BC Business
Founder and CEO
AGE: 26
COMPANY: Tinkerine Studios Ltd.
“The publicly traded Tinkerine has mostly been profitable, although margins have shrunk as the company scaled from just four employees to 27”
The story: Maybe it was the designer in his blood—his parents once owned a silkscreen business—but Eugene Suyu says that, in founding Tinkerine Studios, he “simply wanted a product that would allow me to do anything I wanted.” The Taiwan-born entrepreneur believed a 3D printer, one that was specifically designed for the layperson, would help people do just that: build anything (anything that can be printed with plastic, at least). His printers—the Ditto Pro, Ditto+ and Litto, selling for between $1,000 and $2,000 through the company’s website and a handful of brick-and-mortar stores—are “easy to use, highly reliable and really focused on the end user,” says Suyu, whose customers range from designers to schools to hobbyists (which Tinkerine considers its key market, given the low price point and user-friendly focus of the company’s printers).
Markers of success: Since launching in 2012, the publicly traded Tinkerine has mostly been profitable, although margins have shrunk as the company scaled from just four employees to 27 over the past year. In terms of revenues, however, Suyu says the company has grown 100 per cent in 2014 over 2013. “This year, we expect to knock that out of the park.”—Trevor Melanson
Meet Eugene Suyu and the rest of the 2015 30 Under 30 winners at this year’s celebration event!