Ponoko on cover of Inc Magazine

The world’s easiest making system – Ponoko and CEO David Ten Have, have taken their business, Wellington and brand New Zealand to the front cover of Inc Magazine in this months global edition in an expose titled The Future of Manufacturing.

The headline says it all – and Dave, Derek and the crew at Ponoko are carrying brand New Zealand and a couple of our key attributes of green and innovative.

“The future of manufacturing is alive in a five-person shop in Wellington, New Zealand. Think cheap, quick, green, and global. And everything’s made to order.”

Inspirational leadership from Ponoko, they’ve opened doors for all of us

Treehugger Founder now a Ponoko Adviser

The hugely popluar treehugger.com site has been built up over the last few years as a portal for new green technology ideas, environmental perspectives and the like, and I’ve popped over there at monthly intervals to checkout some new good stuff going on. Having the founder Graham Hill on your advisory board when you’re in Ponoko’s position is exactly the sort of step you want to be taking.

Sustainibility and Ponoko’s online business model

I’ve always been excited by Dave and Derek’s model for Ponoko where products are made as close to the purhaser as possible, reducing the otherwise energy and resource intensive global freight and using materials local to the purchaser. This is a realy smart use of hi-tech (both the online service and the laser cutting technolgy) to change the way we design, make and buy things. The beginnings of big things.

San Francisco Office and Laser Cutter

Dave and Derek have been darting back and forward to the US over the past 9 months with Ponoko, and have recently set-up their office and local partner which gives them a laster cutter in San Francisco to start making and shipping products in the US from the US, the first node of many to come. Love seeing these guys make it happen.

Checkout the new Ponoko Showroom for what sort of things they have in store made from designers all around the world.

Stand up and be counted

Along with a bunch of other articles it covers what have been picked as NZ’s top 10 online startups in an article by Peter Griffin. If you’re surprised not to see yourself in there, then email Patrick  founder of Startup Media at patrick at start-up.co.nz, he wants to know who you are, and so do the rest of us!

Using the power of media

I’ve been chatting to Patrick for quite a few months as StartUp are also filming a TV series which will air this year, and PlanHQ have been getting followed around a bit and getting some of us making it happen captured on film. With nothing staged, just raw as it happens action, this is the sort of video footage I like to see and be part of, you learn a lot watching others… and even yourself.

I had the pleasure of launching PlanHQ at the DEMO conference and watching Ponoko doing the same at Techcrunch40, and really look forward to seeing this happen next year at least 5 times across the various conferences, which we’ll start discussing in the new year. Silver Stripe have been doing work with Google, and there’s been heaps of other outcomes across the industry and another year of making it happen for the entreprenurs and teams building their businesses. I’ve only mentioned a few stories that are extra close to me because I’m tired and need a break too, but you know who you are and what you’ve done.

Lets make 08 the year of raising the bar, we’ve got the energy, lets be really smart about how we operate this coming year, and get some big results.

Enjoy a holiday, recharge, have some space from your businesses and let your position roll back into your mind in a new light… Who knows just what we can all pull off in the next 12 months.

1. Post presentation panel focus on Ponoko: Ponokos presentation went really well, and discussion in the panel that followed the group of presenting companies quickly turned past session favourite Cake Financial to Ponoko and Dave was put back into action answering queries from the panel and co-host Jason on the floor. This sort of thing is key to standing out from the pack at these events and helps you get a name for yourself and gets the press and others tapping and searching for you at their laptops on the spot, builds recognition.

2. Targeted Investor Interest: At the close of day 1 I was speaking with Mark Jacobsen of O’Rielly Alpha Tech Ventures (The venture arm of O’Reilly) in a dedicated room of a PlanHQ VC customer First Round Capital, (They use the room to showcase their portfolio companies launching at TechCrunch). When discussing the most interesting and aligned investments for O’Reilly he quickly brought up Ponoko, which again is exactly how you want it to go, and was keen to meet them, VC’s need to have an immediate good feeling about you usually for it to go somewhere, and Ponoko had/has that effect with the right investors.

3. Lingering brand recognition: A nice piece of marketing and brand re-enforcement I thought was the Ponoko made wine rack sitting on the panel table, well past the Ponoko DEMO, a nice quiet backdrop for such anticipated and watched on stage conversations as Mike from Techcrunch chatting with Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. I haven’t got anything quite so physical or cool with planHQ to be remembered by, so I usually settle for wearing a cool shirt that stands out in a good way. The recent launch of PlanHQ at DEMO this week was no exception and I soon became known by the some as the guy with the cool shirt, you’ve got to back it up, but it gives a quick tick to the number 1 in marketing, get attention!

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