Ponoko’s idea for collaboration with designers is a neat one. You submit a design to the Ponoko website, if they like it, they send it to their factory and it gets built by people and machines. Then you take your finished product and post it in the Ponoko online showroom. People see your design, love it, buy it, and you make $.
We have to suppose Ponoko will also make money, but they aren’t disclosing the business plan yet.
If you’re a designer looking for a factory you can sign up to beta test Ponoko and in return you’ll get to use the service for free when 1.0 launches.
On their blog you can check out the first chair they manufactured.
Steven Kempton approx. 1395274 mins ago