won two 3D printers from two separate contests. He won the MakerBot Mars Base Contest, where he designed the hexagonal Queen Bee Mars Apartments as well as the CGTrader Home 3D Printing contest where his portfolio of home goods won the top prize. Feeling inspired, he decided to take his two prizes – a MakerBot Replicator and a Lulzbot respectively – and start up his own business.
“One of my leading questions when setting out to create the MeshCloud brand was ‘is it possible to create a 3D printed brand/company that exclusively uses pre-existing product distribution channels?’ So far, the answer has been a giant yes!” Hornberger told me via email. “Rather than investing time in developing my own website and social media campaigns, I have simply spent time developing products. I love designing objects and I’m really slow with web stuff so I wanted to leverage the already existing sales infrastructures to handle the money and traffic.”
And he’s cast a pretty wide net so far. Not only does he have a successful Etsy store, but he’s opened up his own store on the new Amazon 3D printed products platform as well. Hornberger said that he was printing and shipping orders within two weeks of opening his stores.
While it is probably too soon to name him entrepreneur of the year – after all his business is just getting started – Hornberger is one of many early small business people who have found a niche within 3D printing. Not only as a creative outlet, but as a way to finance that creativity. The economics of selling your own 3D printed products are starting to become viable, and as printers and materials continue to drop in price while increasing in quality that new economy is only going to grow.
We are entering the sweet spot of 3D printing, where the general public is becoming familiar enough with the process that it is no longer confusing to them. However due to cost and usability the hardware is still scarce enough that there is a small enough pool of users who can capitalize on that awareness. People who do not have 3D printers want unique 3D printed things and they are willing to pay to have them made by a small group of makers who do have 3D printers. As Hornberger’s growing success has shown, early adopters are in an ideal position to capitalize on this emerging economy.
