Alex Tostado Photography, Inc
During the TCT conference at CES in 2015, Dr Phil Reeves then of the Econolyst pointed out that 3D printers had dropped in price so dramatically that they were now the same price as the latest Xbox.
Fast-forward to today and the most recent XBox, the One X, retails at USD 499 whereas Monoprice’s latest printer the, the MP Mini Delta, has shipped for as little as USD 169. Hackaday, home of fair but very firm hardware reviews, recently called the MP Mini Delta an “excellent printer.”
The MP Mini Delta is a follow up to last year’s MP Select Mini v2, you may not have heard of it, but it is arguably the most popular 3D printer series of all time. Last year the amount of Select Minis sold meant that, according to CONTEXT’s market analysis, Monoprice shipped more printers than ANY other company in the U.S. and the second most amount of machines globally.
“Monoprice’s growth remains impressive,” says Chris Connery, Vice President Global Analysis and Research at CONTEXT. “At the heart of their business strategy is not only a growing line of aggressively priced printers, but equally important is their distribution flexibility and pan-channel go-to-market approach. Not only do they leverage their own Monoprice.com to reach hobbyists and educators, but they also make their brands available via other outlets including Amazon.com and even Indiegogo where they recently ran a campaign for their Delta printer.”
Monoprice showcased its range at TCT Show 2017 for the first time this year. In fact, it was the first time the company had ever exhibited at a trade show outside of Maker Faires. We caught up with VP, Product at Monoprice, Shane Igo to find out the secret of this meteoric rise.
Daniel O’Connor (DOC): How did Monoprice, a company mainly known for cables, get into 3D printing?
Shane Igo (SI): We make thousands of products. Our team has been using 3D printing, mostly for rapid prototyping, for over a decade, so we’re very familiar with the technology.
We saw the rise of desktop 3D printers and this ability to manufacture without as heavy of an investment, and we saw the hype beginning to wane. As users, we realised there was no champion taking this and running with it. Prices weren’t dropping, and products weren’t getting more robust. We’re pretty good at taking products, making them very cost-effective and very robust. That’s what we started doing [with 3D printers].
Alex Tostado Photography, Inc
DOC: What makes Monoprice’s range so popular?
SI: We looked at the market and thought about what people want; they want a printer that actually prints and they want the print to resemble the file. The colour of the machine or the continuous curvature of the housing doesn’t matter; it doesn’t achieve the objective of getting good prints consistently. The community has embraced that and helped us along the way, and that’s why you see our products get better and better.
DOC: That community, what does it look like? Is it just consumers or do you see industrial companies using your machines?
SI: The foundation of our market are the makers and the hobbyists but we get some great feedback from large enterprises, who already have an additive manufacturing team. They’re used to prints from machines that cost up to $10,000, and they’re now seeing what’s possible on a $200 printer. That gets people in the industry excited.
To optimise our machines to be a tool for additive manufacturing is not a far stretch, it is something that the community is asking for, so we’re looking at that very seriously and working on solutions towards that, that’s one of the reasons we will be showing at TCT this year.
DOC: In your opinion how does Monoprice’s model effect established desktop 3D printing companies in the industry?
SI: When you start to get into the $2-5,000 range there are some exceptional printers out there, there are some that do certain things well, but there are some that don’t have a clear value proposition. As the industry progresses and people start looking for specific tools, I think there is value in having some of those better features.
The community is fairly astute at identifying what is real and what is a gimmick. I have seen that over the last couple of years; the community will self-regulate.
