We all need help from time to time, and meetups are one of the best ways to gain knowledge from industry experts. In this episode, Tom and Tracy Hazzard talk about an Ask Us Anything Event, an opportunity for people in the 3D printing market to get much-needed help and knowledge about 3D printing. Tom and Tracy share the stage with MatterHackers as they extend their hands to help out the local community and help immerse interested followers into the 3D printing industry.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Meetup With Matterhackers
This is the Ask Us Anything segment.
This episode is about an upcoming Ask Us Anything event that we’re doing in cooperation with MatterHackers.
It’s a Meetup with Matterhackers. It’s an Ask Us Anything event including two of their people on a panel. All four of us will be there and we’ll take a bunch of Ask Us Anything questions about 3D printing. It’s a great opportunity and people should start looking for other Meetups in their areas and offer more than sales. I’ve been to a few events and they’re like big sales pitches.
This is about support, reaching out to the local community, and having people come in. It’s going to be your opportunity as an interested follower and 3D printing person out there in the community to come in. You can meet us, some of the leaders and highly technical people of Matterhackers and ask questions and start to immerse yourself more in this industry in this field.
I’m looking forward to getting back with Lars and Taylor and hearing what they have to say too. It’s been a while since we’ve spoken to them in person. I would be curious to hear what questions and the answers that they give. That’ll give us some interesting ideas on where their company is going and what’s going on there. That’s the point of these meetup events that I find. Sometimes there are some sales-y things involved in them but if there’s something educational, an educational component involved or something, that’s what’s in it for me as the person attending. If you can provide that at your event that’s much more powerful. That’s where the 3D printing world is, I want to go places where I can meet other like-minded people but I also want to do more than that. I want to learn something or be able to ask my questions.
We have some experience with MatterHackers as being a customer as well. Early on, we bought a 3D printer from them. The reality is, that the 3D printer wasn’t the best fit for us and we returned it. They were good about taking it back. As we’ve gotten to know them better, it’s interesting. Clearly, they’re a business but they’re a business that has many objectives, different revenue streams and selling of things is only one part of it. I’ve learned that over time that even their marketing department, who you think would be all about advertising and trying to sell things and all that, they’re more about trying to help move this industry forward and bring it to more people. They’re not about trying to get that sale now. That’s not what they’re about.
Build a better community and support system for the future and the customers will want to do business with you. That’s how I feel about them. I feel that they’ve been supportive of this 3D printing community as it’s been growing. They’ve had their place in it because of that. They provide value.
We’re going to have our tech crew there with us and we’re going to be recording this event. We will put together a podcast. It will be too long to do the whole thing, but we’ll cut some of the best questions and answers.
If you can’t be there, you can follow-up and listen to it.
If anybody has the ability on a Thursday evening because that’s what it is to after work, come on by and participate if you’re anywhere within Southern California from probably San Diego up to greater LA. It’s not that far. You could probably make it for an evening event. For those of you in other parts of the country or in other countries, as we know, we have readers like Eduardo who asked a couple of questions and he’s in Brazil. Certainly, we will cut together a podcast for you, have some photos, a good blog post with some photos, and maybe some video.
What I want to point out though is the power of the meetup. This will be our third meetup event in two months and it’s an interesting thing that’s going on with that. We’ve been doing so many of them and we keep getting asked by them to provide either a mini-class, be on a panel or doing a Shark Tank-Esque mini simulation with a bunch of inventors in February as well. These meetup types of opportunities are a great place for you to get some educational support and explore some things in a topic that interests you. It’s so powerful now.
It’s also a big networking opportunity which can be an educational opportunity. As a business owner or someone who’s in business for themselves, it can be a big opportunity in different ways for getting the word out about what you do and finding synergy with other companies or people.
Finding great employees, which is hard now in 3D design.
Meetups should not be overlooked as a great resource and potential way to help you with your endeavor in 3D printing.
Meetup With Matterhackers: MatterHackers are more about trying to help move this industry forward and bring it to more people. They’re not about trying to get that sale today.
I think about the way that we’ve done our business. We probably have done at least 1 to 2 meetups a month for sure. Some months we’ve done even more than that.
The other thing that’s been exciting to me and comes to mind because we have had a question about retraining and starting a new career. We have not been in this 3D printing industry in our whole careers. We were designers.
We’ve used it on and off over the years.
Certainly but we did a lot of work in the furniture industry, which is so different from this industry.
It’s depressing.
Furniture can be a beautiful thing as a design and art. It’s seductive to designers, but as an industry, it’s old, tired and boring. When you go to the trade shows around furniture, it’s like a snooze fest.
We go to these Maker and 3D print meetups and everybody’s excited.
It’s so much more fun.
I’m having fun.
The people involved are so nice to try to help each other. It’s much more cooperative and a lot less competitive. That’s refreshing.
It’s collaborative.
I’m feeling charged, energized and excited to be a part of it. That’s one of the fun things that come through at these meetup events also. If you’re getting new into the industry, come check that out.
We hope you will try a meetup in your area or feel free to ask us to do a meetup. We’re totally here for you. You’d be surprised where we traveled to all the time. We’re also traveling around in areas. We’d love to do a meetup if there’s an opportunity in another area as well. You can ask us that anywhere on social media @HazzDesign or you can go to our websites 3DStartPoint.com or WTFFFPodcast.com.
You can reach out to us over email at Info@3DStartPoint.com and Info@WTFFFPodcast.com. Also, check out MatterHackers website. It’s going to have some information about this meetup on their website and through their social media.
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