From the attic to a personal 3D printing company in Haalderen
Our story
An honest story of trial and error, with the occasional printer in the kitchen.
Martijn had already been working as an entrepreneur since 2008, while still in secondary vocational education (VMBO). His mother had to come along for the Chamber of Commerce registration, because at 17 he was not yet allowed to sign independently. The plan: rent server space and sublet parts of it to others.
Straight into the real world, with all kinds of customers — though no huge companies, because what company wants to do business with a business whose owner still sounds like a teenager? Things such as grammar could have been better too, just like the previous sentence that does not quite read smoothly. But this is where the foundation for entrepreneurship was laid.
The hosting business expanded into building and managing online stores, both for ourselves and for other companies. It never quite took off enough to make a good living from it, though; the student grant helped bridge the gap.
A second business followed, together with good friend Tijmen. Alongside our studies, we worked on our own online store. We regularly sat together in a warehouse at an old mushroom farm, packing and shipping orders;
We sold phone cases online and later added more products from our own stock. We sourced stock from places such as China; AliExpress did not exist yet. This was not comparable to today's dropshipping: we held the products in stock ourselves and tested their quality.
Around June 2013 came the turning point: perhaps we could simply make some plastic parts ourselves, just as 3D printers were becoming popular. We also hoped to make and sell prints for others. That is how the name Printics came about.
Printers were much more expensive then than they are now, so personal money had to be invested. Fortunately, the Rainbow Loom craze began; there were few plastic accessories available. With only limited knowledge of 3D printing and design, we gave it a try, and fortunately it really took off.
Revenue grew; the first printer made way for an Ultimaker 1: still made of wood, very noisy, with no heated print bed and with painter's tape used for bed adhesion. Sales improved; with help from others, we were able to buy more printers. Day and night, they ran in the old damp warehouse.
As the craze faded, we increasingly received requests to print something for other people. Of course we wanted to do that, with all the stress that came with it. A 3D printer is just like a regular printer: the moment you really need it, it refuses to cooperate.
Over time, it became difficult to combine the business with Tijmen's studies; Martijn was able to work full-time. Tijmen left the partnership and Printics continued as a sole proprietorship. Funnily enough, almost exactly ten years later we ended up working together again in a similar form.
Printics carried on, doing reasonably well, with the occasional challenge. More and more unusual assignments came along: prints for TV programs, but also a mascot for the police. At another point, we were printing 10,000 small letters or building a scale model of a new monument. The printers were in the spare bedroom (the print room), sometimes even in the living room, running day and night. Martijn was sometimes terribly embarrassed when a customer arrived in an expensive car and found Printics operating from a simple home with a hobby that had got somewhat out of hand.
Around 2016, things became more difficult: it simply no longer fit in the small house in Arnhem. It was not just the printers; there was also a workbench in the living room. A rack of printers stood in the kitchen so production could continue at night without too much noise. Business was going very well — space was the problem.
An important step: a location in Haalderen, a bare factory unit without insulation and with partially cracked windows. Martijn's entrepreneurial parents rented a large property to share; Printics now rents around 200 m² there.
They provide emergency response (BHV) and first-aid courses across the country and also wanted to teach locally in their own classroom. So we went from a dusty, empty unit to a training center, with a tidy space for us and the printers. It was not only the first floor that was expanded; over time, almost everything except the walls and roof was replaced. A huge amount of work that we still benefit from every day.
The larger location also brought disadvantages. Previously, we could quickly check the printers before going to bed and start another batch. Now a round trip took almost an hour. For a few small prints, we sometimes spent more on fuel than the prints earned.
So we took a few printers back home for the night work and used Haalderen for the larger jobs. Renovation took a great deal of time when we really should have been focusing more on new assignments. Growth almost came to a complete stop. It was still busy from time to time, mainly thanks to larger orders that came in occasionally. Our regular customers in particular kept the company going.
When COVID came along, it was the right moment to reshape the business. This led to our fixed product range and own brand: www.printboard.nl. It has been a huge investment over the years, but it is now an additional source of income that is less dependent on large or small one-off assignments.
We also explored other branches, such as reproducing products that were no longer available. Around 2020 things improved again and growth returned. We needed extra hands. Martijn's wife regularly helped out. Later, actual employees were needed, and Tijmen potentially came back as well.
After some brainstorming, it became another partnership alongside Printics: formerly Remake Parts, now Mavor. It focuses purely on reproducing and selling plastic parts and is only administratively separate from Printics. Mavor designs and sells, but has no hardware or office of its own; production and packaging are handled by Printics. In practice, it is our own form of dropshipping and fulfilment. So far, sales have remained steady, helping us keep some business processes more cost-effective.
We had regularly brought in extra help during busy periods, but it was no longer enough. We decided to grow by posting on Facebook: were there any young people looking for a job? We otherwise do very little with social media, but this worked immediately. Within a short time, several young people applied; a number of them still work here today, now on permanent contracts.
We only found out later that those young people were not even active on Facebook themselves. Their mothers had decided it was time for them to get a job.
Now that things are going fairly well, we still have no ambition to become a large company. There is something special about staying small and personal, and many of our customers feel the same way.
A number of things are changing in 2026, including this new website. Apart from a few necessary partners such as our bank and PostNL, we intend to become as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to technology.
We do use AI, but locally: without internet access and without sending data outside. We hope more companies will follow this approach and store data only when necessary, rather than treating it as a business model.