Will This 43 Year Old Win The 3D Printing Industry? EP 260: Drew Taylor

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Nathan Latka

Ceo, Entrepreneurs, Founders, Software, Business, Entrepreneurship, Saas, Startups

4.6 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2016

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Drew Taylor, founder of AstroPrint - a software and app ecosystem described as “the Android of the 3D printing world”. Listen as Nathan and Drew talk 3D printing, making money, and how to dominate an emerging niche.

Famous 5
Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm
What CEO do you follow? — Tony Hsieh
What is your favorite online tool? — Trello
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Absolutely not
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? —I don’t know. I’m a fan of taking life’s lessons as they come.

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:11 – Nathan’s introduction
02:00 – Welcoming Drew to the show
02:30 – AstroPrint started because Drew saw that 3D printing software needed to improve
03:00 – Two products: software, and cloud-based app store
03:25 – Free for personal use; charge for commercial use
03:50 – 70/30 split on profits from app store
04:10 – Founded in 2015 - with a different idea
04:45 – $150k total revenue in 2015
05:00 – 9 team members
05:10 – Raised $500k in convertible note
05:50 – Fundraising with accelerators including BetaSpring and 500 Startups
06:20 – How do you get enough sales to dominate?
06:45 – Partnering with larger companies
07:30 – Can provide the entire software base for existing printers
09:00 – Adds value to machine by connecting it to an app system
11:00 – Consumer revenue is entirely from app sales
11:50 – Currently almost no revenue from app sales - expected to take off around 2017
14:00 – Would be happy with a pre-money valuation of $10 million
14:30 – Currently in the middle of a fundraising debt round
16:40 – Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Be creative about making money - what revenue models are working in other areas? How can you generate multiple revenue streams from one product?
Accept that your start-up idea will change as you sound out the market. Learn from what doesn’t work.
Don’t worry about making mistakes when you’re young - it’s all part of growing.

Resources Mentioned:
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base.
0:09.0	You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have.
0:16.0	I'm now at $20,000 per talk.
0:18.0	Five and six million.
0:19.0	He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000 units sold mark Five and six million. He is hell bent on global domination.
0:21.2	We just broke our 100,000 unit soul mark.
0:23.9	And I'm your host, Nathan Latka.
0:27.6	Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner of the $100 is Zach Ferran.
0:32.8	He's a 22-year-old Apple employee, and he's listening to the show and loving it.
0:38.1	For your chance to win 100 bucks every Monday, simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes now
0:43.2	and then text the word Nathan to 3344 to prove that you did it to enter.
0:49.5	Good morning, Top Tribe. You're listening to Episode 260, and coming up tomorrow morning, you'll hear from Robin Thurston,
0:56.5	who launched his own company, got 20 million monthly active users, and sold to Under Armour for
1:02.3	$150 million. We'll have a special video edition of this as well. So stay tuned and tune in right
1:08.8	and early tomorrow morning. All right, Top Tribe, if you like 3D printing, don't move a muscle. Listen in on this one,
1:16.6	we've got the founder Drew Taylor with us today of Astroprint, which is an IoT Internet of
1:21.6	Things platform in the 3D printing vertical and is often referred to as the Android of the 3D printing industry.
1:32.8	The Astroprint Software Platform is the world's largest ecosystem, okay, largest ecosystem of 3D printing content and applications, and it's compatible with 80% of 3D printers
1:38.5	on the market today. This position positions AstroTurf as the default platform for third-party content development
1:45.8	and distribution for the entire 3D printing market.
1:49.9	Monetization occurs through commercial licensing, which we'll get into in a second, of the
1:54.3	platform and a 70-30 revenue share on the 3D printing app store.
	...

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