Desktop 3D printing: The milk analogy

April 16, 2009

I was thrilled by the response to the Singer problem post so I’ve decided to once more share another one of my tortured analogies with you.

The Milk analogy

Milk is a huge business. A typical US consumer consumes 178 pounds of milk products a year and drinks 21 gallons of the milk. In 2007 in the US alone the dairy industry had revenues of $99,700,000,000. There are approximately 34,000 supermarkets in the US & 13,000 small grocery stores.

In addition there are many other retail outlets that sell milk. Many of these milk retailers are well located and have long opening hours, while others compete on price. It is therefore easy to get milk in the United States.

There is however a huge business opportunity here.

I will give you this business idea, completely free of charge and even get you started with the marketing of it. This business idea will turn the dairy industry and milk consumption on its head as well as revolutionize food retailing and have a lasting impact on society.

Riches and fame await for the person that is lucky enough to read this and able to capitalize on this idea.

Major revolutions in retailing and consumer behavior typically happen when distribution problems are solved in inventive ways. Milk distribution in the US seems to be an efficient affair with high barriers to entry that depend on scale and scope. That is until you apply real insight and inventiveness to the problem. To be “at arms length” at all times to the customer is the dream of any distributor and retailer in any industry. You can do this for the dairy industry by implementing this simple idea:

Put a cow in every home.

Consumers like milk and respond very well to “freshness”, wholesome, healthy and immediacy. A cow in every home will allow these consumers to consume milk in the most healthy, fresh and immediate form. Furthermore, in the long run they will be able to drink this much fresher much healthier much more available milk at lower cost than store bought milk. The environmental benefits would be self evident. A cow could in addition to being a milk dispensing device also function as a household pet. The cuteness and docility of cows will drive widespread adoption.

Your distribution channel will focus directly on the consumer and allow for high margins by cutting out the middle man. Furthermore by supplying the inputs for the cow such as hay and “superfood for your cow” you have a potential high margin secondary revenue stream similar to Proctor & Gamble’s razorblades model. If you act quickly the “aftermarket” in cow accessories such as pens, toys and grooming equipment could be yours also.

Some of the skeptics will invariably see problems with this idea. They will say things like:

“81% of the united States is urbanized. In a city home there simply will not be any room for a cow. In suburban homes there might in some case be room but it will be difficult. Cows also produce a lot of waste, they stink and specialized training will be needed to care for them. It also takes a lot of work to take care of cows. The market will soon be saturated with other firms offering cows for sale even if it does work.”

I will quickly repudiate any and all objections from these naysayers.

The genius of this plan is to create: mini-cows. Through genetic engineering you can create low cost, small footprint, low waste, low maintenance cows. This proprietary technology is patentable and will create barriers to entry. No one will be able to sell your excellent breed of cow at the same price point and with the same low footprint. The prime mover advantage in this industry will be enormous and while others struggle to catch up and genetically engineer similar cows you will be free to conquer and own the market.

As for the branding and marketing I have some suggestions. I would not go for the Holstein breed of cattle. Although iconic I would not consider this a wise choice. The black and white patterning will tend to breed tired visual and marketing as well as limit your brand. Tucows and Gateway (remember when they both were cool?) both have copyrights in the tech arena with the typical black & white patterning. A lot of dairy firms already use similar patterning in their respective fields.

Instead I would suggest going for a Jersey, Brown Swiss Cow or Guernsey breed. These are all good milk producers, docile, smaller than Holsteins and have a distinctive look. This will make for easier patent and intellectual property development and protection. By taking a distinctive breed you can also dominate and define the “category” of the in home milk producers more easily.

As for the consumer marketing itself it would be simple. Focus on cuteness, utility and originality. I would also advocate for a social media viral marketing campaign. Take the photograph below, tastefully insert your brand and URL somewhere and submit a link to the image on your site to services such as Reddit and Digg and you should be golden.

Please remember to attribute it to Law_keven correctly and realize it is a Share Alike Creative Commons license.

As you will have gathered this post is not about milk at all but about desktop 3D printers.

Fist some background for you, 3D printing in a nutshell:

A 3D printer today costs from $10,000-$900,000. When I use the term 3D printing I mean it in the broad sense as explained here. 3D printers are typically the size of coke machines.

An experienced 3D modeler has to make a 3D file that is watertight, 2-manifold and with the normals pointing in the right direction. This 3D file has to be checked and often repaired. Then the machine software takes this file and calculates how the machine will make it. The support structures and orientation of the part have to be calculated also. Next, layer by layer material is built up into the resulting object. There is a manual process for removing support material (the brown stuff in the picture right) and many processes require additional steps such as curing or hardening in some way. The printer requires a skilled & experienced operator to be run efficiently.

Some machines can work in an office environment but the removing of support material is often not suited for an office. Other machines produce a lot of dust or work with toxic materials and I would not want them within a city block of my home. Price of the machines depend on build volume, build speed and the types of materials they can work with. These materials also vary widely in price. There is no clear “best” 3D printing technology or material, it all depends on the use case.

The Desktop 3D printing revolution will put small and easy to use versions of these machines in everyone’s home. Inspired by this T-shirt however I have begun to doubt that this revolution will be as easy, quick or complete as promised.

As I work for Shapeways which is a 3D printing community which is based on giving access to the most expensive machines for the lowest prices through scale I must confess to definitely being biased and perhaps suffering from confirmation bias. I also realize that I am exposing myself to a Thomas Watson type of risk as expressed by this comment to the Singer post

But, with that in mind I do want stimulate discussion on desktop 3D printing and point out that the path to the mainstream will be a bit slower than anticipated. Furthermore, it will not be a case of “laser printers were expensive” now they are cheap, ergo the same will happen with desktop 3D printing. The drivers for the adoption of this technology will be different ones entirely.

Just because a lot of people like a technology, just because it could change anything and everything does not mean it will be implemented successfully. Good ideas do not win just because they are good ideas. The milk analogy, hopefully, illustrates barriers to profitability and implementation for a commercial company attempting to put a desktop printer on every desk, in every home. Even if the obvious technical challenges could be solved, instantly and right now, would mini-cows or desktop printers in every household work?

The reasons why mini-cows would or would not work depend on consumer behavior, consumer perception, the ability and willingness of someone to engage with a particular new technology and the usefulness of this technology to them at any given moment. A device’s perceived and actual utility to a person making a decision to buy it, or not.

The $5000 desktop 3D printer does not matter.

Its existence an sich will not magically make a market. If I created a $5000 consumer friendly desktop nuclear reactor tomorrow, would it sell? Regulatory issues aside and imagining that government bodies would certify it as safe. It would be mega high tech and interesting and would be sure to get a lot of techies blood flowing faster. The marketing launch would be immense. I’m sure that there would be people that wanted one. But, would a lot of people buy one? Would you? Why or why not?

To me the price point would not matter at all. The inventiveness and sheer possibility of it would not matter either. Even the fact that the thing would be an incredibly good investment for consumers would not matter. What would kill such an initiative ultimately would be that people are afraid of the word “nuclear.”

The technology itself and the possibilities, although endless, would be immaterial.

As for the desktop 3D printer market: The real barriers to adoption by consumers should be similar to the ones expressed in the Singer post and the drivers for adoption would come from the materials and the ability of everyone to design, not the machine itself.