129. Leverage Everything: Bootstrapping a Profitable Metal Additive Shop

I sat down with Chris Beck, the founder of Innovative 3D Manufacturing in Franklin, Indiana, and the line that stuck with me was simple. Everything he owns is leveraged into this company. That is what skin in the game actually looks like, and it is the reason his team shows up at 2 a.m. on a Sunday when a job is on the line.
Innovative is one of the few shops built around metal additive, laser powder bed fusion, with a full CNC machine shop bolted right alongside it. Chris started in 2017 with two engineers and a plan for ten printers and ten people. Today he is running 25 metal printers, 8…