How to predict future trends and transform your business

How to predict future trends and transform your business

by | Nov 24, 2023

Business Tips

How to predict future trends and transform your business

November 24, 2023

Predicting future trends and transforming your business

Who doesn’t want a crystal ball to predict the future? Knowing the future of the market can help you make the right moves and become a millionaire overnight. But let’s be real, no fortune teller can predict the future 100%.

However, that doesn’t mean that predicting the future of business is impossible. It all comes down to your analytical skills and having the right tools to prepare for what’s to come. As we said, this won’t always be 100% accurate, but it will give you a good idea of where things are headed.

There’s a risk of making mistakes when it comes to predicting future trends, but playing on the safe side will never bring growth to your company.

Ways to predict future trends and keep your business ahead

As a business owner or manager, you should train your mind as well as your team to detect changes that could open a door to major opportunities. Small businesses rise to large corporations only because they know how to predict future trends and turn them to their advantage.

So let’s see how predicting the future of business is done in real life.

Study the trends of yesterday

If you want to know what the trends of tomorrow will look like, then you should study up on the trends of yesterday. Trends work as a chain reaction in a way.

For example, TikTok. Look back at the famous app Vine and its success. Vine was extremely popular, but like many great things, it died. However, after the death of the app, all other social media apps continued to gain popularity. Now, you could predict that all tech platforms would grow, but now years after the death of Vine, TikTok took the same formula and has become a hit.

When popular things randomly disappear, you cannot expect them to stay gone forever. Nostalgia is a strong tool that everyone should keep their eyes on. If you notice something fading away, remember that people once loved it, and over time that love can come back again.

Melissa South, SVP of Swingtie

The law of inertia

Due to the law of inertia, things will stay the same unless acted upon by an outside force. This means that trends will only occur when one of two things happens:

    • A law forces people to change routines or
    • An influential force releases a concept into the world that gains favor

By keeping informed (but not obsessed) with daily news/pop culture and asking how will this impact the people around me, I’m able to capitalize on up-and-coming trends as they start to grow.

Eric Bechtel, Managing Director at Gameplan Digital Marketing

Research, analytics, and tech

Research, analytics, and tech have proven to be very helpful in my quest of identifying and preparing for future trends. In order to make sure that my team and I are prepared for any change that might affect our industry, I make sure to keep track of important events, data, and studies and do my best to analyze them. Having the right tech or application has helped me make my analysis more accurate and my strategies stronger.

Making the most out of the information and the tools that you have will help you predict future trends and ensure your business’s growth.

Simon Elkjær, Chief Marketing Officer at avXperten

Use the power of the Internet

There are 3 ways that I’ve used to predict future trends.

The first technique I used to predict trends is to use Google trends. What you want to do is look for a rising line graph for a one year span. The line graph can’t be gradually going up either, it has to be hockey stick growth.

Another technique is to use Ahrefs which is an SEO tool. I use this tool to look for websites trying to write and monetize about the topic. The more websites that try to monetize off of it, the more likely I believe the trend will be mainstream.

The final way is to look on forums like Reddit. What you want to look for is enthusiasm from the people. The more the people act cult-like, the higher chances the trend will keep going.

Alex Cortez, Founder of Roborefuge

The three ways

Being in the field of marketing, it is really important to understand the current trends of the market and also predict the trends of the future. Based on my experience, here are the top tips for predicting future trends in business:

    • Conduct surveys

In order to predict future trends, it is always a good idea to conduct surveys every once in a while and try to understand the problems of the customers and bring solutions for it because if you don’t make a solution, somebody will and that will become a trend. So it is one of the many ways through which future trends can be predicted.

    • Keep up with technology

With each passing day, there is some engineer out there inventing or making new machines that can tackle a problem much more efficiently. With this in mind, it is recommended to keep yourself up-to-date with the latest inventions and technology as these machines and technology will create a trend in the future.

    • Monitor the competition

Competing in the market is one way of staying with the current trends and also getting an insight about what the future may hold and where the trends may go.

Igor Avidon, Founder of Avidon Marketing Group

Conclusion

Success in business comes easier for those who know how to predict future trends. After all, business growth is all about adapting and pivoting to stay relevant in the market. If the needs of the consumers change, and your products don’t, you can’t expect to stay in business.

Everything seems to change at rapid speed, however, if you look at history you’ll discover patterns that could help you stay ahead of the curve. The important thing is to keep an open mind and don’t for a second believe that things won’t change.

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Creating content marketing funnel for small businesses

Creating content marketing funnel for small businesses

by | Nov 15, 2023

Business Tips

Creating content marketing funnel for small businesses

November 15, 2023

A quick guide for creating content marketing funnel for small businesses

Creating a content marketing funnel for small businesses has emerged as one of the most effective ways to market a product or service. However, new entrepreneurs and small business owners are often so engrossed with getting a positive ROI from their paid marketing funnels that they overlook other forms of the marketing funnel.

From the point of view of a small business owner, focusing on paid advertising funnels and overlooking organic marketing with a content funnel makes sense, but only when you focus on short-term goals. On the other hand, entrepreneurs with a long-term vision and desire to build a sustainable marketing mix will discover how to grow their business with content marketing at some point. 

Benefits of the content marketing funnel for small businesses

There are countless statistics that prove the incredible potential of content marketing. Here are a couple:

  • B2B companies that have a blog and post blog content consistently generate 67% more leads than their competitors that don’t have a blog.
  • Companies and marketers that prioritize blogging are 13 times more likely to achieve a positive ROI from their marketing dollars.

However, even if we ignore this just for a second and look at how the content marketing funnel for small businesses works differently from paid advertising, you’ll understand why it is an amazing thing. There are actually two significant differences between content marketing and paid marketing. 

The first one is the upfront cost. To get any kind of results from your ads, you don’t need much of a budget. However, producing content is often an expensive undertaking, especially if producing high-quality content is high on your priority list. 

With that said, the upfront content of producing content is higher but it isn’t a recurring cost. Sure, you may have to pay your content vendor or dedicate a resource to content production for a few weeks or a month but after a point, this investment will not be as intensive.

The case with paid advertising is different because even the low upfront cost is actually a recurring cost. The moment you stop feeding money to your paid campaigns is the moment they will stop producing results.

The second difference between content marketing and paid advertising is the time it takes to realize results and a positive ROI. With paid advertisements, the results start showing relatively quickly. Within a week or ten days, you can collect enough information to optimize your efforts and get a positive ROI.

With a content marketing funnel for small businesses, getting results will take time. However, let’s say that one of your content pieces starts ranking on the first page of Google for a lucrative keyword. In this case, the returns from that content will be virtually evergreen. The best part is that you will not have to actively optimize anything in order to get these results. 

Create a content marketing funnel for small businesses correctly

After establishing that long-term growth can be achieved, follow these guidelines to make sure you fully understand the content marketing funnel for small businesses. Implement the strategy in your business and start working on your growth right away. 

Understanding the buyer’s journey

The most critical part of perfecting your content marketing funnel for small businesses is to understand your customers and how they end up becoming your customers. If you are reading content marketing funnel tips, a good sign that the content is actually valuable is to see how much stress has been put on building buyer personas.

Understanding this journey from being a prospect to becoming a customer will help you understand what kind of content will resonate with prospects at different times.

For most products and services, the customer journey can be divided into the following stages:

  • Awareness: This is where the prospect becomes aware of a problem that they have. After becoming aware, the prospect usually starts researching their problem and its possible solutions.
  • Consideration: By the time your prospect reaches the consideration stage, they have usually identified the solution. Now, their concern is choosing the solution that is best suited to their needs.
  • Purchase: If all goes well in the consideration stage, the prospect moves to the purchase stage and converts into a paying customer. But your job isn’t done!
  • Post-purchase: The post-purchase experience starts the moment the sale is concluded. The quality of this experience plays a critical role in deciding whether a customer will run off to never return or become a happy customer that spreads positive word-of-mouth about your brand.

While a variety of experiences can be used to interact with prospects and customers in the different stages of the buyer’s journey, content is definitely the most versatile asset for this purpose. That’s perhaps why almost half of the marketers surveyed said that they use dedicated content to support three to five buying stages.

Content for the awareness stage

From a marketing standpoint, your objective with your content for the awareness stage should be to validate the problem that your prospects have identified and highlight the fact that it needs to be addressed.

However, there is a hidden benefit of producing awareness stage content. By the time your prospect starts researching solutions to their problems, your brand will already be positioned in their minds as an authoritative source of credible and valuable information. So, considering that, informational is the kind of content that will work best for your business.

Since your prospects are in research mode right now, educating them about their problem and the possible solutions is the best way to become visible to them.

To this end, you can produce “how-to” guides in the form of videos or blog posts, articles, and even infographics. “How-to” guides are actually one of the most popular forms of content used by marketers in the awareness stage.

This is also the stage where you should think about lead generation. A lead magnet is an offer that enables you to collect the personal information of your prospects. This way, even if the content you are producing is not able to reach them, you can reach out to interested prospects by email marketing.

What kind of content qualifies as a lead magnet? Anything that your audience will find valuable enough to give up their email address. From a whitepaper with findings from original research to a detailed ebook, lead magnets can take a number of forms. Which one works for you, depends on who you are targeting and of course, your current content production budget and capabilities.

Content for the consideration stage

The number of prospects that graduate from the awareness stage will only be a fraction of the people you attracted. However, the people present in the consideration stage are very likely to purchase the product or service that you offer. Content will help you ensure your customers purchase from you instead of choosing your competitor.

Half of the job was done in the awareness stage when we shared useful content with our audiences. We have already established ourselves as a trustworthy brand that provides valuable information. All that’s left is to prove that yours is also a trustworthy brand that offers a valuable service or product.

For this purpose, content assets like case studies, feature comparisons, product demo videos, and client testimonials work amazingly well. Each one of these either shows your prospects how well your product or service performs in the real world or shows people benefitting from your product or service.

This practice of using a content marketing funnel for small businesses and experiences to nudge prospects towards a desirable action is called nurturing. While publishing nurturing content on your website and social media channels is a great idea, it often makes the most impact when shared through email.

This is why you were asked to create a lead magnet in the awareness stage. Once a prospect has shared their email address with you, you can assume that they have moved into the consideration stage and can start sharing nurturing content with them.

Content for purchase stage

At this stage, equipping your sales team with supporting content will make their job easier and the chances of conversion higher.

Content like original whitepapers, case studies, and documents outlining the use cases of your product or service will work well at this stage. It is also a good idea to create video testimonials with your best customers that you can share with interested prospects right before they speak to a sales rep.

Content for post-purchase stage

Once a prospect converts, the post-purchase stage starts. Delivering whatever features and services you have promised to them in the previous steps are given here. This is the stuff that your customers expect from you. It is the bare minimum that you are expected to do.

Hence, your objective at this stage should be to delight them. And in addition, to do that you have to create a delightful experience and content is an excellent tool for the same. The most basic content-related necessity of this stage is to have a delightful post-purchase email sequence in place. 

To set yourself apart, take it a step forward and follow up the ‘thank you’ email with a series of instructional emails that enable your customers to achieve success with your product or service.  At the end of the email sequence, send out a feedback form that will help you in improving your post-sale experience. 

Speaking of customer success, you can also use content to help your customers make the best of your product or service. When they are able to do that, their experience with your brand will automatically improve. 

Prioritize

So, that’s a lot of content that you will have to produce and that’s one of the most common challenges that prevent small businesses with limited budgets from enjoying the benefits of content marketing. Luckily, with a little bit of planning, it is possible to overcome this challenge.

The key here is to prioritize. Sure, content for all the stages is important. However, depending on your current needs and content production capabilities, your priorities may vary.

For instance, if you are just starting out, getting more visibility and feeding your content marketing funnel for small businesses more and more leads may be important for you. If this is the case, you must prioritize creating top of the funnel or awareness stage content. 

Besides prioritizing your content production efforts, you can also make use of nifty content distribution techniques like content syndication. Such techniques allow you to make the maximum impact with whatever volume of content you produce.

Conclusion

If approached with the right mindset, your content marketing funnel for small businesses can rise to be the most powerful weapon in your brand’s marketing arsenal. All you need to do to avoid producing content that isn’t impactful is to work with a solid goal in mind and develop an equally solid plan to achieve that goal. Fortunately, the information shared in this guide will help you formulate the right kind of content strategy for your brand. 

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Ensuring customers data protection: What you need to know

Ensuring customers data protection: What you need to know

by | Nov 8, 2023

Business Insights

Ensuring customers data protection: What you need to know

November 08, 2023

Collecting customer data
Among other benefits, consumers’ data gives you direct access to your consumers to communicate and establish a good buyer-supplier relationship with them. However, to achieve the best results with your consumers’ data, you need to understand the responsibilities of working with their information and provide customer data protection.

In this article, we discuss what consumers’ privacy entails, as well as the benefits and responsibilities that come with keeping your consumers’ data as a business. 

The perks of collecting customers data and customers data protection

Before we dive into responsibility and customers’ data protection, let’s first understand what consumers’ data is and the perks you can derive from gathering customers’ data.

The benefits of collecting consumers’ data for your business

Gathering your consumers’ data is crucial, and comes with astounding benefits for your business. Find out the different benefits you gain by gathering your customers’ data below.

Understand your target market 

Starting your business without a deep understanding of your target market is starting to fail. Without a clear understanding of who your target audience is, it will be difficult to cater to their needs, engage with them and establish relationships that will lead to sales. 

However, with your customers’ data,  you can get deep insight into your target audience’s behavior, which influences every decision you make as a business. As a business owner, you are probably not a mind reader. But collecting your consumers’ data makes it easy to read their minds. Using an IP proxy and setting up the IP location to your targeted regions is an option to consider. This can make your manual data collection more accurate and more relevant to your target market, but also easier as it will allow you to bypass any geographical restrictions related to data scraping

You will be able to know how they behave online, what challenges they face as they engage with your services, and you can divert new, creative ways to solve their problems. This helps you grow your business in profound ways because you will connect and engage with your customers in the best way possible, increasing your sales and your bottom line. 

Consumers’ data helps you reach your marketing goals 

Collecting your consumers’ data is how you reach your marketing goals as a business. 

This is because your consumers’ data lets you know how to serve your customers just the way they want. When you provide your consumers with what they want, they will have no reason to go to your competitors. 

Consumers’ data gives you an edge over your competitors. Because while your competitors are struggling with attracting and retaining customers, you already know what to do to attract and retain new customers from the customers’ data you’ve gathered. You have the data you need to attract and retain your customers. 

Lets you create a customized experience for your customers 

In today’s digital marketing world, customers are more in tune with brands that can interact with them on a personalized level. According to research, 80% of customers are likely to buy from a brand that offers personalized experiences. 

Creating personalized experiences is how many businesses connect and build relationships with their customers, and the only way to make this happen is through customers’ data. The stats of personalization show that 83% of consumers are willing to share their information to get a more personalized experience from brands. 

Consumers’ data gives you insights into what products or services your customers need, then you can provide them with the products and services they need. This helps you stay relevant and helps prevent waste of time and resources producing or creating irrelevant products. 

Your consumers’ data also exposes you to your audience’s various interests, which helps you segment your audience according to their interests. This influences the content you create and the type of promotional offers you make for specific audience groups.

With consumers’ data, you can create intimate relationships with your customers, address them with their names when you send them Emails, and create content that helps them solve their problems. 

By creating personalized experiences for your customers, your customers feel more in tune with you. They trust you, and they will always look forward to enjoying more personalized experiences with your products and services. 

Overall, this increases your sales, retains your customers, and keeps you fulfilled as a business owner. 

Most important things about customers data protection

Like we already discussed, collecting your customers’ data goes a long way in growing your business and helping you reach your sales goals. However, as a business owner, it’s your responsibility to keep your consumers’ data safe. 

Due to the growing numbers of data breaches among enterprises, consumers are increasingly cautious of who they share their data with. Statistics show that in 2019, over 164.68 million records were exposed. 

The awareness of these increasing data breaches has made customers selective of the types of brands they give their information to, and as a result, the brands they do business with. 

However, many businesses have used this development as a competitive advantage by ensuring compliance with customers’ data protection and taking other precautions to ensure their data are well safeguarded.  

It is based on trust or nothing

Current developments have shown that consumers only share their data with companies they trust. The only way to build trust with your customers for them to share their data with you is to show them you care about their privacy. 

One way to ensure customers’ data protection is to keep your discussions private and only share these discussions only when they permit you to do so.  For example, the content of your emails with them should only be made accessible to other parties when they permit you to do so. 

One other factor to consider when trying to establish trust with your customers is to ensure the information you request is strictly related to the products and services they need. Asking your consumers questions outside the scope of business would raise suspicion and hamper their trust. 

Consumers are more likely to share their information with you if you inform them about what you want to use their information for and why it’s relevant to the action they are about to take. 

For example, statements like “fill in your email address to get notified about the latest offers” are much more convincing than the generic “input your email address”. Consumers are also more likely to trust organizations that react quickly and transparently to data breach occurrences. 

Suppose an incident of a data breach should occur in the company. It’s advisable to openly disclose the development and tell your audience the steps you are taking to rectify the situation. 

Conclusion

Customers’ data protection is essential for businesses to understand their customers and attract and engage with their consumers, among other benefits. However, gathering consumers’ data comes with responsibilities, and it’s important to understand these responsibilities to ensure your customers’ data are adequately protected.

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Top 34 innovative 3D printing startups in 2024

Top 34 innovative 3D printing startups in 2024

by | Aug 21, 2023

Business Insights

Top 34 innovative 3D printing startups in 2024

August 21, 2023

3D printing companies with outstanding innovations to improve manufacturing

In 2020, 3D printing was estimated at around $13 billion, and by 2026 it’s expected to reach up to $63.46 billion, hence, that’s one of the reasons why there are many 3D printing startups that are already bringing amazing solutions to the world. From hobbyists to innovators, 3D printing has found its place to replace traditional manufacturing in many industries.

What are 3D printing startups?

3D printing startups are innovative companies that develop 3D printing solutions that will impact the future of the industry. These startups are working on filling the existing gaps in manufacturing while driving innovation in technology, materials, and applications, hence they became an inseparable part of the additive manufacturing sector.

3D printing startups that are creating a better future

Whether you need 3D printing services or you are curious about the innovations of 3D printing professionals, you will be amazed by the amazing work these 3D printing startups are doing. From developing new tools and technologies to simplify 3D printing, to medical equipment and personalized drugs, these 3D printing companies are bringing the revolution in the manufacturing industry.

Replique

Founded in 2021, Replique built an innovative production model for spare parts. Their digitized inventory and certified printer network allows just-in-time printing of replacement parts. This eliminates the need for manufacturers to warehouse slow-moving parts.

The Replique platform manages the end-to-end process digitally. Their software integrates scans, payments, digital rights and print queues across hundreds of industrial printers internationally. Each local parts producer is rigorously vetted for quality and security.

Luxexcel

Luxexcel is one of the most promising 3D printing startups uniting the leaders in tech that have developed and patented the methodology to 3D print lenses. By uniting the forces of leaders in tech and eyewear, Luxexcel decided that the best application for their technology is prescription eyewear lenses even though, they can print many other types of lenses as well. 

This technology, with one step, replaces 30+ process steps in traditional lens manufacturing. Moreover, Luxexcel’s automated platform that creates a lens at the push of a button, creating various lens designs from a bottle of liquid, eliminating the need for extensive lens inventories and stock are just a part of the many manufacturing benefits this 3D printing startup offers.

Reflow

Another reason why 3D printing is the future of the manufacturing industry, besides the simplified manufacturing process, is the ability to transform waste into building materials. Speak of which, Reflow is a 3D printing startup that creates sustainable 3D printing materials by recycling plastic waste.  

For that purpose, they’ve established a team of recyclers, makers, and designers to achieve their mission to tackle plastic pollution while co-creating meaningful designs. As many environmental startups say, Reflow agrees that sustainability is a design opportunity, therefore by today they have 140,634 bottles repurposed into a manufacturing solution.

Beamler

Beamler is an on-demand additive manufacturing platform that connects engineers and designers to a global network of professional 3D printing services. Bult for manufacturers and designed for engineers, you can leverage Beamler simply by uploading your 3D model file, writing your measures, and selecting the most suitable material for your project. 

Then, after signing in (or registering) to your personal Beamler account, you will submit your quote request and your order will be delivered to your address. With this easy-to-use platform, a whole spectrum of additive manufacturing technologies will be available at your fingertips.

Xilloc

Xilloc is one of the most promising 3D printing startups in the world, dedicated to developing 3D printing solutions to improve the healthcare industry for the benefit of patients. Their goal is to create personalized implants and prosthetics, to replace the current standard models. 

Because everybody is different and unique, their goal is to provide patient-specific implants to reconstruct parts of the human skeleton. To make sure they are giving patients the very best product, they implemented a Quality Management System that is evaluated, approved, and certified according to EN ISO 13485.

Tiamet 3D

Tiamet 3D developed a method for creating affordable 3D printing materials. Their goal is to turn the ordinary 3D printer into a performance part generator by integrating their patented nanodiamond filament. Moreover, they try to do their work by using recycled plastic and fibers wherever possible.

By using specially treated carbon fiber and incorporating nanomaterials, Tiamet 3D created extremely high-strength nano-composites, which is a great improvement of material straight. Lastly, most of their parts have integrated nfc chips, so if you purchase some of their parts you can find more about the materials of the specific part. 

Polymaker

Polymaker has united a team of professionals that are passionate about 3D printing to produce high-quality 3D printing materials by controlling every step of the production process. They believe that materials are the enabling factor that will realize 3D printing as a final production tool, therefore, they are developing from high-performance plastic to unique aesthetic solutions.

What makes Polymaker one of the best 3D printing startups in 2022 is their research and development laboratory where all of the materials are formulated and fine-tuned. Moreover, they have testing equipment that has the latest technology advancements to foolproof their products before they put them on the market.

Builder 3D Printers

Builder 3D Printers have developed a variety of 3D printers, of which their Extreme 3000 PRO has over 1×1 meter in build capacity. On that account, that is the perfect machine for creating parts, tools, jigs & fixtures in-house and on-demand.

With Builder 3D Printers you can have a fully functional high-quality prototype within days. The automatic bed leveling, filament detection, and battery pack are just additional features that make these printers revolutionary in the 3D printing industry.

colorFabb

colorFabb is another 3D printing startup known for its innovative and reliable 3D printing solutions. Established in 2013, colorFabb’s team of professionals developed innovative and functional 3D printing filaments and application development and solution-based services. 

Their filaments are available for worldwide shipping. Moreover, besides in-house produced filaments, this 3D printing startup also offers materials from selected partners. With solutions like this, 3D printing materials are available to people in all industries and working environments.

3D4Makers BV

Using the best materials and finest techniques, 3D4Makers BV is also creating a variety of different types of filaments. With years of polymer production experience, this 3D printing startup created unique materials such as PEEK, PCL, PEKK, PEI, etc, and also produces on customer requests. 

They have a unique way of producing filaments, and the filaments do not come into contact with water in the process of production. After the production process is finished, the filament is immediately packaged in a vacuum bag so it can be a moisture-free product.

FEPshop

FEPshop is a 3D printing startup that sells, distributes, and develops 3D Printers, parts, FEP, UV Resin, tools, upgrades, and more. By having an extensive collection of UV Resins for SLA, DLP, and LCD 3D printers, FEPshop became a shop with the largest selection of FEP FIlm and sheets for 3D Printers in Europe. 

Furthermore, they develop and stock many hard-to-find unique spare parts for popular resin 3D printers and the DIY market.

BASF Forward AM

BASF Forward AM is one of the largest portfolios of high-performance 3D printing materials in the chemical industry worldwide. Therefore if you are looking for a partner to start thinking additive or you are an AM expert eager to learn more about their high-performance materials, get in touch with this 3D printing startup. 

What makes them special is that they’ve developed a full range of services to help their customers, and now they can accompany their customers in every step of the process, from design and simulations to parts printing and testing.

Multiply Labs

Multiply Labs is undoubtedly the future of individualized drugs manufacturing. To faster manufacture the individualized medicines of the future, they’ve developed robotic systems to enable the automated production of personalized drugs. 

This year, they’ve also started working on building robots to expand access to cell therapies, by automating cell therapy manufacturing. Furthermore, they believe that the future of pharma production is robotic because that is the only way each patient will receive a therapy that is tailored to his/her specific needs.

Integral Reality Lab

Can you imagine being able to print your favorite game character? Integral Reality Lab made that possible. This 3D printing startup transforms digital products into physical objects, which means you can prepare and perfect your 3D models for 3D printing, and even implement your game to enable monetizing your digital assets. To do so, offer custom fully-colored collectibles using their latest 3D Printing technology.

Integral Reality Labs offers a wide variety of services to match your production needs. They can help you create unique figures or a whole line of figure masterpieces. From advanced color 3D printed models to full custom projects, this 3D printing startup gives you endless possibilities to use your creative imagination.

MTB3D

MTB3D is another extraordinary 3D printing startup with a skilled workforce that can help you with 3D printing, 3D scanning, and 3D modeling from an early stage. MTB3D is based in the Netherlands and is considered the fastest 3D printing service. 

They also have great personal supports, so no matter if you have a small paper scratch or detailed design, the team of MTB3D will help you bring your ideas to life.

Glowforge

The team of Glowforge creates stuff that creates stuff. As cool as it sounds, Glowforge 3D printers are quick to set up, easy to use, and they work with hundreds of different materials. It also has a live camera preview, free web-based software, autofocus and 3D engraving, and more. 

Creators around the world say that since owning such 3D printer, they are saving a bunch of time because they can customize their product within minutes. With Glowforge you will also be able to prototype on the fly, personalize and customize items, easily and with a short period of time.

nTopology

With all these innovations and solutions depending on 3D printing, it’s crucial to have a 3D printing startup that will find solutions to make the 3D printing process smoother. Hence,  nTopology by developing revolutionary products for advanced manufacturing is one of the most promising 3D printing startups. 

nTopology developed the world’s most innovative engineering design software to access a better modeling technology. So, from now on you can take complete control of your design workflows and design whole processes instead of designing just parts of it. Even though nTopology offers solutions to tackle the specific challenges of any industry, by now, their solutions apply in aerospace and defense, automotive, and medical industry.

Fast Radius

By offering on-demand manufacturing services, cloud-based virtual warehouses, and additive technology, Fast Radius is one of the 3D printing startups that provide great products and logistics assistance to manufacturing companies. 

What makes Fast Radius different from other companies is its end-to-end support. Working with Fast Radius doesn’t mean you will only get your prototypes or production parts, but it also means partnering with you at every step to make your desired products better. By developing a great buyer-supplier relationship with their clients, they prove that their team of experts care for your products as much as you do.

VELO3D

VELO3D developed a platform that unlocks your design freedom and provides everything you need to begin production immediately. It also offers access to a scalable supply chain for your most advanced designs or for legacy designs with an aging supply chain. 

Their team of professionals believes that they can take humanity further by solving today’s most complex engineering challenges with new technology solutions. For that purpose, they’ve developed an intelligent, integrated suite of software and hardware. Underlying manufacturing process enables enhanced geometric flexibility, reduced cost of parts, traceable part quality and accuracy, decreased production time, and ownership that manufacturers demand.

Nexa3D

Nexa3D is a 3D printer startup passionately committed to unlocking the potential of 3D printing and delivering it to industries around the globe. By harvesting the power and capabilities of LSPc technology, Nexa3D enables dramatic increases in the print speed of parts and changes the face of 3D printing across many industries.

Additionally, their 3D printing materials are tailored to the LSPc process, delivering speed, durability, and accuracy. With these and many other solutions, 3D printing time is reduced to mere minutes instead of hours or days.

Additive Industries

Founded in 2012, Additive Industries offers complete 3D printing systems for high quality metal parts production. Their modular printer, software, and automation components enable industrialized AM.

By developing complete platforms optimized for serial 3D printing, Additive aims to make metal additive manufacturing practical for volume production use cases like aerospace and automotive.

Formlabs

Founded in 2011, Formlabs pioneered prosumer SLA 3D printing technology enabling high-resolution desktop printing using lasers and liquid resins. Their all-in-one ecosystem simplifies industrial-strength printing.

Formlabs aims to drive adoption of 3D printing by lowering barriers through integrated hardware, software, and materials tuned for reliability and ease-of-use. Their focus is realizing AM’s benefits at-scale.

MightyBuildings

Founded in 2017, MightyBuildings produces precision-engineered light steel-framed panels infused with insulation during 3D printing. These Mighty Panels snap together on site to construct dwellings faster.

By blending 3D printing and prefab techniques, Mighty Buildings can offer affordable, sustainable housing built to the highest quality standards. Their process aims to accelerate home construction.

3YOURMIND

Founded in 2015, 3YOURMIND provides software to manage every part of the AM process from order management to production planning and execution across machines. Their tools aim to scale 3D printing.

Core solutions span job handling, nesting optimization, build preparation, remote monitoring, and more. 3YOURMIND aims to integrate AM into larger manufacturing systems and enable digital inventory.

Equispheres

Founded in 2012, Equispheres utilizes a proprietary technology to engineer high-performance spherical metal powders with refined particle size control. Their powders enhance 3D printing capabilities.

By providing superior raw materials, Equispheres aims to enable stronger and more complex industrial part production using additive methods. Their materials enhance print resolution, surface finish, and material performance.

Dyndrite

Founded in 2015, Dyndrite offers an accelerated geometry engine and dev kit enabling hardware makers to build faster, more capable additive machines and software. Their software utilizes AI, simulation, and vision.

By providing a robust computational core, Dyndrite aims to help partners create hardware and software that unlocks new possibilities for industrial 3D printing at-scale. Their tools assist innovating the additive manufacturing stack.

ThreeKit

Founded in 2015, ThreeKit empowers brands to render high-quality 3D visuals from CAD models and product data that can be configured, customized, and experienced online by shoppers.

Their end-to-end solution automates interactive 3D product renderings and personalized visualization for marketing and sales. This aims to boost product engagement and conversions.

Brinter

Founded in 2018, Brinter offers an open-source, customizable 3D bioprinter optimized to print living cells for medical and pharmaceutical research. Their technology aims to make bioprinting more accessible.

Designed for versatility, Brinter’s printer accommodates multiple printheads and can integrate with incubators and robotic arms. Their open platform aims to standardize bioprinting for expanded creativity.

CGTrader

Founded in 2011, CGTrader offers designers and makers a platform to upload and sell 3D assets with full commercial rights. Buyers can access affordable 3D content on-demand for business or personal use.

CGTrader’s global community marketplace aims to make high-quality 3D creation more accessible to producers and consumers alike. Their platform enables transacting digital visual assets.

HeyGears

Founded in 2021, HeyGears aims to be the go-to service for companies to quickly turn CAD files into physical parts and prototypes. Their seamless digital experience replaces tedious back-and-forth communications.

With manufacturing hubs across Europe, China, and the US, HeyGears enables customers to get quoted, optimized, and produced parts delivered in days. Their expertise in design analysis and supplier management provides confidence in quality.

Shapr3D

Founded in 2016, Shapr3D’s mission is to liberate designers and engineers from the confines of desktop workstations through next-generation mobile CAD software. Their app transforms the iPad Pro into a highly capable 3D modeling tool for modern product development needs.

With an intuitive touch interface and powerful geometric modeling engine, Shapr3D brings unmatched versatility and portability to computer-aided design. Industries from manufacturing to architecture have embraced the app for its ease of use and capabilities.

Branch

Founded in 2014, Branch aims to disrupt the construction industry through advanced additive manufacturing techniques. By printing directly on-site, their technology reduces manufacturing, transportation, and labor costs while enabling architects’ most complex designs.

Branch has delivered 3D printed installations for Google, the US Navy, and multiple museums and universities. These projects demonstrate the versatility of large-format 3D printing for construction.

 9T Labs

Founded in 2019 through a merger of two startups, 9T Labs aims to disrupt aerospace, automotive, and medical manufacturing with more efficient composite printing technology. Their systems produce complex geometries unattainable through traditional methods.

9T Labs is already working with major partners like Lockheed Martin to explore applications. By increasing design freedom and reducing part weight, their technology offers significant benefits for mobility and energy efficiency across industries.

Fictiv

Launched in 2013, Fictiv aims to accelerate product development cycles through streamlined access to manufacturing capabilities. Their hardware agnostic tools enable optimized workflows from prototype to production. Fictiv’s reliability has earned them a customer base that includes SpaceX, Google, and Amazon.

Fictiv’s on-demand model provides businesses and startups the flexibility and responsiveness needed to rapidly iterate designs and bring innovative products to market. Their digital platform democratizes manufacturing access for enterprises and entrepreneurs alike.

What all these 3D printing startups have in common

3D printing startups are revolutionizing the additive manufacturing industry for many years now. With the massive number of new 3D printers and material manufacturers, software developers and machine distributors had to be creative to stand out from the crowd. That resulted in great 3D printing startups that are changing the manufacturing industry forever. 

Moreover, the great appliance of this technology in almost every industry is creating a better future for everybody. By revolutionizing medicine, automotive, and other industries, 3D printing startups proved that their expertise has the potential to make the world a better place.

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5 things to know before buying bitcoin for the first time

5 things to know before buying bitcoin for the first time

by | Jul 20, 2023

Business Insights

5 things to know before buying bitcoin for the first time

July 20, 2023

Everything you need to know before buying bitcoin for the first time

Today, almost everyone has at least heard of Bitcoin. This digital currency, once considered to be nothing more than a passing trend, has become one of the best-performing assets of the past decade and even became popular as a benefit for the business world. 

Its increasing popularity has driven countless investors to buy bitcoin by any means necessary. More recently, this interest has passed over to institutional investors, which drove crypto prices to new heights at the beginning of 2021.

This increasing popularity has spurred many governing bodies to impose tax regulations on the buying and selling of cryptocurrency—including Bitcoin! Therefore, buyers will have to upload the transaction into their favorite tax filing platform.

However, still many wonder what the big deal behind Bitcoin is. Why is this cryptocurrency so popular and what are its advantages? In this article, we go over things to know before buying bitcoin. 

The most important things to know before buying bitcoin

The things to know before buying bitcoin include the technology that helps run its network, its advantages, and how to store and buy or sell Bitcoin. So, if you ever searched for an article that gives you all the basics about Bitcoin in one place, you’ve found it!

What is Bitcoin?

Created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin was imagined as an alternative to our traditional financial ecosystem. It has the goal to be decentralized, away from the control of any government and central banks. 

As such, new bitcoins are created by a mathematical process called mining in contrast to FIAT money which is printed by central banks. This allows the network to be decentralized, without anyone being able to shut it down, control its governance, or issuance of new bitcoins. 

Every transaction on the Bitcoin network is recorded on a public ledger (the blockchain) that is freely accessible to anyone. This creates a trustless and transparent network, governed by the people using the network, instead of a central governing body. 

In short, bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency, where users don’t need a third party to send coins to each other.

What are the advantages of Bitcoin?

Because it’s decentralized, Bitcoin offers some clear advantages over traditional currencies, including: 

  • Permissionless – no one needs permission to use the Bitcoin network. All you need to do is create a wallet and you can start sending and receiving coins. Moreover, Bitcoin is borderless, which means that this feature allows individuals from all around the world to participate in the growing internet economy. 
  • Highly secure – the distributed Bitcoin ledger is simultaneously present on millions of computers around the world. This allows for the network to be extremely resistant to change and doesn’t present a single point of failure like centralized server systems. 
  • Fraud resistant – because bitcoins are simple transaction records on the blockchain, they cannot be duplicated or counterfeit. Additionally, bitcoin transactions are permanent, which entirely eliminates chargeback fraud attempts. 
  • Deflationary – there are only 21 million Bitcoins that will be ultimately mined. This limited supply acts as a deflationary measure and acts as a hedge against FIAT inflation. 
  • Fast and cost-effective remittances – finally, because there are no costly third-parties handling the transactions, international bitcoin transfers are both fast and cheap compared to international FIAT remittances. 

These advantages have helped the price of Bitcoin increase by more than 1 million percent since it was first made available for purchase back in 2009.

How do you store Bitcoin?

The blockchain uses cryptography to be able to locate Bitcoins on the ledger and sign transactions. More precisely, the following codes are used: 

  • The private key – which acts as the PIN code to your coins and is used to sign the transactions on the blockchain. Because only the owner of the private key can spend Bitcoins, it’s imperative that this key is kept secret.
  • The public address – which acts as the account number for your coins. This is the address that you will be sharing online whenever you wish to receive bitcoins from another user or a trading platform. 

So, to store your Bitcoin keys, you will need a specialized piece of software called a bitcoin wallet. Consequently, there are different types of wallets, serving different types of Bitcoin users and purposes. 

  • Mobile wallets – these smartphone apps allow you to store your keys on your phone. They are handy for daily usage, but not recommended for storing high amounts of bitcoin because smartphones can be easily lost or stolen. Popular mobile wallets include Exodus and Mycellium. 
  • Desktop wallets – these software solutions turn your computer into your personal Bitcoin vault. They have handy interfaces to handle your transfers and can be used to store larger amounts of Bitcoin. The caveat is that your computer remains a vulnerable piece of hardware that needs to be updated frequently. Some popular choices are Electrum and Armory. 
  • Hardware wallets – these USB devices are specifically designed to store Bitcoin keys and use military-grade hardware to encrypt them. They provide the best of both worlds – high security and a great user interface for daily transactions. The only caveat is that, unlike their software counterparts, they aren’t free. Some of the best hardware wallets are the Trezor and Ledger devices. 

Where to buy and sell Bitcoin?

Now that you are familiar with the advantages of Bitcoin and know how to store it, we can finally give you some pointers on how to buy it quickly and safely. Keep in mind that if you are buying from a regulated exchange, Bitcoin purchases require that you undergo an identification procedure known as KYC. 

These have been made mandatory in most countries as they allow government agencies to track the usage of Bitcoin for money laundering, funding terrorism, and other criminal activities. 

With that in mind, there are several great methods of acquiring Bitcoin including: 

  • Crypto exchanges – which usually offer a wide variety of payment methods, such as credit cards or bank transfers. While convenient, the disadvantage with crypto exchanges is that they use an online wallet to store your coins and keep custody of your keys. The most popular exchanges are Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken. 
  • Crypto brokers – these platforms offer a smaller choice of popular cryptocurrencies and offer a good range of payment methods like PayPal or other popular digital wallets. The main advantage of crypto brokers is that they will send your Bitcoin straight to your wallet. Popular choices are Coinmama and Paybis. 
  • Peer-to-peer bitcoin exchanges – these platforms act as a middleman between people that want to buy and sell bitcoin. Sellers can place their offers and buyers can find the best offer that suits them. The biggest advantage is that these require minimal KYC and offer the largest selection of payment methods, including credit, debit, checks, gift cards, and every digital payment processor you can imagine. Paxful and LocalBitcoins are the best p2p crypto exchanges. 
  • Bitcoin ATMs – for those that are lucky enough to have a Bitcoin ATM near their residence, these machines are similar to cash ATMs. In addition to traditional payment methods like debit or credit, Bitcoin ATMs usually accept cash as well Moreover, if the amount is not too large, they will require minimal KYC, allowing you to quickly convert your cash money to Bitcoins and vice versa. 

Wrap-up

Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency that jump-started an entire industry involving blockchain technology. Even though its price can be volatile in the short term, one of the things to know before buying bitcoin is the fact that its value has been steadily increasing over the years. 

That said, its success is undeniable, both as a currency and a store of value. More and more people are adopting Bitcoin, and with institutional investors joining the financial revolution, Bitcoin is certainly here to stay and grow.

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