Arriving at SxSW 2014 brought back great memories for us and was a good mile marker to see how far we have come as a company.
This Austin event holds a special place in the life of Gigabot and its founding team.
Flashback to SxSW 2013 – re:3D unveiled Gigabot after StartUp Chile chose them as one of the top 10 startup companies to be part of its sixth generation world-recognized acceleration program. We launched our 60-day Kickstarter campaign on the first day of SxSW Interactive, and our awesome backers met our fundraising goal within 27 hours! With their incredible support and advice from mentors, we’ve spent the the last year working hard to manufacture and deliver a high quality 3D printer (both in design and accuracy) that our backers and customers value.
Today, we’re functioning as a 3D printing company and our team is growing! While we still have our share of challenges here and there, we have learned that communicating is one of the most valued tools when working with a distributed team. (and really any team…)
This year, re:3D returned to SxSW as a success story. Wow! Adventures and opportunities awaited us around every corner. Our team pulled together, bonded a little closer, learned a lot, talked to a massive amount of people, posed for pictures, ate delicious food, interviewed with media, hung out with musicians, spoke on a 3D printing panel, assembled a Gigabot for delivery, finalized assembly and Kickstarter shipments, printed some cool prints, encouraged students and even got to eat some frozen yogurt and take a breather.
If you didn’t have a chance to make it to SxSW to see Gigabot in action, here’s a snippet of how re:3D was involved.
SxSW Create
A place where makers, hackers and DIYers united to check out innovative technologies and products. Our team spent three days with two Gigabots 3D printing and talking about 3D printing with local artists, architects and hobbyists. Some young 3D printer fans even came by to learn more about Gigabot. Our Chief Hacker, Matthew, spoke on a panel discussing 3D printers and the how 3D printers are being used. The recurring phrase that sums up SxSW Create, “Wow, that is so cool.”
SxSW Tradeshow
After SxSW Create, we moved our two Gigabots over to the trade show where we set up our 3D printers at the StartUp Chile booth. It only made sense to be a part of their booth since that is where we got our start last year. With tired feet, we spent the next three days showing off Gigabot and talking about possible ways researchers and developers could use Gigabot. Several media companies stopped by to interview us and we even got to pitch our product and company in front of Austin-based VCs at the SxSW Chile booth!
During the music portion of SxSW, we partnered up with On-AirStreaming, an Austin-based film studio that does interviews with artists in an air-stream trailer. Pretty spiffy, if you ask us. We set up Gigabot and printed out “musician-ny” things like guitar pics and little guitars… not pushing the limits of size, but having a great time squeezing in some quick prints between shows. We even printed a specially requested yellow penguin. Thanks, On-AirStreaming for having us!
While our job is really never done, it’s time to raise a glass and take a deep breath as we close on the final Kickstarter deliveries. Here’s to another year of adventure and growth! See you back at SxSW 2015!
Katy Jeremko
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