How HypeColor Created a Home-Based 3D Printing Business

The motivation to start a business can come in many different forms. From a small, home-based start-up, to a mega-corporation running several locations, they all start somewhere. In this article, we talk with Sarah Hunt, who runs Hype Color - a small business that specializes in 3D printed lamps.

Sarah has been using 3D printing to enable her own hobbies since 2020 when she started to make things around the house to decorate her own spaces. Using her design background, she was able to create several items to fill the void for things she couldn’t readily find online that fit her style.

Fast forward to a friend’s wedding, where she was asked to make gifts for the bridal party. Her friends and family were so impressed with her designs, that she made a TikTok video to show off her skills - the video went viral and soon garnered over one million views, catapulting her in front of hundreds of thousands of new viewers. She now has 1.2 million followers on TikTok following her 3D printing content.

Sarah brings fun and an almost kidlike quality to her creations which range from small chibi-like creatures like ‘Suckies’ (octopi with interchangeable hats) and ‘Mushies’ (fungi) to character-driven lamps based on animals, pop culture, fruit, and more.

The wide variety of colors and characters available is directly tied to the implementation of 3D printing. “We don’t have any restrictions on the variety of the designs. I can see it in my mind, design it on my computer, and print it out until I get the physical object to come to life. It makes it extremely easy to iterate and make something without relying on any other prototypers or outsourcing to a manufacturer. We can handle almost all the aspects of design and production here.”

Sarah currently runs Ultimaker, Creality CR10S Pro V2s, and Anycubic 3D printers and uses over 40 filament colors to produce approximately 50-100 lamps a week out of her home. She has also started expanding into custom prints. She credits the virality of TikTok for much of the success in getting her name out to the world. “For a small business - very small business at the time - having that video go out to so many people without having to pay for advertising, and getting more and more people posting word of mouth has been key to how we get customers, new and old.”

Sarah was able to ramp up production quickly by utilizing what she already knew and building up her capital equipment, as well as taking advantage of buying materials in bulk. “The scalability of 3D printing is fairly straightforward. The next machine is basically like the first one - once it’s tuned and running, it’s ready for production. But anyone who 3D prints at home can tell you that these machines are a little temperamental at times, and can be big pains every once in a while. So using the same machine in your print farm makes sense in terms of efficiency and repeatability. You don’t have to learn something new to produce more - you just have to deal with more of the same things to get to where you need to be.”

But like all good business people, Sarah did see the need to use the cost-savings of having someone else produce their light-diffusion lamp covers. “We simply hit a limit of having to take up a machine to print something that someone else could produce for us at a lower cost to our bottom line. With the materials, the time to create it, and the lost revenue from using a machine for that one part, we saw there was an advantage to having another partner produce that one piece for us so we could concentrate on the meat of the business - the design and assembly of the lamp. Taking that one piece and giving it over to someone else helped us immensely in terms of time and cost savings.”

One of the true markers of what 3D printing enables Sarah to do is ‘right-size’; find the perfect fit of busy versus having to grow into something more. “You know I’m super happy with things the way they are now - I don’t really envision or want to get much bigger than this - this size business fits me.’ Being able to handle things herself, even though she’s extremely busy, gives Sarah the control to chart her own success. She’s pulled in help from her husband, as well as farmed out the cutting of acrylic for her lamps, and that’s what she’s comfortable with. Many businesses feel the need for ‘infinite growth’ to find success. But Sarah has turned that model on its head and found comfort in the best fit for her life. Without 3D printing, this wouldn’t be possible. 

For example, if Sarah were to order the lamps from blanks from other providers, she would need a minimum order - let’s say 100 forms. That would include the acrylic, the coloring, the vinyl for the stickers, and the hardware for the lamps. For a small business that’s a large investment, and that’s just for one lamp. Sarah has dozens of lamps in her shop - to spend upfront to get all the materials to meet a minimum order level, there’s a real chance she could overextend her spending, and there’s no guarantee that she’s going to sell all 100 of the lamps. She may lose money by having inventory sit and become irrelevant, yet still have to order newer lamps at the same minimum order levels to keep up with demand, and come around to the same problems with stock, no sales, etc.

With 3D printing, Sarah is in complete control of her spending and workflow. If a particular lamp receives three orders on Tuesday, she makes three lamps - simple. No overhead, no inventory sitting on shelves, no money wasted on that dead inventory - just a one-in, one-out workflow to optimize materials and workflow.

3D printing is helping thousands of businesses like Sarah’s achieve their independence and sustainability by helping reduce upfront costs and create bespoke, custom items for sale. No more mass manufacturing or guesswork on where the market may move - just take an order, make an item, ship it out!

If you’re interested in learning more about Sarah and her Hype Color business, you can visit her website here: https://hypecolor.com/

You can also check out her TikTok channel here: https://www.tiktok.com/@pinklumenade

If you’re interested in learning more about how 3D printing can help your business, email sales@matterhackers.com - we’re happy to help answer any questions and get you started in 3D printing today.