KS Project Update #10: Update #10 A Look Back and Forwards

Project Update #10: Update #10 A Look Back and Forwards Posted by M3D LLC ♥ Like

Thanks to everyone who backed our project, and congratulations on helping us raise a record-shattering $3,401,361! Because of you, The Micro is now a leading outlet for consumers wanting to gain entry to the exciting 3D Printing market! Campaign Recap Before moving forwards, we wanted to take a moment to recap this amazing campaign with you and reflect on some of the most exciting events and the amount of work involved: When we hit the launch button of our Kickstarter campaign, we had two backers within one second (and it was not us!). For the next 11 minutes we were completely taken aback as we had one of the highest backing rate of any project in history. https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/pr..._high.jpg?2014 ► Play video The M3D team worked for over 18 hours straight, answering a massive flurry of comments and questions (apologies if we started sounding loopy by the end). We were sent some amazing stories from our backers about what they did in order to get The Micro early on, including those of you who escaped from work just long enough to back The Micro, give us a shout out, and returning in time to avoid getting caught. By the end of the first 25 hours we raised just over 1 million dollars! Wow! https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/pr...png?1399885545 Due to the masses of comments, emails, backer requests, distribution inquiries, corporate queries The M3D team were able to rope in family and friends of co-workers to help respond and keep up. We cannot thank these wonderful people enough as we were finally able to take breaks ourselves. Our PR team focused on following up with hundreds of journalists to get them the material they needed to keep readers up to date about our campaign. Kept in close contact with our component manufacturers and shipping companies. Met over 60 backers at the USA Science & Engineering Festival and all of you loved The Micro in its current prototype state. We had some great feedback from you all and someone said "for $299 I would take the prototype right off the table." :) Ran out of office space thanks to the wonderful people helping us. A ‘problem’ every start-up dreams of! Crossing The Finish Line The Micro makes it into the list of top 10 Kickstarter projects of all time...the largest number of 3D printers sold at one time... the largest crowd funded 3D printer in history...and the largest Kickstarter on the east coast! A wonderful ending to the campaign, with an amazing group of Backers, from over 85 countries, that understood our vision and believed in us enough to help make our dream a reality. You guys are THE BEST! Didn't Get Your Micro? If you weren't able to secure an Amazon Payments transaction for your pledge, we can help you – please contact us at info AT printm3d.com. For those that were unable to buy The Micro before the campaign closed, it will be available for pre-order on our website (www.theMicro3D.com) at a post-Kickstarter price of $349 for a limited time. Want to Get Extra Filaments? If you weren't able to add filaments to your pledge, we’ll order a small amount of extra inventory to allow you to add filaments when we send out the final survey requesting your shipping info and payment, and certain colors will have limited availability. You’ll also be able to purchase filaments individually as we establish our inventory and fulfillment methods towards the completion of our backer rewards. So what's to come? First we’re going to scale up our operations and redouble our efforts to deliver your rewards with the greatest quality and timeliness. We will be providing all of our backers with updates on our ongoing progress on the product as well as our growth as a business. We’ll also be sending you surveys near your reward tier delivery date that will allow you to choose filament colors, the color of your Micro, and make sure we have the correct shipping address. Make It Maryland! This week we went to the Make It Maryland event, alongside the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. They’re helping us on different aspects of the business from scaling up lean to connecting with other manufacturers to identifying key talent. We also had the privilege of seeing Congressman Hoyer and Baltimore Mayor Rawlings-Blake speak at the event about how Maryland manufacturing is bringing back jobs, and we're proud to contribute to this with The Micro. https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/pr...jpg?1399886304 The event was held at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, which is a monument to the legacy of Maryland manufacturing. Many products were made here, including one of the first portable power drills, by Black & Decker. It really puts everything we are doing with The Micro into a bigger focus. https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/pr...jpg?1399887301 Miniature Figurines: Step 3 - The finished figurine! This figurine has gone from a simple file, to an accurately printed model and finally, a fully presentable product. Since the last update, we painted the model with a primer coat and modeling paint. This was also our first attempt just to see what 3D printing can do and there is so much more room for improvement. Expect to see more projects like this in the future. (Attribution:http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:153061). https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/pr...jpg?1399886569 https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/pr...jpg?1399885356 https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/pr...jpg?1399885366 https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/pr...jpg?1399885375 Interested in Working with M3D? Thanks to you guys helping us smash our goal, we are now able to bring new people on board and grow the M3D team with great people. Are any of you interested, or can you vouch for an awesome team member or friend who is eager, humble, and talented, and interested in working for us at M3D? If so, please contact jobs@printm3d.com with your resume. We are especially interested in individuals in the state of MD, graduates from nearby universities, and full-time summer internships. We really hope to hear from you as we know we can make our team even better. Keep in touch with us and follow us on : Facebook Twitter YoutubeInstagram Thanks for backing!