Maker Pro

Maker Pros are the innovators that are designing tomorrow’s products and businesses. Stay tuned for the latest news on manufacturing, startups, and industry trends.

Growing Your Business From TechShop to the Garage

I first met Laura Bruland of Yes & Yes Designs in May 2012 at TechShop in San Francisco. As an avid book reader I was intrigued by the fact that she took old discarded books and turned them into jewelry. OK, I slightly cringed at this, but the results are beautiful. At the time she was able to run her entire business out of TechShop. No overheard, no employees. Just her and a monthly membership.

Move forward seven months and she’s grown her business from six stores in San Francisco to 23 around the world. She went from being a one-woman show to having a business partner/employee and her own laser cutter

Continue Reading February 27th, 2013 Stephen Murphey4

Interview with Pinoccio Co-Founder Eric Jennings

Eric Weddington, marketing manager for open source and communities at Atmel, posted an in-depth interview with Pinoccio’s Eric Jennings. Pinnoccio is a new, open source hardware company. Their first product is a microcontroller board aimed at creating “a complete ecosystem” for the internet of things. Pinoccio calls their board an “Arduino Mega with wings.” It’s Raspberry Pi-friendly, too.

Continue Reading February 27th, 2013 Stett Holbrook2

Resource Planning for Maker Pros: A Hangout on Air with Dale Dougherty and Greg Mader

This month we debuted the Maker Pro Newsletter, a subscription based e-newsletter aimed at informing, analyzing, educating, and catalyzing emerging business opportunities for makers. In addition to the newsletter, we’re covering the maker pro space in other ways, tool. Today MAKE CEO and founder Dale Dougherty will host a Google+ hangout on air with Greg Mader, a consultant for Open ERP.

Continue Reading February 25th, 2013 Stett Holbrook

Ping Fu Stands Her Ground

Last month I wrote about Bend Not Break, a memoir written by Ping Fu. Fu is the founder of Geomagic and now chief strategy officer at 3D Systems. In her book, Fu wrote about her life as a young girl in China and her experiences living under Mao’s Cultural Revolution. She described being forcibly removed from her family by the Red Guard at 8 years old and spending the next ten years living with her younger sister in a government dormitory under brutal conditions before ultimately emigrating to the U.S. For me, it was a harrowing, but ultimately uplifting story about overcoming adversity.

But that’s not how many people reacted to the book.

Continue Reading February 22nd, 2013 Stett Holbrook48

Maker — Distributist Technologies

At last, Tolkien meets capitalism.

Continue Reading February 22nd, 2013 Craig Couden

Black Makers Month: Emeka Okafor

Emeka is maker’s maker! He is one of the main forces behind Maker Faire Africa. Emeka has the same name as a famous professional basketball player, but they are not to be confused! I met him at A Better World By Design, a student run conference in Providence, RI.

Continue Reading February 22nd, 2013 Kipp Bradford24

Making The World’s Thinnest Watch

Dave Vondle and Jerry O’Leary are making the world’s thinnest watch. I’ve enjoyed watching this project unfold from day 1. Actually, I’ve been watching this project unfold well before that. Dave was my summer intern in 2004. Working with smart, talented interns is always a joy, but every once in a while someone comes along who is truly gifted. I learned so much more from Dave that summer than he learned from me, and I continue to learn from. Dave moved on to IDEO after college, and was one of the people behind IDEO Labs. It was there that Dave honed his skills as a talented maker who skillfully combines engineering, design, and aesthetic to make some great new devices like this watch.

Continue Reading February 19th, 2013 Kipp Bradford16