What Is Print Farm Academy?
Most 3D printing content teaches you how to print. Print Farm Academy teaches you how to run a business that happens to use printers. Travis says he spent over a year planning, writing, shooting and editing the course, and it follows one path: Strategy → Execution → Systems → Scale, with four long Q&A livestreams and five bonus interviews with people who’ve already built 3D printing companies.
“Your 3D printer is no longer a toy, but a manufacturing tool to convert material into products.”— Travis Lathrop, Module 2 · The MVMS Manufacturing Setup
Who is Travis Lathrop?
Travis holds a mechanical engineering degree, worked in maintenance and reliability at a large chemical plant in Texas, then spent two years as a strategic applications engineer at Markforged helping Fortune 500 companies apply 3D printing to manufacturing. He runs the Shop Nation and Print Farm Academy YouTube channels and started his own 3D printing business in 2019 with a miter saw stop block.
“I’m not an expert in marketing.”— Travis Lathrop — an honest note that runs through the whole course: he shows his real numbers and says where he brought in pros
Print Farm Academy Curriculum — Full Course Index
The complete list of lessons from the course files, grouped the way the program is taught. Core lessons total about 7h 20m; the livestreams add 6h 11m and the bonus interviews another 4h 14m.
- Meet Your Instructor
- Resources — worksheets, reading list, livestreams and community
- Course Overview · Module 1 Strategy Introduction
- Defining Your 3D Printing Business — product, service or print-as-a-service
- Finding Your Niche — the Venn diagram method and the pain journal
- Target Audience — The Avatar (about 25-question worksheet + “dream review”)
- Market Analysis — TAM vs. target market, bottom-up market sizing
- Finding Your First Product or Service — four idea-generation methods
- Competitor Analysis — How to Stand Out
- The Game Plan — your one-page First Layer Document
- Module 1 Livestream (1h 33m Q&A)
- Module 2 Execution Introduction
- Creating your MVP — the product development pyramid
- Creating your First Product — “Ship It At 80” and design-for-additive tips
- Getting Dollars in the Door — Etsy vs. own site vs. Amazon, listings, simple COGS pricing
- Build a Brand — Telling a Story (StoryBrand messaging, logo rules)
- Intro Marketing Strategies — top 10 free and low-cost tactics
- The MVMS Manufacturing Setup — inventory, printing, post-processing, shipping
- The Product Feedback Loop · Protecting Your IP
- Module 2 Livestream (1h 35m Q&A)
- Module 3 Systems Introduction — the E-Myth roles
- Creating Systems · The SOP — six SOP tools
- Business Structure & Finance — LLC, EIN, taxes, sales-tax nexus
- Advanced Pricing Strategy — the fully landed cost formula
- Maintenance & Inventory Management — critical spares, two-bin, Kanban
- Hiring & Automation — buyback rate, time audit, automation tools
- Production System — racking, power, UPS, filament handling, daily workflow
- Module 3 Livestream (1h 33m Q&A)
- Module 4 Scale Introduction — scaling vs. growth
- Product Optimization — price, cost and AOV levers
- Expanding Into New Markets — sales-channel and interest markets
- Advanced Marketing — CAC, ROAS, CRO, Meta ads, email flows
- Print Farm Expansion — when and how to move into commercial space
- The Exit — valuation methods and deal structures
- Thank You · Module 4 Livestream (1h 30m Q&A)
- Wittworks — The 3D Printing Gamble (Drew Witt)
- Repkord — Strike while the Filament is Hot (Alan “Pooch” Puccinelli)
- Slant3D — Shelves That Make the Products
- Greg Mark — Roundtable with a CEO (Markforged founder)
- Zach Allen — Injection Molding vs 3D Printing
What You’ll Learn in Print Farm Academy
Module 1: Pick a niche you can actually win
No trending gimmicks, no STL packs. You map your interests, experience and expertise on a Venn diagram, keep a pain journal, build a single customer avatar and size the market bottom-up. The golf-tee example in the course shows the math: 6 million golfers aged 18–34 × 10% penetration × $25 = a $15M market, and a 20% capture is still $3M. Everything ends up on one page — the First Layer Document.
“Think an inch wide and a mile deep.”— Travis Lathrop, Module 1 · Finding Your Niche
Module 2: Ship your first product and get paid
Build an MVP (with the cardboard mock-up that fixed Travis’s own over-engineered dust shroud), apply the “Ship It At 80” rule, and choose a storefront. Etsy averages about 12% in fees versus roughly 3% on your own site — Travis recommends starting on Etsy and sharing listings personally in targeted groups. You also get his top 10 free marketing tactics, the four-part MVMS setup and a plain-English take on protecting your designs.
“It sounds weird, but we’re actually trying to fail as fast as possible here.”— Travis Lathrop, Module 2 · Creating your MVP
Module 3: Build systems that run without you
This is where Print Farm Academy goes further than any YouTube video. You get the fully landed cost formula — materials, labor, packaging and machine time (about 14¢ per printer-hour in his worked example) — plus the pricing spreadsheet. Then SOPs, a production layout (3 printers per shelf, 6 printers per 20 A circuit, UPS backup), inventory with safety stock and Kanban cards, and the buyback-rate formula that tells you when to hire.
“Systems will set you free.”— Travis Lathrop, Module 3 · Systems Introduction
Module 4: Scale, advertise and plan your exit
Three profit levers (price, cost, average order value), new sales channels, and a paid-ads playbook with clear stages: organic only below $7,500/month, then ads once your AOV is at least $40 and margin at least 50%. Travis shares his own figures — about $300,000 a year on marketing, $52 AOV, $11–13 CAC on Meta. The course closes with when to lease a building (keep rent under about 20% of revenue) and how a 3D printing business is valued when you sell.
“Businesses are like goldfish and just grow to fill the size of the fishbowl that they’re placed in.”— Travis Lathrop, Module 4 · Print Farm Expansion
Pricing Your Prints: The Print Farm Academy Formulas
| Formula | How it works in the course |
|---|---|
| Simple COGS (Module 2) | Raw material + about $0.25 per printer-hour + labor at $20+/hr, then price at COGS ×2, ×3 or ×4 |
| Filament cost | grams ÷ 1000 × spool price × 1.1 material efficiency factor |
| Machine cost | Printer + maintenance over its lifetime hours, plus electricity, × 1.3 buffer ≈ 14¢/hr |
| Labor | minutes ÷ 60 × at least $20/hr |
| Reorder point | Weekly usage × lead time + safety buffer (e.g. 3 kg × 3 weeks = 9 kg, keep 12 kg) |
| Ads breakeven ROAS | 1 ÷ gross margin |
| Buyback rate | Annual income ÷ 2,000 ÷ 4 — delegate any task worth less than this |
Bonus Interviews: Learn From 3D Printing Founders
A fifth interview with Zach Allen of Product Designs Inc. explains exactly when a part should leave the printer and go to injection molding — molds from about $3,500, and why varied, low-volume parts stay 3D printed.
“You’re not buying the plastic. You’re buying a sawdust-free environment.”— Drew Witt, Wittworks interview
Is Print Farm Academy Right for You?
- Hobbyists with one printer who want to fund the hobby, earn side income or go full-time — you don’t need a big audience or design skills to start.
- Existing print farm owners who want to fix pricing, build SOPs and inventory systems, or prepare to scale.
- Makers selling on Etsy who are ready to move to their own store and paid ads.
- Product people deciding between 3D printing, outsourcing and injection molding.
Print Farm Academy is not a printer, slicer or CAD tutorial, and the legal and tax sections are US-focused. If you sell handmade products, it pairs well with Marketing for Makers Academy 2.0 and the ecommerce courses in our catalog.
- Taught by an engineer running a ~70-printer, seven-figure business
- Full path from niche selection to exit — not just printing tips
- Real formulas: landed cost, reorder points, ROAS breakeven, buyback rate
- Printable worksheets, pricing spreadsheet and First Layer Document
- 6+ hours of livestream Q&A and 5 founder interviews
- Print Farm Academy shows real numbers, mistakes included
- No CAD or slicer training — design skills are outsourced or learned elsewhere
- Legal, tax and business-structure content is US-centric
- Focused on product-based businesses; service models get less depth
- Livestreams are long Q&A sessions, not edited lessons
Print Farm Academy — FAQ
Do I need many printers to start Print Farm Academy?
No. Travis says you really just need one printer to start, and the MVMS lesson shows the minimum setup.
Which printers does Travis use?
He grew to about 40 Prusa machines, then moved fully to Bambu Lab P1S printers after a year-long output comparison, printing in PETG.
Does Print Farm Academy cover selling on Etsy and Shopify?
Yes — storefront choice, listing photos and video, fees, moving to your own site, Amazon, and paid ads on Meta and Etsy.
Is there a pricing calculator?
Yes — the Print Farm Academy Product Pricing Worksheet in PDF and XLSX versions, used in the Advanced Pricing Strategy lesson.
How is the course delivered?
Digital files. Crypto payment only. Fast delivery is handled manually after payment confirmation. Download links remain available for 7 days; save your files locally.
Get Print Farm Academy Today
Print Farm Academy is the most complete 3D printing business program we’ve indexed: strategy worksheets, real pricing formulas, production and inventory systems, a paid-ads playbook and exit planning — all from someone running a print farm today, backed by interviews with founders who’ve scaled further.
If you want your printer to pay for itself and then some, get it today through Courses On Budget and explore more business courses to round out your stack.
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External resource: printfarmacademy.com
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