EP 111 — Vision Miner's Rob Lent On 9 Years Of Bootstrapping Accessible High-Temp 3D Printing

Rob Lent, Co-Founder and COO of Vision Miner, has spent nine years making high-performance polymer 3D printing accessible to companies that used to need quarter-million-dollar machines. Materials like PEEK and ULTEM have been used in industry for over 40 years, but printing them in-house was out of reach for most.

Rob walks Dave through bootstrapping from a bedroom printer to manufacturing their own IDEX machine in Ukraine, surviving eight months of wartime shipping shutdowns, and designing hardware around ITAR requirements based on nine years of customer needs.

Topics discussed:

• Making PEEK and ULTEM 3D printing accessible to smaller companies
• Bootstrapping a hardware company with zero outside funding
• Manufacturing machines in Ukraine through wartime disruption
• Designing ITAR-conscious hardware with removable WiFi modules
• Why 3D printing ROI lives in the manufacturing process
• Nanopolymer adhesive built for PEEK that works on all plastics
• Emotional control as a founder's most critical leadership skill
• Comparing 3D printing adoption to semiconductors in the 1970s

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