S6E12 Greg Mark | Founding Markforged & Backflip.ai - Being an Engineer

Episode Transcript
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Greg Mark (00:00):
If you're an entrepreneur and you're thinking

(00:01):
about doing a business, figureout what is it that will make
people love it, and what are thefeatures you can say no to? It's
almost more important what yousay no to than what you say yes
to. You.

Aaron Moncur (00:26):
Greg,ello and welcome to the being an engineer
podcast today we have Greg mark,a visionary entrepreneurial
innovator and the mastermindbehind the invention of carbon
fiber printing, currently thefounder and CEO of backflip, an
AI company revolutionizing howwe create 3d objects in the real
world. Greg's career spans aseries of groundbreaking

(00:49):
ventures, from Mark forged,which redefined printing to
allow carbon fiber to genocideand aero motions, where his
teams worked on Off Grid SolarPower and high performance
aerodynamic solutions for sportscars with a background in
aeronautics and astronauticsfrom MIT. Greg brings a passion
for bold ideas, cutting edgetechnology and empowering people

(01:12):
to change the world. Greg, thankyou so much for joining us
today. It's a pleasure to behere. Thanks for having me.
Well, I first have to start offby talking about Mark forged,
because we have used Mark forgedmachines for many years now. We
love them. I'm a fanboy myself,and to be able to speak with you
that the founder of BART forged,what a privilege. Just really

(01:33):
cool opportunity. Thank you forbeing here.

Greg Mark (01:36):
Yeah, no, I'm happy to do it. It's funny because I
was talking to a company out ofStanford that I'm mentoring
yesterday, and the guys said, Ijust want to start off by saying
I got an Onix one on eBay, andit's for my side hustle, and
I've made like 60 grand sellingparts off it. I just turn it on
and kick it off, and he's like,he's like, you paid. You pay

(01:56):
most of my bills. So thanks forthat.

Well, I won't make the whole episode about Mark
Forge, but one thing that I haveloved about those machines is
that they're just bulletproof.
You know, it's like thisgentleman said, you turn it on
and they just run. We've had sofew failures on them. Whereas
other printers we used it, itseems like failures are a little
bit more common, but you justturn this thing on, it prints
amazing parts, incrediblesurface finish, great

(02:22):
tolerancing and accuracy and andthey're robust, you know, just
strong, chunky parts that areperfect for what we do fix
string and automation, that sortof thing.

Greg Mark (02:34):
Yeah, you know, you mentioned that. You mentioned
that a lot of your audiences,you know, you know, obviously
engineers and looking to domachine design things like that.
A lot of what Mark forge kind ofhad a few different secret
sauces. But if you actuallyspend the time to look at the
machine, the design decisions wemade in making the machine Mark
Forge, it's incrediblymechanically robust, and the

(02:54):
machines are not overconstrained. So if you look at
their design decisions, I'llgive an example on the top plate
of the mark two on its one, therails. So we designed this for
the Marines. Okay, the railsare, instead of being, instead
of being aligned with somefixture that you would have in
the factory, we built, we builtthese little dowel pins and that

(03:15):
are, so there's del pins, smalldowel pins, and then a screw
with a four battery head. Sowhen you screw those all down,
it recesses the rail, pushes therail to one side, because the
alignment off one side gives youthe tolerance to the same thing
machine, as opposed if you letit free, float around and bounce
off both sides and you don'tknow where it is. So those so we
and we leave the pins in themachine. So if you as a marine

(03:37):
or any other user that happensto be anywhere, or you in your
garage, if you need to replace arail, you can back those screws
out, pop a new rail in, gentlytighten the rails in the screw,
then tighten all the dowel pinsto recess it to one side, and
you'll have it perfectlyaligned. Machine again, right?
No, I love that. All the toolsyou need are built into it.

I love it. Now, speaking of repeatability, the
build platform, too, I reallywas impressed with the build
platform and how that mounts.
There are these three. They'renot dowels. They're like conical
pins, I guess you could say, andI forget what the repeatability
was, the positionalrepeatability, but it was down
in the microns for taking thatplatform off and putting it back
on. Really impressive. So it'scalled the

Greg Mark (04:18):
kinematic coupling.
And it's like really big insemiconductors. And what you do
is this goes into the notion ofconstraints. So when you you
know, when you have an object toconstrain it in space, you need
six points to constrain it inspace, and anything extra is
redundant. The problem with thisredundant is, let's say you
have, if you, if you're not surewhat's going to hold it in
place, every time you put theplate back in there, it might

(04:38):
find a different thing to lineit up, right? So what we do is
we have basically a sphere, acylindrical head on the Bono
build plate, three of them,right? And then there's kind of
a V group, but it's in kind of achannel, an elliptical channel,
on each of the three mountingfeet that are on the print
stage. And what that does is it.

(05:00):
Basically it has like two pointstouch each screw. So you have
two points on each screw, sixpoints in total. Your thing is
perfectly constrained. And everytime you take it in, take it
out, it's exactly those pointstouching. So if you look at like
a traditional 3d printer, whereyou put them a plate on, plate
off, it's, you know, any numberof different points can be
actually with locating it. Andso it's not repeatable. It's not

(05:20):
precise. So by using kinematiccoupling, it's incredibly
repeatable. And actually, yeah,I think we spec it to 10
microns, but it's repeatable tofive because we always try to,
like, under promise, overdeliver.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for correcting me.
Spherical, not conical pins onthe bottom there, but a
beautiful and simple and elegantmechanism for intense
repeatability. So all right,let's just not fight this. We
started with Mark Forge. Let'skeep going with Mark forge a
little bit longer. Tell us. Howdid you start Mark Forge? What
was the story, the nexus of thatcompany?

Greg Mark (05:54):
So it goes back to the Marines. So, so, you know,
we love, we love the warfighters and our friends in
uniform. I was at a solar asolar company, off grid solar
company, genocide, and we were,we built, we're the world's
largest maker of off grid solarfor, you know, boats and
science, you know, like, we hada huge deployment all over

(06:16):
Africa. And Arko, like, reallyaustere situation. And I was
like, this is super cool. Weshould give us the Marines.
Like, they should do this.
Because use this, becausethey're they, they work all over
the world. It's really harsh.
And, you know, they need power,right? So I fly down to Quantico
with the solar power controls,and I show this to Marines. And
this guy's like, he's like,like, Greg's like, this is

(06:37):
really cool. Direct quote. Hesays, But Marines don't wire
shit. We plug it in. He's like,so here I need you to do this.
To do. He's like, I want you tomake a half for the battery
that, like, plugs in the solarpanel, and this hat clicks on
top of the battery, and the readdoesn't have to wire any shit or
have any loose wires anywhere,and it just works, right? And I
was like, Cool. I will have itfor you in a week. All right,

(06:59):
this was the first time Iactually ever Okay, so my
friends had a military company.
They make rope ascenders, like,like, Batman, rope climbing
things. And they had just gottenstrats as a printer, and they
were raving about it, and I'dnever used one before. And I was
like, Hey, can I come use thisprinter? So, like, you know, I
designed the design, the thebody's missing in SolidWorks.

(07:20):
And then I go to this printerand print it out, okay? And it's
like, it's like, amazing, man,like you can do like a zero
corner radius, because insteadof, like, CNC machining, you're
just extruding material out. Sowe do the whole process. I paint
it, pot it, paint it black, ofcourse. Pot it so it's
waterproof. Sent the Marines Aweek later, and they're like,
Fuck, this is exactly what yousaid. It does. And all of a
sudden we've got this coolmilitary economy. Cool military

(07:42):
contract. While I'm printingthis part, I'm sitting there
thinking like, man, if this wasmade out of carbon fiber,
instead of being a prototype forthe Marines, it would be dumb.
They could just use it. Theycould drive a truck over it,
right? So that's where the ideacame from. Is basically, hey,
look like we can, I can use Ihad spent a lot of time in
composites in the race carcompany, and actually from a
power company in the past,learning about composites. So I

(08:02):
realized, hey, look, if we justthrow the continuous fiber in
depth in that prototype, it goesfrom a prototype to a production
part the Marines can actuallydeploy. And that's what I did
for Mark forge came

from. So Mark forge machines have been used, I
think, well, for sure, theMarines, but even up in space,
what are some of the coolest,most wild out there applications
that you're aware of where Markforge machines have been used?

Greg Mark (08:30):
Okay? So my favorite is, we're on the USS New
Hampshire, which is a nuclearsub, a US nuclear sub, right?
We're the only three printer onthe US nuclear sub. And those
boys print the hell out of thismachine, right, really. So, you
know, they're, they printeverything with it, which is so
fucking cool. And then, ofcourse, there's parts space

(08:52):
stations we have, like fighterjet parks, commercial jet parts,
kids using for battle boss,which I love, because you're,
you know, anytime you have achance to train the next
generation, like, you got to doit right? Because, like, you
had, like, you know, you know,we're a snapshot in time, but
humanity is, like, 300,000 yearsold, so we're just, like, the
next step in the chain. So anychain, any time you can, like,
train the new generation, it'skiller. So my favorite thing

(09:14):
about Mark Forge, and I'll tellyou a funny story, my favorite
thing about Mark Forge is thesame badass carbonfire printer
we came up with Mark Two. Samebadass carbon fire printer that
NASA used is what high schoolstudents were making battles on.
So it was totally, totallydemocratized. It's not like, if
you had a million bucks, you hada better printer than somebody
who had 10,000 bucks. It's like,you like to save the most the

(09:35):
coolest possible tech we coulddo. We had the mark two out when
the first came out. Wasn't adesktop printer, right? And
everybody could use it. That wasso fucking cool. So the so that
the other thing going back toMarines, so they run my stuff
everywhere, right? And, youknow, I would ask them, like,
Hey, how can we make this thingbetter? And they were like, No,

(09:56):
the printer works great, andit's great. Like, cool, but, you
know, I'd like to make it workbetter. Like. Have to make it
work better. This guy says tome, says, Craig, and says, you
know, I've seen these printersfall out of trucks, fall off of
trucks, get run over by. Trucksget rolled around the sand. He's
like, I've taken an inch of sandout of the bottom. One of these
things stand over the wipe therails down, throw some WD, 40,
and we're printing again. He'slike, your printer is great,

(10:17):
dude. Don't worry about it,right? So it's like, he's like,
he's like, we love him, man,don't worry about it, right? So
it's like, it's, it's reallycool. It's really cool. The
number of people who had greatideas and made their career with
it, I'll tell you one laststory. There's a major food and

(10:39):
beverage company, like, like,major in this country. It's
global. But, you know,headquarters here, and they had
a person who just graduatedschool, okay, and they were
solving a major problem thatthey have with their food
getting bad on shelves. And thisengineer, he was like, Hey, we
should just print it on themarks for us. Like, and his boss
was like, You're crazy, right?
Like, you literally, are crazy.

(11:01):
Like, you know, we're this hugecompany. Like, when you CNC
machines where this created, andit's like, just, you know, the
kind of shape that we try,right? So that, so he does it,
he prints the part. This is akey part, and then they start
using it like a test line, andit works better than the CNC
machine parts, okay? So thenusing it more, and using it
more, and using it more, all ofa sudden they're like, they're
now all converts, okay? So nowevery item this company makes,

(11:26):
the final quality step is donewith like Mark for three printed
parts, because this person, thisbadass engineer, advocated for
it, stood his ground, provedthat it worked, converted his
boss, then it converted theentire company. So every factory
that makes this food uses hisparts. Wow, yeah, great story.

(11:50):
What do you think that did forhis career? Right? Probably good
guys. Yeah, he's the guy, yeah,he's the guy

that really resonates with me. We had a
similar situation with one ofour customers, it's not deployed
worldwide, but with ourcustomer, we design a lot of
fixtures and things like that.
And this company of ours,customer of ours, we came to
them and said, We want to startusing these smartforged printed
parts. And they're like that.
We'd rather have, you know,machined aluminum or Delrin or
stainless steel or whatever. Andwe said, well, just let us try

(12:19):
it. Right? So we did, and whatwe were doing was these device
holders. So previously, we wouldspend probably $2,500.03 grand,
sending this out to a shop, CNCshop. They'd hog it out of a
block of aluminum, a very nicecontoured surface that that
matched the the contour of thesemedical devices that we were

(12:39):
fixing, holding in this plate,and it would take probably three
weeks, right? So now we try thesame thing with the mark forged,
and now we're printing it in aday, and it costs, like, the
cost to our customer anyway, itwas like 500 bucks, something
like that, right? So like, 20%the cost, and they get it in a
fraction of the time. We deliverit. And we're like, okay, here

(13:00):
it is, what do you think? Andthey're like, We love this. This
is amazing. We had no idea. Theynow have multiple Mark forge
printers of their own, andpretty much all of their
fixtures are made on Mark forgedmachines. Now

Greg Mark (13:12):
that that is what happens, like, it's like,
you're, you're like, amothello,where you put the pieces down,
it flips from one to the other,okay, yeah, when a factor gets
it, because you walk in and yousee, like, a little bit of
everywhere, the shiningeverywhere. Okay, then when they
get the marsh forest printer,when they when they get it, all
the fixtures are black. Everyyou just want everything is

(13:33):
like, everything, trade printergarbage, the entire everything.
And we're just like, it's allit's matte black. Man, it is
like it's the new black.

And just to be clear, no one is paying me to
say this. I've actually saidreally positive things about
Mark forge for years. I'monline. There are videos of me.
I've actually worked with themarketing team at Mark Forge. I
never got paid a cent for sayingany of this stuff. I just really
liked the product. I think it'sa great product, and so I tell
people about it, that's been myexperience,

Greg Mark (14:02):
yeah. And actually, at this point, I have, I haven't
had owned a mark for share inlike, three years. So no, and
I'm not on anyway. Nobody'spaying me to say that's right
now I am 100% like 100% thirdparty

nice, yeah, all right. So speaking of not being
at Mark forge anymore, you'vegot a new company called
backflip. What can you tell usabout backflip? Okay,

Greg Mark (14:28):
so it's really cool.
So when we were at Mark Forge,we did the back half of design,
a back half of manufacturing. Soyou would come, you would design
a part, and then you'd want to,you need to make the part, okay?
So you can, you know, print it.
And as you know, carbon fiber,stainless steel, titanium,
copper, you can now you takeyour pick right and then at back
liquid in the front half design.
So if you, if you zoom out andyou look at you go to the last
50 years, the major innovationshave been on the design side.

(14:52):
The difference between, like,you know, 2025, Porsche and a
2020, and a 2000 Course, isn'tthe steel and aluminum stamp out
of it's the design, right? Andso we said, hey, look, we want,
we want to move design faster.
We want to be the next, we wantto be the next step change in
the industrial revolution, ifyou look at industrial

(15:14):
revolution, there's been manythat, you know, there was the
first beginning, but there'sbeen these additional ones, like
the first industrial revolution,then we had electrification,
right? Then we had computers,and now we have AI, okay, so
we're in like an AI IndustrialRevolution. And so, you know, my
co founder, David and I, we cofounded Mark Forge, and now we
co founded back flip. We retiredafter Mark Forge, because that

(15:35):
was a journey, that was a verylong slog. But we missed
building so much, and we werelike, man, we want to like, we
want to build, like, the designtools that we always wanted to
have. And we were doing work forright? And we had a very unique
approach for it. So what? So thefirst thing that we're doing is
there's a scan to CAD. So youtake a 3d scan and you get that

(15:55):
point cloud of, you know, half amillion points. But you can't
bring him into a CAD package, orit will choke, right? And then
you got to sit there and reverseengineer by hand. You hate your
life,

right? So we, and some people, think reverse
engineering is this magic buttonwhere you push a button and all
of a sudden you've got thisperfect CAD model. Not the case.
Reverse Engineering, even withthe semi automated, expensive
reverse engineering software, isstill a very manual and time
consuming process. So pleasecontinue. Sorry to interrupt.
No,

Greg Mark (16:24):
no, exactly. Please, please jump in. So that's
exactly right. So the so we'vetrained an AI model to do that
step for you. So you scan a partand you create a mesh, or, by
the way, somebody sends you anSTL, right? They'll take any
mesh. You can take an STL.
Somebody sends you an STL forwhatever reason to further out.
You can drop the STL into ourAI, and it will convert it into
a CAD part, right? So it'll goso there's two, there's two

(16:47):
endpoints right now. The firstone, which will be beta testing
in about two weeks, gives you aSTEP file. It'll be online, and
it actually you can, we can getyou in beta, and you can drop an
STL in, and it will give you astep out, which you can then
bring it to any cat pack dodirect editing on right. And the
second version is a SolidWorksplugin which is super cool, and
it and it will live inSolidWorks, and it will natively

(17:09):
drive SolidWorks and create thatexact part in SolidWorks with a
SolidWorks feature tree, andit's a first class citizen. So
it looks like you cater the partwhen you sign with your
SolidWorks name, right? So thisis really cool, because, you
know, so it's very important thephilosophy of your Back Flip,
okay, if you look at CAD, youknow, you know, CAD, various CAD

(17:34):
companies, over the years, it'salways been like a zero sum
game, right? You're if when acat, when they go to a new
company, like, Hey, throw outyour own tad and use our cat,
right? Rich or replace. Okay,we're like what we're like. We
love tad. Keep your cat. Okay,keep your CAD. You know it, you
use it. You're great at you'vegot 10,000 hours in it. We don't
want to slow you down andmillisecond. Okay, we're going

(17:57):
to bolt on this turbocharger tothe front end of this process.
And we're going to get your ideainto the CAD as quickly as
possible through AI, and thenlet you richer everything you're
already great at. Take yourPikmin, your SolidWorks onshape,
CATIA, NX, like PTC, whateveryou love to use. We love that
you love it. We love that youlove it. You know how to use it.

(18:19):
You're trained on it. Your ITdepartment signed off on it
legal. Sign up. Keep your cat.
Okay, we bolt this thing in thefront of it, and all of a sudden
we get your scan from like acrappy point cloud to a
parametric part in a minute,right? And then we're gonna, and
that's the first modality. We'regonna keep adding different
modalities on top of this modelthat will help you get your we

(18:40):
will be the biggest on rent,into CAD that's ever existed,
and then into the why? Okay, gofor it. Go for it. I think

that's a super smart model. I saw this AI
drawing creation tool just theother day, right? 2d drawing
create, you drop a STEP file in.
It creates a 2d drawing, all thedimensions, G, D and T. Super
cool, right? But I looked at itand I thought, I can't use this,
because it takes a step and thenit gives me some proprietary
output that doesn't play withSolidWorks, and we need to be
compatible with SolidWorks. Sothe fact that you guys are

(19:10):
supercharging the existing CADtool that all of us engineers
are already using, whether it'sSolidWorks or onshape or NX or
whatever, that's a big deal.

Greg Mark (19:22):
Yeah, we so, for us, if you zoom out, like the reason
we as humans have nice things isbecause productivity per human
goes up every year. Okay? Beforethe industrial revolution, we
were in the shit. Okay? Like wedidn't have nice things. We
didn't have. We didn't havefood, we were cold, we didn't

(19:42):
have electricity, we had nocomputers, no cars, no
airplanes. Oh, they do nothing.
Okay? So the key to getting usout of that muck, okay, to have,
like, nice things, was to raisethat productivity per human.
Because before that, forhundreds of years, we were just
in the muck. Once productivityper human went up. We were doing
great. So we look at the worldand we're like, how do we
increase productivity per humanso we can all have nice things

(20:05):
and live in the future, right?
Like, that's how we look at it.
And it's like, and, and it'slike, we don't want to, we don't
want to retrain people. I don'twant to go in there and build an
army and, like, retrainingpeople. I don't want to rebuild
cat. I have no desire to rebuildcat, right? We're like, dude,
because modern CAD packages,they're great. They work really
well. They're like, they'regreat. We just want to put a

(20:26):
blower on that thing and justsend everybody. We want to turn,
like, a 15 second car into aneight second car, right? And
it's just, like, just hold onfor dear life. And like, because
we want, dude, imagine if yourauto, if your car, the design
cycle for your car was fromseven years to six years to five
years to four years to threeyears, right? It's like, it's
like, Dude, we're gonnacompress. We go through a time

(20:48):
warp. We compress time okay? Andthe cool shit that would
normally have come out 50 yearsfrom now, we'll have it in 10
Don't you want a car from 50years from now? I do. I don't
want to drive the car from 10years. I would drive the car
from 50 years. Car from

50 years from now.
I love this so much. My personalmission statement is to
accelerate the speed ofengineering, to improve the
human experience. Yeah, you guysare doing exactly that exact
line. We're

Greg Mark (21:13):
one down. This is, like, this is, and, by the way,
this is like, you know, if youlove people, which I do, like,
this is the best thing we can dofor each other, right? You take,
you lift everybody up. Like,when we where we make, we invent
cool things, we lift everybodyup. It's so cool, Yep,

yeah. So who is backflip intended for? Is it for
engineers, for consumers, forboth, for some other category?

Greg Mark (21:39):
Okay, two, first user groups, okay, immediately
obvious. First user group,you're a CAD engineer, already.
You want to go faster. Okay,it's you, it's me. That's like,
probably half your podcast,maybe all your podcasts, okay,
you're a cat engineer. You loveCAD. You want to go faster,
okay? Or you're on the path tobeing a cat engineer. You're
learning CAD, and we're going toget you there faster, okay? And

(22:04):
I'll tell you, I'll click on asecond, but then there's a whole
other, okay, there's an entireother group of, like,
mechanically brilliant peoplewho like and who, who I've got
the cigarette to interact with.
In my years of workforce, wewould do this thing where, you
know, you mentioned, uses Markforce for tools and fixtures.
Everybody uses marked for toolsand fixtures. Okay, that's what
the company does. We had thisprogram called Walk the Line.

(22:25):
We'd go to a factory, we'd walkdown the production line and
teach people what parts you canturn, you know, make out of more
fortune, what parts you can'tright? And in this process, I
would meet 1000s of brillianttechnicians, and they're like,
Yo, I had this idea. And theytell me the idea, and they can
describe the idea. They coulddraw the idea. Dude, these
people, they're building racecars. Okay? They're overhauling

(22:46):
engines. They're makingfurniture out of wood that looks
like it came out of restoration.
Hard. Makes restoration hard,really cheap. Okay, they're
mechanically brilliant. They'remanufacturing your car. They
don't know cat that I justdidn't have 10,000 hours during
CAD. We're going to take thosepeople and give them a tool to
get them into CAD. Okay? Sowhat's going to happen is, like,

(23:08):
they're going to be able toscan, draw, describe their idea,
and then get it into SolidWorks,get it into NX, get it into
CATIA, right? Like, get it intothe CAD program record. And
we've made a very deliberatedesign decision. So when we
create the file in SolidWorks,we don't just create the file in
SolidWorks. We drive SolidWorksin front of you, so you watch

(23:33):
how we made it, okay? So you're,you're brand new to CAD. You
scan this thing in okay? Andit's like it's got to and you're
thinking to yourself, how wouldI design this in CAD, okay, this
exact shape, and you've beenthinking about it because you've
been scanning it in, what is theextrudes? What are the cuts,
where the revolt and then the AIwill show it, will drive it,
teach you in front of it. Here'swhere the here's where I do the

(23:55):
thing sketch. Here's where Ishowed it, rotated around. Did
this cut here, did this remote.
And it will literally step it'llspeed, run a little fast, but
it'll go through and build theentire thing. And you're like,
that's how this part was built.
So every time you make a part,it's showing you how it made it
education, training, uh huh,there's built in training in
every time. Okay, so here's thecool thing. So you go, there's a

(24:17):
leverage ratio, okay? You own afactory, an automotive factory,
and there might be one or twopeople who have tad and then use
CAD, and then 3000 technicians,okay, who are mechanically
brilliant. What if we let 50 or500 of those 3000 technicians

(24:40):
get their idea into cat. Okay,you know what happened? The
production line would go faster,okay? And when a production line
goes faster, company makes moreprofit, can hire more people,
build more cars, having moreefficiency, return money,
shareholders. Project for Humangoes up. And then, by the way,
you're this is quote, and Ireally want. I can find out who

(25:00):
it is. But this guy totallysaid, he said, I've been working
at auto factory. He said, For 30years, have been paying me for
my hands, and they could havehad my mind for free, right? So
it's like, so it's also like,man, it's nice to get your ideas
out, right? When you have anidea, a good idea, and you can't
get it out, it's, it's almostpainful to have that idea,
because you know that the worldbe better if your idea got into

(25:22):
the world, right? And so, youknow, we're giving people a way
to get their idea into theworld, and it's and it's not
like, Shadow IT. We're not like,Yo, here's this random thing on
the side. We're like, no, no.
It's in the CAD package. Okay?
It goes in your native cat. Youcan have a design review, you
can have a part number, you can,like, go through the entire
quality control process. Butnow, instead of everything

(25:44):
having the whole pipe, and nowinstead of the one or two
engineers in the factorystarting from zero, there's,
like, the technician comes in,like, here's this thing I drew
up in CAD right? So it's in yourit's in your CAD package. And
why don't I pitch it to you? Whydon't explain to you? And if you
like it, we hit three printersnow we have it.

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(27:14):
everyone. Yeah, walk us throughthe process like, how do you
actually use this if I'm a newuser on backflip, what are the
steps that I go through to getmy model into SolidWorks, or
whatever CAD package? Okay, sowe'll stick with SolidWorks,
because it's, like, because yourSolidWorks either, and, like,
we've announced the plugin. Soit's the which is good, and
there's a video of it online.

Greg Mark (27:35):
You were plugging on the side. And it's, you know,
it's March forge black, right?
So, you know, I like it's myhair color, so plug it inside,
and there's two buttons, okay?
One button is for import, right?
And it'll tell you import STL,objet, like, whatever you want,
import it, and you'll bring inyour SDL, which could come from,
again, a three print file or theoutput from a scanner, okay? And

(27:56):
then we'll shoot it up to thecloud, okay, our GPUs analyze it
all right, figure out what doesthe cat sequence make this part?
And then we come down with fouroptions, right? Because AI
inherently has some variation,right? So we'll give you four
options. What should these fouroptions close to what you want?
Right? And you pick that option,you can preview it, okay, and
you hit, then you see that. Usea second button. Now, send us

(28:18):
all okay, we're, you know, we'rethird in the screen, right? And
it senses all it works. And thenliterally drive SolidWorks. And
like rotation and like buildsyou your part. And that entire
process, including building yourpart, like, a minute, well,
right? Okay. And then once youhave your part, you collapse the
window, goodbye, backflip, putit in the corner, right? You
know, when you need it, it'sthere. So we take up the

(28:39):
smallest amount of real estatewe possibly can, because we
don't want to waste your space,right? And when you, when you
want to bring in an STL andconvert it to it to a SolidWorks
file, where you want to bring ina scan, converted to file, you
click that tiny button, open upthis beautiful window, super
really, like no trainingrequires simple, super simple
interface. And then, like, nowyou have your software's part,
and then again, it's got afeature tree, so you can go in

(29:02):
there and edit whatever you wantto edit, right? And the cool
thing is, the cool thing is theplugin you install, but the AI
model gets better every threeweeks. Just like, mark for
software, just like, just like,okay, so if you, if you just,
like, take the summer off, whenyou come back, okay, your AI

(29:23):
convert will be better, right?
It just, it gets better every,every few weeks,

I may have missed something here. You said there
are two buttons. One is theImport button. What was the
other one?

Greg Mark (29:36):
One is, one is like, basically, uh bring a file into
backflip, like, import, and theother is export to SolidWorks.
Export windows. One is like,where 1/3 of it is like the back
flip side two thirds ofSolidWorks side you you import,
you bring your STL, it does theanalysis. It comes out with a
parametric model. And then youhit, basically, export to
SolidWorks, the imports on topand the exports the bottom in

(29:59):
blue. And. It's like, and thenthat's what drives SolidWorks,
and then makes your thing. Gotit, okay? Watching it dry.
SolidWorks is so cool.

So that's amazing functionality. Is there a future
where, you know how, like withDolly, right? It's text to
image? Is there a future wherethere's text to CAD model?

Greg Mark (30:19):
This is, this is a great and unknown question.
Okay, so here's what I can tellyou, we have an underlying we
have a new call it foundational.
We have a new AI foundationmodel, and it's like the words
first CAD model, and it'sawesome, right? And it gets
better every few weeks, right?
And there'll be a series ofinputs to it. The first input is
just scanning, okay? And anotherinput is an STL, I just take an

(30:43):
STL, okay. We are going to we'recurrently exploring a range of
inputs. But the question, themajor question, is, what is
going to help a eithertechnician or CAD user, get
their idea into CAD reallyquickly? Is it text? Is it
drawing on the screen? Is itdrawing on paper and taking a
photo? We're exploring all thesedifferent options with the goal

(31:05):
of, with the goal, there'll be aseries of successive releases.
The same way, you know, thesuccessive releases that that
help people get their idea intocat, right? So they can make
their idea rule, okay? And thenthe like, which ones are the
best ones? Nobody's ever done ityet, so we don't know. Okay, so
what I think? So I think, likeyou can imagine a future where
you say, hey, I'll give youexample. Let's say you're doing

(31:30):
machine design, okay? And youneed an XY rail, right? You
really shouldn't have to learnthat from scratch. You just
shouldn't, right? It's kind ofcrazy. You ought to be able to
say, give me an x ray rails, andit should populate it for you,
okay. But then there are otherthings that are, like, really
precise, where, if you're like,Hey, okay, like, the print

(31:51):
nozzle, the print head for themark, fourth printer files.
Like, give me a 3d print head,it will have no idea how to make
a mark for print, right? Andthen, like, and those, services
the tolerance of dimensions theyreally matter, right? So in that
situation, it's really aboutsaving me clicks and getting
from my idea into exactly what Iwant, like precisely, nothing

(32:14):
different what I want, asquickly as possible, and work
candidly, still figure thatinterface out, and that's why
and the way. So you know what wedid at mark for you, do a few
things. We then new technology,and then we'll listen to
customers. Like that was thesecret. Oh, we had the best
team. Okay, so it mentioned newtechnology. Had best team.
Listen very much to customers,and I'll give you a tell your

(32:38):
story. So Onyx is very popularmaterial. Actually, I don't
think ever told the story.
Honestly, you're hearingreverse, very popular material.
At the time, when we started thecompany, we had continuous
carbon fiber and what's calledneat nylon. So nylon with
nothing, no fillers in it, okay?
And the parts were all clearwith carbon fiber in it, and

(33:00):
honestly, they look like crap.
Okay? Because, like, it's justnot a good in carbon fiber and
traditional composite called agel coat. But the gel coating
doesn't look good, right? Justdoesn't okay. And I can tell you
why. It doesn't matter. Okay?
So, I was visiting a customer, aGerman auto manufacturer,
because their their mark two hadbeen kicked to Germany from

(33:23):
Boston like it had fallen off.
The plane had fallen off thetruck. They managed to the
shipper. And I'm not going toname names, bent the frame,
okay, by the way, you've, youknow the frame of the spreader.
Is it a little bit in your body?
Yeah. Two humans, I know thatone of them can jump on that
frame and not bend you can twohumans can jump on not bended.

(33:43):
Marines have done horrible thatnot, I did not know what this
company, okay, it's like, it'sreally, really fell okay. So,
so, okay. So we determined thatthe frame is Ben. There's no way
to fix those things because andthen the customer is like, you
know, Greg, I love yourcontinuous carbon fiber, but

(34:04):
there's a lot of times where Ican't fit it in. And I'm like,
Yeah, I understand, because wehave an overhead of plastic
inside. He's like, and while Ilove the strength, my favorite
part about it is actually itdoesn't bend. And of course it
would bend. Carbon fiber haszero coefficient thermal
expansion, like, in fact,slightly negative, but basically
zero. I'm like, so of course.
And then I was like, I was like,he's like, so can you just,
like, can you just make itsmaller? And I'm like, yes, and

(34:26):
no, like, Give me three months,right? And so make it smaller.
So can we make a continuouscarbon fiber? Tell smaller? No.
But what I was like, So, afterlike, so for the first year of
Mark Forge, I was like, we'renever doing chopped carbon
fibers, wasted time. It's notthat much stronger, right? We'll
never do it's a waste time,right? And it's gonna destroy,
it's gonna eat that. It's gonnadestroy the pregnant, like, just

(34:46):
horrible. Okay, you know, youthrow a glass filled dial
through an injection bowl. Ittears it up. Okay? So I come
back from Germany, and I'm like,All right, boys, it's time to do
chop carbon fiber. Come. Only180 complete. 180 okay, why?
Because, while I had originallybelieved that there was no
application for it, as soon aswe figured out there was, I'm

(35:07):
like, yo, it's like, it's astrong opinion held lightly,
right, as soon as we saw theapplication, I'm like, bro, I
was wrong. 180 we're doing thatas quickly as possible. We
popped out Onyx in like, threeor four months. It was crazy. We
shipped it over to those guys,and they were like, This is
exactly what we wanted. And thenas soon as we started pretty
with onyx, it's, I thought it'slike that 1000 as soon as we

(35:28):
started pretty with it, werealized, dude, my co founder,
David, and the software team,they were always having to
balance, like, too much cooling,too little cooling, parts
warping to store on all thesedifferent arbitrary shapes,
right by the way, doing allthose different arbitrary shapes
is why David now can make allthe 50 million CAD shapes that
we had to make to train backflip. But anyway, so these
things are bending in the story,and then the Onyx comes out. And

(35:51):
I'm like, we're never printingneed nylon ever again, just like
the whole company went blackwhere I was like, that's it. We
will, we will keep the neednylon. There's no more support
for it. We are. We're 100 on itscompany like, and it's and, you
know, it's like, if you need anon Mari wear surface, then
meat. Nylon is cool. Butotherwise, onyx is just better,

(36:12):
better material.

We love Onyx. I mean, probably 95% of what we
print is Onyx. We have a marktwo, and so we can do continuous
carbon fiber, and it's great forthe 5% of time we need it. But,
you know, the Onyx is prettyremarkable on its own.

Greg Mark (36:30):
What I tell people is, it's like a pickup truck.
Okay, you're gonna pick uptruck. You're not loading the
bed all the time, right? Thecontinuous carbon fiber you
don't need all the time. Whenyou need it, it's amazing, yeah,
right. But like pure what it isis what it is. Now this has been
time thinking about this. Whenyou make an aluminum part, most
of the time it's over designed.
You didn't actually need allthat strength, and so as an

(36:52):
engineer, before 3d printing,the base material that we kind
of thought of was aluminum,because it threads so nicely. It
doesn't really feel it thread sonicely, okay? So it's like,
well, you make it a plastic witha plastic bend. It's hard to
hold device. It's hard to clampon it. The threads are shitty.
Like, you know, you're like,unless you're using, like, all
10, which is a cool plastic.

(37:13):
Otherwise you don't want to seeanything machine, like a nylon.
It's not worth your machine. Itmight as well be, right? So we
just as as a as a machinist, wejust all think about aluminum,
right? And then once you getused to onyx, you're like, wow,
I've been over designing a bunchof stuff. Yeah, right. And
that's when you realize youcould, like, dial it back.

We had an experience one time where we
were delivering a machine, orscheduled to deliver a machine,
and a part, I can't remember ifthe part broke or we didn't, I
think we didn't get the part intime, and we were supposed to
deliver this thing the next day,so we were up late trying to
figure out, you know, what do wedo here? And we said, let's just
print it on the mark two andstuff it with continuous carbon

(37:55):
fiber. It was an aluminum partthat we needed, and we really
did need it to be very stiff andrigid, and so we stuffed this
part with continuous carbonfiber. We had it ready, like 3am
right that morning, and we putit on our machine, and, boom,
worked perfectly. And that's howwe that's how we delivered it to
the customer. So it was a prettyawesome solution,

Greg Mark (38:15):
literally, that is, that is the exact story. It is.
It is a, what I call a wartimesolution, okay, so when you're
there are rules for what you'reallowed to field in the
military, and there are wartimeexemptions, okay? Because
they're practical. Okay? There'sthe same people rose for
engineering men. It's like you,you would have been, you would

(38:36):
never fit that out a little bitof a chat to, right? You would
never shift to and then peopletry it, it works. And all said,
it's this light bulb moment. Andwe did it ourselves. We were
designing these printers, one ofour engineers, I was like, he
was going to see him, Teammachine apart. And I was like,
why don't you three print it?
And he looks at me, and we'reit's late, we're all tired.
That's when he goes, because Ineed it to work, dude. And then
he just realized that he toldyou, he's like, Okay. I was

(38:58):
like. I was like, Dude, I'mhappy to watch your CNC this
thing. But you know, it takeslike 30 seconds to get off on
the printer. Just try it, seewhat it does. Okay? So he kicks
the print off, and then he'scoding the thing. He's sending
the pictures. He's done thefirst stop done with the
machine. While he's getting thefirst stop done to threat part,
the three printer. Partfinishes. He picks out the

(39:20):
printer. It's a spool holder,and he's like, puts in the
spoons. Like, wow, it fits. Andthen he puts, like, the maiden
piece into like, oh, it fitstoo. And he puts on the machine.
He's like, he's like, Oh, itholds a load. And I look at his
face, and he was like, and itwas like, he discovered fire. He
was like, holy, and dude, thenhe three printed everything,

(39:41):
right? That's the we as humans.
We need to feel. Need to feelit, that intuition, to believe
it. We need to believe it canwork, because it's all,
especially mechanical engineers.
Everything is a theory that wedon't trust. Until we feel it,
we see it for ourselves.
Because. Right? Because theworld relies on mechanical

(40:01):
engineers to build thingssafely. Okay? We're like, the
gatekeeper of safety, like,we're like, caption safety for
the entire world, right? So theworld needs us to be
conservative, because we have,you know, we're the safety
people. Like, we make your carssafe, we make your planes safe,
make your building safe, like wehave to be. We make your bridges
safe, right? So mechanic years,it's ingrained in us, like, you

(40:23):
know, I have to really feel itand see it and analyze it and
stress test it and bend it tobelieve it. But then once you
have that thing, it's this bigunlock, and you're like, oh, I
can make stuff faster. I canmake stuff more effectively. I
can, you know, solve problemslike superpower

and a funny way.
This reminds me that storyreminds me of my kids eating my
wife's cooking. They're alwayslike, No, I don't want to eat
it. It's gross. I don't likethis. Blah, blah, blah. And then
they eat it, and they're like,Oh, that was actually good. I
can eat mom's cooking. Yeah?

Greg Mark (40:53):
That is how that is.
You know, people don't. It'slike, the green eggs and ham.
Man, it's green eggs and ham,right? Perfect.

Yeah, all right, let's talk a little bit about
entrepreneurship and startingbusinesses. So you've founded
multiple companies at thispoint. How do you go about
evaluating whether an idea isworth putting the time and
effort into really building acompany around?

Greg Mark (41:18):
That's a great question. It's funny. So the
first thing is, the firstquestion is, imagine that so as
an engineer, where the firsttime the start of company, you
get really focused on, can Ibuild it? Right? And there's a
trick that you have to learnfrom venture capitalists, and
the trick is they just assumeyou can build it, because
sometimes it causes them giantdisasters, okay? But they just

(41:39):
so, they just like, Okay, let meassume you can build it. Does
anybody care? Okay, there's aNetflix documentary called
something ventured. If you wantto be an entrepreneur, you got
to watch a documentary. It'sabout that. It's about the
history of venture capital, andit's a great documentary. But
the things that, the things youwant to do, the first question
is like, let's say you build aSIG. How big is the market. Does

(42:00):
anybody care? Does anybody care?
And how much will they pay forit? And can you build a business
out? So the thing with buildingbusinesses, you've got to be
able to fund the business in ascalable way. Okay, what does
that mean? Like, it's like,okay, Mark, forge hit break
even, or we're doing 30 millionof revenue every dollar we made
a profit, we pumped back intothe business, every dollar, like

(42:22):
nobody was there was no likeprofit distribution at the end
of the year, right? And so ifyour business is profitable and
growing quickly, you can investin R, D. If your business is not
profitable and growing quickly,you cannot. That's just it.
Okay. So what you want to do isyou need to, so this is balance.
You need to price it high enoughthat you can make enough margin

(42:44):
that you can actually grow thebusiness, and you price it low
enough that the when thecustomer looks at they're like,
I get incredible value, evenafter having paid that right?
And so you want, you got tobalance that right. So you want
to do something, it's like, youneed to make a product that
people are going to love. Youneed to be able to sell it for a
high price, low on us that theycan afford it, and it makes
their life more efficient andbetter, but high enough that you
can get what's called free cashflow to pump back into the

(43:06):
business, to fund to hireengineers, hire product
managers, hire salespeople, hirethe finance person to keep the
books, hire the lawyer to makesure you're not getting sued,
like you got to pay all thesepeople. And that comes, that
comes from the profit, right? Sothat. So the thing, you know,
and there's a funny thing where,40 years ago, people would build
an entire product, themarketing, the package, the

(43:29):
entire thing, and they wouldlaunch it, right? And then, you
know, 20 years ago, people were,like, had this notion of minimum
viable product. Like, let me geta product to the market quickly
and see if people care. So youspend like, half the time
building it, half the cost,whatever. Maybe you do less than
that, and then you ship thefirst thing. Look at Mark one.
It wasn't perfect, by the way,neither was the first iPhone.
And actually, my favoritestories, the first iPhone didn't

(43:51):
have cut copy paste, like abasic feature, a basic gas
feature, cut copy paste absentfrom the first iPhone.

I had forgotten about that, but now that you
mentioned it, I remember that,okay, but people loved it,

Greg Mark (44:08):
okay. And that's the magic. And there was this, there
was this, like side of friendworking apple. And, you know,
because the previous version ofthe iPhone and they were
shipped, they were all ready toship this thing, and Job was
playing with it. He talking toJohnny, and he's like, I don't
love it. And Johnny's like, Idon't love it either. And Job's
like, fix it, man, right? Andfix it was a very expensive this

(44:29):
is, this is not, this is not atrivial thing. This is like, a
really fear inducing thing. It'slike, you're tooled up, your
factories are ready, yourmarketing is ready. And Job is
like, Nope, you're gonna have togo in another direction, because
I just don't love it. Okay? Youokay? And the key point here is
they got to something that theyloved, and we all loved, but it
was an imperfect product, soyou've got to figure out what

(44:54):
can be imperfect about yourproduct, but people love it,
okay? So, okay, I'll give youanother example. I. Enzo
Ferrari, okay, the entire timehe lived, the body panels on his
cars never lined up. Worth aday, right? And he famously
said, someone just complainedabout this. And he said, I don't
care if the body panels line upwhen the driver steps in the

(45:15):
gas, he should shit his pants,right? Okay, so what is Enzo
telling you? End of the productmanager, he has an intuition.
What do you intuition. What areyou telling you? He's telling
you. He's telling you, I havelimited resources. Okay, I have
limited resources. I got to putthem somewhere. Am I going to
put them into hiring people todo the Toyota thing and make
everything perfectly lined up?
No, I'm going to put all mymoney to the engine, and my

(45:38):
engine is gonna sin, and whenyou step on the gas, you're
gonna shit your pants now. Andthey're also had great handling,
great suspension, but, but heknew there were things that he
could get away with, okay,features that like people would
want but they don't really need.
And if he really focus all ofhis chips on this other thing,

(45:59):
he would have very special car,right? And so you've got to
figure out, in the in yourchosen profession, in the
product you want to build, whatis the essence that somebody
that's going to make somebodylove it and they need that
thing, and you want to doubledown that essence, and what are
the things that you can justI'll give you example. One thing
to now ship example mark for hisprinters, print Slow as hell.

(46:21):
Okay, they're faster now, okay,but when we started, when we
started, everybody asked me togo faster. Okay? Because, you
know, it's like watching grassgrow. And I was like, No, okay.
I was like, we don't have enoughpeople. We're going to focus on
reliability. Because if you'repart, we're going back to the
thing mechanical engineers.
We're in charge of safety andrepeatability. So I was like, I
should tell our engineers everytime this came up, like, you

(46:43):
know, how fast the world'sfastest carbon power three
printer prints that fast, right?
As fast? Okay, we're the bar.
Okay. Now whether or notsomebody loves us is not if the
part finishes 20 minutes early,okay, if such it works. And way
back in the first few years,we'd have part failures. Okay?
So you, you know, you print outa part, you go home, you go to
sleep, you come back, and you'vegot a spool of trash of our

(47:05):
bird's nest. You're veryunhappy. Okay? It took 20
minutes longer. You totally okaywith it. The 20 minutes longer
cut, copy, paste bird nest.
Don't love it, right? Once wegot so we, we said we're gonna,
oh no, not control, move all thevariables where to print this
exact same speed and focus allof our effort on reliability.

(47:26):
Everything we got, we're goingto make it reliable across the
entire range of parts. If youhaven't get a part that you
can't print, you get to getsupport button, which we have
printed for you, right? Andthen, and then we prefer for you
and everybody else, right? Likewe update the algorithm.
Everybody gets that part. So wereally obsessed over getting you
really strong parts reliablythat you could depend on, right?

(47:46):
And then, once we got there,then we started making go
faster. Now, then it went twiceas fast, in fact, like that was
the that was the order ofreparations. So when, if you're
an entrepreneur and you'rethinking about doing business,
figure out what is it that willmake people love it. And what
are the features you can say noto? It's almost more important
what you say no to than what yousay yes to. Okay, you got to say

(48:09):
yes to, like, one or two thingsand no 10 things. Like, it's
like, it's like a 10 to one.

Well, I just found the intro to this episode right
there. That was perfect.
Incredible insight. Fantasticinsight. Thank you so much for
sharing that. I have so manymore questions that I want to
ask you, and we're not going toget to all of them. Let me just
end with this last one here. Youhad a really cool experience as
a senior, I think, in highschool, getting a job making
custom bicycle frames, and itdemonstrated your ability to be

(48:40):
persistent. So the question hereis, first of all, can you share
that story briefly, and thenwhat? To what degree has
persistence shaped your careeras an entrepreneur?

Greg Mark (48:52):
Oh, man, my mentor once said, in our society,
persistence is heavily rewarded,not in all societies, but in our
society. Okay, so I was abicycle mechanic at the time,
and I wanted to make this custombicycle frames, and I had signed
up at my school to take twoperiods off to go do this
internship. Okay, assuming thatI would get it, having never

(49:15):
talked to people who actuallyhad to say yes. And so, you
know, you know, because you knowhow it goes. So school starts,
and I show up, and I'm like,hey, I want to do an internship.
I hear you this thing. And theguy goes, Dave Ross is the main
really good guy, great guy. Andhe says, Dave says, we only
take, like, college grads, maybea college you're not a high

(49:37):
school kid, right? And I'm like,No man. Like, you know, I'm
gonna work really hard. I wouldfix bicycles. I'm good at fixing
bicycles. I'm, you know, like,like, you don't have to pay me,
dude, I'll be free. Like, youknow, like, you know, like, I'm
negotiating against myself. I'mlike, I'm free, man, you had to
pay me. I'll hit the floor. I'lldig on the trash. And he's like,
No, dude, no, okay, okay. So I'mlike, fuck. So I get in the car

(49:58):
and I go home, and. And I'mlike, I'm really fucked right
now. And then, like, my schoolteacher is like, is like, you
know, hey, I need you to yourinternship advisor, sign this
thing. And I'm like, so I didn'thave a choice, man, so I gotta
go back. I go back the next day,and I show my company's like,
Wait, Judy, I'm like, do Ireally this job? I don't know

(50:21):
about you, but, like, I don'tknow about you, but like, I need
to work here, right? I just, Ineed to be here, right? I was
like, man, like, okay, so thenhe, like, so he, he, he lets me
try. Okay, let me try. My firstday, I've never fucked up so
much in my life. Okay? My firstday, I'm sweeping the floor. I'm
doing stuff. This is fine. I'mworking there for, like,

(50:43):
supposed to be two hourinternship there for five hours
every day, okay, so, like, maybemore. And then I've got to drill
this water bottle hole. Okay, sothis is a fixture, the first
picture ever use. And it's got,like, little Bucha into fixture.
You drill it, okay, when yourotate it, you slide it down. So
the water bottles can be, youknow, offset from each other on
the on the downtube, okay, well,I drill the hole, I slide it

(51:05):
over, and don't index it down.
So I drill the hole exactlyopposite from each other. And
it's like, and, you know, I gota fucking hole in a bicycle the
wrong place. And they like, andthey've got a weld. Fill in that
hole grow. And the time I don'tweld and weld it, fill it in,
dry it down, and, you know, reheat treat the bike. Okay? So
it's like, Fuck man, okay, that.

(51:26):
And then I fucked up a serialnumber. Like, I just, I mean,
like, Dude, I think because Iwas stressed, because I fucked
the whole up this, like, again,this never happens to me, okay?
And like, and then Dave to thekindness of his heart, like, you
had a bad day. And, like, I hada really bad day, and he's like,
I'll give you one more chance.
And he did, right? It was agreat guy about it. And then,
then I became a great employeefor him. I, like, I kicked ass,

(51:48):
I worked hard, I was cheap.
Like, you know what? Did a bunchof stuff, and it was, it was a
great relationship for allparties. So, like, it's great
guy, but I would, but I wouldtell you is, man, it takes a lot
of nos to get to yes. And by theway, you know because you're in
your podcast as being anengineer, is, you know,

(52:09):
engineers have a love haterelationship with salespeople,
okay, but if there's one thingthat engineers should really
learn from salespeople, a goodsalesperson knows that there's
10 no's forever, yes, okay? Andyou cannot let the no stop you.
Okay? You get a no. Customersays no. You do like, I hope
this is a no for now and notforever. And you come back if

(52:32):
you know hope is a no for nowand not forever, okay? And if
you, if you have a good product,it's a good product, and you're
a good person, often that willturn into a Yes, fantastic.

Such great advice.
You said something else at thebeginning of that story that
that struck me as being animportant mindset for an
entrepreneur. You said that youdidn't even have this job, this
internship with the bikecompany, when you told your
school that I need two periodsoff so I can go do this. And I
think that is entrepreneurs. Ithink that we often just assume
that we can do this thing, likeother people assume we can't do

(53:06):
that because of A and B and C.
But entrepreneurs often have themindset that I don't know how to
do this, but I assume I canfigure it out. I assume I can
make this work, and then we justmove forward and we figure it

Greg Mark (53:20):
out, yes, and I think it's like the words are suspend
disbelief. Okay, so, so anentrepreneur shares a lot, you
know, if you look at the Venndiagram of entrepreneur and
crazy person, there's a fairamount of overlap, okay, does
entrepreneur believe in a futurethat does not exist yet that is

(53:40):
incredibly hard to achieve,okay? And they live in this
reality where they think that'sgonna happen, like this crazy
thing is gonna happen, okay? Andyou just have to, you just have
to suspend disbelief. And if youthis is crazy, drops quote, he
says, the people who are crazyenough to think they can change

(54:02):
the world are the ones who do

Amen, brother. I love that. Greg. Thank you so
much. This has been a phenomenalhour. Thank you for sharing your
time with us and your wisdom andyour insights. I think a lot of
people are really going to enjoythis episode and benefit from
it. Is there anything else wehaven't touched on that you'd
like to leave us with as weclose out this conversation?

Greg Mark (54:25):
I think this was great. I think you asked great
questions and like, I'm gladyou're happy with your printer,
and I hope you get to I'd loveto hear feedback on backflip,
and I think you're gonna loveit. I'm looking forward to it.
Thank you, Greg, it was apleasure. Man. Do us do it again
sometime.

I'm Aaron moncur, founder of pipeline design and
engineering. If you liked whatyou heard today, please share
the episode to learn how yourteam can leverage our team's
expertise developing advancedmanufacturing processes,
automated machines and customfixtures, complemented with
product design and R and Dservices. This. Visit us at Team

(55:01):
pipeline.us. To join a vibrantcommunity of engineers online
visit the wave. Dot, engineer,thank you for listening. You.

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S6E12 Greg Mark | Founding Markforged & Backflip.ai

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S6E12 Greg Mark | Founding Markforged & Backflip.ai