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

Last night, at the NY Startup Classic (a partnership between CEA/Digital Downtown and the NY Tech Meetup), 5 absolutely stellar NY tech startups — Aviary, Drop.io, Livestream, MakerBot, and Peek — battled for the chance to win a free booth at CES in Las Vegas next year.

Making the ultimate decision was an expert panel, including Joshua Fruhlinger (Senior Editor at Engadget), Albert Wenger (Partner at Union Square Ventures and former President of Delicious), and Aaron Cohen (CEO of AnyClip and formerly of Menu Pages, Bolt.com, etc).

After the preentations, the judging panel convened and, after much deliberation, the decision was at a standstill between two finalists. At this point the folks at CEA/Digital Downtown alerted the judges that they could award a second booth, and so the announcement was made:

Aviary and MakerBot — two great NY Tech Meetup companies — will be heading to CES in Las Vegas in 2010!

Thanks to the presenting companies, the judges, and most of all to CEA/Digital Downtown for the opportunity!

Read more on Albert Wenger’s blog.

Our presenters during our regular event were: Upnext, Centrl, NYsenate, Livestream / Procaster, Aviary, Makerbot and NY’s own Jason Calacanis unveiling — for the very first time — Mahalo 2.0!. Near to the end of our meetup, Scott Heiferman (founder of Meetup.com) and Jason Calacanis had a one-on-one discussion about tech Startups and the Web back in the days and how they function and run today !

Thank you guys for making this event a success and we are looking forward to see you again on July !

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3