Scaling CEOs often tell themselves a disruption is temporary. A shipment is late. A supplier misses a window. A part is backordered. The instinct is to wait it out and keep the broader system intact.
Spencer Loveless learned how costly that instinct can be when a single $4 component stalled the sale of a $400 product. The constraint was small. The exposure was not. What looked like a supply chain annoyance was actually a test of who controlled speed, production, and outcomes in his business.
This post examines the decision Spencer faced and the operating reset that followed— through the lens that matters most to scaling CEOs: when waiting becomes riskier than rebuilding.
As companies grow, operating models harden around external dependencies. Tooling gets specialized. Suppliers get optimized for cost. Production timelines stretch. Each choice makes sense in isolation.
The fragility appears when pressure arrives.
During COVID, Spencer’s core business, Dustless Technologies, relied on an overseas supply chain for injection-molded components. One part—cheap, commoditized, and assumed to be reliable—was suddenly unavailable. Containers were stuck at ports. Lead times were unknowable.
The result was stark: “We had a $4 part stuck in China, and we couldn’t sell a $400 vacuum without it.”
At that moment, the question wasn’t logistics. It was governance. Who actually controlled the company’s ability to respond?
The core decision wasn’t whether to find a new supplier. It was whether to keep waiting for an external system to recover—or to take ownership of speed inside the business.
Spencer reframed the problem away from procurement and toward control. Injection molding had optimized for unit cost, but it had also outsourced timing, iteration, and responsiveness. Under pressure, those tradeoffs became liabilities.
This reframing matters because it changes the set of available moves. If speed is treated as a technical constraint, leaders wait for vendors. If speed is treated as an operating decision, leaders redesign the system.
Spencer didn’t pursue 3D printing because it was novel. He pursued it because it rebalanced control.
As he put it plainly: “We didn’t build Merit3D because it was trendy. We built it because we needed speed.”
That distinction is critical. The goal was not innovation for its own sake. It was to collapse the distance between design, production, and delivery—especially under uncertainty.
The operating logic was straightforward:
Each of these involved tradeoffs. But together, they shifted the company from waiting on external systems to deciding internally how fast it could move.
One story from the episode illustrates how this reset changed what the business could do.
A customer escalated an order from 5,000 parts to 25,000—and then to 60,000. The default assumption, even internally, was that fulfilling that volume would take weeks.
Spencer challenged the premise. Not because the math was wrong, but because the operating posture had changed. The team prepared materials, aligned capacity, and compressed the process.
They hit print at 8:00 a.m. and delivered 62,000 parts by 4:30 p.m. the same day.
The point wasn’t the record. It was proof. Once speed was owned internally, the company could choose how aggressively to deploy it.
The alternative path was available throughout this story: wait for ports to clear, hope suppliers normalize, and preserve the existing model.
That path feels safe because it avoids visible disruption. But it quietly compounds risk. Revenue stalls. Customers wait. Teams normalize constraint.
Spencer’s experience underscores a hard truth for scaling CEOs: inaction is not neutral. It locks in dependencies and cedes control to systems you don’t manage.
The reset was expensive. It required new capabilities, new talent, and new operational discipline. But it converted uncertainty into something the business could act on.
Merit3D did not start as a growth thesis. It emerged from necessity. Only later did its broader implications become clear.
Once the company could move faster than traditional manufacturing models, new opportunities appeared:
These outcomes were not forecasted. They were unlocked by changing the operating model first.
It’s easy to tell this story as a clean arc from problem to solution. The reality was messier.
Spencer spoke candidly about the pressure that accompanies these decisions—especially when the business is privately held and capital is constrained. Payroll risk doesn’t disappear because a strategy is sound. Partner misalignment doesn’t resolve itself because the vision is clear.
“Everybody thinks you’re rolling in money, but you’re worried about payroll every two weeks.”
That reality shapes judgment. It explains why many CEOs delay resets even when they see the risk. The cost is immediate and personal. The upside is uncertain.
The lesson is not “adopt 3D printing” or “re-shore manufacturing.” Those are contextual outcomes, not prescriptions.
The sharper takeaway is this: small failures often surface where control has quietly eroded. When they do, leaders face a choice between waiting for stability to return or redesigning the system to create it.
Spencer chose redesign. He treated speed as something the business needed to own, even if it meant rebuilding from the inside.
For CEOs navigating similar constraints, the question is less about technology and more about posture: where have you accepted waiting as inevitable and what would it look like to make that a decision instead?
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Spencer Loveless is the CEO of Dustless Technologies and the founder of Merit3D. He grew up inside a family manufacturing business and later assumed leadership under difficult circumstances. His experience is grounded in operating through real constraints—supply chain breakdowns, partnership risk, payroll pressure, and the decision to rebuild manufacturing control when waiting was no longer viable.
Spencer's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencer-loveless
Company website: https://merit3d.com/
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Jeff Holman is a CEO advisor, legal strategist, and founder of Intellectual Strategies. With years of experience guiding leaders through complex business and legal challenges, Jeff equips CEOs to scale with confidence by blending legal expertise with strategic foresight. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Intellectual Strategies provides innovative legal solutions for CEOs and founders through its fractional legal team model. By offering proactive, integrated legal support at predictable costs, the firm helps leaders protect their businesses, manage risk, and focus on growth with confidence.
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The Breakout CEO podcast brings you inside the pivotal moments of scaling leaders. Each week, host Jeff Holman spotlights breakout stories of scaling CEOs—showing how resilience, insight, and strategy create pivotal inflection points and lasting growth.
Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform:
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Want to be a guest—or know a scaling CEO with a breakout story to share? Apply directly at go.intellectualstrategies.com.
Transcript Summary
00:00 — Introductions and episode framing context
02:00 — Meeting history and personal rapport
04:00 — Family business origins and ash vacuums
05:30 — Early manufacturing evolution and product shifts
07:45 — Leadership transition after founder loss
09:00 — COVID supply chain disruption impact
10:45 — Goldman Sachs program and growth pressure
13:30 — Decision to challenge injection molding assumptions
15:45 — Building Merit3D for speed control
19:00 — Demonstrating scale through rapid production
23:30 — Manufacturing operations in rural Utah
27:45 — Partnership risk and arbitration resolution
31:30 — CEO realities payroll pressure isolation
38:30 — Future manufacturing outlook and closing
Full Transcript (AI generated and might include errors)
Jeff Holman (00:00.737)
Welcome back friends. I'm Jeff Holman with intellectual strategies and host of the breakout CEO podcast. So glad to have you guys with us again for another exciting episode talking about breakout moments with CEOs who are scaling businesses. A lot of times we only talk about CEO scaling one business at a time. Today we've got Spencer with us. Spencer is going to talk about scaling two different businesses. I think he is. We're going to talk about I'm going to ask him about both both businesses.
But Spencer, it's so glad to have you here.
Spencer (00:33.104)
Jeff, it's awesome to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Jeff Holman (00:36.045)
Yeah, no, of course. I've been watching what you've been doing. I don't know. How long ago did we meet? Was it a dozen years ago, 12 years ago or something like that?
Spencer (00:42.989)
I think it was during COVID. actually think we had a acquaintance that introduced us at one of the like million cup events or something like that.
Jeff Holman (00:49.953)
It's only been that long? Why do I feel like I've known you lot longer than that?
Spencer (00:53.581)
It's because my hair is gone, that's why.
Jeff Holman (00:55.797)
well that begs the question then, because other people, you know, I remember one time, you know, I don't remember how long COVID lasted anymore, but it lasted however long it lasted. We all went virtual. And then like several years later, maybe three or four years later, I guess, I was walking through a building, going to a client's office and I saw Taylor Bench, you know, and I'm like, hey, how you doing? And we chatted. And it was like five or six minutes into the conversation. He's like,
You know we've never met in person before. And I'm like, no, that's not, that can't be right. So now I'm wondering, have you and I ever met in person then? Did we meet at one of these events or was it all virtual?
Spencer (01:28.205)
I don't know if we have. mean, we're located out in Price, and so it's a little bit off the beaten path, coal mining community, central, southeast Utah. We try not to get up in the valley as much as we can, but...
Jeff Holman (01:49.465)
So maybe I actually haven't met you in person. That's, well, that feels wild to me because, and we don't talk all that often, but I feel like we've talked enough. And maybe it's just because I have this like thing where I see a cool business and I feel like I'm a part of it. So I've co-opted myself into some businesses like yours and I'm like, I know exactly about this business. I know what's going on. At least I'm watching and I'm following along, so.
Spencer (01:52.108)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (02:18.295)
Maybe that's what's going on here. Well, let's jump into a little bit of your background here, because you're running two different businesses. I think you were running one when I first met you, Dustless, and you can tell us a little bit about that. And then I think you were in the process of starting up this other 3D printing business, which is a fascinating business as far as I'm concerned. Tell me a little bit about...
Spencer (02:20.956)
That's awesome.
Jeff Holman (02:47.031)
maybe before we go into that, like, what were you doing before all of that? Before Dust List, before the 3D printing, what's your background that kind of you to here?
Spencer (02:58.553)
So my background is my parents started Dustless Technologies. My dad and I was like two years old crawling around the house. My dad, or my mom actually, he's like, hey, Spencer's crawling around the house. We have the fireplace, we have the ashes, we have the coal and the fireplace, and it's just getting our house dirty. And so she's like, we need to come up with something so that we can take care of all these ashes efficiently, not with a shovel and a bucket.
Jeff Holman (03:14.553)
Uh-huh.
Spencer (03:24.459)
He invented that vacuum and it was the very first vacuum to take ashes out of wood stoves. He revolutionized that market, which is pretty niche, pretty small. ever since then starting that business, I mean, I grew up in the business. We had a garage in the backyard and I would go out and harass all the employees and sweep the garage and my dad made me and growing up and then I would do accounts payable, but I would build vacuums and just
Jeff Holman (03:34.681)
Really?
Jeff Holman (03:53.945)
So you grew up, you were not only the inspiration for the business or maybe the, you were the problem to be solved, right?
Spencer (03:54.22)
And then.
Spencer (04:00.78)
That was the problem to be solved for sure.
Jeff Holman (04:03.903)
That's so funny. Well, give me some background here, because I'm not sure everybody has context for what that, like you're talking about ashes from a fireplace, making a mess in the house. These days, nobody necessarily puts in a wood burning stove or something like that, right? Some people have them, but tell me about where you grew up, because was this more common? Was this uncommon? What was background there?
Spencer (04:30.166)
It was, I mean, back in the day, was common. mean, people used to go get their coal from the coal yard and fill up their fireplace with coal and burn through throughout the winter. so, I mean, it was very common back in the day, but obviously today it's not. That business, the ash vacuum business has just continually declined over the years because of the environment and what it is. from that, from the filtering technology working so well, that evolved into a wet dry vacuum.
Jeff Holman (04:51.492)
Yeah.
Spencer (04:59.392)
And the wet dry vacuum is what is one of the biggest sellers today because it's so universal to concrete dust and wood dust and just anything that creates dust. And so that's kind of the main business today on the dust aside is that wet dry vacuum that does not blow dust.
Jeff Holman (04:59.695)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (05:18.127)
Okay. Let me pause there because I might've made it sound like nobody had fireplaces. I grew up with a fireplace. We used to sleep next to this wood burning stove on the, you know, the brick wall and floor. And we used to sleep there on Christmas Eve. Like it was a whole thing. We had burlap sacks full of coal lining one wall of our garage. we had that. And one...
I believe it was, I don't know if it was Christmas Eve, but it was probably mid December. It was winter, right? Cold outside. And my dad said, hey, Jeff, come help me. We're gonna clean out the wood burning stove. And so, you know, it was a large wood burning stove too. So it was, I don't know, it was like, I want to say three feet across, two and a half feet deep. like, it felt like it was really big, right? And so we went and we got some sacks and we, cause it was just full of ash.
Spencer (06:08.722)
Jeff Holman (06:14.777)
So we wouldn't got these, you know, these paper, you know, the grocery bags that you have everywhere in your cabinets or whatever. We got these, we filled them up with all these ashes. We wouldn't put them in the garbage can out in the garage and, know, and then started a fire for the night. Well, it was middle of the night. You know where this is going, don't you? I know. Middle of the, well, I don't know if the audience has heard it. This is what happens with a wood burning stove if you don't clean it up, right?
Spencer (06:34.163)
Do you know how many times I've heard a story just like this? Yeah, I keep going.
Spencer (06:41.427)
I know, this is funny.
Jeff Holman (06:43.691)
middle of the night, like two in the morning. And I don't remember a lot of it because I was the laggard in the family, right? At that point in time, my parents, we've got seven kids in the family. We probably had maybe six of them at the time. And what I do remember is eventually somebody dragged me out of the house and took me over to the neighbor's house while the firemen came and resolved this source of.
smoldering smoke that had started in the garage and filled the entire house during the middle of the night. I'm told that they went through the house and they got everybody up, had them get out. And my reaction was to wake up and then immediately go back to sleep and not leave the house. So, I mean, that's not just the dust issue in the house, but like just, that's a, it's kind of a messy business, right?
Spencer (07:27.496)
Thanks.
Spencer (07:37.656)
yeah, that's what created it all. so, I mean, I worked in that for many years, ended up leaving for a couple years and going on a mission to Paraguay and coming back and doing flight school and got my pilot's license and business degree at UVU and then just worked in the business. And so it was fun to have that degree and it's just kind of evolved over the years. My parents, my dad ended up passing away in a plane accident.
Jeff Holman (07:52.125)
wow.
Jeff Holman (08:06.233)
Sorry to hear that.
Spencer (08:06.898)
At that time it was, thank you, at that time it was, you know my mom and I had this like, okay let's pick up the pieces of what my dad really started and then she ended up retiring and getting remarried and it was up to me to run it.
Jeff Holman (08:20.781)
Was she in the business before that or was this like a, mean, it's obviously a very abrupt transition family wise, business wise, it also like, I haven't been in the business, but now I'm in it or was she in it some already?
Spencer (08:34.442)
She was always in it from day one. mean, she was the safety net behind everything. You know how it is. The entrepreneur is very, hey, I want to do this and this and this and this. And she kind of brings it all down to earth level and says, OK, let's be realistic about what we can do and what we can't. And so, yeah, she was in it the whole time. then it was, and then, so our vacuums are about $400 retail. And then during COVID,
Jeff Holman (08:37.23)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (08:52.387)
Yes.
Jeff Holman (09:00.642)
Okay.
Spencer (09:03.114)
We had a $4 part that we ended up getting from China and everything was stuck off the ports in Long Beach and we couldn't get this stupid $4 part to sell a $400 vacuum like the rest of the world, right?
Jeff Holman (09:10.851)
Right.
Jeff Holman (09:15.799)
What was the volume you guys were doing at the time? how big of a problem was this for you?
Spencer (09:20.105)
I mean that we usually get probably, I don't know, five, 10,000 pieces at a time of that particular part. But, and so at that time we're like, I wanted to grow the business. I was working, was trying to expand the vacuum business. And at that time I'm like, we got to fix our supply chain issue because this is an issue. So at the same time,
Jeff Holman (09:26.467)
Yeah, okay.
Jeff Holman (09:43.32)
Yeah.
Spencer (09:47.017)
I wanted to help the product development cycle because it takes a long time to make a product. so I was in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 business class and it just sparked me. just got me fired. I was in, think, cohort 17. It was probably around 2020.
Jeff Holman (09:57.699)
When did you do that?
Jeff Holman (10:06.671)
Okay, you didn't get stopped during COVID, did you?
Spencer (10:11.334)
That was AF- I did the Goldman Sachs before COVID.
Jeff Holman (10:15.073)
Okay, my wife was in the one that got stopped midstream and had to finish virtually. So I didn't know you guys were that close together in the program. Fantastic program, by the way. I've heard so much good about it.
Spencer (10:24.873)
Yeah. And that was really a pivot point for me in the business world because it just sparked me. after that, we had an injection molder in Salt Lake. And right after one of those classes, I went to the molder, I pulled up to his door and I walked in and I'm like, hey, I want to buy your business. And I want to buy his business because I had to increase this product development cycle time. Like it takes us years to develop a product.
Jeff Holman (10:36.463)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman (10:45.197)
You want to buy his business?
Spencer (10:54.758)
And it just drove me absolutely nuts.
Jeff Holman (10:54.765)
Yeah, well.
That's ambitious. for some context, and you can fill in if I say something wrong here, my understanding from my wife going through this, and I went through my MBA program, she went through this, I think she thinks she's smarter than I am and she probably is. But the program is like 10 or 15 weeks of intensive classes, talking about different aspects of running a business, very practical focus on it, right? But I think what the reason...
Maybe part of the reason you went and said, I'm gonna go buy this business is because you pick a growth project, right? I don't remember what they call it, but you pick a project, like what is it you're work on out of this business? How are we gonna grow your business? Is that correct?
Spencer (11:35.558)
Yeah, that was part of it. I mean, it was really, yeah, I mean, you take an avenue in your business and you're going to scale it. Like, how are you going to take that and grow it?
Jeff Holman (11:38.292)
huh.
Jeff Holman (11:44.173)
Yeah. Was this your project for that program or was this just happened to coincide?
Spencer (11:51.784)
It was kind of the same project, but it ended up diverting and became its own separate project. And so really the project was how do I take a product from design to be able to sell that really, really quickly? And so at the time it was, well, I need to be able to control that process of the molding process, which is very expensive, very timely. And so...
Jeff Holman (11:57.688)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (12:06.82)
Mm-hmm.
Spencer (12:18.875)
That's when I went to him and I said, hey, I want to buy your business. And he said, well, I come in at 10, I leave at two, I got really good income. He's like, I'm not really interested in selling. I don't know how big he was or is. mean, I'm...
Jeff Holman (12:25.519)
You
Jeff Holman (12:29.443)
How big of a business was that?
Jeff Holman (12:37.571)
It was but it was on this I mean we're not it was I assume it was on the smaller side or did he have a huge? Do you have like 50 people working for him or?
Spencer (12:44.889)
No, he probably had five, five to ten employees.
Jeff Holman (12:47.553)
Okay, okay, because you've probably been to China and you go to the manufacturers over there and you walk. It's so fascinating. I was there last April with a group and walking through some factories and just, you know, the amount of innovation and then you go see all the molds. They like this floor, this quarter of the floor. What's that?
Spencer (12:55.048)
I love China, yeah. I love it. I love visiting it. But the elements of the manufacturing side, they have everything. It is a manufacturing heaven, right? It is a manufacturing heaven there. You go and you have your box manufactured down the street and your injection molded right next door and your motor guy across the hall and it's like, everybody's, it's perfect.
Jeff Holman (13:09.967)
It's so cool
Jeff Holman (13:16.024)
Yep.
Jeff Holman (13:21.251)
But manufacturing, I'm thinking of a couple people here in Utah who do that, maybe at a little bit larger scale than what you were looking at buying. that's an intense business to become an injection molding company.
Spencer (13:37.147)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (13:42.957)
Let me see some room.
Spencer (13:43.409)
So.
Spencer (13:47.898)
It was a...
Yeah, just a crazy opportunity.
Jeff Holman (13:51.353)
Okay.
Yeah, so you went and said, I'm going to buy it. And then what happened?
Spencer (13:58.353)
So then he said, no, he's like, I'm not interested. And then driving home, I was just frustrated and floored. I'm just like, come on, how am I going to grow this business? And that's kind of when that aha moment hit me. said, well, maybe injection molding isn't the future of plastics. Like if I can make a part really quick, really cost effectively, and get it in someone's hands, I said, that's 3D printing, but 3D printing isn't the quality and the cost isn't there yet.
Jeff Holman (14:13.497)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (14:25.913)
Yeah.
Spencer (14:26.533)
So we started researching and we found some options that we could make that $4 part in-house really quickly and cost effectively and we could skip China. And we're like, this is awesome.
Jeff Holman (14:36.879)
just all together. So, because I remember, I actually bought a 3D printer a long time ago. I'm not as technically inclined. I never got it up and running full steam. I eventually gave it to a nephew who uses it or used it. I don't know if he's still using it or not, but that was maybe like 2014. So we're talking, you know, 2020, 2021, something like that where the technology had improved a ton by that point, right?
Spencer (15:02.097)
It still took us a good year of researching to find the right product for our needs though, because we had to have three things. We had to have the right costs. We had to have the right quality, which the printer that you're familiar with doesn't have the right quality, and we had to have the right scalability. Like if we have some products in Home Depot and if Home Depot says, I need 10,000 pieces, it can't take 10 years to make 10,000 pieces.
Jeff Holman (15:11.449)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman (15:15.726)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (15:24.655)
You can't wait for four hours for every piece.
Spencer (15:28.709)
Yeah. And so we found a solution that worked. We started making this part and then right after that COVID hit and we had other companies come to us as well and they're like, hey, I have phone cases that are stuck in China. Can you print phone cases? We're like, we think so. So we started making phone cases and then we had a crop duster company that makes nozzles for crop duster planes. They came to us and they said, hey, can you make these nozzles? And we're like, yeah. So we incorporated Merit3D as its own separate entity.
Jeff Holman (15:43.704)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (15:56.866)
Uh-huh.
Spencer (15:57.195)
And from there, we just, that company mass produces parts for companies that want to skip China, want to skip injection molding and just go straight to a 3D part, a 3D solution.
Jeff Holman (16:08.407)
Is this like a US pride manufacturing type of movement or is it more like this is just a good option because it's local and it's faster to do? Or what's the drive for other people to come to you? they critical parts? Like, hey, we gotta have like super fast access to more parts when we need them. Like what is the drive for other companies? I can totally see where.
If you've got your own company and you're just kind of solving your own frustration, you have total control over, you know, that part of the process. And that just solves the problem. If it's cost effective, you've just, you've just internalize it for yourself. But when other people start coming to you, that's a different ball game, right?
Spencer (16:49.732)
Yeah.
Yeah, well it's because we have the skill. Like we've set up the scalability. And I mean to answer your question on why people come, US made, people want US. Now whether or not they want to pay for it, that is one of the biggest issues today is it's just most stuff in the US costs more because of what it is. But turnaround time, we can get a design to product for thousands of pieces within weeks. Like it's just, it's a total game changer there.
design iterations, you can get thousands of parts in customers hands and once the customer says, this little diameter needs to be 10 millimeters up to 12 millimeters, like you can just digitally change it and you're on your way, you just print it again and go. Like the agility is a huge aspect on 3D printing.
Jeff Holman (17:44.439)
And how much of that design agility are you guys providing in-house? Do you guys have like a full design team or do most people come to you and say, I've changed my designs or I've figured out that I need something different. Here's the file, just print it for me. Where's that division?
Spencer (18:02.951)
We get all sorts. We get napkin sketches. We get, hey, here's my half-baked project. Can you take it to the finish line? And we get parts that are just, hey, here's my part. I need 10,000 of them. Can you print it? And so it's all over the board. would say the middle ground is kind of where most people fall, is they have some kind of 3D file. But then it may need some modifications because it was designed for injection molding, which if we design it for injection molding, it's going to look really good molded.
Jeff Holman (18:26.446)
Yeah.
Spencer (18:30.445)
If you design it for additive manufacturing or 3D printing, then it's going to look a ton better if it's designed for the process.
Jeff Holman (18:38.711)
Okay, yeah, that's super interesting. What's the scale of, know, like when you started doing this with Dustless, give us an idea of what the scale of Dustless was and what the scale of Merit3D is today. What's that trajectory kind of look like?
Spencer (18:58.031)
I mean the scale of Dustless, mean it's thousands of parts every year, thousands and thousands of parts. We have some that are in the 20,000 to 30,000 pieces every year. With Merit3D, this is an awesome opportunity, it's a really cool order, where we had a customer that sent in a binocular tether, and they said, hey we need 5,000 of these pieces, and so we printed them. They came back and they said, these are great, we need 25,000 of them now. So we started, we printed them, it was great.
Jeff Holman (19:06.18)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman (19:16.399)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (19:24.685)
Yeah.
Spencer (19:27.705)
Then they came back with an order for 60,000 of these pieces. And I go to my team and I'm like, guys, how quick can we print this order? Like this could be a record for the amount of 3D printed parts printed, like a certain part. And they came back and like, well, we think we can do it in a couple of weeks. And I'm like, no, like what is the fastest that we can print this? And so they came back.
Jeff Holman (19:30.969)
Wow.
Jeff Holman (19:38.617)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (19:48.931)
Well, a couple of weeks would be way sooner than they would get it from China or something, right? So that would still be great, but you're like, no, I don't think we need to take that long.
Spencer (19:52.461)
huh.
Spencer (19:58.063)
And they're like, okay, if the stars align, we could print this in a day.
Jeff Holman (20:04.719)
Wait, you could go from a couple of weeks down to one day. Do you have Elon Musk on your team? I think that's his approach, isn't it?
Spencer (20:17.082)
Well, you got to have people that challenge the boundaries, right? I think it was Steve Jobs that said, it's the stupid people in life that changed the world or something to that effect. it's, yeah. So it was, we, mean, it took a couple of weeks. We set up everything. We made sure that we had material. We had everything ready. We hit print at eight o'clock in the morning and we delivered 62,000 at 430 that afternoon to the customer.
Jeff Holman (20:33.614)
huh.
Jeff Holman (20:42.317)
really. So the print was really was down to one day one day turn.
Spencer (20:47.885)
It was one day turnaround. like, how did you do that? And you're like, you just throw warm bodies at it.
Jeff Holman (20:52.879)
Is that what it is? Because I think I've seen some pictures of your facilities and you have a bunch of machines lined up and I assume you got a bunch of people operating them. Is it just a matter of adding more machines and bodies? Is that how you scale there?
Spencer (21:06.861)
That's not how it is, but that's how that order was. I mean, today we have more automation, we have robots moving things around, and so there's automation involved that wasn't there at that time. But, you know, automation is really good to replace that once you get the repetitive process involved. And so it was more just a proof of point because everybody says 3D printing is slow, it doesn't look good, and some of the new technologies...
Jeff Holman (21:10.039)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (21:19.725)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (21:33.197)
Yeah.
Spencer (21:36.097)
You know, they're amazing. Most people know 3D printing is that filament. It's called FDM, where you take a roll of filament and you extrude it. And it's really widened the opportunities and possibilities for 3D printing. But it's still a prototyping application, where we take some new technologies that are in the powders and liquids, and you can get parts off those that look just like, you can't tell that they're 3D printed. Where the...
Jeff Holman (21:42.2)
Uh-huh.
Jeff Holman (21:56.388)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (22:01.295)
They don't look like way back wall.
Spencer (22:04.481)
Now, you can't see layer lines. In fact, we have one part that we're going to be releasing into Home Depot in the next couple of months. And we put parting lines on it and we put injector pins on it because we can take that part to a person that knows manufacturing. Like, how is this made? And they're like, yeah, it's injection molded. There's your injection pin marks and your parting line. It's molded.
Jeff Holman (22:24.259)
Wait, wait, wait. Are these like little Easter eggs you put in there? Cause you want it to, you want people to be like, this was injection molded when in fact it wasn't. That's so funny. That is, that's hilarious. What is, if I were to come tour your Merit3D factory, what would I see? What would that be like?
Spencer (22:34.546)
yes, it's awesome.
Spencer (22:47.292)
We have designers, have engineers, have programmers, have sales guys, we have... then you go in the manufacturing area and we have a lot of printers and people pulling parts off printers and doing assembly work. We just got done with an order for... it was the first order that goes into Walmart, the 3D printed part in Walmart. And it was an assembly where we're taking parts off printers, we're assembling with some carabiner parts and putting them in some bags and...
Jeff Holman (23:06.905)
Congratulations.
Spencer (23:16.446)
And like there's assembly going on, there's boxes of parts that are getting ready to ship. So.
Jeff Holman (23:24.175)
How do you do this in, I mean, you're in rural Utah in the sense that you're a couple hours outside of Salt Lake City, right? How do you achieve this? Because when I've been in China, going through factories, they kind of have unlimited resources to throw at any problem, right? In terms of people and maybe state funding and just stuff like that. How do you do it in your community?
Spencer (23:53.288)
It definitely has its challenges, but it also has its advantages. mean, once you get a good employee and take care of them, like they're going to stay. But trying to find those good employees, many times with the skills that are needed. I mean, we need design skills, we need printing skills. Sometimes we get them from the college, the university here, USU Eastern. Other times, you know, we've brought them in from out of the area of people that have wanted to move back to the area. And like my...
Jeff Holman (23:59.705)
Uh-huh.
Spencer (24:21.546)
the co-founder Blake Merrill, was living down in Arizona when he started Merrit3D. And I said, hey, I want to start this business. he over operations of a trust plan. Like he ran the trust plan. So he was very good at building the operations side. And so like it's a...
Jeff Holman (24:38.659)
This gave him a chance to come back. Is he from there originally then? So he was able to come back home.
Spencer (24:42.86)
Yeah, he's from every county which is a little further south. But we have some really good people and a lot of them are staying because of the potential that we have and the growth that we've seen. more people adopt and as 3D printing gets out there more and more. The 3D printer that you used a few years ago, the times have changed dramatically. I have a...
When you go on trips, I'll take a little 3D printer with me and I'll print spare parts for the RV and like, it's very, very seamless now to where it's a lot easier than when it was a years ago.
Jeff Holman (25:15.395)
What?
Jeff Holman (25:23.329)
Okay, I have to ask like what parts have you printed you for your RV, like on demand RV maintenance? What parts do you print for that?
Spencer (25:32.748)
I printed sewer little sewer drainers. I printed door handles last year we were on a trip and I went and My cousin broke her door handle and I went to my son and I said okay I want let's do a competition you design a part I design a part and let's see who can design it in fewer iterations and get the best part and
Jeff Holman (25:48.943)
You
Jeff Holman (25:54.957)
Really? So who won?
Spencer (25:58.438)
his looked cooler, but mine functions. And so when you asked her like, who won? She's like, well, yours works. His looks better, but yours works. So it was.
Jeff Holman (26:02.037)
got it. That's so funny.
Jeff Holman (26:08.175)
Yeah, what were the criteria to win? I guess you had to set that set that up first too, right?
Spencer (26:14.388)
Yeah, he's like, well, that of yours looks like crap. like, it does, but it works.
Jeff Holman (26:18.319)
Here's another lesson for you,
Spencer (26:21.142)
But I mean, some of the printers, people ask Christmas presents. like, get a bamboo printer. Like it's a bamboo mini, A1 mini is 200 bucks. And it's a matter of you can download parts, you can print them, you can design your own, but they've made it so it's print and go and it's seamless. And so if you want parts that are that, those mechanical properties, know, toys and spare parts, stuff like that, then those printers are awesome. Like they're amazing.
Jeff Holman (26:30.573)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (26:39.32)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (26:49.795)
That's really cool. That was kind of my dream of having one, know, running a law firm and printing stuff off on 3D, it just didn't fit together for me at the time. So, but that's cool. It's out there. I'm curious as you've built Dustless and managed that with your dad and then with your mom, and then as you've launched and grown Merit3D, what have been a couple of the...
Spencer (27:01.001)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (27:19.567)
you know, maybe a hair on fire moment moments that you've had there. Like what, what are some things that you've run into? like, I don't know if we're to be able to solve this.
Spencer (27:30.164)
You mean like every week, right? Is that what mean?
Jeff Holman (27:33.483)
Every week. Yeah, what was last week's big problem?
Spencer (27:37.802)
I think one of them was we let a partner in dustless and it ended up not working and that was a very expensive moment that we thought it was actually going to sink the company because
Jeff Holman (27:46.157)
You mean business business partner or like a like a customer vendor partner business?
Spencer (27:49.32)
Yeah, no, business partner and ended up, you know, we weather the storm and work through it. But in the end, I thought he was going to take down the company.
Jeff Holman (28:00.207)
What was the reason to bring a partner in the first place? Was it capital or just manpower, kind of spreading the...
Spencer (28:05.838)
just, no, there wasn't even, there wasn't even any capital involved. was just more just trying to.
Trying to bring the skills that he brought to the company we thought would be very good and he was awesome at what he did. It just didn't work out between us. But then when he tried to exit, then the valuation almost just sunk the company. We would have had to pay him to leave and it was scary.
Jeff Holman (28:22.191)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (28:25.794)
What what
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (28:37.583)
Yeah, I know can imagine. don't want to dive into too many details there because I'm sure some of it's touchy and sensitive. you know, I talked with another, I talked with a client last week who was like, yeah, we're going to bring these people into the business. And I said, okay, you know, you guys figured out the tax consequences of giving them the equity because you've got an ongoing business that's got value when you give them equity. That's like compensation, right? And he's like, well, I hadn't thought of that. Right. And so what you've just described is the reverse of that when you
have partners and depending on how they earn their equity, a lot of times they get it upfront or you have it vest over time or milestones. But when they have the equity and then you're like, okay, for whatever reason, we gotta figure out how to split this equity or we gotta separate and go our own ways. There's huge implications to that. You just named the biggest one, which is, if...
If they get bought out and they own a third of the company and I don't know the size of your company revenue wise, but if your valuation is six million and they walk away and they're like, okay, I need my two million in the next 30 days, that's like, that's not gonna happen, right? How did you guys manage that? Or what was the general approach to solve?
Spencer (29:46.154)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Spencer (29:53.513)
We ended up going to arbitration and the arbitrator said, he's like, you're going to go into this and you're going to leave and if it's a successful arbitration, you're both going to be angry and you leave, but you'll settle something. And I'm like, like anybody, I'm like, no, we're going to get exactly what we want. And we left that arbitration and I was ticked, but we'd settled. We'd settled and it was something that wasn't as bad.
Jeff Holman (30:06.351)
Yep. Yeah.
Jeff Holman (30:13.571)
How did that go for you?
Yeah, yeah.
Spencer (30:22.266)
It wasn't going to sink the company and you know, it worked. wasn't.
Jeff Holman (30:28.205)
I mean, that's the legal issue, When you're into trouble, very rarely do I, we do more and more disputes, not that we target that, but when we're, you know, we operate as fractional, a fractional legal team for startups and scaling businesses. And when you're handling contracts and, you know, patents and partnership issues, inevitably something goes wrong in the business and they say, hey, you know, can you handle this litigation or this dispute?
So we see more and more and more of those. And I wish I could say that they were easy and everybody walks away happy, but they just don't. I've heard that many times going into arbitration where they're like, hey, a success is something where you don't feel like it was a total success, but it's over. Yeah, so I'm glad that worked out and resolved itself and finalized more than anything,
Spencer (31:25.64)
But I think, I mean, past that, so many businesses struggle. Like, everyone thinks, I've got used to it, but anytime you have a business, like everybody thinks you're just rolling in the money, you're living the life, and it's so not that at all. Like, it's long hours, it's working when you're on vacation, it's working on weekends, it's...
Jeff Holman (31:40.003)
Yeah.
Spencer (31:51.42)
you know, worrying about payroll every couple weeks. Like there's so much that goes into it that, you know, I'm just like, I don't even know if it's worth it. I love it. And I love building the business. But sometimes you're like, all I'm doing is putting money in people's paychecks, which I love, but in it's that entrepreneur dream of doing what you want to do, when you want to do it and with who you want to do it.
Jeff Holman (31:54.393)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (32:01.152)
Hahaha
Spencer (32:18.812)
And if you can build a business that can support that, like that is, that is the American dream, right?
Jeff Holman (32:24.591)
Yeah, yeah. And no, I totally understand that. It's hard because if you haven't been there, you have different expectations of the people who are there, right? That's kind of why this show exists because people who are sitting in your seat building a business, scaling it, money goes back into the business, not into your pocket a lot of days. And... Right. Yeah.
Spencer (32:45.448)
Most of the time, right? You want to build a business that grows. Like it never goes in your pocket. You put it back in the business so the business can grow.
Jeff Holman (32:52.707)
those 3D printers don't just show up. Somebody had to put money down on those, right? But I think a lot of CEOs go through this and they're like, know through experience, I know my employees just don't, they don't see through the same lens as me. So I can't necessarily take, nor may, I might not want to take my problems and share them with my employees. That might raise other concerns, right? But it's hard to turn there. Sometimes it's hard to turn to your.
family if they're not in the business because they're like, I'm not in the business for a reason. I don't want to have to solve those problems. Or if you've got investors, you're like, do I, you know, do I tell you the answer is yes, you should tell your investors. But a lot of times I see CEOs that struggle with, well, should I tell them this isn't going right? Because, you know, what if they lose faith in me and they or yeah, or maybe they want to replace me and I won't be the CEO anymore. So it it becomes this really isolated
Spencer (33:27.395)
Yeah.
Spencer (33:41.56)
You don't want to throw up red flags,
Jeff Holman (33:51.083)
At least I think it feels very isolated to be a CEO a lot of times. So having something like this and having you share your experiences is hugely valuable to other people.
Spencer (33:55.815)
Absolutely, 100%.
Spencer (34:01.063)
100%. And you just get used to it as owning a business. mean, lot of businesses are very successful and that's great. Most businesses, you know, they struggle every single week and it is what it is.
Jeff Holman (34:12.343)
Yeah, yeah. And I think I don't want to miss the opportunity to say that I expect that your community is very, very appreciative of what you're doing because, you know, you're building something there when you could have left and gone somewhere else where maybe there more resources or whatever, right? And yet you're building it there in your hometown. And I'm certain that you probably win awards and stuff for the contributions you're doing in your community. don't know.
for sure, but if you're not, should be. I imagine that they're very glad you're there. Employing people, building a business, bringing revenue in, all of that. Tax dollars too, right?
Spencer (34:50.543)
Yeah, it's fun. It is fun. I thoroughly enjoy it even though it's hard. I enjoy it.
Jeff Holman (34:57.323)
Yeah. As you've grown Merit3D, what's been maybe the biggest hurdle that you had to overcome in that process?
Spencer (35:07.719)
I would say we're still overcoming it, but the biggest one is convincing people that 3D printing is one, not hard, and it's two, it's not what it was three years ago. Like everybody's like, you do 3D printing, I know what it does. I printed this toy for my son or my friend, and it's evolving and it's changing. And they don't see what 3D printing or additive manufacturing is today on this scale.
Jeff Holman (35:18.958)
Mm-hmm.
Spencer (35:37.017)
And so it's convincing people that it's not that. I would say the other hurdle is just the pricing, is for us because we're competing a lot with China and we're competing with injection molding parts. And so the price of the material that we get, the raw goods are still much higher than they are from a commodity good of like an ABS or a polypropylene. And it's coming down.
Jeff Holman (35:50.767)
Yeah.
Spencer (36:06.021)
I talked to a guy who said, plan on June of 2026 and immaterial prices are going to be half what they are today. And so it continues to come down, but the prices are still higher than what they, what I want them to be so that we can get the more of the bigger million piece orders at a time.
Jeff Holman (36:13.892)
Hmm.
Jeff Holman (36:27.031)
Yeah. So how do you and your team deal with that? How do you get sounds to me like what that translates into is you have to find a very specific target customer who, you know, fits your criteria for 3D printing, both price point turnaround times, you know, design accessibility, all of that stuff at the same time. How do you guys go about finding the right the right customers?
Spencer (36:51.526)
There's a lot of, I mean, there's some applications that the aerospace and defense industry is really big on 3D, but it's more certification. It's not commodity goods and consumer goods like what we're into as much. And so just talking to customers and say, hey, do you do injection molds? Do you have an application that we could quote and we could look at and see if it works?
Jeff Holman (37:05.721)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman (37:16.247)
Is a lot of it waiting for the right time to come by? they get stuck in a, what you experienced, a logistics headache and they're like, you know what, how do we solve this? We're never gonna get these in time. And someone says, wait a second, what about that Spencer guy?
Spencer (37:31.493)
Sometimes it is. Just last week, we've been talking to a customer for the last four months and then something happened on their side. We don't know what it is, but all of sudden they're like, hey, we need 3,000 parts and we need them Tuesday. And we're like, okay.
Jeff Holman (37:43.951)
Yeah. You're like 3000. That's it. We can do 62,000 before 430.
Spencer (37:49.721)
Yeah. And so I think it was like a Friday we printed and Tuesday we delivered their 3000 parts and like it's awesome. It's cool to be able to have that solution.
Jeff Holman (37:58.819)
That's so cool. And how do you turn those people into a recurring customer? Do they often come back or do they wait for the next crisis? What does that look like?
Spencer (38:11.415)
most of time they come back, but I mean, obviously you have some, don't, we don't target the customers that is just like a one-off order. Like we target those that, that need continual production throughout the, throughout their process. And so that's what it is.
Jeff Holman (38:26.543)
Yeah, well, this is fascinating. This is maybe not quite as good as if I was there talking in person and doing a factory tour with you, but it's fascinating to hear about how you're running these businesses and growing them. If you were to take your experience so far, starting, guess, from age two where you were making the messes and being the problem to, you know, sweeping the floors, to helping run the businesses, starting your own business like...
Spencer (38:50.853)
The number one thing I would say is don't give up. You're going to have struggles, you're going to have downs. You'll get some ups there, but it's the people that give up that you never hear about again. It's hard.
Jeff Holman (38:54.647)
Just thinking about your journey, what are maybe one or two or three pieces of advice that you would give to other people who might be a few steps behind you on this same path?
Spencer (39:21.209)
but don't give up. And I think another is, you know, what we're doing is really revolutionizing an industry and when it does take off, I mean, it's, it's cool to see that just like, you know, the Elon Musk and the Steve Jobs, I'm not saying I'm like them at all, but when you think you can do something that everyone says you're going to fail at and you're actually succeed at it, like that is cool.
Jeff Holman (39:47.363)
That's cool. Yeah. Well, do you sleep under your desk? Is that, that's one of the criteria, right?
Spencer (39:53.093)
That is. And that's the pitfall of cell phones is now you can sleep in, you can work in your bed and wherever you want and it never leaves you, sadly enough.
Jeff Holman (40:03.287)
Yeah, no, I know how it goes. Well, I have one more question for you though, and it's totally off topic. We were talking earlier about your son's mountain biking with the mountain biking leagues here in Utah, high schools and do you mountain bike also? So here's my question. know, between, well, anywhere in Utah, what's your top favorite trail and why?
Spencer (40:28.387)
I love... There's a trail down in Richfield, which I'm trying to get Price Carbon County to get a trail like this, but there's a trail called Spinal Tap, which is, it's just a straight downhill trail. Like it's, I don't know, 15, 20 miles?
Jeff Holman (40:38.915)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman (40:44.143)
You shuttle it right? So you get a shuttle drop off up top usually. then I have not ridden that one, but I've heard about it many times.
Spencer (40:54.861)
So that's fun. mean, obviously the trail here in Price is awesome. Butch Cassidy is what it's called. It's a lot of fun. And then in the wintertime, we'll go down to St. George and ride some of those trails.
Jeff Holman (41:06.829)
In St. George, where do you like to ride there?
Spencer (41:10.187)
There's a trail system called gym, which is pretty fun. There's another called a bear claw poppy, which the kids love the family loves and Yeah
Jeff Holman (41:22.155)
all good stuff. My daughter was just riding that Bear Claw Poppy Trail System and Stucky before she came up for the holidays. So great place for sure. Well, Spencer, I'm so glad you set aside some time to talk to me about this today and just catch up. It's been fantastic chatting. Thank you so much for coming on to the show with me.
Spencer (41:30.568)
That's awesome.
Spencer (41:44.099)
Thank you, Jeff. It's been awesome.
Jeff Holman (41:45.519)
Yeah. And for our audience, thanks again for joining us for this week for the breakout CEO. It's been fantastic and hope you've taken away a few insights. If you are listening to the podcast and want to leave a review, feel free to do that. If you want to get a hold of Spencer and ask about his stuff, Spencer, how can they get a hold of you?
Spencer (42:04.728)
mean merit3d.com is our website. I'm always on LinkedIn. Send me a Spencer Loveless. Look me up and let's, let's chat.
Jeff Holman (42:12.377)
chat and make sure to bring in the first of many orders for 3D printed parts here in Utah. So, awesome. Thanks everybody. Love it, thank you so much and we'll see you next week.
Spencer (42:20.481)
That's right. Love manufacturing in the US. Thank you.
Jeff Holman (42:31.491)
get this stopped.
