From the attic to a personal 3D printing company in Haalderen
Our story
Honestly, with falling and getting up, and occasionally a printer in the kitchen.
Since 2008, Martijn has been working as an entrepreneur, even during the VMBO programme. For the KvK registration, mothers had to come, because as a 17-year-old you can't sign yourself. The plan: rent server space and rent parts of that space to others.
Right in the big world, with all kinds of customers, no mega-businesses because which company goes into business with a company whose owner still sounds like a teenager. Things like grammar could also be better just like the previous sentence that just doesn't read well. But here the basis for enterprise has been laid.
The hosting grew to build and manage webshops, for ourselves and for other companies. Yet it didn't come entirely off the ground to live well; The scholarship was used to fill the gap.
There was a second venture, along with good friend Tijmen. Besides the studies we worked on our own webshop. Together they regularly sat in a warehouse of an old mushroom farm packing and sending orders;
We sold online phone cases and later more products from our own stock. Stock we extracted from, for example, China; AliExpress didn't exist back then. This is not comparable to a contemporary dropshipper, we took the products in stock and tested the quality.
Around June 2013 the tilting point came: Some plastic parts we could maybe just make ourselves, just when 3D printers became popular. We also hoped to make and sell prints for others. This is how the name Princes came into existence.
The printers were much more expensive at the time than they are now, and therefore personal money had to be deposited. Fortunately, the Rainbow Loom rage began; There were few plastic tools available. With minimal knowledge of 3D printing and design, we tackled it, and fortunately it really started to run.
Sales grew; The first printer made way for an Ultimaker 1: still made of wood with a lot of noise, no heated printbed and the bed attachment was still on paint tape. Sales went better; With the help of others we could buy more printers. Day and night they were turning in the old damp shed.
When the craze got less, we often asked if we could print something for someone else. Of course we wanted to, with all the stress of that. A 3D printer is like a regular printer: as soon as you need it, it does not cooperate.
It did not combine well with Tijmens study over time; Martijn could have been full-time. Tijmen left the VOF and Princes continues as one man's business. Funny enough we meet again almost exactly ten years later, in a similar form.
Princes continued, fairly well, with occasional challenges. More and more special assignments came along: prints for TV program ’s, but also a mascot for the police. At another moment we were printing 10,000 small letters or making a scale model of a new monument. The printers were in the extra bedroom (print loft), sometimes even in the living room, working day and night. Martijn was sometimes embarrassed when a customer with a fat car came along and found the company Princes in a simple home with a hobby run out of control.
Around 2016 everything became more difficult: It just didn't fit in the cabin in Arnhem anymore. Not only the printers, but also a workbench in the living room. In the kitchen there was a position with printers to produce in the night, without too much noise. In the meantime, business has gone very well, just not space.
An important step: a location in Haalderen, a bare factory hall without insulation and with half cracked windows. Martijn’'s enterprising parents went to rent a large property to share; Princes now rents 200 m2.
They give nationwide BHV and first aid courses and also wanted to teach locally in their own classroom. So we went from a dusty, empty hall to a training center, with a neat space for us and the printers. Not only the first floor has been extended; Over time almost everything except the walls and the roof has been replaced. A lot of work, which to this day we enjoy.
The larger location also brought with it a burden. Before, check the printers before bedtime and turn on another batch. Now it takes up and down to drive almost an hour. For a few small prints, you lost more gas than they did.
So just a few more printers home for the night work; Get the bigger work. Remodeling took a lot of time when we should have been more involved in new assignments. The growth almost fell out. Every now and then it was still busy, especially thanks to larger orders that occasionally came along. Especially the regular customers have kept the company going.
When corona came around the corner, that was the time to reform the company. Thus, the fixed assortment and own brand was created: www.printboard.nl. A massive investment over the years, but now an additional source of revenue less sensitive to large and small loose jobs.
We also tried other branches, such as reproducing products that are no longer available. Around 2020 the weather improved; The growth was back in. Extra hands were needed. Martijn ’'s wife regularly helped. Later, real staff was needed, and Tijmen may have come back.
After some brainstorming it became a VOF next to Princes: formerly Remake Parts, now Mavor. It is purely focused on reproducing and selling plastic parts, only administratively separated from Princes. Mavor designs and sells but has no hardware or office itself; production and packaging run through Princes. Actually, it's dropshipping and fulfillment of ourselves. So far we have sold a stable quantity, which allows us to keep some business processes more advantageous.
Regularly we had extra hands at busy times but this was not enough. We chose to grow with a post on Facebook: were young people looking for a job? We're not gonna do anything about social media, but this hit the spot. Within a short time, several young people applied; A number of them are still working with permanent contracts.
We didn't find out until later that those young people weren't even on Facebook. Their mother thought it was time for a job.
Now that everything is going well, we still have no ambition to become a big company. Small and personal has something, and many customers feel the same way.
In 2026, the necessary changes, including this new website. We intend, with the exception of a few necessary partners such as our bank and PostNL, to be as self-sufficient as possible in the field of technology.
We use AI, only locally: without the Internet, and without communication to the outside. We hope that more companies will follow us and store data only when needed instead of earning model.