NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

This 3D Printer Is 15 Times Faster, and the Army Is Already Buying It

If 3D printing is going to hit speed that manufacturing requires, the improvement will need to be exponential.

 

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

Sep 29, 2026

 

I think we’ve all concluded that the bloom is somewhat off the rose in terms of 3D printing. Like so many extraordinary advances in science and technology that appear akin to magic for a while, watching a machine that looked vaguely like your microwave turn spools of plastic into physical representations of everyday objects you’d just drawn on your computer was a pretty amazing experience. You could print precision parts, you could print pizzas, and eventually you could print entire buildings. And while Yoda from Star Wars was for years the most frequently printed object, there were plenty of serious and important applications in pharmaceuticals, construction and surgery, to name a few.

There was, however, an unspoken issue that too many of the earliest enthusiasts overlooked, whether intentionally or inadvertently—or because so much of the formative experimentation and developmental work took place in academic environments where time and money were secondary concerns. In any event, for whatever reason, 3D printing hit a fairly substantial barrier in the area of manufacturing, where you might have expected that it would absolutely and rapidly thrive.

The problem was that it just took too darn long to get the job done. Or, as the comedian Stephen Wright used to say: everywhere is walking distance if you have the time. In the hurry-up world that we live in today, where nobody wants to wait for anything, this was a serious impediment and somewhat comparable to one of the biggest obstacles that we’re seeing with the adoption of EVs. While it may only take an hour using a high-speed hook-up to charge your Tesla, you’re still going to waste several hours if you have to wait in line behind a few other people waiting to do the same thing. If it takes 20 minutes to fabricate a single part that a machine could stamp out hundreds of in the same period of time, you’re never going to win the race to replace the old fabrication methods.

Manufacturing assembly lines work on the weakest link theory: that the slowest action or process in the production chain is what dictates the speed of the entire operation. If 3D printing is ever going to graduate to the level of speed that volume manufacturing requires, the improvement in the amount of time required to produce a single part will need to be exponential, not incremental. The span is similar to the best runner in the world, competing in a sprint against an F1 race car. We’re talking about the difference between a system capable of printing a part every 10 seconds as compared to the current production rate that could be hours per part.

I may have seen the future recently at a company called Impossible Objects, which has built next-generation printing systems for manufacturers that it says operate 15 times faster than the current competition and turn out parts that are stronger, lighter, and more precisely honed. Their current machines (backed by dozens of issued patents) already set the bar extraordinarily high, but they expect that the next quantum jump in production speed will be on the order of 65 times. Speaking to the leaders of this team, you get the distinct impression of two ideas that they hold near and dear: (1) if you don’t know it’s impossible, it’s easier to do; and (2) it always seems impossible until it’s done.

Keep in mind that these are not toys or lightweight demos, these are industrial production-grade materials as strong as aluminum (on a strength-to-weight basis), which can be produced at traditional manufacturing-like costs. In addition, because many of the new products they are producing (specifically for military applications) require complex geometries, they simply cannot be executed and accomplished with prior injection molding tech. In order to even imagine these new solutions, there had to be a heavy dose of dreams and wish casting. But they got there and have demonstrated something that every good entrepreneur knows: the only thing that ultimately keeps a dream from being achieved is the fear of failure.

Whether you believe the objective warfare observers along with certain of our own independent government agencies or the latest lies of the drunk running the Pentagon, the fact is that, for our military to remain effective and competitive, they will need to take huge steps forward in every aspect of drone warfare and especially in terms of developing and manufacturing hyper-lightweight disposable devices designed for one-way munition delivery. The hardest challenge for changemakers and innovators is always to get the folks in charge to give up the ways that have worked fairly well for them in the past, but fortunately here, there’s very little in the past to discard.

The latest Impossible Objects machine, which the U.S. Army has already purchased, will produce 10,000 drones per month with a near term production target of 120,000 UAV bodies per year. In addition to the machines themselves, the company supplies its customers with substantial volumes of proprietary consumables which its machines turn into these devices. The annual value of the consumables is about five times the cost of the machines themselves and these materials are not available anywhere else for a variety of reasons.

At first, dreams seem impossible; then improbable; and then inevitable.

HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO DISCUSS HIS LATEST INC. MAGAZINE ARTICLE

 LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Xfinity Is Turning WiFi Into Home Security. ADT and Brinks Should Pay Attention

Disruptive innovation and competition can come from anyone and anywhere.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

Sep 22, 2026

Every time I pay a bill for my home security service, I find myself wondering exactly what the value is that I’m allegedly receiving. It’s been a few decades and there hasn’t been a single instance of activity—our pets don’t even trigger any alarms. I’m pretty sure we’re among the millions of families who’ve gone for months if not longer without ever even turning the systems on. We do replace the batteries in our smoke alarms on a regular basis, but they don’t really depend on paying Brinks or ADT in order to operate.

If my insurance company didn’t offer me some modest home insurance discount for having the service, I’m pretty sure we would have bagged the whole thing by now. I guess we’d keep the signs and window stickers, as those are probably the major deterrents in the whole deal. I’m sure there are folks who can recite hair-raising and instructive instances of the benefit of these services, but it’s certainly not me. It feels a little like buying flood insurance when you live in the middle of the desert, although with climate change these days, I guess even those folks can’t be sure of what’s coming down the pipe. They can be certain, however, that if they suffer a loss, their gigantic deductible will make sure that they feel some significant portion of the pain.

All of which brings me to a new offer by Xfinity that seems to raise a serious competitive threat to the firms protecting us against home invasions, break-ins and burglaries. It’s called Xfinity Shield, which is described as an “always-on” home protection and security platform. I want to give them immediate props for recognizing that we lazy civilians can’t really be trusted to turn our own systems on and off on a daily basis. Their new basic program is free and relies on your existing WiFi and certain other equipment in order to work. Don’t get me started on how often my WiFi and cable connections go down, but it happens more often than you’d expect.

In any event, while I often talk about the many benefits of riding someone else’s rails, which means to partner or rev share so you can utilize their existing channels and infrastructure in order to avoid the costs of building your own, it’s even smarter and cheaper to double down and add, extend or bolster your existing offerings and infrastructure to create new products and services that you can provide to your existing customer base. But the Shield service is a great example of another important competitive strategy which is moving into adjacent markets where there are substantial opportunities. Frankly, I would guess that the major security firms—even with the advent of Ring doorbells and similar offerings—wouldn’t ever have imagined that entities like Xfinity would move directly into their space.

The WiFi Shield service provides in-house movement alerts and nighttime monitoring without incremental hardware. The claim (which I’m not vouching for) is that enhancements to their WiFi services will detect changes in the radio frequency signals that are being constantly passed between their Gateway head device and WiFi-connected devices in the home and then send a signal to you through their phone app when there are unfamiliar or unexpected changes. As long as you sleep with your phone nearby, I guess this works if the notifications are audible, although the one thing I don’t love about my current system is the absolutely deafening sirens that go off inside and outside the house, which aren’t part of the basic Xfinity deal. Needless to say, for additional fees, there’s a full menu of additional equipment, cameras, services, and upcharges which will let you build a system that more closely resembles the typical home platforms and packages.

The simple morale of this whole story is that disruptive innovation and competition can come from anyone and anywhere including the players we regard as laggards and last generation performers who are stuck in the hardware business while software rules the world. But the Xfinity Shield is a very important example of how new technology and advanced software and signaling can take existing rails and connections and re-energize and update them to support and offer new competitive services at price points (including free) that will give the big guys in security like Brinks and ADT plenty of headaches beyond wondering about Ring and its doorbells.

 

HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO DISCUSS HIS INC. MAGAZINE ARTICLE ON SERIAL ENTREPRENEURS

 LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 College Costs More Than Ever. Too Many Graduates Still Arrive at Work Missing the Basics

Employers across the country report that they’re spending far too much time teaching their newest employees basic skills because their colleges didn’t.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

Aug 31, 2026

As millions of incoming freshmen begin their college experiences, I was struck by how little confidence I—and likely most of their parents—have in the likelihood that their very costly four-year investment in their children’s further education will pay off down the road, in terms of better preparation for their post-college employment prospects and life in general. The only relief for many of these folks (which is a mixed blessing at best) is that their kids have less and less chance of getting into the “name” schools these days. That may not be all that bad a piece of news, because regardless of what’s being taught at those exotic places, the bottom line is that many of the kids aren’t learning the critical things they need.

Employers across the country report that they’re spending far too much time teaching their newest employees how to read, write, spell and otherwise communicate because their colleges didn’t. This is not to automatically say that there’s no clear benefit for millions of students to slogging through four years of the maturation process—it’s clearly supposed to be where you start to develop your people skills and work ethic, along with patience and perseverance. But most of those skills and qualities aren’t learned in the classroom anyway. And, just to be blunt, any thought that AI tools will address and resolve these newbie deficiencies is a foolish idea that has already been shown to be a growing problem rather than any kind of efficient supplement or solution to their astonishing lack of preparation.

In addition, these practical and operational problems are actually dwarfed by the attitudinal deficiencies which accompany these new arrivals after four years of browbeating, lecturing, and indoctrination by professors who think they’re exempt from and far above the daily fray of making a living.

By and large, the insulated and isolated professors who populate too many tenured positions in many of our most expensive and sought after universities regard themselves as too good to bother teaching the basic skill sets and tools that their students will actually need to succeed in the future. Note that I no longer say or believe that these are the “best” schools because—reputation value, branding, and networking connections aside—they simply aren’t getting the job of educating and equipping our next generation of scholars, researchers and leaders done. And the most expensive and elitist of them are among the worst. In addition, for millions of young Americans, two-year vocational schools offer a better, more practical and cost-effective, and quicker path into the real world than the four expensive years at most colleges.

But I’m seeing a glimmer of hope that some schools, some parents and some employers are all starting to take a few steps back and beginning to reemphasize such formerly verboten concepts as reliance on standardized test scores for admittance, resurrecting the traditional idea that math is objective and that there are right and wrong answers that are not subject to debate, and requiring students to stand and present their work to their peers. Smart parents can and need to take an active role in teaching their kids the most basic and important ideas all along the way as to what actually matters.

And, here again, the real bottom line and old-fashioned considerations that we need to teach our kids if the schools are dropping the ball are what I have forever called The Perspiration Principles. Passion (Care More than Others Think is Wise); Preparation (Study More than Others Think is Smart); Perspiration (Work Harder than Others Think is Possible); Perseverance (Stay in the Game When Others Give Up) and Principles (Stick to Your Values and Beliefs When Others Start to Wobble).

HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO DISCUSS THE GRAMMYS AND BTS

 

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

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NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Brand Extensions Are Supposed to Create Value. The Grammys Show How They Can Destroy It.

BTS recently pulled its newest album from award considerations after the Grammys announced a new music category. It’s an important lesson for entrepreneurs about diluting your brand.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

AUG 25, 2026

TS perform onstage during the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 03, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo: Getty Images

I wrote some time ago about how BTS, one of the biggest bands in the world these days, was developing their own platform that would permit them to “own” a direct and persistent connection to their fans that was free of the many gatekeepers and parasites that have traditionally controlled the music industry. This would permit them to sell swag, special access, live podcasts, and eventually even tickets fee-free to their fans. Another upcoming artist, GiaNina Paolantonia, has similarly built her own platform and app in order to communicate with, connect to, and engage with her fans and followers.

The music industry is like a multi-headed hydra, however, and always has another card to play. The Grammys, an industry organ for decades, just announced a new music category specifically for Asian music in a transparent and expansive attempt to segregate BTS and all the other popular artists and bands from South Korea and elsewhere in Asia. Keeping these performers in their new and narrow vertical prevents these massively popular and emergent artists and rapidly growing music groups from dominating the main award categories which the “industry” prefers to reserve for their own in-house acts. As a reaction, BTS pulled its newest album from award consideration and urged others to do the same. Years ago, the same approach and treatment was used to keep Michael Jackson out of the Grammy Pop category even as he was declared the “King of Pop” and had some of the biggest and best-selling albums in history. And don’t get me started on the years-long shabby treatment accorded to everyone in the Hip hop world.

What really struck me about this latest move was the unbelievable proliferation of award categories that the Grammys have manufactured to continue to slice, dice, minimize and otherwise control the artists and the entire awards process along with all the acclaim, access, financial rewards and other benefits that accompany such recognition. In 1959, there were 28 award categories. Today, albeit more than half a century later, there are 100.

You can decide what real value or meaning any of the “minor” awards actually has, even assuming that the typical consumer actually understood what criteria went into each award and what behavior, achievements or results it recognized and acknowledged. The more tangential awards, of course, the less meaningful each becomes. Spread a mile wide and an inch deep, even the performers can barely bring themselves to sincerely express their gratitude for the Potemkin efforts. The brand and the bragging rights diminish in direct proportion to the number of categories and trophies much like childhood sporting events where virtually everyone’s a winner just for showing up.

Alas, the music biz isn’t alone in meaningless brand extrapolations. We’ve seen dozens of aborted attempts to spread a brand gloss over a grossly mismatched product. Colgate beef lasagna, vegetable-flavored Jell-O, Life Savers soda, Frito Lay lemonade, Cosmopolitan magazine yogurt and my personal favorite, Harley-Davidson perfume. There’s a lot to be said for sticking to your knitting. It may not be new and exciting, but it will likely keep you from falling flat on your face. Brands aren’t concrete and can stretch reasonably far, but not to excess.

There’s no one greater than JD Power at creating an award for every suitor in every automotive category and now expanding into virtually any and every imaginable area of products or services under the sun. You too can win a narrowly drawn JD Power award for the best of something accomplishment in your space—whatever it may be—and even if it’s only for your efforts on Sundays in months having 28 days. You get the idea. Winners galore and all willing to pay wonderful fees to use and promote that recognition in their advertising.

A close second in the race for exponential category growth and the clear winner in shamelessness are the fine folks at Guinness World Records, who invite the entire world to invent records of all types and sizes and then submit them to Guinness for a very costly validation process (Guinness is happy to provide paid consultants to advise applicants) along with judges and witnesses.

Once the months’ long confirmation process is concluded, Guinness provides a framed piece of paper with their brand and seal which recognizes the newly created and established record. They’ll also sell a framed “You Were There” Guinness certificate to every attendee at any Guinness record-setting event. Here again, the very DIY nature of this “record” creation process and the massive number of claimed records makes one wonder about the value of the end product and frankly what the Guinness name or brand even brings to the process. Nonetheless Guinness claims that it receives almost 1000 record proposals and applications per week and over 50,000 submissions a year. 

A pair of Chicago twin brothers who have taken and documented over 82,000 selfies since the Apple iPhone camera was front facing enabled in 2010 are the likely holders of the putative Guinness World Record for “selfies taken by twin brothers” and to date, as their application process proceeds, no one has come forward to dispute or contest this amazing achievement. Taking a page from Michael Jackson, they now call themselves the Selfie Kings. Apparently, in the world of world records, saying makes it so.