In a recent conversation with Joey Mullick, Managing Director of Skara Ventures, one core message stood out: Additive manufacturing isn't a monolith – it’s a machine tool.
And the sooner we as an industry embrace that mindset, the faster we can escape the hype cycle and deliver real, scalable value to our customers.
Watch the full conversation with Joey Mullick, Skara Ventures.
From Emergency Spares to Enduring Strategy
Joey’s journey into additive began not with a shiny conference or a disruptive tech stack, but with a late-night problem: broken parts on an automotive factory floor and no fast way to replace them. What started as emergency spare parts sourcing evolved into a value-added service – leveraging AM to produce parts that traditional manufacturing couldn’t touch.
The kicker? His company wasn’t trying to “do additive.” They were solving real customer problems. Additive just happened to be the right tool.
That’s the shift.
The Additive Maturity Curve: From Tchotchkes to Tools
Mullick critiques what he calls the “tchotchke phase” of additive – a time when companies were printing novelty items simply because they could. But that era is behind us. The AM field has matured. Today, the real wins come from applications where additive is the only viable solution, not the shiny new option.
"We think of additive as an industry and we should be thinking about ourselves more as a machine tool. People don't hem and haw over if they're buying a Craftsman screwdriver or another brand. Each additive technology is a tool in the tool belt vs. a holistic industry."
This reflects what many of us at B9Creations have seen firsthand. When additive becomes a tool for solving tough manufacturing problems – like enabling product geometries no CNC machine could touch, or shortening a critical time-to-part in a regulated environment – it shifts from an experiment to an operational asset.
Advice to AM Adopters: Focus, Then Scale
Joey’s advice to business leaders exploring AM is blunt but brilliant: “Don’t try to solve 10 different problems with 10 different processes.” Instead, go narrow and deep. Identify a painful part family, understand the failure points, and solve them with a specific, dialed-in process.
At B9Creations, we’ve seen this approach deliver transformational outcomes in industries from medtech to aerospace to custom manufacturing. Whether it’s high-precision turbine blade components or microscale medical devices, our partners win when AM is tailored to one problem space—then scaled from there.
Additive Is a Relationship, Not a Revolution
The other insight from Joey that resonated: “People don’t hem and haw over screwdriver brands. They choose a tool, build a relationship, and use it when needed.”
This is how the best AM partnerships work. Not as revolutionary disruptions, but as trust-based relationships with reliable tools, responsive support, and proven outcomes. B9Creations has built its reputation not by chasing hype, but by helping customers win real-world manufacturing battles – whether that means onboarding a single bioprinting lab or scaling a production-grade aerospace line.
A New Definition of “Great”
When asked what makes a great company today, Joey didn’t talk about unicorn valuations or press releases. He talked about generational value – about building companies where families work for decades, where integrity, sustainability, and people matter.
That’s a vision we share at B9Creations. As a company proudly manufacturing in the U.S., we’re not just building printers – we’re building partnerships, ecosystems, and businesses that last.
"American made is an advantage, as it gives users transparency to the their supply chain."
Ready to Make Additive a Strategic Advantage?
If you’re done chasing hype and ready to build a focused, scalable AM strategy that delivers real business value, let’s talk.
Book a 30-Min Additive Readiness Consult »
We’ll review your goals, identify the best-fit applications, and share how leading manufacturers are making additive work—without reinventing their entire operation.