What It Really Takes To Run A 3D Printing Business - MTM #34 Basically_Benski

In this episode of Meet the Makers, we are joined by Benski, a well-known figure in the 3D printing community, and host of the 'Basically Us' podcast. Benski opens up about his journey into 3D printing, starting from his early creative inclinations in school to becoming the proud owner of 22 printers today. He shares the pivotal moments and challenges that propelled his rapid success, including his first experiences with 3D printing, his efforts in building his business on Etsy, and his venture into local craft shows. Benski also touches on his long-term goals, such as opening a dedicated 3D printing center and creating an inclusive community space. Learn how Benski balances his passion for 3D printing with family life, the pressures of making it a full-time endeavor, and his commitment to helping others in the 3D printing space.
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Where to find Benski
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/benskbuilds/?etsrc=sdt
Podcast: https://www.asylumlife.com/basically-us/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@basically_benski?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/basically_benski/?hl=en
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Come be a guest on meet the makers: https://forms.gle/wTqzxqGpsu9hZ39F6
Follow misfit printing on Tiktok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@misfit_printing
Support the show / Misfit at The Harpo:  https://theharpo.com/ 
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:18 Benski's Journey into 3D Printing
01:34 Rapid Growth and Challenges
05:23 From Hobby to Business
12:01 Balancing Family and Business
14:55 The Reality of Entrepreneurship
15:56 Transparency and Authenticity in Content
22:00 The Importance of a Strong Foundation
22:37 Preparing for the First Show
25:23 The Role of Personality in Sales Success
31:48 Future Goals and Business Expansion
35:01 Building a Supportive Community
42:36 Starting a Podcast
45:52 Where to Find Benski Online

Transcript

riverside_benski_& kate _ nov 16, 2024 001_misfit_printing's s 
[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of Meet the Makers. Today . I'm joined with Bensky. You know him from his 3D printing and probably from his podcast, basically, Us, so excited to have you here today.
Yeah, thank you. It's, really exciting to be here. I can't express it enough. I'm sure we're going to get into all kinds of fun stuff today, but I'll kick you off the same way I do with everybody. Can you just give us the backstory on how you got into 3D printing and making stuff in general?
Yeah, so I've always been, a creator in terms of working with my hands. I, early on in school, I just really attached into the more abstract slash hands on approach to art. When we were doing stuff in school, I, when we got like little clay, you'd get like a, second grade and I just excelled at it.
I just loved it. And my dad was the one who got me into 3D printing. He had bought an Ender 3 V1, the classic. I was living here in Utah. He was living in Missouri at the time, and he moved. To Utah. 
He was going to live with my little brother and he had this printer. And he was like, Hey, [00:01:00] I don't have room for this. Do you want it? I was so excited because I'd always wanted to get into it. I was ready to rip and roll with it. And that was actually just for anybody who watches all my content, they'll know that I just got into this last.
it started with that little ender and it was so fast that it cascaded into, me owning 22 printers now it's, it was a wild dream, but that was I've always been creative that way. I love art. And so 3d printing, even though I didn't know it at the time, it was a very natural segue from all the stuff I was already doing into what I'm doing now.
 It's crazy watching your content and hearing that it hasn't been that long.
I don't know how many friends you have. It looks like a ton. But when you first got it sounds like you fell into it by accident a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. How did you now you sell stuff, you do all kinds of stuff with it. Yeah. How did that progress so quickly? That's a good question.

I think part of it was I had a really weird goal that I didn't actually start doing until [00:02:00] honestly, maybe a month or two ago, which was, I really wanted to make helmets. I was obsessed with the idea of making like a Mandalorian helmet, you have a little under three V one and you're like, I can't make that on there unless I cut it up and all this other stuff. 
I. Didn't know any of that technical side of 3D printing. So I really quickly became discouraged off of that idea. at that same time, I had a friend who wanted to play D and D with me. I'd never played before. I was like, okay. You know what? I can make a dice roller.
That was, the thought that came to my mind. I was like, I can do that. So I made this skull dice roller and it was awesome, and it worked the first time, which was honestly the worst thing that could have happened, it worked perfectly the very first time. And and the reason that was, anybody who knows who has an Ender 3 V1 or had one, the reason that's bad is because that is an expectation that should not be set for that machine at all.
But so I started getting into, so then I was like, okay let me buy a faster printer because 18 hours for a Dice Tower is just so stupid. And so I bought In [00:03:00] Ender 5S1, which was like the first that core XY, where the bed just moves downI was really into that because I was like, Oh, this is so cool.
I don't have to worry about all this leveling the same way and blah, blah, blah. And I had no idea what Bamboos exist at this point. They were existed. I just didn't, I, again, I'm I was so new to this whole realm that I thought I was, I thought I was cooking with gas. And then finally, Elegoo came out with the Neptune 4 Max.
And I was like, Oh, I can make helmets finally if I buy this machine. I had reached out to Elegoo and I was like, Hey, I'm a new 3d printer. I'm coming up in this space, Is there any chance we could partner together? And maybe I can help say this is a good printer for new people.
And they were like, yeah. And I was like, excuse me? Yeah, what? all of a sudden there were two Elegoo at my door. And I was like, Time out what is this they were really nice. They were just like, Hey, honestly, try it out. Don't even worry about making videos. we want to hear what you think as a new user to 3D printing because I gave them the link to my [00:04:00] TikTok and they saw that I was back.

Brand new to this and they were really, this is something I appreciate about them. They were really looking for feedback from somebody who didn't know anything. And I think that was really cool of them to do that. And I learned a lot because of that printer. But what had happened was I had everything in our spare bathroom at first. 
then the Neptunes came, so I had to pull everything into the basement I started becoming obsessed with pushing the boundaries of learning things. I started just like making wild things and learning more things. And I have a spending problem. I have a really bad spending problem.
And so I would see a new printer come out and it was like I gotta get that. That was the K one max. And I was like, okay, I Got to try that. And so I got one of those and it was just amazing. And then I got an a one and that was amazing. And then the next one carbon, I was like, that's amazing.
my wife finally put her foot down and she was like, look, I love that you have hobbies, but here's the deal. You have a 30, 000 motorcycle in the garage that we've put. [00:05:00] 12 grand of upgrades into and you want to put more and you have all these printers you need to either make money with this or we need to stop.
We need to stop and that sounds harsher than that conversation went. This was not an unreasonable ask by her at all. 3D printers technically are cheap, but once you start getting into filament, you can spend 400 in filament overnight and not realize it.
And so I thought okay let's start an Etsy. let's get some Patreons together. Let's get a couple things going. It started out with some planters and then some dice towers. I started that in January. I was making sales and I was like, Oh, this is interesting.
And it was doing just well enough to keep the hobby going. then in July of this year. We decided Let's try to do a farmer's market. We see how those go for people. I'm really close with Crystal Lee and Gemini, and they were both really helpful and encouraging to be like, Hey, you should go and try it they were so awesome.
They gave me so [00:06:00] many tips at the gate so that I didn't feel. Stupid when I showed up at my first event. Yes. I signed up for an event and it wasn't supposed to be till like mid September. So this is back in July. I signed up for an 

event in mid September that got accepted as stoked. But then my wife decided she really wanted to be involved in this. 
she started applying to stuff and other things. we got an event Within three weeks of deciding we were going to do it. All of a sudden I was like, Whoa, I was prepared for this event down here. And and so we did it and we just I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what was good money, what was bad money.
But we had made money. And I was like, Hey, cool. We made a couple hundred bucks. This looks good. But then we started talking to the other vendors at that event. And we were the only people who not only made money, some of them didn't even make their booth feedback. And it was only like a 40 booth fee.
And I was like, Wait a second. Are we popular? then we did another event sold out and did really good. And all of a sudden my, I think we clicked for my wife too at the same time. We were like, wait a [00:07:00] second, this is feasible.
This is a real thing we can do. And so after August, I ride motorcycles and I go out to the Sturgis motorcycle rally in August. So we did the first two weeks in August, took a break for two weeks and we came back in September and we were doing like averaging three shows a week. And we were just grinding but we started making like.
Real money and it's to the point where if this stays on track I'll be able to leave my full time job By next April wow. Okay. i'm in a really good industry right now not in a to my own home, right? But I make really good money and the fact that i'm at that point where if this stays the way it's been going You I can do that is, is crazy to me.
that's a lot of why the printers started getting out of control, I guess we'll say in terms of like how many, right now I'm up to 22 regular, FDM printers. And I have one resin printer now. Cause I started getting into that realm. And those are starting to sell now.
So it's okay, now I've got a. And yeah, that's [00:08:00] just how it really fell into place that way. I never expected it to be here at all, but I'm really grateful for it. I really love it. Dude first of all, congratulations. That's I, that's truly is for so many people.

I talked to you that's the dream. So I'm excited for you guys. That's awesome. Thank you. You just said it at the end, but you didn't really imagine it I guess for you or your wifedo either of you have a background of starting businesses or was this the first thing that you guys tried 
I have a background in wanting to start a million businesses. I did have one before this. It was during COVID. everyone else, lost their jobs. I was really lucky because I worked for a restoration company. we worked through COVID and it was like, we were doing a lot of decontamination.
In fact, in Utah, we were the first company that had the approved chemicals for decontaminating, like buildings and stuff like that. Yeah. So we were rolling crazy, but then I still. I was bored, because of COVID and I decided that I was going to, I was like people are still driving.
I've [00:09:00] worked on cars my whole life. I'm going to do a mobile oil changing business. I started mobile oil changing. I had two pitches for people. I said, one, I come to your house, I lay down all this stuff. So nothing gets messy, I also decontaminate your car after I'm done.
So you don't have to worry about COVID. All you had to do is leave your keys either in your mailbox or in the car. I would come, I would leave and that was it. And people loved it. They were just like all about it. I was getting people to schedule me. I was getting at least four or five cars a day where I would just go and do their oil and just leave.
And then finally I got a contract with a couple of hospitals out here as an employee perk package. So I would come there. Twice. Yeah, twice a month at the beginning of month and a month and I would do a bunch of cars and then I would leave and then I would do a bunch of cars and then I would leave it was just kind of part of their perk package and it worked really well.
And that actually turned into I got greedy and I wanted more money. So I transitioned to doing um, Also, and so it was like, okay, if you need an alternator or something else like thatthen it evolved into [00:10:00] detailing. I was this all in one stop for mobile like auto repair and car detailing.
And then it just evolved into just detailing because that was bringing in a lot of money. It was more consistent. I had a way less stressful schedule because I could make the money. I would make. Off of three days worth of oil changes on one car one day for a detail. And then I got in with since I'm in the motorcycle 

scene, I got with a couple of the motorcycle clubs out here. 
So I was doing a lot of their bikes. I was doing a lot of cars and it was just a lot of fun doing that. And then one day this company. a national mobile detailer came in and they were like, Hey, we want to buy you out.
But really we just want to buy your client list. And I was like half of these dudes are bikers. I don't know if you want these dudes, I was like, what are we talking? And they threw out a number. And I was like, Oh yes, you can have this client list. Like 100 percent And COVID was over at the time too.
And I was in a really. Bad relationship with a girl who just, oh my gosh, we can get into those later. But [00:11:00] she just really was like, yeah, it's maybe a good thing to do it. And so I just left it behind. And so that was my background in terms of knowing business, at least on that side of it.
it was very crude. very barbaric business. It was just like putting stuff on Instagram through COVID, it was a little easier because everyone was on their phones. you'd put something on a Facebook page and everyone saw it. the word of mouth was really nice, too, because luckily, I did do enough good work for for people that they were just like, I got flown to Missouri to do a guy's set of cars because he saw my work 
And I had done really good for myself on that end of it, but when it was time to leave, it was time to leave. And honestly, I'm really okay that I don't do that anymore. There's no regret on that end of \ it makes sense, I think a lot of people, again, like they get into 3D printing and they see other people making money with it, and I think like I said, everybody that I talk to it's like an ongoing dream to have that full time thing it makes sense that, having that background probably made it.
At least a little bit easier to some degree getting into this. It, [00:12:00] it did on a lot of aspects. The other part of it that didn't make it easier was that this time around I have a wife and kids. there's a lot more pressure on the failure side now. Where before I was just 
bashful living in an apartment with four dudes who all were okay eating mac and cheese our whole lives. now luckily I have a full time job, but when I transition away and have the 3D printing stuff become full time, that will probably keep me up for months until I feel stable.

Because of my family. there's a weird trade off that happens with it where yes, there's actual starting him in the operation, simple, like super cake. The pressure to succeed. that sucks. Yeah, I can definitely see that being a factor there. It adds a degree of complexity, but would you say, like you see these 17 year olds that are like, I'm going to go hard and start a business, bro. 
But I feel like there is something to it of having kind of that deep motivation of this has to work. There is no fail back I think when your [00:13:00] back is against the wall, sometimes It pushes you to make it work in a way does that make sense? Do you feel that way?
Yeah, a hundred percent. a lot of people in the 3D printing space, ask me how am I doing four or five shows a week? How do you keep up an inventory? Even though I have 20 printers, everyone knows how long something takes to make, how are you keeping up with that?
for me, I don't sleep. And I know people say that, but what I mean by that is if I pull up my phone data with my watch. I average about an hour and a half to two hours of sleep a day because I know how the timing works. my family's important. when I come home from work, I'm spending time with my kids and my wife until my kids go to bed.
I'm not going to compromise on that. But that means I have to time everything out in a certain way when I wake up to leave for work, I'm going to start prints because I cleared off the bed plates. I want to make sure they're timed for when my kids go to bed.
I also time them so I can get through a plate and then I can clear that plate and then start over while I, Go back to work. the reason I don't sleep is because I'm timing everything so that I can have everything [00:14:00] actually going 24 seven versus sometimes where we've all started to print, right before we go to bed, we know it's going to finish while we're asleep and we'll wake up to something different.
I don't want the printers to stop moving. That's the pressure I've brought on myself. My wife is so encouraging and lovely. She tries to tell me to not do that. She doesn't want to see me do that. And in fact, it's gotten to the point where she demanded. And I said, okay, where every Thursday and Sunday is date night.
It doesn't matter. even if we're just on the couch together all night. The two 

caveats are once the kids go to bed, it's her and I, and then we're going to bed at the same time. those are the two things that happen no matter what. And I know some people are like, wow, you had to schedule that. 
Yes, I did. I really did. But she's supporting me. we both know what we signed up for. that's where that part of the balance comes in. I do hope we get to a point where I'm not doing this all the time, that's it does motivate me a lot to not fail on that end of it.
Part of it is I grew up extremely poor, we were effectively homeless [00:15:00] for a lot of our lives. We, there's a point where we had homes, but not really, like there was really no difference between what we were living in and somebody finding an abandoned house. 
I didn't have heating or air conditioning till I was like 20. we were just living like that, which nothing against my parents. I'd love to there's so much of that made me who I am. ButI'm not going to have my kids go through something like that.
I want to make sure they know I'm present, make sure I'm here, make sure all that jazz. there's a lot that goes on in my head with it. I can imagine, especially, operating off of one or two hours of sleep. that definitely adds to the complexity of it.
Six energy drinks a day and the complexity of it. No, it is crazy though. And I think there's a, again, you hear all these people online and they're like, oh wow, so and so they just have everything. And I think so many times when you pull back the curtain behind the scenes I don't think anybody truly like just has it all figured out or everything.
I think you're always have to like sacrifice somewhere. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's definitely, it's so hard, I feel, and that's why [00:16:00] with my content, I try really hard to be as real as I can I try to let people know this, today sucked, and here's why it sucked.
But then other days where it's this is great, and here's why it's great I do think at the end of the day and I've been through tons of therapy I still go to therapy But I do think there is something to the idea that you do get to choose how you react to a situation you might not control the situation and you're allowed to Look at something and say this sucks and I'm miserable and I hate it 100 percent you're allowed to feel that way but there is a point where I do think 

you have to say, Hey, okay, I'm gonna feel this way about this situation, and I'm gonna react this way now and that's important. 
That's really important, I completely agree with that, and it makes sense, on that note of your content, I will say It's very real. And I love that. Like you do, you show the good and the bad. honestly, even this weekI was like in a slump.
I was down. I was like, man, content's not working out. Like things are slow. And I was watching your content this morning, getting ready for this. And honestly, it like gave me a boost in the day. it made me appreciate it. But I do, I always say I know in your [00:17:00] content, you've said. Whether it works out or whether it doesn't work out and I think it's going to work out.
But you say either way I want to document this and I just want to show people what it's about. And I wish more people did that. I think it's so easy to look in hindsight and see a successful business and be like, oh, of course it was easy for them. But I don't think there's enough people showing the days when it's not easy and the days in the beginning.
I think there's such a need for that right now. I appreciate that. and I feel the same way. the hard part is, I live in Utah. I've said this a hundred times and I don't know why I say that. 
Like I'm trying to pitch Utah. It's the worst. Nobody move here. But the hard part out here is a lot of people that start businesses, a lot of people that have a lot of things and it looks really easy for them. And the hard part with people like this out here it was easy because they had families who came in and there's a lot of wealth out here.
there's another 3d printing company out here. I won't say their name, but anybody who's local knows who I'm talking about. They just recently bought like 200, like X one carbons and they bought a warehouse space. he found out that his dad gave him a 3 million loan.
And it's dang, I wish I could do that. I don't want to see them documented because they're gonna be like, it's so hard [00:18:00] today. It's no, it wasn't like, I'm sorry. It wasn't. But my point with that is like, realizing, I think, The reason I like pulling back the curtain is because I do think I try to represent the majority of people because people like, I know people want to look at me sometimes are like, but you have this Harley Davidson and you own this house like timeout.

there's a lot of things on this back end which is why I try to, I don't mention it a lot. On my content side of it, but I'm okay mentioning it here. My wife's a widow. My wife lost her husband and my kids lost their father because my wife and I don't have any kids together. 
But, now we have our kids, which I love them to death. There were things that happened that were made it so that because of that unfortunate accident, she was able to get a home and all of these things. at the time when we got married, all I had was a motorcycle.
I like people don't realize, like I was living in an apartment with dudes paying 600 a month because it was like, my bedroom was the size of a closet. And so it really is one of those things where it's on the outside, if you were to take a picture of my life right now, [00:19:00] yes, it would look crazy.
Oh, he owns a house, he has a motorcycle, he has all these printers but this isn't actually representative of what happened. And that's the thing is like, people decide, you decide where to spend your money, you decide what to do with your stuff. And I decided to buy a motorcycle.
I didn't decide to buy a nice car. I didn't decide to buy all these other things. I bought a bike because that's where my heart was And yes, that meant I was riding a motorcycle through the winter, through the snow, through the ice. Like I was doing that because that was the choice I made.
my point is, that is why I try to pull back the curtain a lot, where I say, Hey guys you need to know I'm not sleeping. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. Because I want people to explore something that's going to make them happy, but I don't want them to think that It's going to just work out because the unfortunate thing is it doesn't just work out.
You have to put in a lot of work to it and I don't want people to get discouraged. I don't want people to give up. I want to watch them succeed. I hope people watch my videos, they go do it. And then they put me out of business. I would love that. I would love for somebody who watched me and followed my steps to [00:20:00] succeed past me.
That would be. So great. Like I talked to kids at farmers markets and all these other people and they're like I don't want us to do, shut up, steal my ideas. Take this go for it. Go make millions, dude. Do it now. Cause that also motivates me to do better. I would love if one of these kids has been coming up to me.

I have a couple of regular kids that come up to me at these shows and they keep asking me technical questions about 3d printing and I'll talk to them forever. I hope one day they're like knocking on my door Hey, I'm going to buy your building. Cause. I'm doing this like hell. 
Yeah, dude. Absolutely. Thank God. that's super cool. like you were saying, online, you see the highlight reel of everyone, who has all this crazy stuff. I think there's this inclination for people to be like, Oh, anyone can do this, or make money fast, or whatever, but yeah, I think it's maybe I'm just bad at things like that, but I'm not finding that to be, like, it's never easy, and it's never fast, and I think there's A million things behind the scene that go into it that nobody talks about.
And I, I really hate I don't think it's blatant dishonesty, but there's somebody that I was following that was like, Hey, follow me and we'll make money on [00:21:00] Etsy. And they're like, I made 30, 000 in one month. I'm a very honest person.
And the more I dove into it, I was like, wait a second. You, before you started Etsy, were a real estate Crazy mongol. Like you just you had a lot of contacts that you could pump out. Hey, I'm starting this Etsy business too. And it's hey, you have 12, 000 people.
You could just hey, I'm doing this. And then they spread and make the word for you to me. That was misrepresentative of what. They were talking about because what they didn't talk about was the network they had prior that's what I've noticed on Etsy for me what gets me more business are the people who either have bought seven tell other people to buy stuff or the people that I know directly, 
I want to start a YouTube series about real Etsy sales where it's like, Hey, just so you know, you can do this. But you have to actually work hard on this other end because unless you're going to make some weird revolutionary product that somebody is going to see and then tell everybody about, you're going to be making the same thing that everyone else is making, but you need to figure out how to get it out there to other people.
And [00:22:00] that's through networking. I think that's a part that's missed a lot with people who talk about follow me for like tips on how to make money and X, Y, Z. They don't talk about the foundation they had prior. that hurts a lot of people. I've watched that hurt a lot of people.

this goes back to why I make content the way I make it I don't want to feel like I'm giving somebody misinformation to get them to follow me I'm trying to show you how to actually do it when you start from zero. it sucks. But you can do it. 
It just sucks. Yeah no I agree with all that you said in there. I want to back up to a little bit of where you started with shows. You talked about you sign up for this first show, and then your wife signs you up for a show.
And I think you said it was like three weeks out of her signing you up to you guys having to actually go to that show. Going to that show I don't sell prints and I don't have a crazy amount of printers that I'm running, but I know how long it takes to run a print, how did you guys in three weeks pull it together to have inventory for that show, let's start there, but then we have another follow up question for you on [00:23:00] that.
So I got a little lucky so I think I can't remember I watched it right when it came out with you and when you and Brady and talk, but Brady, started 3D print cares a few years ago. And then when him and I became like best friends, he was like, Hey, you're the person that I think we can bring this back.
And I was like, Yeah, Let's do it. And now it's the point where people think it was our idea. But I want to be clear. This is something Brady did start by himself. Now it has become synonymous with both of us. that was back when we had the Holden Strong thing.
So when that had happened, I started running my prints to make the fidget creatures. I got like Zao's Patreon right away, and I was just like, I'm gonna start making these things. I was ready. I'd never done anything like that before and so I was just making full bed plates of them and just going because I wasn't sure what I was going to send to him and what I wasn't and so I made a couple dragons.
I got cinder wing and I had a bunch of stuff and then I was like, okay. A million people have signed up for this. I'm not going to send all the stuff I was originally going to send. And then I had all this leftover stuff. And so luckily it was [00:24:00] like, here's all this leftover stuff.
I can use this for September. But then my wife was like, Hey, we actually have something in a few weeks. And I was like, okay, we can use this. so my booth primarily focuses, I have the little booth. Bitty things that everybody has, the 

minis, whatever, but I like to focus on like the D& D side, the cosplay side, the nerdy side of 3D printing because that's a niche that when I go to vendor shows, I don't see a lot of the weird niche stuff. 
Yeah, and so that was my focus and so I turned on the dial to start doing The dice tower stuff like that and luckily I had the neptune like four maxes so I could put You know 10 of them on a build plate have them go for two days and it would only take two days but then I can get like 10 of them done I could pull those off keep going at the time I had only had I say only some people are gonna listen to this be like only but I had three years Of the K one maxes, the tune up to four maxes and a one and an X one carbon.
And so the multicolors were just confined to two printers and everything else had to be on these other [00:25:00] printers. when we had that first show, we didn't have a whole lot of variety. at least in colors and stuff like that. It was just a lot of stuff here and there. 
I think I did make one helmet, it was a Wolverine helmet, so I didn't need to worry about multi color, I could just do it in two different colors. And that's how we got the inventory for that show, and luckily it was a really small show but it worked out really well for us Yeah. That's the other piece I was curious about, because you had mentioned you go to that show, there was other funders there other funders were talking about they didn't even make their transcripts. Show feedback you guys it sounds like you did well, but knowing you online like you got you're very personal You're very fun to be around like do you think was it like a personality like did you just draw people into the booth?
Was it something that you just happened to have the right stuff? what Do you think made it work for you at that show? I honestly do think it was my personality at that show because there were four other 3D printers there. And, I'm sorry if anybody listens to this who was there.
I'm not making shots like you're bad people. But everybody was sitting down. Everybody had [00:26:00] their camp chairs, they were all sitting down. People would come up to the booths and they'd just point and blah blah blah. And me and my wife are standing up and we're like talking to people. We're like, Hey, grab this.
Whatever. I'm okay. Time out. I make the same joke at every vendor thing. And I don't think it's funny. My wife doesn't think it's funny, but people they're howling. Cause they're like, Oh, kids don't touch. I'm like no. Pick it up. If you 

break it, it's half off. And everyone laughs. 
And I'm like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever said in my life. But I always say it every show I go to now. I want people to touch it, I want people to grab it. And the other thing that I think helps us is I'm very motivated to Give people stuff. I've watched so many kids come up and they have three quarters. And they're like, I did chores for my mom this week. What can I buy? And theoretically, nothing. The answer is nothing. But they look and they have this one thing and they love it. And sometimes if it's like a really big thing, like a helmet, it's Ooh, I have this thing.
And I just try to help them out. But we also, do a lot of [00:27:00] deals where it's like, Hey, I know this thing's 1, but if you buy this 5 thing, you get this plus three other things. They're like, Oh. Then yeah, I'll do that. I have given away helmets to kids. I had this one mom, she came in and they rode on bikes.
And there was nowhere close where they could have come from, where we were at this particular event. their bikes were pretty ratty, and He really wanted to be spider man for Halloween I had this helmet and he just you know I was like, oh, it's usually 200 bucks but like blah blah and I could see it in her face that like I see it because I saw it in my mom's face when we grew up poor It was the same look of I would do this if I could I could see it in her face And they left and on the way back.
I say hey Buddy come here and I go, Hey, can you do me a favor and can you help me like pick this up? I need to move this over here. And he goes, yeah, okay. He picks up, I said, Hey, I wanna pay you for helping me. And he was like, I moved a box. I said, no, don't worry about it. And I gave him the helmet and his mom's reaction.
I was like, this was real. This was a real, 'cause There's times [00:28:00] where people come and they're like, I can't afford anything. And you can just eh, I don't know man. You came in here in Alexis, . Okay, but there's just times where you can just tell I was making deals with a lot of people at this first show because that's just how I am and people were hearing it they were hearing like, oh, if you go to this guy, he'll get, and I wasn't trying to under, my goal isn't to undercut people I'm not a jerk, I just, my goal is to get people to go home with stuff because it matters to them.
People who grew up in the situation I grew up, it doesn't make a lot of sense to people that like a thing would matter. They don't understand that because 

people always talk about that, right? Oh, you can just buy another one. There's a reality for some people where that's not true. 
So something matters to some of these kids. It matters if they have it. we were a little bit cheaper than everybody else. I think that was part of it. But I'm not completely cheaper. I sell helmets for 250 bucks a pop, I've recently increased the prices of my dice towers because I do a little bit more work in those now.
at the core of it, I'm still. Making deals. even though we increased all the prices of our biddies we still have deals. You can get [00:29:00] 15 of them for 20 bucks. It's so anyways, that I think that between the deals, my personality, my wife's personality, we just really, we just got people to come.
they wanted to spend time with us. I don't get annoyed by people. I have a big problem with people who get on tick tock and they're like, I was at a craft show and this kid was so annoying. It's like a child annoyed you. Grow up It's a child like who cares if they're still like my dad could print this better than it's okay Like I talked to those kids.
I'm like, what kind of printer does he have? I engage with them but those people just want to get annoyed I think the reason people come back to Me is because they know i'm okay talking to them. I'm okay having a conversation i'm always like hey I gotta go help this person real quick and then i'll come back and talk to that person It doesn't take anything out of my day to talk to people, I think that was a lot of it, but apparently also the other thing isI print all my stuff at like between 16 and 18.
I take the time to print it. At a little higher quality. [00:30:00] I also take a little bit more material to make it a little more dense. I don't think I have anything that prints at less than 12 percent infill. when people pick up my dragons, they're like, Whoa! It's yeah, I know.
And they're like, I bought one off Amazon and it broke right away. And I'll like, Do this little number and they're like, oh yeah, it's fine. I do believe that I am bringing a higher quality product at a better price. I want it to last, I want people to love it and I want them to feel like they didn't get ripped off.
No, all those things together, they make sense. And I think if somebody's listening to this and looking to go to a show and looking to do it like, maybe you don't want to brag too much about your personality but I'll see even for me, I have a 3D printer, I can print stuff, but sometimes, I'll be out and I'll see people 

at Boots and they'll have 3D prints there, and it's just like a fun thing to go buy a 3D printer from somebody else, and Oh, yeah. 
Like you said, though, a lot of times I go up and They're like sitting in the chair and they don't have a smile and I have to be the one to be like hey How's it going? How's your day? I think it's so simple but [00:31:00] having a smile and standing up and being engaged with people sounds dumb and it doesn't sound like It would convert to more sales, but I feel like it probably makes a huge difference at these shows, especially when there's multiple vendors.
One, shout out to my wife, cause I know she'll kill me if I say it was my idea. She was very much the motivation of she's always cause I'll sit down every once in a while, but she'll hit me and she's get off your phone. I'm like, stand up. I'm like, okay. Oh God.
I like stand up. Yeah. But it works. It's like we pull people in and the only time we haven't, we've both collectively sat down is like, it's been getting cold obviously. Yeah. It was like 40 degrees and snowing the other day. And so we're both like huddled around this little heater.
We have I'm not getting up like you guys come and get some, I'm not getting up. But at least at that point it's a little understanding. So Yeah. That's great. One hour of sleep, and it's 30 degrees out, you guys, because we're trading to the booth, and I guess that's fine. Yeah, exactly.
Now, kinda we talked a lot about your business. I know from what I've heard from your content and what you've talked about today it looks like you're trying to do this as a full time thing, and sooner than later. It sounds like that's a very real possibility.
do you [00:32:00] feel like it's going to be the shows that take you over that hump is it online sales, is it something different that you guys are trying to do, like, where are you focusing right now? Yeah focus is a weird word, but I don't have a lot of it. so the end game, I have the end game in mind.
The end game is that I would like to open up my own store forever. I would like that storefront to have three components. One, I want it to have a storefront where people can buy printers, buy parts, buy material because we don't have anything like that in Utah, there's not a micro center or anything like that near us.

And so that would be the first part. The second part is I'm really motivated to teach people. I want the second part of that building to be where people can come for afterschool programs. Kids can learn, they can print we can have classes and stuff like that I do want to focus on kids with afterschool programs. 
And then the back end of it would be, the central hub for 3d print cares so that everything can come in through one spot and then I can. Disperse everything it's something Brady and I have talked about a lot because 3d printing is getting big enough now where we need to think about something like that.
3d print [00:33:00] cares. Sorry. And so that's the end goal. Coupled with that, though, is there's in my mind. 3D printing is becoming so cheap and so easy that unless you figure out how to be a designer Or get into a really specific niche there's really no way to survive it's just the reality of it Anybody who's listening to this who's thinking about doing 3d printing?
And you want to do it at craft fairs and stuff like that go ahead and do it now But I don't foresee that being viable in the future. And that might be in the next 5 10 years I'm working with a lot of people right now to get into film. Sundance is huge out here. I'm really close to Sundance.
There's a lot of filmmakers out here in Utah. And there's a couple of people that I'm trying to work with to get into film, whether it's prop making or things like that. I would love to stay in that industry because to me that's niche enough where I'm not going to get kicked out of it, but it'll keep me fed throughout the whole time.
I would like to learn how to design. I have Nomad Sculpt and I have Fusion, but I've made like a total of three things on [00:34:00] those because I just don't know what I'm doing. I would like to, be able to focus on that because again, I think those are the two people who survive, designers and, people who are in a niche.
And yeah that's where I'm trying to head towards. But right now we're focused on shows. We are trying to bring in our own online store. I want to create a subscription service. I haven't seen anybody do this but where people can subscribe to get a handful of biddies every month or a helmet subscription where You get a new helmet every month.
I think that would be really cool Cause that's just a subscription services where they go. I know they suck. Even there's what I think BMW now you have to 

subscribe to get your seat warmers turned on. They're getting out of control, but it was also the way it's working nowadays. No sense in not jumping on that bandwagon. 
Yeah, for sure. It definitely is a double edged sword. As a consumer, I hate subscriptions, and as somebody who dabbles in different business ventures, I love that idea of reoccurring revenue, 
Coming back to what you were saying before of where things are going your plans for the future. You talked about this space where, kids could come and learn people [00:35:00] could get help all kinds of different things there.
And I think when I look at things, Not just honestly, not just 3d printing like when I look at the world as a whole right now I feel like community is such a thing that It's so like lacking in a lot of places I feel like a lot of people really need and really crave and don't always know how to find and Even like as simple as like recently like last week or maybe two weeks ago we did a local meetup here in Arizona and so many people were so excited so many people just want to meet friends and make friends if this is going to sound like such a dumb and simple question, maybe just saying hello, or interacting with people, you're infamously, in this friend group of Brady Wanmakes Dorkfader Priory and all these cool guys.
And I think a lot of people crave having that community or friend group. How did you get integrated into that friend group? I have a big problem.
I'll call it the godfather round table of 3d printing in TikTok right now. There's a group of people that I think everyone looks at. Because they've been on the platform the [00:36:00] longest. I want to be clear, I'm not talking about anybody like Ben from It's Boy in Space 
There's another group of people, I won't get into who they are. what I noticed was that they were a group of people that were friends with each other, which is great. But it was really hard to feel like you could be an outsider. In that group yes, they would invite you into stuff, but there really wasn't a lot of room.
they didn't like differing opinions. And I know that if they figure out who they are, they're like, no, we don't, but I've been a part of it too long. so I backed off and I was like, you know what? that's a lot of why my content started growing into the I want to help people content because I didn't want, I never, I will 

never. 
Can I swear on here? Oh, fuck yeah. Oh, hell yeah. Okay, cool. Honestly, I haven't been because I wasn't sure. I swear like a trucker the entire time. Oh, cool. I do too. My big thing was like I will never shit on another printer ever not one time and the reason I won't do it is because Somebody has that [00:37:00] printer and they love it and that might be the only printer they can afford It might be the only printer they can get so God, I fucking hate when I hear people shit on Creality.
I hate it. Creality makes a cheap product, they make it an accessible product, and that might be the only product people get. And then they're gonna go, and they're gonna watch this godfather roundtable of 3D printers, and a lot of them hate Creality, and they're gonna be like, Oh yeah, fuck Creality, and you don't realize How many people you might have destroyed the habit for or the enjoyment or the whatever That pisses me off.
I'm getting a little passionate because it really makes me angry And so I won't do it. I won't I will say there's printers. I prefer there's printers I don't prefer I even just had a video that did Slightly good numbers where I talked about how I prefer Creality over Bamboo and people were mind blown by that, I won't say to not buy those, I will just say I prefer them, that was really making me [00:38:00] angry, and Brady felt the same way, we were talking to Josh, he became friends with Josh from Dork Vader.
And he was like, dude, have you followed this guy? I said, no, he shouted us out. And I was like, I don't even know this guy. I feel bad. so I started watching his stuff. And I was like, Oh, my God, I love this guy. And it was instant. You know who I didn't hear about from 3d printing I didn't hear about Josh.
Nobody was talking about him. he'd been on the scene, and he'd interacted with those people, and nobody was talking about him. And I was like, you guys don't realize how incredible this guy is. then Mike, I had, Followed Mike for a really long time from Priority 3D and I met him at Murph, and I fangirled so hard over meeting him.
I just couldn't do it. He was just mind blown. He was like, why do you care so much? It's no you're Mike, man! I was so excited and, And then yeah, Nick just like he came on the scene, I think through when I did the DC helmet challenges where I really met Nick for the first time.

I had a lot of questions for him because I had painted cars and motorcycles years ago and I saw what he was doing [00:39:00] with helmets. And I was like, Hey, how well does this translate? He goes, I actually used to paint cars and motorcycles. It translates pretty easily. he's been able to help me a lot with that. 
I've been friends with Jack from Twin Shepard for a minute, but I brought him into the group chat and we realized we wanted a space where we all had the same idea, which was help people no matter what, don't ick somebody else's yum and just be good people.
we've been talking recently about starting more lives and taking over that scene because we want to create an environment where people. Feel welcome, and feel like they can come to us. And yeah, that was just how we integrated with it, which is, it's so funny because I'm going to say this and I bet you won't believe it.
I know it took a long time for a lot of other people to believe it. I'm not this extroverted in real life. I love being home. I love being quiet. I love it quiet's hard. I only have one volume. But I don't like, I don't actually talking a whole lot. I don't like, all this other stuff.
I don't like the [00:40:00] making content stressful for me. Because it's really nerve wracking all the time. I know a lot of people look at my content. They're like, there's no shot. Like you look like a natural, like all that stuff. But no, it is hard for me. I have a lot of self conscious issues with my body.
I have a lot of self consciousness issues with my family. Like my speech, it's really hard for me. But getting in this group with these guys has really helped me because no one cares. No one cares in this group. We look at each other when we get in slumps and it's Hey, whatever.
Anyone who pays attention to my content, they'll notice that I'll get on this really big high and then I'll drop off for a couple of weeks because my brain says dude, we need to chill. But yeah, we got involved cause we just wanted to talk to each other.
It's the only group chat I have, I haven't talked to my family group chat in three months, but this is the only one that I talked to, and it's just. We're all learning together. We're all having fun. We all encourage each other. We all push each other.

it's just a good group of people. that's why we want to translate it to [00:41:00] putting it out in public because we want other people to feel like they can come in. The last thing we want is people to think we're an exclusive group which might be true for the group chat, but that's because it's a group chat. 
I'm not gonna have 800 people in a group chat, I don't want anyone to think that we're untouchable like I don't want us to ever be like Oh, I don't want to talk to him cuz XYZ and I get those DMS sometimes in my tick tock where people would be like I don't mean to bother you.
It's shut the fuck up like
Like I'm not I don't know like obviously I only have what like 11k followers maybe if I hit a million I'll be that way but no I think that's part of it not to divert too much But it's point space 
He's got like four million followers. Yeah, and that guy has personally DM me He did a lot to just talk and chat and ask if I need help with something he'll be like, hey like I saw this trend Maybe you should try to see what happens like absolutely.
Let's try to see what like There are groups of people that will disagree with this, and my challenge to them is that they don't actually know him. He's one of the most down to earth people I've ever met I want to be like that. I want to be somebody who can get to that level of popularity, and still be [00:42:00] who he is.
And so I look up to that a lot. And I think that's where we're all headed with our traction in the group chat. We call ourselves the three deers, but
yeah I don't know Ben personally. from. The interactions I've had with him, he's super chill I don't know if humble is the right word, but I think a lot of people in the 3D printing space in general, I'll just say I, I've yet to really meet anybody who's I think down to earth or not like too full of himself and I'm sure those people are out there, but.
Oh, they are. I just haven't encountered them yet. But, it's been refreshing, out of other communities I've been in. It's a lot ofreally cool, chill people who are like, all aligned and Just helping other people. it's been cool.

I know we're coming up in time and I don't want to keep you here forever, but I just want to talk a little bit about your podcast with me. Cause it's fun and I think again, it's just like a fun thing for people if. You don't even have to be into 3D printing. 
You guys talk about all kinds of stuff, buthow did you guys ultimately decide to get into that? how did that all come together? Man, the decision, I [00:43:00] honestly can't remember. I feel like that was a Brady decision. He was like, we should do this.
I've actually, hold on. I'm almost 99 percent sure it was because he had always had the ambition, the dream to have a podcast and he was just like, I want to do it with you because it's going to be easier to do with you than to do it with me.
And I was like, okay, yeah, let's do it. we got together. We had talked about it and we were both extremely busy. He does school and he has his full time job and he does 3D printing and he has a family and I have my business, my full time job.
We were both busy. So we had to finally just say, okay, we're gonna do it every other Monday. We're gonna record, We got together with the sound producer and just started and the rest is not history, we're six episodes deep now.
So yeah, We didn't want to isolate anybody with just talking about 3D printing. I think the only times we've really talked about it was when I don't know, I don't have regrets. I don't ever have regrets, but I do wish I would have handled it differently when I got into it with one of the guys in the 3D printing space [00:44:00] about his opinion of hobbyist 3D printers.
I was very upset at that. I think we did talk about that a little bit, but I don't think we've really talked a whole lot about 3D printing as a whole, but again that's calculated. That's on purpose because we want people to be able to listen. 
A lot of podcasts either start with a niche and then turn into general topics. or they do, nobody really did the reverse where it was like we start general and then we find our niche and that's something we want to do differently. We're starting very general and we're going to see where we land because I think both of us adapt well enough 

We can play around and have fun Part of that is also us figuring out who we are, as you've done podcasts for long enough where it's like your podcast. You is going to be different than your tick tock. You it's going to be different than your personal you, and we're figuring out who we are on the podcast. 
And I would say episode six, our latest ones, probably it's the best one. But it's the one where we [00:45:00] both found out where we were and I think anybody who's listened to it can feel it. Where it was like, oh, these guys are clicking. It's yeah, we are. It took a while, but we're here.
Yeah, it's what you said there about there's like the real life you and the podcast you and the TikTok you. I, for people who like don't do all those different things, I definitely. I think that's very relatable and I think it's, for me podcasting I've done content for a really long time, but I've never done anything like podcasting and it's definitely been the most difficult one for me to get into.
And that's something I've admired a lot about watching you guys is your podcast feels very natural for you guys and it's just a fun thing and it's very cool. So I'm excited to see what you guys do with that. I'm super excited to see what you do with your business and yeah, it's a lot of exciting stuff coming up for you.
It really is a lot of exciting stuff. I appreciate you coming on here. I learned so much about you and just what's currently happening, what has happened. For people who don't follow along up until this point, where can they find you online? Yeah, so I'm going to be at basically underscore Benski.
I think that's [00:46:00] going to be true on Tik Tok, Instagram. I think YouTube is just going to be basically Benski. I only have two videos out, but that's going to be hopefully more. And then we are launching our website for our products. It's going to be Benskibuilds. com. I'm going to have my own thing cause I am on Etsy, but I'm getting away from that.
But yeah, Bensky builds is where you'll find out the products you want to buy So we're in the shirt even because you know it was actually not planned It was just like I wear a lot of black and it was like I just put on a black shirt and then I noticed Yeah.
Yeah. Cool. Look like an idiot. Now I'll pretend that I did notice it the whole time. Very professional. Very on tune. Awesome. Bensky, it was a pleasure 

having you here today. Thank you so much for joining us, and that has been Meet the Makers.