OPEN

UP
A story in Q&A about
the lessons we learned
on our journey from a
Kickstarter to an open
company.

ˇ
preface
We are Martin and Dominik – the founders of
the Open Press Project.

Our mission is to make printmaking more accessible!

Print ran a Kickstarter campaign, which went really well (in

fact, too well), but our calculations weren’t accurate and we
didn’t have many ideas for scaling. If we had to deliver the
presses, we would have made a loss of over 20,000 €. We
changed a lot of things, learned more than we ever thought
we would, and finally arrived at a position where we could
confidently say that we we will ship all the presses. At the
same time, we stuck to our idea of having an open and
idealistic company. In this book, we would like to share the
story of the Open Press Project so far and what we have
learned, so that others may have it easier.

To be more specific about what you can expect This book

answers the questions that arose on this journey in such a
way that the answers contribute to the idea of open know-
ledge and tell a story. The story is accompanied by photo-
graphs that can be seen as a different, perhaps phenomen-
ological, way of accessing the process.

You will see experiences and processes of the story related

to scientific methodologies and theories from within and
outside of the corporate context.
The story begins with the crowdfunding campaign for the Essentially, this is the book we wish we had before we
Open Press Project. The development of the crowdfunding started our endeavour.
campaign as well as the different approaches to create the
corresponding video are presented. Through questions and
answers, the failures and successes of this campaign are
illustrated with complete transparency and honesty.
The factors that led to these outcomes and the systems or
principles behind them are described and reflected on. This
method continues throughout the book. The challenges that
had to be overcome and how unique solutions were found
are described. Although this story may have motivational
potential, the book’s aim is not to motivate, but rather to
communicate the disadvantages or shortcomings of
particular decisions. The book is not meant to be a manual,
but to show the underlying principles that led to specific
informed decisions. The book also aims to describe and
illustrate the value of a more open or idealistic company.
It does not claim to have the right answers or to know the Martin and I at one of our small workshops, enjoying
printmaking and photography.
"correct"way, but to share everything that can help people
on similar paths make informed decisions.
These paths could be something like founding a company,
the Do-It-Yourself culture in general, crowdfunding, open
culture, business strategies, 3D printing, shipping, product
design or sustainability.

Specifically, the book will discuss strategies and definitions

of an "open" company, as well as what we discovered in the
field of marketing, for example. With this and many other
examples drawn from our journey, the book attempts to
discuss uncertain and uncommon ways of problem solving
in business and design, so that others can build on them.
table of contents
why this book? 8 did anarchy change your communication style? 64

why in Q&A form? 14 isn’t anarchy dangerous? 70

what is the Open Press Project? 17 what happens when you and Martin disagree? 71

how did this project become a Kickstarter? 18 did you get lost in chaos? 72

was your crowdfunding campaign a success? 22 what do you think is a fair price? 76

was there a solution to the financial problems? 26 what do you do about your competition? 96

why not use injection moulding? 39 what is your business strategy? 104

why an open company? 44 what does your marketing look like? 108

but what is an open company? 47 will you go green? 113

why is your project successful? 50 disclaimer 118

your company is anarchic? 57 credits 120

how did anarchy lead to fairness and empathy? 60 bibliography 121

why this book?
We believe transparency and the reasons for people’s
actions are extremely important. So to be honest with you:
One main motivation for this book is to support and spread
the idea of a different kind of company. We call it "open".
It is the idea of a generous, more social and more human
way of doing business. We want to show that such a com-
pany is possible and, contrary to popular belief, even more
economically reasonable! In other words, we want to show I like the idea of showing how you manufacture
how making our business secrets public, having no internal
rules or restrictions, letting our customers choose what to the presses, evolved into a company and how
pay and making big mistakes led to a better product and
more success than we would ever have expected. you solved problems along the way.
"I would be interested in the In addition, we have had requests for the
story behind the developing story behind the Open Press Project and its (Rick, 2020)
[of] the product. It is a good crowdfunding. With this book, we want to
educational component." (Ella, not only answer these questions, but give
2020) back to the many people that have suppor-
ted us in various ways. We have tried to do
this by sharing our insights as well as our mistakes, so that
others may have it easier on their own journeys. We further-
more attempt to go beyond the narrative and analyse our
findings, as well as to make use of scientific references in
order to establish transferability and verifiability for other
fields and thus to increase the potential of this book’s use.
We have also done all of this for ourselves to reflect on what
we can learn and where we might go next.

8 9
 The story of our 3D printing space using photos.

10 11
 Hard to believe that there are parts for almost 1500 etching presses in this shelf!

12 13
why in Q&A form?
As you will see over the course of this book,
we are not very good at doing things the
"normal" way. In addition, the Q&A style
makes it possible to skip certain topics
and read only a selection. Some people, for
example, may be interested in the details of
why we decided on "Choose what you pay",
while others may have no interest in that
topic and want only to extract some insights
about running a Kickstarter or founding a
company. Furthermore, this form helped us In numerous attempts to explain the Open Press Project we
have learned that question and answer is a good method.
to connect a wide range of topics that arose
during our journey and makes it possible to
start or stop reading the book at any point
without losing context. To still provide the
benefits of a book, we have tried to incorpor-
ate a storyline into the questions.

14 15
 what is the
Open Press
Project?
The Open Press Project is the first 3D printed
etching press, designed by Martin Schneider.
Martin made the plans open-source so that
everyone with a 3D printer can produce their
own fully functional DIY press and print their
own etchings, dry-points, engravings and so
forth. With over 50,000 downloads and a
huge media response, the project became
popular in the printmaking scene as well as
in the 3D printing community. If you want to
know more about the story behind the Open
Press Project and Martin, there is a great
interview on Cass Art’s blog:
https://tinyurl.com/cassartblog

16 17
 and useful camera move-

how did this project ments. This was in no way the

gear’s fault; rather, it was due
to my lack of experience with

become a Kickstarter? the gear. I thought this

would only be true for a
steady cam, which one needs
regular training to use profes-
In 2019, Martin and I were studying together. I wanted to sionally. However, it seems
expand my experience with filmmaking and asked Martin if true for gimbals, too: not only
he would want to make a short video about the Open Press in the way that it didn't
Working with a gimbal may have looked like we are
Project. At the same time, more and more people were smooth shots as expected, professionals, but it didn't lead to the recordings
asking Martin if he could 3D print the Open Press for them, but that it has to become nat- we would have liked.
as they had the free plans and files for the press, but no ural and instinctive, so it’s no longer a tool you have to fo-
access to a 3D printer. In response, he came up with the cus on but enables you to focus on the shots or rather the
idea of doing a Kickstarter campaign with an engaging video message you want to communicate with the shots.
to introduce the press to the Kickstarter community and The video improved when we began to make rather imper-
make it accessible to people without a 3D printer. fect videos as prototypes and build on them. You could call
them "Minimum Viable
As we wanted a professional video and knew that its quality Videos", in relation to Frank
would be a central part of the campaign and its potential Robinson’s term "Minimum
failure or success, we teamed up with a fellow student Viable Product" or MVP. We
(Kevin), made a plan, set project goals and produced a used the same methodology
storyboard, script and everything else needed for the video. or concept (like "Lean" or
The resulting video was nothing short of a disaster. We "Agile" production) by mak-
made nearly every mistake you can imagine. First off, ing a video using the min-
although I should have known better, we went for big imum requirements to create
equipment. Thank you, Lars, for trusting me with your the message we wanted to
equipment! I thought the key to smooth, cinema-like video communicate to the viewer.
shots was a camera gimbal, but in reality, the gear actually With these prototypes, we
Looking back, it is quite clear that we should have tried the
limited my creative freedom and my ability to move quickly put less effort into aspects simple and cheap skate dolly first, but working with what is
and reliably, rather than helping me find good perspectives such as video resolution, available and cheap only slowly evolved into an attitude.

18 19
 framing and sound, because they proved to be non-essen-
tial at that stage. This resulted in smaller and more fre-
quently and quickly produced versions of the video, rather
than one big effort being made to produce one final video.
This process is likely to produce a video that is closer to
what the viewer wants to see and eliminates unnecessary
elements or expenses. It's the opposite of classic video pro-
duction, where (as with Winston W.’s non-iterative or linear
waterfall approach) one plans ahead and then executes the
plan so that the viewer only sees the final video at the end.
Sadly, we started with this linear approach, grabbed the big
camera and invested a lot of time in planning, only to real-
ise that our plans weren’t working out. Looking back, we
should have just used our smartphones and a few hours to
make the first "Minimum Viable Video" and gone from there.
But after realising our mistake, we showed our first (and
later second) video to people to obtain feedback. Some of
the feedback was as expected, and some things were valu-
able insights. And, even with the things we already knew
weren’t good, the feedback gave us more reason to focus on
improving them.

Surprisingly, in the end we replaced the entire script and

storyboard with a few very rough keywords and placeholder
images and relied 90% on improvisation. In addition, we
went from the professional gimbal to a 15 € mini-skateboard
for the camera. After applying these changes, we were quite
happy with the video, and we got positive feedback. Even
though we saw room for improvement everywhere, we de-
cided to stick to this version for the Kickstarter campaign
and perhaps work on these things when we attempt our
next Kickstarter video.

20 21
was your crowdfunding
campaign a success?
We set a funding goal of 1,000 € for our campaign. This
would have been for approximately 15 presses. We thought
of a stretch goal, too: If we reached 12,000 €, we would al-
low the backers to choose the colour of their press. We
knew that having different colours would significantly com-
plicate the logistics and production, but we were quite sure
that this option would just act as a motivation to share the
project, as we could not imagine 150 people giving us the
amount of money we were asking for. Moreover, we knew
that less than 38% of all campaigns reach their funding
goals, and we didn’t want to be too disappointed if our
funding goal was not reached (Kickstarter, 2020).

We were wrong. The funding goal was reached within

minutes, and the stretch goal was reached within one day.
After 30 days, the campaign closed with 121,661 €. Pretty According to this diagram and for people who saw the campaign it looked like it went fantastic!
successful, wouldn’t you say? We thought so too, but we
were wrong again in so many ways.

22 23
 After the rush from the Kickstarter success had faded, we
looked at our cost calculation again. It had 12 lines, and to
say it was "rough" does not do justice to the mistake we
made here. After doing a proper cost calculation with all the
rewards of the campaign, we closed at 184 lines and an ap-
proximate loss of 39,551.46 €.

The biggest calculation

mistakes were shipping
costs, taxes and labour,
and our own time that
was needed to source,
produce and build all
the parts.

You might now think that

the next best thing
would be to realise the
mistake, apologise and
return the backers’
money. Unfortunately –
as strange as it sounds –
we couldn't afford to give
When setting up the Kickstarter it
seemed easy to offer a bunch of color the money back: Kick-
options. Again, we underestimated the starter keeps 5% of the
organisational effort this would
ultimately require.
money raised, and an-
other approximately 5% is
kept as credit card fees. This meant we would have had to
add about 12,000 € of our own money to refund all the
Failed prints like the one above are practically unavoidable.
backers, likely with another 6,000 € for banking fees. But What could have been avoided, however, is the mistake of not taking
still, we were determined to find solutions and still deliver them into account in our initial calculation.
all presses.

24 25
was there a solution to
the financial problems?
As of now, after one year of work, we are optimistic that we
will ship every single press without having to pay in
ourselves. There was not one big but many smaller solutions
that (hopefully) have fixed our calculation mistake:

We will not pay ourselves a salary or take money out of the

company before we have figured things out, the first pack-
age is shipped, and we are truly optimistic that we can fulfil
every pledge. Because of the time we have spent working on
this project, the various manual tasks, and all the time that
goes into setting up a company, salary costs would make up
a large portion of our expenses, even if we only paid our-
selves minimum wage. Just the transition from the Kick-
starter to an official company, with Martin and I being able
to import and commission work, took about six months.
As with many other things, if anyone had told us in advance
that bureaucracy and a difficult legal situation could delay
us this much, we would not have believed them. The main
reasons for the length of this process were specific to our
situation and the legal complications with Kickstarter in
Germany. In addition, some of the links of the bureaucracy
chain just did not work as they should, or did not commu- Basically, the solution is to hopefully just sit down, work on it and not
nicate as you would expect them to. pay us any salary.

26 27

"Zweckentfremdung" – Using things for a different purpose than they
were originally intended became less of a flaw and more of a virtue as
the project progressed. As a example: We are almost proud to offer a
design that allows people to use roasting needles as drypoint needles.
28
Of course, this is our mistake too, as we decided (more or
less consciously) to do as much as we could ourselves. This
was partly because of our critical financial situation, but
also because, as we now realise, the "do it yourself" spirit
was more deeply rooted in us than we knew. We looked for
help – sometimes desperately – but came to the realisation
that large tax agencies charged prices that we would call a
scam, and many people just had no experience with interna-
tional reward based crowdfunding and its legal aspects. In
the end, we learned more about taxes and legal aspects
than we would ever have wanted and got help from many
people who fortunately actually knew what they were doing.
As with many other things, we learned that finding a solu-
tion and the right people sometimes takes a lot of time and
many attempts. In retrospect, this process, besides what we
learned, had one great outcome: it led to the formation of a
more open or even anarchic company. The story of this de-
velopment is examined in more detail in the answer to the
question "your company is anarchic?"
We saved money in various ways, such as finding a room for
the printing farm, materials, assembly and so forth in Co-
logne that we were able to rent for a very fair price (thank
you, Mr Großhans!), and by searching for inexpensive sup-
pliers and deals on all the parts, no matter how small. Be-
cause of the pressure to save money to fulfil the Kickstarter,
we even set aside our value of using local, fair and sustain-
able suppliers. There were a few materials that we couldn't
get elsewhere, but for the majority of the materials, we
greatly regret this decision.
29
 We learned to value trust, personal relationships and good
communication with our suppliers when our main supplier
of filament in China first changed the properties of the fila-
ment and then doubled the price when we were going to or-
der several hundred kilos. In the first place, we thought that
we could not afford to be true to our values and select sup-
pliers according to factors other than price. Perhaps we had
to have these painful experiences to truly believe that we
cannot afford to select suppliers by price alone, or at least
not suppliers of things that we need to communicate about,
that vary in quality or that are essential to the value we want
to offer. To be honest, with over 200 different orders in un-
der six months, we sought low prices and relied on reviews
as much as anybody else when buying things like USB
cables. But we try to establish sustainable relationships
with local suppliers for our essential supplies. For example,
we ended up with Das Filament as a local filament supplier
that offers consistent quality and good communication. Our
cooperation allowed for individual solutions: for example,
Roman allowed us to return the empty plastic spools that
come with the 3D printing material so that they could be re-
used for future orders. This sounds like a small thing, but
not having to throw away over 150 big plastic spools and
knowing they will be reused is important to us. Besides all
of these small savings, we saved and learned the most as a
result of design changes.

Our biggest financial problem was shipping costs: for most

This cardboard box was perhaps the first case in which we realised that
mass-produced products for end customers are not only cheaper, but in
of the packages, shipping would amount to approximately
some cases also more precisely manufactured than products that are 37 € (Germany to the USA), but we had collected a max-
specifically offered to businesses. Nevertheless, we would never have imum of 15€ for shipping per package. We underestimated
thought that using curtain rods as rollers for our presses would be the
best solution! the weight of all the accessories we offered with the press.

30 31
 In particular, the wooden board we offered for improved sta-
bility increased the weight over the (financially) magical
limit of 2kg. After trying different wooden boards and differ-
ent widths and sizes, we realised that the board would have
to be ridiculously small or thin, thus defeating its original
purpose. The solution we devised was to replace the board
with a metal clamp. In fact, the metal clamp
is a much more convenient solution to hold-
ing the press in place, as with a board alone,
you would still need a clamp and lose some
of the portability the press offers. Nonethe-
less, it was difficult for us to tell everybody
who had ordered a board that they would not
get it, and we were afraid of what the back-
ers would say to this. When we shared the
news, we were overwhelmed by the positive
feedback from the community. Many people
who didn't order the board now wanted a
clamp, so we decided to offer them to all the
backers. Based on feedback gathered from
test workshops and our own experiences
with the press, we concluded that we should
Here you can see the originally promised offer the press only with the clamp in future,
wooden board, which now looks a bit as it makes the press easier and safer to use.
clumsy and still needs a massive clamp,
which is bigger than the press itself.
Another example of a big design change that
was introduced due to the pressure to save money but resul-
ted in a quality improvement are the ball bearings. In the
original Kickstarter version of the press, the metal roller was
This is a prototype version of the press where we were still considering
using coins, but with this version you can already see how much more
just inserted in a 3D printed slot. This worked fine, but in-
useful an integrated clamp is. volved considerable friction when high pressure was ap-
plied. Financially, the problem was that a special metal part

32 33
 was needed and machined by hand to transfer the pressure
from the screws to the inserts and finally to the metal roller.
It turned out that ball bearings were quite cheap, eliminate
the need for the handmade metal part and could make the
press easier to use due to lower friction. The lesson we
learned here was to go for parts that are mass produced
(potentially for the consumer market) and standardised.

It is better to fit the design to these parts than to rely on in-

dividual parts and customisation. The unimaginable part
counts for things like ball bearings lower the production
costs so much that complexity is no longer a factor. You
could think of mass production parts like these as Lego
bricks that can be combined via 3D printing. We used a sim-
ilar concept with the metal roller itself. After going through
examples of steel tubes from multiple suppliers, we
couldn't find one that was round enough with a smooth, res-
istant surface with no welding seams that was within our
price range. This was despite many of these tubes being
called "precision tubes". As crazy as it sounds, the solution
was again a product that is mass produced for consumers:
curtain rods! By cutting these, we could offer a stainless
steel roller with a brushed finish that is in many ways super-
ior to the steel roller we showed in the Kickstarter video.

The third big saving was to do the production – that is, the
3D printing – ourselves. Initially, we planned to do so any-
way. However, at the time we were thinking of small num-
bers, 15 or maybe 50 presses. However, with the 1,384
presses ordered on the Kickstarter, we would have to print
The first delivery of 3D printers – many more will follow.
approximately for 3.5 years non-stop with one printer.

34 35
 Because we knew how slow 3D printing can be, we took the
precaution of contacting several 3D printing companies be-
fore even launching the Kickstarter. We compared quotes
from about 40 different suppliers and got to know some
really talented people, such as Gabe, Korneel, Harnek and
many more, who wanted to support our project and were
able to produce at a fraction of the cost that some big com-
panies charge. However, they all of course had to take into
account at least some of their own time, which is a big part
of 3D printing. For reference, printing all the parts for one
press with the 3D printing service Shapeways would cost
142.78 €, and with Materialise it would cost 123.76 €, even
when ordering 1,000 presses. We "saved" this money by do-
ing the 3D printing ourselves in the end. In this, we were
also motivated by the desire to retain the beautiful matte
finish, very high print quality and special colours that we
couldn't get from a 3D printing service at the price we could
afford. And, to be honest, the DIY parts of ourselves (once
again) were eager to build a 3D printing farm. In the end, we
consider our DIY effort a success, as we printed nearly
18,000 individual parts for all the presses from the Kick-
starter using our own automated 3D printing farm. The diffi-
cult and important part was the automation of the printing
farm. Without automation, the 3D printing farm running
24/7 would need manual work at least every 17 minutes.

Furthermore, although automation was the perfect solution

for us, we would not recommend building an automated 3D
printing farm to everybody, as there are no instructions or
This small box represents a milestone for us - it is the box with the first
fully automatic 3D printed parts without defects.
guides on how to build a printing farm that doesn't need hu-
man interaction.

36 37
 As with many things, there are numerous factors in creating
such a farm that are not obvious at first glance, such as de-
veloping a safety system (fire, heat, security), adapting or
rebuilding 3D printers and building custom parts for tasks
why not use
such as temperature control.
However, we had an amazing genius for a friend, who
helped set up a system that controls all the printers at the
injection moulding?
same time and is able to queue prints and instant-message
us about problems, and who just asked for some pretzel
sticks in the end. Thank you, Robert! But perhaps building 3D printing is at the
an automated 3D printing farm is a topic for another book. centre of the Open Press
Project, as it was the
technology that allowed
us to share the idea with
everybody in the world at
a relatively low cost. But
the number of presses
we needed to produce
raised some questions,
one of which was
whether switching to in-
jection moulding would
not have been easier and
cheaper. Besides our
strong belief in the 3D
Being able to adjust parts of the press
during production should prove to be printing technology, we
Even though building a 3D printing farm was an incredible perhaps the most important advantage tried to remain open, and
of medium sized batch production in 3D
amount of work and of course took time, we see it as a very printing during the course of the project.
from a cost point, we
valuable asset for the future of the Open Press Project. Even were forced to investig-
if you are equally convinced of 3D printing, you may ask: ate this alternative.

38 39
 It turned out not to be cheaper for most parts of the press
and for some parts would have cost the same. It also turned
out not to be a real alternative, as injection moulding was
just not possible for most parts without redesigning the en-
tire press because, for example, of the wall thicknesses. We
also considered some other technologies, such as CNC cut-
ting, which ended up be-
ing on the same price
level but having consid-
erable disadvantages.

Only 3D printing allowed

us to keep developing
the press and to react to
changing parts and ma-
terials. Moreover, making
one mould for an injec-
tion moulded part and
then manufacturing
40,000 parts is very
cheap per part, but we
needed 1,500 presses
which each contained
Even though this picture only shows less nine parts. So, nine
than approx. 8 % of all parts required,
the quantities are still far from being moulds would be re- Many things have changed since this first prototype of the automated 3D printing farm, but as you can see
profitable with injection molding. quired, and then 1,500 in the next picture, the basic layout has withstood many iterations.
parts is no longer a large
number. In the end, 3D printing also has its own aesthetics
that may not always look polished but carry a certain do-it-
yourself appeal that we wanted to have in this project, as all
of it, including the company, the printing farm and the
concept, is basically DIY.

40 41
why an open company?
I think the deep urge to prove that a more idealistic way of
business or work was not only possible but profitable exis-
ted within us long before this project. On the journey with
the Open Press Project, we got clarity on what this means
for us and how an open, honest, fair, transparent, value-
based and perhaps generous way of cooperation could look. This is great news! I am proud to have been part
Still, the first small steps towards a more open kind of busi-
ness happened unconsciously or as a result of the actions of this especially since you all helped with PPE
that felt "right" to us. Later, this belief was amplified by the
positive experiences we had with our community. From our for Covid-19. Knowing that you did that will add
customers’ reactions to our financial mis-
[...] You're on the right track. takes, our design changes and the ongo- value to my little press. Thank you.
Thanks for keeping at it. Don't ing delays, we learned that they are actu-
worry about the shipping ally true supporters. It is difficult to de-
dates. Quality takes time to scribe how much motivation and energy (Hudson, 2020).
achieve. We'll be patient. they gave us just by being supportive and
(Ernst, 2020) positive despite all the setbacks.

When we decided to stop our production for the Kickstarter

and switch to manufacturing personal protective equipment
due to COVID-19, they not only understood our decision but
were actually thankful:

44 45
 Receiving this kind of feedback consistently for months
changed our perception of what customers can be. It built
our trust and encouraged us in the pursuit of an idealistic
enterprise. When thinking of customers like these, many un-
but what is an
conventional ideas, such as making our costs and margins
public, became less scary and finally were revealed as the
right thing to do.
open company?
A big thank you to all our Kickstarter
supporters for encouraging us to briefly
change our production to 3D-printed
face shields! We were able to
manufacture and give away more than
1500 of them to hospitals, medical
workers, local businesses and schools!
46
We don't want to provide yet another definition of an open
company. We would rather like to tell our story and give in-
sights that might be inspiring, motivating or helpful in mak-
ing more idealistic ways of doing business a reality.
Anyway, here are some keywords that describe what we un-
derstand as an open company: no rules, no hierarchy, no
contracts, need oriented, value based, purpose driven,
strategy and vision but no plan, constantly changing, non-
linear, lean and learning, infinite game, doing good, learn-
ing, DIY, radical transparency, idealistic, fair, community
based and centred, experimental, open hardware, open
minded.
The following sources were an inspiration for us and could
be references for further reading:
The book Reinventing Organizations by Frédéric Laloux.
This thick book focuses primarily on existing and larger
companies and their organisational structures, but Laloux
inspired us greatly in designing the inner structures of our
company. Laloux might call our company not open but
47
 "Teal" and see the development towards this kind of com-
pany as a natural evolution of consciousness – and we
would agree. There are many parallels between what Laloux
writes and what we experienced, like self-organisation in
contrast to hierarchy, non-linearity as the opposite of stiff
processes, purpose-driven instead of revenue-driven, and
many more. It may even be the same mindset of seeing or-
ganisations as "complex adaptive systems" or, as we would
say, ever-changing organisms. One of the parts we like most
about Laloux and his community is, that they not only offer
a structured, scientific approach but also go so far as to of-
fer hands-on, day-to-day practical instructions throughout
the book, a wiki, an online platform and a profound video
series as well! By providing his e-books as "pay-what-feels-
right", Laloux was also an inspiration for our journey to a
pricing system for our small presses. At this point, you
might be thinking, if our organisation is basically the same
as what Laloux describes, why write this book? What we
hope to add through telling our story is a different perspect-
ive: not changing a big existing organisation, but rather ap-
plying and maybe adjusting these ideas in small endeav-
ours like ours from the start. We are sure that, depending on
your case, there will be many variations, and we hope see-
ing these adaptations put into practice is helpful in finding
or thinking about your own.
Then there is Uwe Lübbermann with the brand "Premium".
In a workshop that we didn't expect much from, this quiet
and humble guy in socks got me excited and inspired more
than any speaker I had met before. Uwe built an unbeliev-
able company based on consensus democracy, where even
customers can participate in company decisions.
48
Uwe would call our business not "open" but probably "nor-
mal" at best – and we would be honoured! He is convinced
that nearly all economic companies are completely abnor-
mal. If you want to describe how Premium does things, it's
usually the opposite of what most people would consider
normal or reasonable. They have no quantity discount but
the opposite – you pay more if you order large quantities.
They don't have contracts with their suppliers. They don’t do
advertisements and practice cost transparency. All
"perfectly logical, only no one else does it",
they would say (Lübbermann, n. d.). If this sounds interest-
ing to you, they offer their concept as open franchise, free to
everyone on their website. What we hope to add with this
book is further economic validation in a completely different
market and production environment. Additionally, we try to
provide insight into how we arrived at unusual decisions
like "choose what you pay" by starting with traditional meth-
ods and going from there.
Coming back to our initial question of what an open com-
pany is: for us, the answer lies in the following questions
and their answers that describe how we handled ethical and
technical challenges.
49

why is your project
successful?
We think it's very difficult to say whether the Open Press
Project is successful. According to our own judgment, the
project reached more people than we could have imagined,
but we made many mistakes, and we are a tiny project
whose financial future is still very unclear. Nevertheless, we
feel good about what we are doing and what we have done.
Also we do not feel that we are in the position to give an an-
swer to this question. We do not see one single, particular
reason that some things went well and others did not. How-
ever, if I had to identify one thing that seems important to
Since we have a clear mission, we no longer have to make
me, it's having a vision.
Terms like "vision", "mission", "cause" and "purpose" are
big words that can feel inflated. We will try to keep it short
and arrive at the point where these perhaps philosophical
terms become more tangible. Although there are different
views on the distinction between vision and mission and
other terms, we would like to focus on the important aspect:
namely, that there should be a deep reason behind the vis-
ion or mission that I believe should connect to our real
needs. I stress this connection so much because I believe
that the strength of a vision depends on the extent to which
it connects with us on the deep level of our real needs.
50
This purpose does not have to be written down on day one,
nor does it have to be new or even original. It should just fit
you. It is perfectly okay, and probably also most common, to
simply join a vision, idea or belief. For example, the brand
Patagonia didn't "invent" the idea of more sustainable
clothing, but they have joined this idea very successfully.
Think of a vision that con-
nects to your real needs like
a favourite shirt. It wasn’t
made by you, but it must fit
you! Some might be unaware
of or perhaps do not think
about having a favourite
shirt, but still wear one shirt
more often than others. It's
probably difficult to find a fa-
vourite shirt if you force it
our product the centre of our activities. This allows us to too much. Sometimes, it is
explore new ways – such as the workshops shown in the only over time that a shirt be-
following pictures – to get closer to our misson.
comes your favourite one,
and sometimes you just know from the first day. You should
be comfortable wearing it, and it will probably feel like it has
become part of your personality. Of course, it's not what
defines you as a person, but it represents a part of you, and
people may recognise you and your values with it. Some fa-
vourite shirts last very long and some are replaced, as other
shirts may fit you better as you change. In addition, your fa-
vourite shirt could be no shirt, and many things can be done
without a shirt, but this doesn't detract from my point that
it’s good to have a mission – or a favourite shirt, I mean.
51
Simply put, this photo shows our mission in action: to give people
(regardless of gender, age, origin or background...)
the opportunity to do printmaking.
 I believe that in the long run it will be necessary to find a
personal reason or vision to achieve sustainable success or
fulfilment. Not because economic success depends on a vis-
ion, but because a vision that connects to one’s true needs
can be a source of intrinsic motivation. From my observa-
tions and experience, this motivation is the driving force be-
hind thriving companies, both for people within the com-
pany and people approaching the company as customers.

Our mission is to make

printmaking more accessible !

This could be called our mission statement – or, to be more

precise, the mission statement behind the Open Press Pro-
ject – and it’s literally the second sentence in this book. It's
quite specific and perhaps not as broad as a vision state-
ment, but it still connects to some of my real needs and val-
This is "the golden circle" by Simon Sinek. It illustrates the idea that the true core of a
ues: equity, identity, belonging, and connection. company is the question why you do something and not how or what you do.
He says „People dont buy what you do, they buy why you do it".

54 55
 In the future, we may com-
plement this mission state-
ment with a broader vision
that would explain more
your company
about the idealistic company
that we try to be. It might be
something along the lines of:
is anarchic?
We envision our company as
an endeavour that celebrates
freedom and enriches be-
Although or because these are only small and very simple
prints, in my personal experience the realisation of these longing and accessibility.
small ideas is particularly pleasing. And of course we do not We believe in an open and
see the limitation of the format as a constraint, but as a idealistic business that does
source of creativity – just as the limited resources of our
company finally led to creative solutions. what feels right.
For now, we are conflicted about whether this message
would be too bold or too cheesy. In addition, it could reduce
our entrepreneurial freedom and increase pressure instead
of seeding motivation. Nonetheless, referring to my ana-
logy: we already have a favourite shirt, but it might become
a clothing style at some point.
If you want to find out more about the idea of having a vis-
ion, or if you want to learn from someone with more experi-
ence, then listen to Simon Sinek. The author of the best-
seller Start with Why describes vision as "just cause",
and what I call the connection to our real needs is at least
strongly related to his famous "Why" (Simon Sinek, 2020,
01:00–02:14). In the book Find Your Why, he and his co-au-
thors also give a clear step-by-step instruction on how to
find and implement a "Why" within an organisation.
56
First of all, we don’t believe the anarchic nature of our com-
pany is very special, and many small companies probably
work just like we do.
Working like this and becoming aware that this work style
could be called "anarchic" are two different things: it
happened quite quietly, and we weren't fully aware of it in
the beginning. When Martin and I founded the company
with the articles of association (Gesellschaftsvertrag), we de-
cided that both of us could do anything regarding the com-
pany without needing permission from the other. At the
time, this seemed more efficient than the usual situation,
where the majority of the board has to approve a decision.
However, because of the slight complication that the com-
pany's main purpose was to handle everything regarding
the Kickstarter, we also needed to include the right for each
CEO to do business with himself.
This, combined with the right not to ask for permission on
almost any company decision, practically gives both of us
the power to do absolutely everything with the company. We
were aware of this, and we were okay with it, because we
trust each other.
57
 In addition, we felt that apart from any laws, we could both
harm the project anyway, and no law could prevent this from
happening if we didn’t trust each other. Giving and receiving
this much trust has been one of the most rewarding things
on the journey so far!

This absence of authority and hierarchy fits the definition of

anarchy quite well. Although anarchism can be understood
as a political philosophy, we find it – in relation to our com-
pany – more fitting than just the word "freedom". In Anthro-
pology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Immanuel Kant defines
anarchy as

"law and freedom without force".

This definition is perhaps even more fitting, as there are still

rules in our company, but they have no power and give no
power to anyone, making them what Kant would describe as
"empty recommendations".

We strictly monitor our 3D printer farm, but of course we do not monitor

each other. It wouldn't make any sense at all: We don't have working
hours or vacation days. The consequences are not unproblematic – but
different from what you might think at first: In over a year Martin has
only taken four vacation days.

58 59
 player receives the agreed-upon share. According to game

how did anarchy lead to theory, homo economicus, or a perfectly rational person,
would as the first player offer the minimum possible share,
and as the second player would accept even the smallest of-

fairness and empathy? fer, as it is still a gain.

Interestingly enough, in reality – or, to be precise, in experi-

ments – the average percentage offered is:
As is evident from the answer to the preceding question, we
didn’t consciously or specifically wish to found an anarchic
company. In addition, we didn’t "decide" on a consensus
culture. We believed that consensus, fairness and empathy
would emerge automatically in a company like ours. The an-
archism of our venture doesn't mean it is violent and
chaotic. Anarchy just denies force.
40.54%
In an anarchic organisation, there is the freedom to not ask
for permission. However, this freedom comes along with an Furthermore, the rejection rate is not zero, but 15.75% (Oost-
awareness that unfair behaviour may cause the other share- erbeek, Sloof, & van de Kuilen, 2004, p. 176). This shows
holder(s) to suffer and therefore possibly draw drastic con- that we are quite capable of behaving fairly and are not only
sequences. It therefore becomes an ongoing task to protect striving to maximise personal profit. Indeed, fairness has a
the other shareholders’ interests, assuming that the aim is high emotional value, and we are willing to punish unfair
to preserve the company and not risk losing everything that behaviour. Even when this means that we do not gain any-
has been built (together). thing or even lose something because of the punishment we
perform. (Fehr, Nowak, & Sigmund, 2002, p. 52). This is il-
This can also be explained with reference to game theory lustrated in an entertaining way in Frans de Waal’s TED Talk,
and the ultimatum game. In this economic experiment, one where even capuchin monkeys are shown to reject unequal
player is given an amount of money to split with a second pay: https://tinyurl.com/yde7pbga
player. The first player can offer the second player any share
of the money, even as little as 1%. The second player can
only accept or reject the offer. If they reject the offer, neither
player receives any money. If they accept the offer, each

60 61
 The results of the ultimatum game – how much is offered
and when the offer is rejected – vary considerably and are
affected by the potential for anonymity, the social context
and the possibility to build reputation. In general, social
distance and anonymity reduce fairness in sharing beha-
viour (Hoffman, McCabe, & Smith, 1999, p. 340). The ulti-
matum game involves the additional challenge of anticipat-
ing which share the other person will perceive as fair, so as
to avoid the offer being rejected and both players losing. In
essence, the first player must assess fairness from the
second player’s perspective in order to make a reasonable
decision.
Martin and I constantly find ourselves in the same situation.
Because there are no rules to guide our decisions, for us we
continuously try to evaluate the fairness of our own de-
cisions from the other person’s perspective. This outcome is
the definition of empathy. Rules that dictate how we must
share or behave, for example by defining what we do and do
not have to ask questions about, usually separate us from
this empathic perspective. To support the idea that laws,
rules and contracts decouple people from self-reflection
and empathy, we can consider, for example, Stanley Mil-
gram's famous social psychology experiments on obedience
to authorities. In his 1974 article "The Perils of Obedience",
Milgram wrote
This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of
our study: ordinary people, simply doing their
jobs, and without any particular hostility on their
part, can become agents in a terrible destructive
process. Moreover, even when the destructive ef-
62
fects of their work become patently clear, and
they are asked to carry out actions incompatible
with fundamental standards of morality, relatively
few people have the resources needed to resist
authority. [However] the overall result was that the
great majority of people delivered very low, usu-
ally painless, shocks when the choice was expli-
citly up to them. (p. 75, 76)
This is an excellent description of why the absence of au-
thority, or anarchy, promotes fairness and empathy in a
company. In my youth, I was specifically told by a teacher
that if I continued to question authority, I would not be able
to "get a job". Today, I not only have too many jobs, but I see
taking a critical stance toward authority as key in preserving
the relationship between individual responsibility and hu-
man action. When (potentially false) authorities separate re-
sponsibility from human action and no one can be confron-
ted with the consequences, "socially organized evil" is
made possible (Milgram, p. 77). Or, to close with the words
of Seth Godin:
"When we are brave enough to teach a child to question
authority, even ours, we insulate ourselves from those who
would use their authority to work against each of us"
(Godin, 2018, p. 166).
63
did anarchy change your
communication style?
Before starting my collaboration with Martin, I dabbled in
nonviolent communication. In my opinion, this is a some-
what misleading name for a way of living (and communica-
tion) that tries to see the needs behind actions or words and
meet them, rather than following certain strategies that we
mistake for needs. This way of communication is also based
on the idea that people only hurt or harm other people
when they (unconsciously) don't see any other way to fulfil
their needs. To connect this to our venture or anarchic ven-
tures in general: if you have all the power and nothing
hinders you from taking everything (you need), violence is
unnecessary. And here is the biggest point for me: if you
don't fight over power, hierarchy and office space, it is
easier to reach the point at which you can talk about your
real needs. If you still manage to fight, you might also arrive
more quickly at your real needs, as you cannot invoke any
rules, regulations or laws if there aren't any. In this way, you
are forced to talk about what you or the other really needs.
Phrases connected to rules in the work environment simply
don't work anymore. As this might sound very theoretical,
here’s an example:
64
As there are no laws within our company, and we have no
power over each other, it would make no sense (indeed, it
would be hilarious) to say things like:
Hey Martin, you're such a chaotic person, I can't even see
our desk anymore! Corporate policy says that you have to
clean the shared desk before you leave!
Hey Martin, that's enough. If you don't clean the desk, you
will lose your job!
As there is no corporate policy and no one can fire anyone, I
may be forced to express my feelings to fulfil my needs. If
there is no policy stating that a desk should be clean, I have
to think about why Martin's work system bothers me.
Hey Martin, I have noticed that you have a lot of things go-
ing on on our shared desk (Observation). I am feeling un-
settled just looking at it (Feeling). To work with pleasure, I
need a clean and distraction-free environment (Need).
Please tell me if you are willing to find a solution where my
need for tidiness is met. (Request)
This example illustrates the basic model of nonviolent com-
munication, but it is quite abstract and would in reality
cause much irritation, despite my likely inability to speak in
this way. So, a more realistic approach might be:
65
 Hey Martin, somehow I get overwhelmed by the many things
on our shared desk. Do you think we could talk about how
we can each have our own work environment?
Observation
In fact, this happened quite literally as written above. Our
differing ideas about tidiness are quite obvious, and this
was one of the points I was surprised didn't lead to a fight,
or at least a bad mood. After a while, I now think that it is Feeling
difficult to get into a fight if you can literally do anything and
are not subject to anyone else. It makes you think about
what you want (your needs), and if you want to go there to-
gether with someone else, it makes you talk to each other.
By the way: we decided on separate desks, but after a short
period, we were back at one desk, as communication was Need
awkward with separate tables in our small room. Not having
to stick to rules showed us that we value easy face-to-face
communication more than having our own desks. The next
step could be separate desks, but perhaps with just a few
centimetres between them. The point here is that neither of
us fear being mistreated or not getting what we want or
need, as our anarchy or system without force gives us true
freedom to claim the things we need. We feel that these set- Request
tings at least let us arrive more quickly at our actual needs,
which we value much more than having contracts that
(might) ensure certain behaviours.

As this might sound just like talking nice words, here a

warning: it is not. Nonviolent communication and having These four steps 1.observation 2.feeling 3. need 4. request
are the basic components of nonviolent communication.
freedom or no force in a company is actually the opposite
of just talking nice words.

66 67
 As described above, such an environment supports each in-
dividual’s discovery of their real needs and can have dra-
matic consequences. However, it also means that you might
discover that your needs don’t fit, or that the company is a
strategy that you might not want to pursue. Nonviolent com-
munication doesn't mean that you can "talk it out". It may
unveil deeper causes or needs, the logical consequences of
which, for example to split up or abandon a certain strategy,
may not be easy or comfortable. If you come closer to your
real needs, your real motivations, your real Why, drastic
changes are not uncommon. Furthermore, even communica-
tion that consists only of formalities to meet obligations be-
comes irrelevant and is automatically eliminated, since only
the actual (or perceived) protection of the other party's in-
terests counts for the preservation of the company. Thus,
the consent of the other party is only required if there is
doubt as to whether the interests of the other party are safe-
guarded. If these interests are definitely protected or if their
importance or relevance is low, consensus is not necessary.
This results in efficient and needs-oriented communication.

Martin and I communicate an extraordinary amount, with an

average of 41 chat messages per day (in addition to the ac-
tual conversations at our desks and numerous phone calls).
This frequency is not because mutual agreement is mandat-
ory or has to be obtained, but rather because we wish to let
the other person participate in the decisions that affect
them. In the end, we have seen a more communicative ap-
As much as I struggled with the choas, I have to admit that even in the
proach develop, but at the same time, it is focused on es- chaos a certain beauty can be found.
sential aspects or real needs.

68 69
isn’t anarchy dangerous?
Within a company, we view the greater danger as not having
the freedom of anarchy. In fact, we would even call many of
and Martin disagree?
the "New Work" approaches more dangerous: the real
danger in any business lies in the motivation and respons-
ibility of everybody in the company. Neither factor can be
ensured through contractual pressure, but both will be
achieved if people’s needs are met. The power of an an-
archic business system lies in the fact that nothing can
stand in between people’s needs and their fulfilment.
Most contracts and regulations separate or serve to separ-
ate people (at work) from their real needs, from what a per-
son "really, really" wants to do, as the "New Work" veteran
Frithjof Bergmann would say.
This separation can lead to problems. If there are no appro-
priate contracts or rules, the work, the company, the activity
and so on must adapt to the needs of the person or worker.
This form is not necessarily more beautiful or more comfort-
able for all involved – in fact, it could be described as more
brutal, real and honest – but it does not ignore the fact that
humans cannot be permanently separated from their needs.
The practices of the "New Work" movement approach these
needs, or presumably fulfil them in many cases, but in the
end they do not adapt to them and are therefore in some
way hollow or artificial.
70
what happens when you
We decided to have no contractual con-
sensus, as this would allow "unequal negoti-
ating power of the parties involved"
(Tschentscher, 2002, p. 44). Instead, we con-
centrate on finding solutions and accept that
there may be a point at which we are unable
to agree on something. If this is the case, we
have agreed to get help from a third person
who is not involved in the conflict. This could
also be the community, if the conflict, for ex-
ample, is about an aesthetic question. In
the end, everyone is able to just do what
they think is right. If this defeats the purpose
of the company’s existence for the other, he
could take various steps to end the project.
Ultimately, this guarantees that both of our Martin and I couldn't agree on which
interests are protected for as long as possible. printers to use for the 3D printing farm.
If one of us wanted to do something regard- We simply tested both in parallel
which almost turned into a
less of the other’s disagreement and the pos- competition. In the end, it took each
sible consequences for the future of the com- of us the same amount of time to
automate the printing process with our
pany, the company would be at great risk any- respective printers. Still, we like to
way. keep our differences as long as we live
them out productively.
71
did you get lost in chaos?
I find project management very exciting, and I love tools
such as Aganty. In reality, however, it turned out that we
primarily used to-do lists and agendas.

Generally, though, we tend to follow an organised anarchy

according to the trash-can model of Cohen, March and
Olsen. We are in an entrepreneurial environment with many
unknown variables. For example, with our automated 3D
printing farm, we weren’t even aware of the problems before
starting! The technology is too complex and still largely ex-
perimental. The only way to find a solution is to try some-
thing out. Our decisions regarding which factors or variables
to change were based on research, experience and finally
intuition. There was simply not enough time to systematic-
ally test all the possibilities. In addition, participants such
as suppliers change or become unavailable, and factors
such as ambient temperature are very dynamic. As a con-
sequence, and according to the trash-can model, the emer-
gence of a situation in which an actual decision can be
made or all "flows" (or Prerequisites for making an objective
decision) meet one another is random.
Therefore, we define the main topics (agenda-setting), but
do without many components of classical project manage-
ment, such as detailed linear schedules. We even dispense We thought about it, measured, drew plans, laid out cardboard, and yet
the shelves of our 3D print farm ended up in completely different places
with deadlines in many cases. This is primarily because we than planned. Simply because at the time of planning we didn’t know all
are doing most things for the first time, and we don’t know the factors that were important for the positioning of the shelves and
how long they will take. printers.

72 73
 Furthermore, for many processes we are heavily dependent
on suppliers, whose performance we cannot always de-
mand at a certain point in time. We have also had an experi-
ence in which we could not meet deadlines, although we
had done everything in our power to do so. In the end, all
our efforts and even personal sacrifices did not make it pos-
sible to deliver on time.
This experience was very
demotivating. Deadlines
also allow a project to be
considered a failure; this We are on a rather idealistic
is the case with popular
design sprints, for ex- journey, but we had to accept
ample. Although we have
also failed in parts of the that, for many things, the
project, we do not focus
on when we will achieve alternative to slow success is
something, but on what
we will achieve. We be- not fast success,
lieve that this is one
reason that we have but no success.
been able to increase the
quality of our product With the development, production and
logistics of over 15,000 individual parts,
considerably through
my personal tolerance for phases of
sometimes unusual solu- productive chaos and subsequent
tions. However, in truth, restructuring has inevitably increased -
as you can perhaps see.
we still suffer emotion-
ally from not being able to keep to our original time frame.
Accepting that certain things simply take time is hard, but it
helps us to know that we would not have found or been able
to implement certain improvements if we had had an
absolute deadline.

74
what do you think
is a fair price?
When we were at the point of deciding on a price for the
in-house-manufactured Open Press, we considered
different approaches.
One was competitive pricing. Here, we would look at the
competition and their existing price levels. This was difficult
for our Open Etching Press, as even small etching presses
from other companies are bigger than our 3D printed one.
Classic big intaglio/etching presses are easily priced in the
range of a few thousand euros. The cheapest intaglio
presses on the market are the "Fome3621", starting at
200 € and 18.6 x 32 cm in size, and the 12 x12 cm "Geko PK
120" for 340 €. Both offer a much bigger printing surface but
are heavier and not really portable. There are also simpler
manual hand printing presses (the cheapest one is the
"Speedball 4136", priced at approximately 115 € in Ger-
many), but these presses can’t be used for intaglio printing
and are only suitable for relief printing such as lino or wood-
cut prints, where lower pressure is required. We also con-
firmed this estimate by means of a small survey, where we
gave the participants time to search for the cheapest etch-
ing press they could find. The average price was
306.84 USD, even including many results that
were only relief printing presses.
76
Another possible comparison would be the DIY market or
the possibility to build a press yourself. In addition, there
are interesting DIY kits such as the all-wood "WeeWoodie
Rembrandt Press" DIY kit from Bill Richie ($125 from Print-
making World). One can also buy CNC files for full metal
printing presses, as well as a blueprint for a wooden Rem-
brandt etching press (45 €). However, as our Open Intaglio
Press comes fully assembled and is much more comfortable
to use than the open source version of it, and as we provide
the plans for free for those who want to go the DIY route, the
only real conclusion we could draw from the available
products was our upper price limit. As our vision is to make
printmaking more accessible, our goal is to offer a premium-
quality intaglio press delivered internationally for a lower
price than what you can currently find on the market. In
other words, the competitive price method led us to the
maximum price of 200 €.
Even though the press offers various features such as port-
ability and eco-friendly production and materials and sup-
ports a greater vision for printmaking, we want to keep this
maximum price point and are optimistic about achieving
this, despite the costs of running a company for such a
small machine.
We run the company for the big idea, not for the small
product, and we believe that this product can be a starting
point for many things to come.
77
 Having obtained an upper limit from the competitive pricing
method and our vision, we then looked at the opposite end
of the price range and took the cost-plus approach.
Not examining our costs precisely enough was a big mistake
in our Kickstarter campaign with the Open Press Project. 19,21 € - 3D Printing 14,39 € - Rent
This time, we spent longer on it, and we knew a lot more
about production. To be able to ship the presses, we cut
costs at many levels and worked for months on design
changes that saved money in production while also improv-
ing handling and quality. We were pretty disillusioned
when, despite all this effort, we saw that our production
costs after the Kickstarter were still higher than the sales
price on the campaign.

At the time of writing, our own costs to produce one press

with a clamp amount to 69,51 €. As you can see in the pie 13,29 € - Hardware & Supplies 10,85 € - Accounting & Fees
charts, this does not include taxes, shipping, salaries for
our work or profits for sustaining the company. In addition,
this calculation is very optimistic, based on the costs of
parts for 1,500 to 2,000 presses. These costs will be higher
if we buy supplies in smaller quantities after the Kickstarter
due to reduced demand.

To illustrate this: if we buy four wing screws from Amazon,

we pay 2 € each, but if we buy 3,750 screws, we pay 0.30 €
each. This is one of the few points at which the huge num-
bers on the Kickstarter helped us and one reason we didn’t 8,76 € - Software 3,45€ - Electricity
have to cancel the Kickstarter.

78 79
 Although we have been incredibly lucky to be able to rent a small and
inexpensive room in Cologne, the rent is still a high percentage of our costs.
 However, it doesn't work for everything: the filament we use
to 3D print the presses does not get significantly cheaper
with big quantities, as we need large rolls of filament,
which, contrary to popular belief, are sometimes more ex-
pensive per kilo than small rolls (likely because of less de-
mand). However, returning to the cost-plus approach: the
00000000
difficulty is that the costs are dependent on the sales
volume. In our case, a major part of the costs are fixed
costs, meaning costs that exist and don’t de- or increase re-
00000000
gardless of how many presses we sell per month. Good ex-
amples of these costs are rent, accounting and internet.
These fixed costs have to be divided by or carried in some
00000000
way by the sales per month. To calculate the costs per piece
or the price per sale, the central question is therefore how
many presses we will sell.
00000000
Luckily, we had some numbers to work with: we took the
number of visitors to our website (where the shop will be
00000000
hosted later) and applied an estimated conversion rate. The
conversion rate is the percentage of people who visit a page
that actually buy something on the page. Littledata (a tool
00000000
for tracking conversion rates) says that a conversion rate of
1.6% for Shopify stores is average (Littledata, 2020). That
would be 40 presses a month. But this number doesn’t take
00000000
into account that most of our visitors come for the open-
source version of the press. They just want to know more
about it or read the instructions for printing one with their
00000000
3D printer. Knowing this, we are very happy, because this is If each of these 64 circles were one visitor to our
what the Open Press Project is for, but these visitors should online shop, on average approximately only one
not be counted in calculating the conversion rate. With this of the visitors shown would really buy a press.

in mind, we bet on 33 presses per month (1.32%).

82 83
 So far, this calculation is probably perfectly normal, but we
see one issue with it: it's highly unlikely that we will sell ex-
actly 33 presses every month.
If you think our approach to estimating the sales numbers is
too pessimistic, John Teasdale, who ran a Kickstarter
roughly the same size as ours, describes an even more
miserable experience:
Turns out, Kickstarter is a magical fantasy land where
people get excited about your stuff in a way that doesn’t
translate into your small business. After talking to several
folks in the industry, this is the norm. If you keep 8% of
your Kickstarter momentum throughout the year, you’ve
done well. We did 4%.
(Teasdale, 2019)
For us, this would mean that we would only sell five presses
per month. Now, 33 presses seems rather optimistic.
But this is not the problem. The problem is that either we
guessed wrong and we can’t pay our rent, or the cost calcu-
lation described above is no more accurate, because the
costs for each press become lower. So, either the customer
pays too little or too much. "Too much" is probably not often
said from the perspective of the company and is rather
called "margin" or "profit". Don't get me wrong here: a com-
pany needs to make a profit to be sustainable and to be
able to handle a short-term crisis, but "fair price" essentially
means not paying too much. We want to grow a business
that cares for the Open Press Project, but we don't want to
make unreasonable profits.
84
The best we could come up with
is what we call
„Fair Price Guarantee".
This simply means that if we continuously sell more presses
than we expected and therefore have more income but
nearly the same fixed costs, we will still keep our own salar-
ies below the average German salary. The first thing we will
do is keep 25% of the profits for the company.
With our kind of company (an Unternehmergesellschaft), we
are actually obligated to do so until the company reaches a
certain size. This is to ensure safety for other companies do-
ing business with us, as well as to make the company strong
enough to, for example, be able to go through a crisis while
still sustaining business. If we can both pay ourselves a (be-
low average) salary and keep 25% of the profits to sustain
the business and develop new ideas for the Open Press Pro-
ject, we will donate the rest to charity or printmaking associ-
ations. If the demand is constantly high, we will, of course,
in contrast to the "normal" market dynamic, not increase but
lower the price, because production costs will decrease. To
be able to lower the price is one of the main reasons we
want to sell more presses in the first place, as this can be a
big part of our vision to make printmaking more accessible.
Although we discovered with this process or guarantee what
we think is fair and how we might be able to achieve more
fairness in our pricing, we still didn’t have a specific price.
85
 To arrive at a specific price and learn what other people
think would be a fair price, we conducted a study. The idea
of setting a price according to the perceived value to the
customer is called value-based pricing and usually involves
a Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Survey. Van Westendorp
devised the technique of not just asking customers what
they think is a good price or how much they would pay, but
rather asking four questions to obtain a price range (and dif-
ferent price points):
Normally, this method and the idea of value-based pricing
has the aim of finding the highest possible price you can
ask or the price that gives you the largest profit. This did not
feel right to us, so before asking for the price, we asked the
participants to search for the cheapest etching press they
86
could find. Then we showed them how much smaller our
press is and asked what price they would be willing to pay
(using the Westendorp method). The results were astonish-
ing: most people said they would pay 500 USD, and half of
them even more, up to 1,500 USD. We know that saying you
will pay a certain amount and actually buying the product
for that amount are not the same, but these numbers were
very high in any case. Although we understand the point
that a tool that allows you to do printmaking has a high
value and is not easy to come by, we could certainly never
ask 500 USD or more for our little press.
This approach and the first results made clear to us that we
believe a fair price must relate to the production costs of a
product. If we included the development costs of the press
in the calculation, it might justify such a high price, but
even then it would run counter to our general vision of mak-
ing printmaking more accessible. To find a more suitable
price that is in line with our beliefs and the vision of the
company, we created a second survey. This time, we told the
participants how much our actual production costs are (see
graphic above) and then asked what price they would be
willing to pay, again using the Westendorp method. Inspired
by companies such as Uwe Lübbermann’s Premium and
Günter Faltin’s Teekampagne, we wanted to reveal our pro-
duction costs anyway. In addition to fairness, one reason for
this is that the costs of 3D printing are assessed very differ-
ently, as we constantly hear from people.
87
 The results of the second survey were way more generous
than we expected: more than half of the participants would
pay 170 USD! This was more than 220% of our own costs.
We were very happy that people see such value in this tiny
press and/or are willing to pay for our salaries or margins,
which are not included in our own costs. With the survey
data, it is possible to determine the price that would give us
the most revenue, depicted as a spike in the graph.

Of course, this is complex and depends on many factors,

such as how many people would buy a product they view as
expensive but not too expensive and so on. However, the
key result is that with a price of 145 USD, we would have the
most revenue, as this is the highest price at which most
people are still willing to buy.

As with the first survey, we were very pleased to know what

people are willing to pay, but we still saw a conflict between
a price tag of 145 USD and our vision of making printmaking
more accessible. On one hand, 145 USD is not much for a
printing press, and less than you would pay for any other
printing press. However, despite the survey results, 145 USD
still felt like a lot of money to us. As a result, we tried to of-
fer a cheaper version, but this only led to the insight that
our main cost factors are the fixed costs and the low sales
volume we have to expect. If we offer a lower quality version
The graph shows the expected revenue in relation to the product price. At a price of 145 USD most of the
without a steel roller, ball bearing, high-quality felt blanket revenue would be made because most customers (theoretically!) would not see the price as too high and
and so forth, we would save less than 15 USD. As we know therefore the number of sales up to this price would not decrease again.
exactly how much easier and better printing with these ad-
ditions is, they are unquestionably worth the extra money.
So, we decided to work with only one version of the press
that is high quality and easy to use.

88 89
 This is also supported by the fact that we will still give away
the plans to 3D print the press for free, as this could be the
answer for those who don't want to spend the extra money
for a metal roller and the other additions. However, to make
it affordable for as many people as possible without access
to a 3D printer, we decided to go for a "pay what you want"
(PWYW) model.
We have a lot of trust in our community, as we have had ex-
traordinarily honest and generous experiences with them
(see question "why an open company?"). We are not able to
trust the anonymous crowd on the internet in the same way,
as we are afraid that far too many people would buy a press
for less than what we have to pay to produce one. Note that
this just reflects our inability to trust or lack of personal ex-
perience rather than a fact! As we liked the idea of PWYW so
much but did not want to put the Open Press Project at risk,
we decided to go for a PWYW model, but to set the minimum
price at our own hard costs for producing a press and give
the customer pricing guidance by offering three different
price choices and communicating in brief what each price
could mean for the future of the project. With that said, a
more fitting term than "pay what you want" would be
"choose what you pay" (CWYP). The only example of this
method we could find is the clothing retailer Everlane,
which uses CWYP as a form of discount or special event to
clear inventory (Maheshwari, 2015). In contrast, we hope to
be able to use CWYP permanently, as we think that it will en-
able us to forge deeper relationships with our community
and educate our audience about the production costs of 3D
printing and running a company in general.
90
The minimum price will not cover our time spent running the
company or any time we spent before creating the Open
Press Project without paying ourselves. From an economic
point of view, this outcome seems to be stupid. We like to
see it not as stupid but as generous, and we believe that
generosity can lead to success. If PWYW makes our vision
clearer, prompting more people to join the project who are
willing to give us money for a press and to continue our en-
deavour, this approach could be not only generous but also
economically valid. We would really like to prove that gener-
osity can indeed go a long way. In this case, the math is sim-
ple: If about as twice as many people are willing to buy a
press because of our open approach (even at the lowest
price) and the opportunity to choose their own price, the de-
cision is also correct in economic terms. If not, we will still
have served our vision and indeed have made printmaking
more accessible. If too few people are willing to buy a press,
we will try to find ways to suit the small demand and scale
down production, for example in order to minimise our fixed
costs. Either way, "pricing is a process", and we plan to
monitor our sales and our costs to adapt our prices and per-
haps even change the pricing system if, for example, the
PWYW approach deters people by demanding a more diffi-
cult choice than a regular shopping experience would
(Campbell, 2019).
One additional risk that could undermine the idea of in-
creasing access to printmaking by offering a CWYP approach
with a very low price is that people would rather not buy a
press then buy a press at our cost price, knowing that this
might endanger the Open Press Project.
91

In a study, Gneezy and colleagues explain this opt-out
behaviour "by individuals’ identity and self-image
concerns; individuals feel bad when they pay less than the
appropriate price, causing them to pass on the opportunity
to purchase the product altogether"
(Gneezy, Gneezy, Riener, & Nelson, 2012, p. 7236).
We hope to overcome these challenges by going for CWYP
instead of PWYW and communicating clearly that even the
lowest price we offer is there to be chosen. Additionally, we
suggest sharing our project with friends and therefore sup-
porting our vision in a non-financial way. Moreover, the
prices we offer are derived from our studies of what people
define as fair, as a great deal, or as not too expensive.
For example, the highest price we offer is also the price at
which most people would not consider the press too ex-
pensive. The middle price is the price at which most people
would still consider the press to be a good deal. We are
anxious to find out if our pricing method will work or
whether we have to change something, but we believe that
the success of this method depends on how well we can
communicate our ideas of an open company and our charit-
able vision for printmaking. Anyway, here is our first price
overview:
92
$88.23
These are our own costs, including worldwide shipping.
Choose this price if you can’t help us financially with our vis-
ion. We are students and might have chosen this price too!
If you want to support us nevertheless, you can help us
simply by telling your friends about the Open Press Project!
$120.89
Own costs + 30%, including worldwide shipping. By choos-
ing this price, you join us in our vision to make printmaking
more accessible and give us the chance to save money for
crises and to pay ourselves minimal salaries. With your con-
tribution, we would be able to continue our endeavour.
$139.12
Own costs + 40%, including worldwide shipping. By choos-
ing this price, you would not only guarantee the continu-
ation of the Open Press Project, but also give us the possib-
ility to grow the Open Press Project, implement new ideas
and work on new designs!
Regardlessof what price you choose, you will not pay too
much. With the "Fair Price Guarantee", we assure you that if
we make more money than expected, for example by selling
more presses than expected, we will never pay ourselves
more than the average salary, and we will donate all addi-
tional revenue to charity.
93
 After we decided to go for a CWYP approach, we became
nervous: even if this decision was ethically the right one, it
would probably endanger the project and the company eco-
nomically. We were especially worried about offering the
press at cost price and having people rather buy no press at
all due to the self-image concerns described in the study
above. In addition, we couldn't put a number on the risk
that people would be overwhelmed by the demand to
choose a price rather than to just take it or leave it when
there is only one price. Our main concern was the possibility
that, with our pricing concept, fewer people would end up
getting a press. This would be the opposite of what our vis-
ion to make printmaking more accessible is all about. Thus,
we decided to do a survey with 200 participants to validate
our expectations.
When we ignored all answers that were given in less than 20
seconds, indicating that participants did not read the ques-
tions properly, more people were in fact willing to buy a
press when they were able to choose a price! The survey
was conducted such that half of the people were asked if
they would buy the press for $120.89, and the other half
were asked if they would buy the press for one of our three
price options: $88.23, $120.89 or $139.12.
Of the people who could choose a price, 75.26% would buy
a press, and of the people who were only offered one price,
68.18% would buy a press. As most people who could
choose a price did not select the lowest price, the theoret-
ical revenue with the CWYP approach would be about 7.35%
higher. However, if you run a chi-square test to determine
94
stochastic independence, you will discover that with a
p-value of 0.29, the result is not statistically significant.
Or, in other words:
the probability that the CWYP strategy results in
more (theoretical) purchase decisions is 71.50%.
As we found no scientifically valid evidence that a CWYP
strategy affects the number of purchases made, we can still
say that if the survey represents the ratio between the two
pricing models, it’s highly unlikely that CWYP will result in
fewer customers. If there is a scientific statement to be
made, it's that the pricing model does not significantly in-
fluence the purchase decision – at least in a theoretical sur-
vey, as the theoretical willingness to buy something in a sur-
vey and the actual act of making a purchase are completely
different things, of course. Nevertheless, we hope that the
ratio between the price models in the survey is comparable
to the ratio in real buying decisions. As the main purpose of
the survey – to reduce the chance of making a large mistake
by intimidating or confusing customers with an unconven-
tional pricing model – was achieved, we are happy to apply
the CWYP model, as it represents our values and aligns per-
fectly with our mission.
95

what do you do about
your competition?
First off: Nothing, of course. Aside from giving them the
blueprints of our product on Thingiverse (thing:2841592).
And also telling them all our business secrets and
strategies, for example in this book.
Having competition evokes strong feelings, among them
fear. This was or is not much different for us, but we have
come to believe that we should embrace competition and
not fight it. This is not due to altruism or the belief in the
good in everyone. We do it not just because it feels right,
but also because we think it's rational and logically the right
thing to do.
First off, having fear and thinking of other people in the
same market as rivals leads to flawed decisions, because
fear hinders creative and complex thinking. When we are
afraid, our brains switch to "survival mode", which only
knows fight or flight. In a complex world with global oppor-
tunities, this ancient reflex is of no help in developing
strategies and products or, in essence, in providing value to
people. As this could be called a mindset, it's far from an
actual strategy for how to deal with "competition" or, follow-
ing this mindset, what we might rather call "people who of-
fer similar things in the same market".
96
Peter Thiel, in his book Zero to One, states that having a
monopoly is required, and furthermore that only companies
that hold a monopoly position can act in a socially respons-
ible manner: "Monopolists can afford to think about things
other than making money; non-monopolists can’t." (p. 27)
The difficulty here relates to what "monopoly" means, or
what Thiel uses it to mean. If the definition "exclusive con-
trol of the market supply of a product or service" is inten-
ded, we disagree with Thiel’s statement ("Monopolist",
2011). Many successful companies don't have exclusive
control over their market and can still meet their social re-
sponsibilities and actually go far beyond doing so. Think of
Patagonia selling clothes, or the way the smaller company
Premium sells cola. Even if you try to shrink the market to
see monopolistic attributes, it doesn't hold up to Thiel’s
statement: Patagonia is not the only company selling
clothes in a sustainable fashion, and Premium cola is not
the only company selling alternative, fair trade or organic
cola. Both companies have properties that may make them
unique, but this is not the definition of a monopolist.
Don't get me wrong: monopolists are not bad by default. In
situations where (natural) monopolies arise and offer a
clear advantage simply by being the only supplier, mono-
poly can be rather convenient. An example would be phone
networks, where we can reach anyone without thinking
about which supplier’s network the other might be using.
But by their nature and definition, monopolies have domin-
ance and power. This of course implies that they have the
potential to abuse their power. Therefore, there are many in-
stitutions and regulations, such as the Sherman Anti-Trust
97
 Act, that try to control this potential behaviour. If these con-
trol mechanisms fail, monopolies can remove choice from
the customer, which hinders innovation as well as leading
to unfair price models and silencing the consumer’s voice
(Amadeo, 2020). In the long run, this doesn't even benefit
the monopolist.

Certainly, fighting for a monopoly can lead you to overlook

the real enemy. This is not your competitor, but time or your-
self. The threat lies in failing to develop the company. It is
clear that despite recession or expansion, the success rate
falls with every additional year a company exists, starting at
around 80% after one year and sinking to 48.8% after five
years (Shane, 2017). If you look at statistics that extend to
ten years, only 29% of companies are still in business
(Shane, 2008, p. 99). Although these are just average num-
bers for the US, and statistics differ across industries and
countries, this means that it is very likely that our business
will fail at some point. Neil Patel wrote in 2015 on For-
bes.com that "90% of Startups Fail", but it's hard to find sci-
entific proof for this claim. This does not necessarily mean
that success is unlikely, as you could ask what failure means
in these statistics. For example: is it a failure if the startup
evolves into another profitable company and the existing
one is closed? Nonetheless, what can be seen with these
statistics is that a sustainable long-term business is only
possible if you reinvent even the basics of your entire com- This chart is based on statistics showing the number of corporate facilities by age in the United States in March
pany on a regular basis. 2019 . In that month, 774,725 companies were less than 1 year old.
(Office for Labor Statistics - bls.gov)

98 99
 There is no business idea that you have and execute, with
the result that your business runs on this idea for ever. Num-
bers differ depending on the region, market and so forth,
but there is one common and clear theme: the difficulty is
staying in business (by reinventing your company). The diffi-
culty is not beating the competition. In fact, there is no such
thing as competition in business, as a competition has clear
rules and a start as well as a finish.
Let’s imagine business competition as a real competition.
Let's say it’s a car race. Let's call it the
BIG BUSINESS COMPETITION RACING LEAGUE
There would be no finish line or time, and cars would be
able to enter and leave the race at any point in time. You
would be able to see how fast each car goes and how big
each car is, but I doubt we all would agree on who won the
race. With this, we would agree that business competition is
not a race. Still, we are probably unaware that we are not in
a race with our business and act accordingly.
How would you drive in this car race? We would probably
have a lot of fun! Drive as fast or as slow as we wanted to
and just enjoy driving around as much as possible. I might
also drift a lot, but this does not help to get my point across
here. We can't deny that we would definitely try to drive bet-
ter and look at how others take corners, but not with the aim
of getting ahead of them, as there is no finish line, and who
would define where "ahead" is in this game anyway? If we
100
saw that people (and other racers) liked how we drove, we
would be flattered and take it as motivation to go on driving
like that for a while. As neither we nor anybody else knows
how to win this race, the aim would be to stay in the game.
Therefore, we would try to not damage our car or to exhaust
ourselves so much that we couldn’t go on after a few
rounds. We would probably try to find meaning in this seem-
ingly meaningless race. When we think of our business and
the competition in this way, it feels exactly like how we want
to handle our company.
The same idea is discussed in the 1986
book Finite and Infinite Games by James P.
"There are at least two kinds of Carse. If you look at the previous
games. One could be called graphic, you can see that the chance that
finite, the other infinite. your business will still be "in the game"
A finite game is played for the declines each year it continues to exist.
purpose of continuing to play." Thus, the challenge is to stay in the
game and not to drop out of business.
The antidote to this is not becoming the
strongest company in terms of wealth or market share. You
can't "figure it out" and be done, as Marie Forleo claims with
her book title Everything is Figureoutable. This is true for your
competition, too. Nor can you "beat the competition" and
be safe. If you want to think of something as your enemy, it
would be time itself or yourself. You have to challenge your-
self, not the competition, to develop your business and ad-
apt it to this ongoing game with its changing rules and non-
existent finish line. This idea is actually old and has its roots
in our biology.
101
 It is also what the well-
known phrase "survival
of the fittest", coined by
Herbert Spencer but
used by Charles Darwin
in relation to his idea of
evolution, is all about
(Darwin, 1859, p. 72).
"Fittest" does not de-
scribe the strongest indi-
vidual, and explicit does
not describe assertive-
ness by competitive dis-
placement. What it actu-
ally means is that in the
Actually, we think it's possible to figure
infinite game of survival,
everything out on your own, but if too the one that is best
many hotlines are involved, it probably suited to the ever-chan-
isn't much fun and takes a little
more time. ging environment will live
on.
Going from Darwin to modern terminology and production
technology, this idea is nothing other than "Lean", which is
basically the Toyota Production System represented in the
claim "Challenge what you know and do, and always search
for improvement" (Toyota Motor Europe, 2019). In our
words: everything is a prototype. This means seeing
everything, including the product we ship, the companies
we build or the set-up of a work desk, as a prototype that
should give us insight and will be iterated on with the
awareness that perfection is impossible or at least only tem-
porary.
102
Returning to the car race ana-
logy and connecting this dis-
cussion to monopolism: the
presence of several cars of
the same type will draw at-
tention to this specific type of
car or make visible differ-
ences within the type. If the
race is not about being fast-
est but about showing your
driving style, it is even help-
Everything in this photo has changed or evolved – even
ful if the same cars particip- Martin and I have adapted to the constant changes
ate in a race, because only again and again.
then do the differences in
driving style become visible. The biggest market share is
probably held by non-users and not by the competition!
If there is a 71% chance (as per the above study) that follow-
ing a certain business model, independently of what that
model is, will inevitably be unsuccessful in the long run, we
might as well have to embrace fundamental changes to the
business model from day one. On his blog, Seth Godin
doesn't rely on numbers, but finds a concise metaphor for
this idea, suggesting that we view an organisation as an or-
ganism that changes constantly. He ends his entry with the
words "of course, organisms tend to be more resilient than
organizations" (Godin, 2020). Contrary to popular belief,
evolving a company is not enforced by viewing others as
rivals. This thinking leads to best practices like "merely try-
ing to get (or stay) in front" and then the "pack decides
what's going to happen next", which is the opposite of rein-
venting the heart of your company (Godin, 2012).
103
what is your
business strategy?
Often, an important purpose of a business plan is to con-
vince potential investors to invest. Because of our crowd-
funding campaign, we were in the happy position that we
did not have to convince an investor with a business plan.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that we have never writ-
ten down our ideas in great detail.
There were certainly other reasons for this – for example, we
don’t see ourselves as a traditional company, and a busi-
ness plan sounds to us like a plan to make money – but
money was never our first motivation. Our ideas of how we
wanted to do things were not written out in detail, but rather
thought through together. In the area of finance, regarding
the Kickstarter, this was a big mistake for the general
concept, but it worked out very well, and we even had to
learn to move away from written concepts in practice, as
these often proved to be too artificially and undynamic or
too slow. One early example was the well-written script for
our Kickstarter video that we didn't use in the end, as de-
scribed at the beginning of this book (see Question "how
did this project become a Kickstarter?"). Another example
would be the rough but lengthy document we wrote about
possible methods of automatisation and the process man-
104
agement of 3D printing. We worked for months on the 3D
printing farm, but this document was never opened again.
However, we would like to come as close as possible to our
goal of radical transparency, and therefore we still want to
be able to present something like a business plan.
Since we feel that the business model and business plan
are extremely dynamic and that communication about these
aspects is of the utmost importance, we decided to work
with a relatively simple model.
Michael Porter and his "Five Forces" focus on competition,
which is clearly not our focus. Kim and Mauborgne’s "Blue
Ocean Strategy" isn’t systematic enough for us, and a "Busi-
ness Model Canvas" still feels a bit too big for what we
would call a lean or minimal business plan. All of these are
perfectly useful tools, but we feel that a very small approach
based on empirical research conducted at the University of
St. Gallen fits us and the Q&A form of this book best. This
approach is simply guided by the questions Who–What–
How and Value. We would like to supplement this approach
only with a "Why, that is, our mission".
Who What How Value HWY
105
 Our mission is to make printmaking more accessible to
everyone! (Why, Who) Printmaking is a fun way of producing
artworks or prints by hand, but the presses needed are usu-
ally expensive and heavy. We are trying to change this by
manufacturing a smaller and more affordable press using
automated 3D printing for series production. Additionally,
we offer a plan of the press for free that individuals can 3D
print themselves (What, Value). At the same time, we prac-
tice radical transparency, we value our international com-
munity above everything else, and we try to be the proof
that a more idealistic way of doing business is not only pos-
sible but also reasonable (How).

Even though we now see this as a valid statement or even a

strategy, we do not commit ourselves to just one market or
business model. In order to remain open to blue oceans and
avoid becoming victims of our own company’s or industry’s
logic, we try to see this strategy or description as always in-
complete. Perhaps so that this is not our business model,
but rather a form of action for a specific product – the Open
Press Project. However, the real reason for the company's
product and aim is the development and adaptation of new
products, tasks and concepts. The change here is more im- "To give away" – One strategy that has proven to be successful for us is to make things available for free to
portant than the product itself. To illustrate this with a con- reveal their true value and possibly get something back in the long run.
crete example: for the success of the Open Press Project so
far, the press itself has been important and a prerequisite.
However, this success was probably largely dependent on
our strategy – in this case, making the plans for the press
freely available. It is unlikely that such a large number of
people would otherwise have heard about the press.

106 107
what does your
marketing look like?
The bottom line is that we do not want to make annoying ad-
vertising. We do this by not budgeting for marketing. At the
same time, we want to create the opportunity to be seen
and make it easy for people to talk about us for the purpose
of our vision.

We try to communicate completely honestly, in an unaltered

way, and without pretending to be closer to your needs than
we are. For this reason, we are very interested in feedback
about your needs. We want to do what feels like us and
meet your and our needs.

However, our mission is to make the art of printmaking more

accessible. This won't be possible if we don’t tell anyone
about our company. Even though we may not agree with, for
example, Facebook and everything that's going on there, we
have chosen to use it as a tool to grow our community and
make printmaking accessible. You could call this marketing,
but we don't like the implications of the word. Anyway, we
decided to show you how we want to engage with people in-
terested in printmaking. This is to show you that there are
We don't really want to deal with marketing and prefer
no tricks and that, for example, we will only send you an e- to concentrate on the things we like to work on.
mail if you request it. We want to create connection and be- But we believe that you could also refer to this as a form of marketing.
longing with our project, but this would not be possible if

108 109
 we didn't give people the chance to find us or hear about
the project. Even though we admit that advertising is a very
tempting opportunity to tell more people about printmaking
and the Open Press Project, regular advertising is just not
what we want to see in the world. We both hate the ubiquit-
ous advertisements that disturb our lives.
And who likes ads, anyway?
Because we were under a lot of financial pressure (see "was
your crowdfunding campaign a success?") and we wanted to
spread our idea of printmaking for everyone, we weren't
clear enough in our desire to decide against conventional
advertisement from day one. We had a gut feeling that it
would be possible to do so, but only a talk from Uwe Lüb-
bermann gave us the clarity that we not only didn’t want to
rely on advertising, but that it's actually possible and right
for us to look at other concepts. Premium is a successful
company that "belongs" to Uwe and is led by a collective
that decided on a zero marketing budget (PREMIUM, o. J.).
We don’t want to place advertising banners or pay money
for an ad or an influencer to review our product. However,
it is a tightrope walk, as we want to communicate with the
community, expand it and of course tell others about our
project. Pull marketing is the approach we want to follow.
Nevertheless, we would like to keep ourselves open, for ex-
ample via e-mail where, after prior agreement, we could in-
form you when our press is offered for sale for the first time.
Perhaps the right way for us here is not push or pull market-
110
ing but permission marketing, as Seth Godin describes it: "It
turns strangers into friends and friends into lifetime custom-
ers". Thinking about this sentence, we can tailor it even fur-
ther to our beliefs: Making strangers friends and friends into
part of a community. If we "just" connect people with an in-
terest in printmaking and give them the tools and the oppor-
tunity to share, it would be more than we could expect. If
some of them become friends and trust us, exchanging
money in return for something valuable, we will be flattered,
but we refuse to see this as the purpose of the Open Press
Project or the company.
But how do we get in contact with strangers in the first
place? We probably don't: they have to contact us. We only
want to have an offer out there. We won't distract or inter-
rupt people, but we want to be visible and approachable.
Either the project or product is valuable enough that people
will tell others about it, or it's not. As the customer or user
has to make the request, the most fitting marketing term for
this strategy would be "request marketing", as described by
Jakob Nielsen (Nielsen, 2000). In practice, we don't inter-
rupt the customer, but our job is to provide the opportunity
for a request and serve this request well if there is one.
The way we would do this would be as follows: Through the
activities of our community and our posts on Facebook and
Instagram, we are visible and approachable. But we don’t
place ads on any platform. We are honoured when online or
offline magazines write about the activity of the community
or, for example, the free plans for our printing press. We
may use other platforms such as Thingiverse and Etsy as
well as our own website to provide free services and to
111
 will you go green?
provide the opportunity to buy a 3D printed printing press We care about the environment, but although we use green
for those who don't have access to a 3D printer (as we did electricity and travel by bicycle, we know that encouraging
with the Kickstarter). people to 3D print their own printmaking press or producing
presses for them is probably not good for our planet. What
If we get a chance to talk about printmaking and our press, we try to do is to keep our impact on the environment to a
we usually take it, particularly if it’s a hands-on demonstra- minimum while at the same time maximising the impact we
tion or a full workshop! We like doing this, but to be honest: have on printmaking.
to really achieve our goal and make printmaking more
accessible, we rely on you. To be honest, we did not
consider environmentally
This means that we can only achieve our vision if our ser- friendly production our
vice, the printing press and the community impress people first priority when we
so much that they tell others. And this is a good thing! If it fought for solutions to be
wasn’t worth sharing, it wouldn't be sustainable, anyway. able to produce and ship
This is not the fastest way to grow: The company Premium the presses ordered on
took 7.5 years to become profitable (media.ccc.de, 2018, Kickstarter, mainly be-
06:15–06:24). cause we thought we
couldn’t afford it.
However, it is possible, and that's enough for us. Premium
is a very small company, but there are other examples, such As it turned out, the need
as Huy Fong Sriracha Chili Sauce, which makes $1 billion a to constantly think in
year in global sales without any marketing and despite terms of resource-saving
never licensing their name (because they couldn't) (Ferd- because of the financial
man, 2014)! This was the very first test shipping with pressure led us to some
an Open Etching Press inside. We hope solutions where not only
and believe and work hard to ensure
money is saved but envir-
that many more will follow.
onmental resources, too.

112 113
 Here are five short examples where
both savings were possible:
Our shipping box doubles as re-sealable long-term storage
that is as small as possible but big enough for the press and
its accessories. If you want to extend the lifetime of the
cardboard even further, reinforce the corners with tape.

The paper padding we

use to protect the press
while shipping is actu-
ally tissue paper that
you will need for print-
making.

The recycled paper bags

we need to store the
small parts of the press
are not only surprisingly
cheap but can be reused
and, unlike plastic bags,
allowed us to write a
note for you on them.

The space and plastic consumption of

the filament spools was enormous. The
picture shows less than one third of the
spools needed for all presses. All spools
together would have taken up more
space than all the parts of the 1500
presses together.
Because we like large-
format pictures and
If we had not found an affordable and suitable tissue paper solution
want to show as many that could be used both as packaging material and for cleaning printing
people as possible the plates, we would have recycled telephone books for this purpose.
many possibilities of

114 115
 printmaking without wasting any paper, we only enclose a print and is derived from renewable resources such as corn
short one-page manual and make our eBook on printmaking starch (Vink & Davies, 2015). In addition, PLA is industrially
available online. compostable. If you dispose of PLA in your bio waste, please
make sure your bio waste is industrially composted by your
We obtained a personal waste management company. In this case, it even disinteg-
agreement with the sup- rates "significantly faster than paper and most organic mat-
plier of our most-used ter" (van der Zee & Molenveld, 2020, p. 9). If your biowaste
raw material (bioplastic) is not industrially composted, for example because you
that the spools that we have your own compost heap in your garden, PLA should be
would normally have had disposed of with other plastics, as it would take too long to
to throw away could be compost naturally. We are happy to have found a design for
used again. This recycling the press and a PLA quality from a local supplier that can
saves us a lot of space, support the pressure this little press has to withstand.
and we don't have to pay
for waste disposal. Of course, there are many things we want to improve in the
area of resource-saving. As a business customer, our ship-
Speaking of this ping volume is too low for "go green" shipping, and there
"bioplastic" and our main are still parts we are not able to source locally. But thanks to
resource, we think there our community, our main focus remains building a tool that,
Unfortunately we could not buy all goods
might be a need to ex- locally - mostly because we could not contrary to the common perception of plastic, is resource-
plain this further: find suitable local suppliers. In this case, saving because it offers a well-grounded, high-quality solu-
surprisingly, only one foreign supplier
managed to produce cuts that do not tion that can be shared for years to come. If you have any
The raw material we use need to be reworked. suggestions or feedback, we are open to hearing from you!
to produce the press is
polylactic acid (PLA). It's commonly used in 3D printing, not
too expensive and fairly tough. Its disadvantage is that it
cannot withstand great heat. Above approximately 60 °C,
PLA can become soft, and above 160°C it begins to melt.
This means you should not leave your press in the sun for
too long on a hot sunny day, otherwise the pressure needed
for printmaking may deform the press. If this is kept in
mind, PLA is a wonderful material, as it has a low CO2 foot-

116 117
disclaimer
Although I write "we" in most places in this book, I want to
make something clear: I wrote this book. It represents my
opinion, and I am accountable for what I write. Of course,
Martin read and agreed on everything in the book, but these
are my words, and Martin might have told the story in other
words. This is a book about our joint journey, written by me.
Similarly, in some instances I write "our" press, but in real-
ity, Martin developed the press himself, and I have only
been involved since the Kickstarter and the following design
changes. What I write
about our approach to
business, product devel-
opment and strategy is
also true for this book:
"Everything is a proto-
type". Even though this
book required a lot effort
to produce, don't take my
words for granted. Things
can change quickly, and I
might be wrong. Neverthe-
less, I hope it provided a
few insights and perhaps
even helpful ideas. If you
It was really important to us and we enjoyed doing things ourselves but
decide to attempt some- please keep in mind: Certain things like electricity or taxes are much
thing like this yourself, I These are some of Martin's prototypes safer with professional support!
that he developed long before I joined
wish you the best of luck! the Open Press Project.

118
119
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