How do you take a product from batches of 10 to 500 without building your own factory?
Pebbl Innovations had a hit product and a small team, but no way to manufacture at scale. Injection moulding meant tens of thousands in tooling before they had proven the market, and no startup wants to gamble that early. So we became their production department instead. We took the Pebbl from design and printability through to a packed product ready to ship, and grew the runs with them, from batches of 10 to batches of 500, soon 1,000, across five colourways, all made to order in the UK.
Who is Pebbl Innovations?
Pebbl Innovations started life as an engineering project at the University of Bristol and won the university's New Enterprise Competition. Their product is the world's first automatic cable organiser: a magnetic, stackable winder that tidies the charging cables you already own. It is designed and made in the UK from plant-based PLA. What they had was a brilliant product and a growing waitlist. What they needed was a way to actually make it, at volume, without becoming a factory overnight.
Visit Pebbl InnovationsA brilliant product, and no factory to make it.
Pebbl had done the hard part. They had a product people wanted, an award behind them, and videos racking up views. What they did not have was a way to make thousands of them. A startup rarely does. Injection moulding wants tens of thousands of pounds in tooling before the first unit exists, and it locks you into one colour and one design at exactly the moment you are still learning what your customers love.
Hiring a production team and renting a unit was not the answer either, not before the revenue was there to pay for it. What Pebbl needed was not a printer they could send files to. It was a whole production department they did not have to build, staff or fund up front.
The trap we helped them skip.
To injection mould the Pebbl, you tool up first. Not one mould, a whole tool set. It is a five-part product, and two of those parts need four-core tools with sliding cores to release the shape, while the rest run on two-core moulds. That is around £35,000 in steel, and weeks of lead time per tool, before you can make a single unit.
You spend all of it before you have sold one Pebbl, or proven a single customer wants it. And once the steel is cut, you are locked into that design and one colour. For a startup still finding its market, that is betting the whole company on a guess.
We became their production department.
We took on the whole physical side of Pebbl. First we got the product production-ready, refining it for reliable printing and dialling in the settings for every part. Then we set up batch production on our print farm, calibrating each colour to a shared quality benchmark we built with them. From there we assemble the units, pack them retail-ready in Pebbl's branding, and handle fulfilment. As demand grew we scaled the runs with them, from tens to hundreds, with no tooling to pay off and a new colour added whenever one of their videos takes off.
One partner, from CAD file to packed product.
Most manufacturers do one slice of the job. We took on the whole thing, so Pebbl's small team never had to build a production line, hire an assembly crew, or run a warehouse.
Design & printability
We refined the product for reliable, repeatable printing and set the parameters for every part.
Production printing
Batch runs on our print farm, each colour calibrated to a quality benchmark we built together.
Assembly
Finished units built and checked, so they work straight out of the box.
Packaging
Packed retail-ready in Pebbl's own branding, so every order looks the part.
Fulfilment
We hold, pack and ship each batch, so Pebbl can grow the brand instead of moving boxes.
From brief to delivery. Here's how we ran it.
Every project at our Poole workshop follows the same structured process. No surprises, no miscommunications, just clean execution from the moment a brief lands.
A product to make
Pebbl came to us with a finished product, an award and a waitlist, but no way to make it at volume.
The starting pointMade production-ready
We reviewed the design for printability and locked in the settings so every part comes out right, every time.
DesignProduction set up
We consulted with them to get their production and assembly up to scratch, not just the printing.
ConsultingFirst batches of 10
We started small, proving the quality and building a shared QC benchmark together before scaling.
Batches of 10Scaled to 500
Batches grew to 500 across five colours, each one calibrated and printed on our farm to the same standard.
Batches of 500Full turnkey, ongoing
Now we assemble, pack and ship every batch, heading for 1,000 units and selling worldwide.
Ongoing
From 10 to 500, and counting.
Pebbl now ships a real, repeatable product to customers around the world, in five colours, made to order in the UK, with us as their production arm. Batches have grown fifty-fold with the next target at 1,000, and they got there without a penny of tooling or a single production hire.
| 3D printing (what we did) | Injection moulding | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront tooling | None, you print from unit one | Around £35,000 in tooling before the first part |
| Running 30 to 80 of one colour | Any quantity, any colour | Below its minimum order, not economical |
| Changing the design as you learn | Reprint the new version | Modify or re-cut the mould |
Thank you so much for adjusting with such short notice, and we look forward to the upcoming batches!
Gallery From the project
8 photos · 3D Printing Express, Poole
Questions about turnkey product manufacturing
Common questions we get about projects like this one. Our workshop is in Poole, Dorset, and we serve clients across Bournemouth, the South Coast, and the whole of the UK.
Can you manufacture a product for my startup?
Yes, and it is a lot of what we do. We can take a product from design and printability advice all the way through to printing, assembly, packaging and fulfilment. There is no tooling to pay for, so you can start with a batch of ten to prove the market and scale up from there as demand grows, exactly as Pebbl did.
Do you handle assembly and packaging, or just the printing?
Both, and more. For Pebbl we print the parts, assemble the finished units, pack them retail-ready in their own branding and handle fulfilment. You can use as much or as little of that as you need, from print-only to the full turnkey service where product arrives packed and ready to sell.
Can you scale production as my product grows?
That is the whole point of doing it this way. Pebbl went from batches of 10 to batches of 500, with 1,000 next, and adding a new colour is as simple as calibrating the material, not cutting a new mould. Because there is no tooling, scaling up or changing the design never means starting the cost again.
Is 3D printing good enough for a real consumer product?
For the right product, absolutely. Pebbl is sold to customers worldwide and made entirely by 3D printing in the UK, in plant-based PLA, to a consistent quality benchmark we hold batch to batch. For volumes below the point where injection moulding pays off, it is often the better call: no tooling, no minimum order, and the freedom to change things as you learn.
Got a small-batch project in mind? Send us the brief.
We produce small-batch parts and custom 3D-printed work from our workshop in Poole, Dorset, shipping to clients across Bournemouth, the South Coast, and throughout the UK. You'll hear from our team, the two founders, not a form reply.