Business Profile on Bre Pettis - Coursework Example

Business Profile on Bre Pettis Bre Pettis, born in the year 1974, is an entrepreneur, multi-artist and also a video blogger. He is widely known for MAKE’s DIY video podcast and for History Hacker Pilot featured on the History Channel. Bre Pettis is also one of the founders of NYC-resistor, which is a Brooklyn based hacker space. He is also the former CEO and the Co-Founder of a company named MakerBot Industries that is known for producing 3D printers but is now owned by Stratasys. Bre Pettis besides being an artist, Video Podcast producer, TV host, school teacher and puppeteer, has hosted the weekend projects podcast of Make Magazine and has also created new media for etcy.com. In 2007 in Vienna he was also an artist-in-residence at Museum-Quartier of the art group named Monochrome. He has also been prominently featured in a documentary film named “Print the Legend” [Liz13]. Bre Pettis moved to Seattle at the age of 13. Before Seattle he lived in Ithaca, New York. He graduated later from the Bellevue High School. He studied mythology, psychology and performing arts in Evergreen State College and was graduated from there in the year 1995. After college, he worked for a brief time as a floor runner and also as a camera assistant on films that were being featured in Prague. Bre Pettis also worked as an assistant for the Creature Shop of Jin Henson in London. He later studied at the Pacific Oak Collage from where he graduated with a teaching certificate and started working as an art teacher in Seattle Public School from the year 1999 to 2006. Pettis married Koi Stark and they have a daughter together named Nika Stark, who was born on July 8, 2011 [Bra141]. Pettis started thinking about creating something when he moved to New York in the year 2007. He used to play Frisbee each weekend with 20 people belonging to technology industry in New York. This is how he met Zach and created NYC Resistor, a famous hacker space. Zach and Pettis shared tools and they also invested collectively in a laser cutter worth $25,000. It was then that they started talking about creating 3D-printers; they had been hearing about them but never saw any as they were only available to the design firms. They later got involved with a community whose focus was to make 3D printers; a community that had the ability of making their own copies in order to build the foundation of a world without money. It was then that they began making prototypes. Even after working for two years they did not have any 3D-printer that actually worked [Kat111]. In January 2009 both Zach and Pettis locked themselves in hacker space and in a few months created an actual 3D printer. They introduced their product in public by simply placing it in bars, where the printed wine/whiskey shot glasses for public. It was then that they launched their product. They priced each 3D printer at $750 and they were sold out almost instantly. The initial customers of the MakerBot Company were the people present in the bar at that time. They spent about 5 years to figure out how to create a Company. They did not even know how to place their product, as every each machine costs about $650. However in that particular year they made 600 3D printers and initiated their company with quite an experimental business model. The raised about $10 million from the investors after the success of their first product. It was then that they met Jenny Lawton, an entrepreneur who helped them to set up an infrastructure for their company and hired talented people for their firm [Mic142]. The low price of the 3D-printers offered by MakerBot targets a large customer market ranging from designing companies to households. However it seems as if the 3D printers are still in their hobbyist phase which means that as the price of the product will go down more customers will buy it as a hobby and the firm is going to make more profits. The low price of the printers also attracts the school and college going students, as it can serve as a learning tool for them. There were a number of challenges faced by Pettis in order to introduce 3D printers to the mass audience. However one big problem was to educate the consumers so that they may adopt this new technology, and also to bring down the cost of these printers so that they can be offered to masses [3DP14]. It was announced in September this year that Bre Pettis stepped down from his position of CEO of MakerBot. It was later announced by the Company that he made this decision because he was working on something big and wanted to give the project his full attention. The Bold Machines, the project Pettis has been busy with is basically an innovative workshop that is going to take place at Stratasys and is going to partner with the innovators in order to show case MakerBot, Solidscape and Stratasys 3D Printer. The future goal of Bold Machines is to look for businesses, individuals and brands that can collaborate with the firm to design some cool 3D printers. The first project of the bold machine is going to be “Margo” who is an inspiring character and is going to be the protagonist of an animation feature. The story line indicates that she is an intelligent young detective, who is in search of her parents, and goes missing after a space exploration mission. She is going to be the central character in the 3D printed story that is going to be created by the co-founders of Bold Machines, named Robert Steiner and Bre Pettis, along with taking some help form Anthony Willie. This team is also going to collaborate with an incredibly talented artist named Alves da Silva for the creation of Margo and the supporting cast [Bar13]. Appendix Work Cited Liz13: , (Welch), Bra141: , (Dale), Kat111: , (Kate), Mic142: , (McCutcheon), 3DP14: , (Services), Bar13: , (Darrow), Read More