💼 On-Demand Printing (Business Feature #4)

May 17, 2024

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🤔What It Is

PrintWithMe places printers in large residential buildings and businesses like coffee shops to provide on-demand printing access at locations near you

💸The Business

One of the ways we research companies for this newsletter is by looking at the websites of Venture Capital (VC) funds to see the companies they invest in. Most of the time, VC funds are invested in cool and innovative tech companies, or companies with novel ideas that seek to change society as we know it.

So, when we saw PrintWithMe as a portfolio company on the website of a VC fund, we were stunned! We asked ourselves questions like, “Who even needs to print anymore?” and “Printers are much cheaper now, don’t most people who need a printer have one?” We wondered why the heck a VC firm would invest in a printing company.

It turns out that, from a business perspective, it’s actually a pretty compelling company.

PrintWithMe provides convenient printing access to people and companies in typically large metropolis areas, and specifically in places like large residential buildings, coffeeshops, hotels, and co-working spaces.

You could be a resident of the building, or maybe a local neighbor. Either the case, PrintWithMe offers a map of available printers, so you can see where the closest printing location is to you:

Sample map of locations in Chicago

You can upload the documents you need printed on their website or app, pay a fee, and then your documents will be printed at the location you request. PrintWithMe also offers fax and copying services at various locations.

And oh by the way, PrintWithMe is actually just one PART of a parent company WithMe, which has also added a second offering - SipWithMe – a coffee kiosk that operates similar to its printing counterpart. Today ,however, we will focus on PrintWithMe.

🧑‍💻The Model

PrintWithMe supplies participating locations with the printers and supplies needed. The company has also heavily invested in providing their services to multifamily/residential real estate buildings, while also partnering with more public locations such as coffee shops and pharmacies.

In residential buildings, property owners can choose the number of free printing credits their residents get, after which residents must pay for printing services. We assume that at coffee shops or other public locations, all users must pay for printing.

💰Revenue Streams (Expected)

  • Monthly Business Fee - Per this podcast interview, PrintWithMe charges a monthly fee to the participating businesses for use of the printer and technology.

  • User Printing Fee – Of course, most users of the printing service will be paying a fee, and PrintWithMe gets a cut of that fee.

🔻Potential Expenses (Expected)

😎 Customer Appeal

It turns out that, even in a paperless world, printing is still needed. Whether it be homework assignments, forms for doctor appointments, resumes, cover letters, or even flyers and ads, the need for printing has not gone away. Moreover, since COVID in 2020, the documents some people used to print at the office now need to be print from their home, and if they don’t have a printer, PrintWithMe is a perfect solution to their problem.

Furthermore, many people try to avoid printing to be environmentally conscious. PrintWithMe is a great solution for people who only want to print paper in a MUST NEED situation. They can otherwise help the environment by not printing, and save money by not purchasing a personal printer and subsequent supplies.

👍The Good Stuff

  • The Market People Shy Away From – Though the printing market has slowed over the past 10 years, is still a needed service. It is unlikely it ever fully goes away, and sometimes being the dominant player in a declining industry is advantageous (less innovative competition).

  • Clear Path to Profitability - Which they hit in 2020.

  • Stable Goods - Paper and Ink do not go bad.

  • Passive Business – Company representatives do not need to be on-site while the printer is used.

👎The Downfalls

  • Declining Printing Industry – What is good can also be bad. The future growth of the company could be stymied as printing becomes less popular.

  • Logistics – The cost in providing maintenance and supplies to more than 3500 of printers across the country is significant. That means dealing with inventory, shipping, and client relations of more than 3500 locations.

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🧠 The Op Ed

Note we have not used the PrintWithMe service from start to finish

One could say that a brilliant, yet simple business model is the following: Capitalize on desperation in a non-harmful way

The opposite (capitalizing on desperation in a harmful way) would be, for instance, hoarding supplies to sell them to hurricane victims at a higher price, or selling a harmful, addictive substance. Most of these practices are outlawed and rightfully so.

PrintWithMe, on the other hand, can capitalize on desperation (the need to print last-minute and on-demand), in a non-harmful way (charging a small price to print). That is not to say all PrintWithMe customers only print when they are desperate, but one could assume that a regular printer of documents would, or at least should, have their own printer to save money on printing costs.

One thing we dislike about PrintWithMe is that they appear to charge a higher-than-expected amount of money for printing. As we ran a test on the website, it would have cost us almost $2 to print a 3-page document double-sided in Black-and-White from a local pharmacy.

On top of that, PrintWithMe only allows users to add credits to their account in $5 increments, so we would have needed to deposit $5 to print the 3 pages. Charging essentially $5 to print 3 pages of paper seems excessive, but obviously appealing from a business perspective.

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