ODU graduate turns napkin sketches into 3D products

Blade Taylor sees things in 3D.

The 22-year-old entrepreneur is the founder and chief executive officer of 3DXtremes and a 2018 graduate of Old Dominion University.

It is there the Emporia native who majored in marketing and business analytics increased his knowledge, honed his skills and created his business.

“I really chose to go to ODU because of the (Strome) entrepreneurial center and because of that ecosystem that was still in an infant kind of stage,” Taylor said crediting the guidance and support he received along the way.

Nancy Grden, interim associate vice president and executive director of the Strome Entrepreneurial Center, said she has seen Taylor’s progress and his passion for innovation and his company ever since “the day he walked into” the center.

“It is even more rewarding to see him as an alum growing his business with many customers, a larger team and bright future ahead,” Grden said.

He was a freshman when he started the manufacturing company that turns concepts into real products for private inventors and companies via 3D printing, modeling, urethane casting and injection molding.

“I was working on developing a product back in high school that I had an idea for,” Taylor said. “I had a lot of trouble trying to locate a company who could provide me with guidance and the services needed to design and produce my product for testing.”

Taylor said he learned a lot along the way in his quest, and when he couldn’t find what he was searching for he decided business ownership was the way to go.

He began as a solopreneur with a single 3D printer in his dorm room and as things grew he moved into a shared space in the Strome center.

Now his print farm – with 30 3D printers and a variety of other machines – leases a 2,000-square-foot space in Percolator, the co-working facility in downtown Norfolk. He has two employees.

“We produce quite a few thousand parts at a time for different companies just through 3D printing so it’s very cost effective,” Taylor said. “We have grown a lot with in-house capabilities, machinery, skill set, but the biggest thing is our understanding of our customer base.”

Taylor explained they help take new product ideas through the design, prototype (plastic, rubber and metal) and manufacturing (50,000 units or less) phases.

“We work on a lot of tech projects; anything from fitness devices to salon-based products, medical devices and a lot of automotive projects as well,” Taylor said. “We’ve been able to build a process of how we take any customer from that napkin sketch concept to that final product ready for the market.”

Jean and Pete Buttecali, co-owners of Woodpile Studios, a branding and design firm in Vienna, contacted 3DXtremes after finding the business online to help create a specialty project for their client, George Mason University. The college of Health and Human Services was in need of a statute for its new $71 million health building.

“This was an out-of-the-box request for us,” said Jean Buttecali . “Blade spent a lot of time with me on the initial request … all the way through. It was great to see something we had planned out take on the exact life we pictured it to be.”

The final project – a five-foot-tall 3D-printed fitness tracker – was revealed at the building’s unveiling in October.

Other recent projects include training devices for the Army and new postoperative devices for plastic surgeons. Clients whom they often work with remotely are up and down the East Coast.

“I love that every project is different; it definitely doesn’t get boring, always brings up new challenges and we learn a bunch of random things about different industries through doing what we do,” Taylor said.

As for establishing and keeping his business in Norfolk, he said he never contemplated taking it elsewhere, because of the support, guidance and motivation he has received.

Grden said she hopes Taylor’s story inspires other young people to establish and grow their businesses in Hampton Roads.

“His journey and growth also reflect on our region’s support and networks for entrepreneurs — resources he used, such as ODU’s Strome Entrepreneurial Center and Innovation Center Norfolk, as well as 757 Pitch, ICAP (Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program), Percolator and others,” she said.

Taylor’s five-year business plan includes scaling up, building more partnerships, working with more companies and serving more of the private inventor marketplace throughout the country.

Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-222-5356, sandra.pennecke@insidebiz.com