The words on the entrance of MakerBot's headquarters in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y., are the first clue that the company inside and its owner, Bre Pettis, are likely to be a little offbeat. Splashed across its huge, slightly beat-up metal doors, in simple lettering, are the words "Bot Cave."

There is something very dark and cavern-like about the space, a 5,000-square-foot former storage unit that MakerBot moved into and (barely) refurbished two years ago. But don't let the primitive décor fool you. The facility is home to Pettis's high-tech creation—the MakerBot, a desktop 3D printer that allows users to make plastic versions of "whatever their imaginations can come up with," he says.

Dressed all in black, with a wild mane of dark hair, long sideburns, and thick, black-frame eyeglasses, Pettis, 38, strolls past the dozen or so MakerBots—humming away, lights blinking—that line the inside entrance to his company. Each one (think of an Easy Bake oven on steroids) is in the process of making one of the thousands of small, plastic items—a bracelet, coat hook, bottle opener, to name just a few—that can be produced with the MakerBot. "We call this area the bot farm," Pettis says, surveying the machines like a proud papa. "Cool, right?"

Just as text is printed on a sheet of paper, the MakerBot 3D printer "prints," or squeezes out, wafer-thin layers of melted plastic, one on top of the other. The layers harden to form a three-dimensional object. It can take anywhere from 90 minutes to three or four hours to complete the process, depending on the complexity of the design, with most items measuring 4-by-4-by-6 inches.

Designs and instructions for anything that can be made on the MakerBot—and Pettis says more than 10,000 items have been created so far—are open-source, meaning that users post the designs online, and they're free for anyone to use. In fact, posted on the wall at the company are scores of photos of the items made by MakerBot's loyal fans. Some make the items to give away to friends; others sell them on newly created sites like Etsy, an eBay-like online retailer for handcrafted objects.

The idea of 3D printing isn't new, of course. Automakers, aircraft companies, and other manufacturers have used it for years to produce parts and prototypes for new product models and designs. The industrial versions, however, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The MakerBot is aimed squarely at the consumer market, costs $1,299, and comes in a kit that can be assembled at home with a few tools and the ability to follow some simple instructions.

Back from the Future
Pettis says the company is selling about 300 units a month—all shipped from its Brooklyn headquarters—with about 4,300 sold since 2009. Components are manufactured in Philadelphia and Long Island, which keeps shipping costs low. Marketing the MakerBot comes mainly from the company's website (www.makerbot.com) and a robust word-of-mouth campaign among customers. They include hobbyists, engineers, artists, and "people coming back from the future in time machines who want to buy our early models and sell them as antiques," Pettis says, with nearly a straight face, before letting his visitor in on the joke. As we said, a typical businessman he clearly is not.

In an earlier life, Pettis was a middle school art and woodshop teacher from Seattle. He grew up in the city and recalls being fascinated with how things were made. "I just always had this idea that I could make anything I wanted," he says. In 2007, looking for a change, he came to New York City and was immediately hooked. "I watched how people moved on the street, and they all looked like they were on their way to make things happen," he says. "I just loved the energy of that."

Pettis spent his first few months making web videos on do-it-yourself digital projects. Then he started NYC Resistor, an "artist and hacker collective" where folks would meet to share knowledge and ideas about how digital and electronic items work. In fact, it was in the early days of NYC Resistor that Pettis first got the idea for MakerBot. "I wanted a 3D printer for the business, but the cheapest one I could find cost $100,000," he says.

Over the next 2 1/2 months, Pettis and two friends—eventual MakerBot co-founders Zach Smith and Adam Mayer—decided to build their own 3D printer to use in their work at NYC Resistor. "If we were engineers, it would have taken us three years because we would have agonized over everything," he says. Instead they gathered whatever information they could find online, spent $1,000 to buy a laser cutter and a few other components, and flew through about a dozen prototypes before finally creating a version that they were happy with. The name came easily. "It was a robot that makes things, so MakerBot was a natural," he adds.

Figuring they were on to something, the trio made 20 more units to gauge interest from friends and colleagues. "We sold them all in two weeks," says Pettis. Still, making a cool gadget for friends and establishing a business around that gadget are two different things. Doubts and comments from naysayers "might have been there at the beginning," Pettis says, "but they didn't hit my memory bank. I just couldn't imagine anyone not wanting a MakerBot."

With $75,000 raised from family and friends, MakerBot officially launched in 2009. Pettis was named CEO; partners Smith and Mayer handle the hardware and software parts of the business. The timing—in the thick of the financial downturn—was ignored. "In January 2009 I went to the bank to open a checking account for the business," he recalls with a laugh, "and the branch manager came out to see me because he couldn't believe we were stating a business at that time."

MakerBot now has 31 full-time employees. It recently rented additional space around the corner from its current headquarters to accommodate the company's growth. Beyond those early hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers, Pettis says colleges have become loyal MakerBot users, enabling their architectural and mechanical engineering students to print out 3D versions of what they're designing.

Down the road, Pettis envisions a day where recyclable materials found in the home—plastic water bottles and milk cartons, for instance—can be fed into the machine and used as the raw material for making items with the MakerBot. "We're not there yet, but we will be," he says. "I really believe when you want something so much, you don't even consider failure an option."

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