Launch Pad

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“If you can’t find it anywhere else, then why not make it?” asks Peter Weijmarshausen, Founder of Shapeways, a 3D printing company that lets you do exactly that.

Peter explains: “Shapeways is a platform that is home to a vibrant community that enables them to make amazing products using 3D printing. So if you have a great idea, and you want it to turn in to something physical and a real product, you can go to Shapeways, upload your designs, and we make it for you.”

If you’re not a maker, but want to buy unique pieces, Shapeways offers “a vast catalogue of amazing products. You can come to our site and you can find a very big variety of products ranging from toys and gadgets to jewelry, home décor, puzzles, and many, many more things.” “In essence what we’re doing is we are giving people access to world class manufacturing capabilities, and giving them total freedom to make whatever they want.”

Listen to Karl Ulrich talk with Peter about how Shapeways has evolved over ten years, as the technology, and the company, have matured, and get his take on where 3D printing is at today: “We went through the completely unknown, and then super hype, and then after the hype typically comes a little bit of a time where people go like, really? Was this real? And we’re now starting to see real value creation.”

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Hate your commute? Scoop, founded by Rob Sadow W’08, has a solution for you: a “fully automated carpooling solution for commuters.”

Scoop partners with enterprises, office parks, and cities to make it easier for coworkers and neighbors to share trips back and forth to the office. Here’s how it works: You book your carpool trips one way at a time, based on your needs. Why one way? Rob explains: “By unbundling it so that you can book one way at a time we make it possible so you can actually go to work with one person and come home with somebody else, and so it unlocks flexibility in your schedule so you don’t feel locked in to having to go or commute on somebody else’s time.”

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Here’s a fun statistic: about 1% of the working population of the United States have applied to join Handy as cleaners or handymen or plumbers.

Now another stat that may show why this is: 80% of the people on Handy work 20 hours a week or less on the platform. 50% work ten hours a week or less. Why? As Oisin Hanrahan, Handy Founder, explains: “Not because there’s not more work there, but because that’s the amount of time they want to work.”

“It’s really about flexibility.” Karl Ulrich and Oisin have a fascinating conversation about not just how Handy works, but how Oisin built the company, and why he was the right person to do it. As Karl says, “I think I probably had 20 Wharton MBA students with that idea in 2011.” So what made Handy succeed? Execution. Oisin says, “You've got to get the operations right. You've got to get the technology right. And then you've got to try to build a brand that people gravitate to when they want to solve a problem.”

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