3D printers are becoming more widespread in recent times, and there are already entrepreneurs who make money on three-dimensional printing. These devices are developing rapidly, print quality is increasing, the price of equipment is decreasing, and demand is only increasing, because three-dimensional printing has some advantages compared to other methods of manufacturing an object (primarily print speed). Of course, such a printer cannot replace the mass production of even identical products, the manufacturing price is often quite high, the quality does not always meet expectations and the details need to be finalized, but still, many consumers already need the services of a studio that offers 3D printing. In this regard, an entrepreneur who has bought such a device can start his own profitable business.
In many cities, competition is absent or minimal, and although it is necessary to carry out a large-scale marketing campaign aimed at delivering information about the possibilities of three-dimensional printing, there are still more than enough prospects. Especially considering the fact that in the future three-dimensional printing will only become more widespread, and many people will need it. Now the main difficulty of this business is the promotion of its services. On the other hand, in large cities this should not be a serious problem, since a certain percentage of residents of megalopolises already have, if not their own three-dimensional printer, then often turn to offices where they offer such printing services.
Before starting work, you need to register as a business entity, and if a large company is opened, it makes sense to think about opening a legal entity (preferably a limited liability company), but in general it is better to simply register as an individual entrepreneur. In both cases, a simplified taxation system will be available, which involves transferring to the state’s benefit no more than 6% of income or 15% of operating profit as taxes. There should not be any difficulties in registration, because currently such activities are not licensed, which means that an entrepreneur can work immediately after registration with the tax authority. The state duty for registration of a limited liability company is 4 thousand rubles, and for registration of an individual entrepreneur - only 800 rubles.
After solving all the bureaucratic difficulties, you can begin to search for premises for your work. It should be noted that some entrepreneurs work at home, that is, they print in their apartment, but such a business is hardly worth considering serious. Therefore, it makes sense to think about opening a full-fledged representative office, in which in addition to the working room there is a place for receiving clients, as well as for storing products and supplies. In general, for printing on a simple three-dimensional printer, a small area is enough, because this is not a very large-sized device, however, if you buy a professional unit, and the company expects a large volume of production, you need to have a fairly large office. Thus, the minimum size of the premises is the free space in their own apartment, and a novice entrepreneur can really start with this format of work in order to build up a client base; there is no need to rely on serious orders yet, the amount of work will be small, but the costs will be significantly reduced. While the entrepreneur works at home, he earns his reputation, later he can rent an office to continue working in the direction that he studied. If we take into account precisely the full-fledged work, then we need to have a room with an area of 50-70 m2, and a significant amount of space will go under the warehouse - a considerable amount of consumables will be stored there, and for large volumes of work - the manufactured products. On the other hand, at present, three-dimensional printers rarely print large print runs today, which means that sometimes you can work for a long time at home or just in a small office.
The cost of renting a room can be very different, because it is influenced by a huge number of factors, for example, location in the city. In a large city, the cost of renting a space of fifty square meters can be more than 80 thousand rubles, if you rent it in some business center, then more than 100 thousand. In small cities, renting will be much cheaper, but in small cities it is hardly worth doing such a business, as mentioned above. Also in the room, it is likely that you will have to make at least cosmetic repairs, for this you need to allocate another 50-100 thousand rubles, depending on what kind of repair the entrepreneur will need. You also need to buy very expensive software and powerful computers at the office to design sketches for 3D printers. The best option is to purchase a three-dimensional scanner, with which you can get three-dimensional objects, but the cost of such a device starts from 50 thousand rubles, but a professional device costs several hundred thousand rubles. You can purchase, if there is no scanner, just software. However, it can be very expensive, for example, 3DS Max will cost the entrepreneur more than 200 thousand rubles, but this is the cost for the first year, after which you will only have to pay about 30 thousand rubles a year. And finally, for the office you need to buy simple furniture and other things to ensure the work of employees.
However, of course, the most important thing in this type of business is the acquisition of the printer itself for work. A three-dimensional printer today can be either a relatively simple or rather complex device, for example, some people assemble them on their own, but a professional machine can only be bought, moreover, produced by a large company. The minimum price for a three-dimensional printer starts at about 50 thousand rubles, but you can call it a three-dimensional printer only with conventionality. Formally, such a device will be able to print the model according to the sketch, but you can forget about the quality, the number of materials used is limited, color printing is almost never supported, and you can’t print a huge number of products, namely simply complex copies to one degree or another - the printer will either refuse to print, or will issue something obscene. In other words, only monochrome cubes can be printed on such devices. This, of course, is somewhat grotesque, but such machines are in no way suitable for business. A relatively normal device costs 200 thousand rubles - with such an aggregate, you can already take some orders without refusing to almost every client. A good professional machine will cost about one and a half million rubles, and the most modern printers, which can offer high performance and excellent print quality, can cost several tens of millions. It turns out that it is optimal for a business to buy equipment worth 1-2 million rubles, because other devices will not be able to provide good quality services. The cheapest thing is to buy Chinese devices, you can even find offers of manually assembled (in artisanal conditions) devices that are assembled in Russia, however, it is best to order such equipment in Japan or Europe. Moreover, today there are already many representative offices of foreign companies in Russia that offer their customers the purchase of printers without the need for transportation and customs operations.
For the first time, one printer may be enough, moreover, in most cases even it will be idle for a significant part of the time (which is very bad), but in addition to the printer, you will have to buy other additional devices. For example, 3D pens can simplify and speed up the work of an entrepreneur, with which you can create sketches of future models. However, they cost very little, simple equipment can be bought for an amount within 10 thousand rubles, but as a result, a printer, scanner and pen can be enough to open your own company, which performs a large list of various jobs. In general, in the end, we can say that the cost of equipment can be in the range of 1 million, but with the purchase of expensive professional devices - more than several tens of millions.
Next, you need to find suppliers of supplies, and here a lot depends on which printer was purchased. The fact is that such devices work with very diverse materials, the most common consumables are all kinds of polymers, but there are printers that print products from metal powder. There are also those who use different materials even within the same operation, however, such devices require particularly complex settings and constant monitoring of the process with the need for constant adjustment of equipment and even replacement of its parts. But in any case, the cost of consumables is included in the final cost of the product, which means that it is not too important for the entrepreneur what the product is made of. The situation on the market is such that a small number of companies can offer printing not from cheap polymers, which means that you can get a competitive advantage if you offer customers the printing of quality products from good materials. Full-color (or rather, multi-color as much as possible at the moment of development of three-dimensional printers) printing and the use of various materials for different parts of the product in general allows you to attract the most demanding customers to your company. The cost of consumables, of course, can vary greatly, but take for example simple polymers - the cost of a coil will cost 3 thousand rubles, but photopolymers cost several times more. Metal powder is even more expensive, although much depends on quality. Suppliers of materials can be found in any relatively large city, but there can still be supply problems, so it makes sense to buy a large number of consumables. If there will be many orders, then a lot of materials will be required, respectively. On average, about 200 thousand rubles should be allocated for materials, but sometimes this amount increases, sometimes decreases, it all depends on what kind of materials the entrepreneur plans to buy.
To work at the enterprise, you will have to find people who are well versed in similar technology and can create sketches. Firstly, it’s not bad if the company has one full-time programmer who will deal with the software part of all the equipment - not only computers, but also the printer itself, that is, we call the programmer only by convention, this is a specialist of a broader profile. In addition to it, you need to find a person who takes up the hardware and other settings of the printer itself, in addition - one or two people who draw sketches, because not every client comes with a sketch to print their details. As you can understand, today there are very few competent specialists in this direction, which means that their work is paid quite high. In general, one person can do all these work, the entrepreneur himself can study all the issues and just hire assistants, however it will take a lot of time (although in any case it is recommended to independently study the features of printing on a three-dimensional printer). The salary level of employees starts at about 30 thousand rubles, but in addition to the salary, the bonus part is also almost always expected, which employees receive depending on the amount of work performed, that is, the average specialist at such an enterprise receives 40-50 thousand (the figures are very average). It may also be necessary to hire people who will be engaged in organizational and administrative work, but they receive at best 25 thousand rubles in an average city. Yes, and the businessman himself, if he does not work on the printer, can take on these responsibilities. All business processes that are not related to profit-making by the organization should be outsourced, this includes bookkeeping, as well as ensuring the security of your office, if one was opened and security is not provided by the premises owner.
Thus, it turns out that a business in three-dimensional printing can be a very profitable area. The fact is that the margin for such services is usually very high, with one cubic centimeter of materials the entrepreneur receives about 200% of the income, but you need to understand that there are additional costs in the three-dimensional press, except for the consumables themselves - this is wages and rents. The salary fund can be more than 200 thousand rubles, if 4-5 employees work (depending on whether the entrepreneur is involved in the work process), the rental price can also reach 100 thousand rubles. That is, if we take into account that the cost of printing will cost the client about 20 rubles per cubic centimeter of the product. Thus, in order to cover your expenses, you need to print 15 thousand cubic centimeters of products per month. However, this is a very rough calculation, because the amount of expenses can be even less when working with a smaller team, and if you work at home, you can get very good profit at all. This business is only developing at the moment, so it’s hard to say exactly what the entrepreneur’s success will be, but now it’s safe to say that buying a three-dimensional printer is an investment in the near future.
Matthias Laudanum
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08/18/2019