NEWSROOM

3D printing service PrintGig enters the gig economy 

18 August 2022

Recently launched 3D printing service, PrintGig  is an online platform where anyone can take advantage of advanced 3D printing technologies with no technical skills required.

PrintGig was born during the first Covid-19 lockdown when University of Auckland Master of Business Management student Reese Chen and friend Caleb McIvor noticed a gap in the market for 3D printing services. With more and more people shifting to work for themselves, they saw an increase in demand for 3D printed prototypes.

“With our platform, we want to make 3D printers accessible, not just for hobbyists and specialists, but for everyone”, says Chen.

“I was born in the transition period right before the information age. All around me, technology was growing and improving at an incredible rate. Due to my lack of technical and specialist abilities, it took meeting Caleb and the rest of the team to realise I wanted to become an entrepreneur in the technology sector.”

In 2021, PrintGig took part in Velocity, the student-led entrepreneurship development programme run through the Business School’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). They took part in Velocity’s LaunchPad, where they worked on their business plan for entry into the Velocity $100k Challenge competition.

PrintGig aced it, winning a share of the $100k prize pool and one of five places in the University of Auckland’s VentureLab incubator, designed to give budding ventures the support they need to really take off.

Chen says the most valuable part of being in the VentureLab incubator was the workshops and mentors. “As a start-up company, the most significant pain point is that we don’t know what we don’t know. The workshops genuinely helped us move forward and build a solid foundation of understanding. Working with VentureLab Manager Ken Erskine was a truly amazing experience. It’s hard to find people who we can trust to expose our problems to, and go to for honest help and answers. Ken is the type of person who will tear us apart and help us rebuild. We couldn’t have got this far without him.”

“On top of all the behind-the-scenes legwork that goes into a start-up, a major lesson we learnt early on is, how important it is to have a growth mindset as an entrepreneur. We are all constantly having to pick up new skills outside of our disciplines. This has added more epithets and caveats to our job descriptions, and it’s a source of pride for all our founders.”

The team are already making a name for themselves. McIvor was selected as one of the finalists for the 2022 Hi-Tech Awards Young Achiever category. And helping bring forward the official launch of the PrintGig website, earlier this year they won a $7,000 seed grant from Soda, which they invested into necessary hardwire and equipment for the platform’s development.

Chen says “We were fortunate enough to meet a group of friends that were all passionate about technology as well as the vision for PrintGig. Recently, we welcomed two amazing interns to the team to help with the platform’s development.”

PrintGig look forward to expanding their services to Australia in 2023, then to the wider Asia-Pacific region.

To aspiring entrepreneurs, Chen says, “Make sure you are extremely passionate about it, find the right business partners, and secure a limitless supply of coffee, and remember, as Caleb and I always say, if you can make it through this, it will be one hell of a TED talk story.”