NY Tech Meetup

Editor’s Note: Last Summer, in a partnership with CEA LineShows, the NY Tech Meetup hosted a “NY Startup Classic,” where 5 of the most exciting startups (who had presented at the NY Tech Meetup that year) competed for a spot at the International CES 2010 in Las Vegas. In the end, two startups won, Aviary and MakerBot, and both attended the show. The following post is a report back from Bre Pettis, Co-Founder of Makerbot.

MakerBot at CES!

When we won the Tech Meetup CEA startup battle with Aviary, we really had no idea what CES would be like. We lasercut a bunch of signs, booked our hotel at the Excalibur and packed up a few MakerBots and jumped on the plane to Las Vegas.

On setup day, electricians and engineers kept stopping by and then they brought their bosses and their friends to check out the MakerBot 3D printer. If there were an electrician and engineer award, we would have won it. People who know about making things instantly get that MakerBot is a powerful tool for making almost anything.

For the 4 days of CES our booth was packed. We got great coverage on lots of blogs and we estimate we told our story more than 3000 times to groups of 10-12 at a time reaching approximately 35,000 people. Our business cards and all of our literature flew off of our display table and on the first day and we ended up giving out thousands of stickers for the rest of the conference.

We kept our MakerBots printing out models of heads, artwork, and mechanical pieces the entire time! We made lots of connections, made friends, answered questions, and chatted with potential angel investors stopping by the booth to see what the buzz was all about.

Although we wouldn’t have gone if we hadn’t of won the competition, it would have been worth it for us to have spent the money on our booth. Based on our experience this year, we’ve already reserved a 20×20 spot for next year. Even though next year’s reserved spot is deep in an obscure corner, we’re hoping to someone drops out and we get a bit closer to the front. When we return to Las Vegas next year, we’ve got some spectacular booth plans, stay tuned!

Bre

MakerBot Industries