Tampa Bay 3D printing entrepreneur beats the odds with moxie, fortitude

Two times Roy Kirchner, founder of Ultimate 3D Printing Store in Pasco County, didn’t think he was going to make it. 

Once was when he graduated from high school at a fourth grade reading level and was told he wouldn’t amount to anything. The other was in 2021, the year his company grew 355% — from four employees to 38, from 1,900 square feet of space to 65,000 square feet, handling $10 million in annual revenue. He also found himself in the hospital that year, racked with Covid for two months.

Massive growth like that sounds wonderful on paper, But it nearly wrecked Kirchner — and the business. The company wasn't prepared, in processes or in people, to handle the surge. Outsiders were congratulating Kirchner. But he knew better. 

"Let me tell you what, like that was, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy,” he says. “I'm just saying everything goes wrong." 

Things have since evened out. His company stabilized at around $4 million in revenue and his employees have leveled out to a more manageable 18.

The lessons Kirchner learned, from the before, during and after of that entire process, are relevant for business owners and entrepreneurs in nearly any field. The list includes hiring and surrounding yourself with smart people; being able to turn down business that will dilute customer service; and making decisions sometimes without all the needed data.

Ultimate 3D Printing Store has two arms: selling 3D printers as a retailer and providing 3D printing services to customers who need it but maybe aren’t ready to onboard the technology in their own business. The more profitable arm is the retail side and the majority of the technology comes from China. 

“The thing that you have to remember is, I'm an entrepreneur," Kirchner says, "and there's one word that does not exist in my vocabulary. It just doesn't exist, and that's the word quit. So you're always going to be up against things. You just push through. That's it." 

The first obstacle: Discouragement 

There was a learning curve to get to where he is today as a CEO. Kirchner took a job at Cici’s Pizza out of high school based on feedback he was given about not amounting to anything, eventually coming to the understanding that he had a learning disability. 

He bounced around odd jobs, including detailing cars, when a sales manager from Gateway Honda in New Port Richey approached him about moving into sales. 

He only managed to sell one car in two months and was let go. “I was getting ready to go back to the restaurant business, and I said, ‘You know what? I think the car business is good. Let me just try one more time.’ I just didn't want to quit,” he recalls. 

From there, he went to another dealership and with proper training was propelled to the No. 2 spot out of 65 salespeople. It was here he started plotting his next move. 

Kirchner notes that in the process of selling a car, he had access to all kinds of information — where a person lived, for how long and how much they made. Instead of simply envying their status, he became inquisitive. 

“When I saw a successful person and I was selling them a car, this is what I said to him. I said, ‘John, I'm selling you a car today, but can you do me a favor?’ And John says, ‘Well, what can I do for you, Roy? And I said, ‘Sir, can you pretend like I'm your kid?’” Kirchner explains, "On my day off, I want to come to your work and I want to shadow you. Because if you're making this much money and you're this successful, I want to be this one day.”

This proved successful. 

“And that's how I made it," he says. "I found people who were successful, and I just latched on to them and I never let go". 

The second obstacle: Untenable growth

After leaving the car business, he spent about a decade in marketing — working for companies and starting his own — before research led him to see the future of 3D printing. He founded Ultimate 3D Printing Store in 2015.

For many business owners, Covid was a time of upheaval in a negative way – just trying to stay afloat and keep the lights on. For Kirchner, his company exploded.

Shortages in traditionally manufactured equipment resulted in demand for 3D printing services for goods like health care and automotive equipment, according to a report from The Business Research Co., a global data analytics firm. 

That demand drove Ultimate 3D Printing to that 355% annual revenue growth — and its greatest crisis. "You don't have the ability to go from four employees to 38 and you don't have time to hire qualified people," Kirchner says. "You don't have time to train them, you're just throwing bodies at it, and everything is just not going right.” 

He describes being greeted every day with multiple emergencies and having to pick the worst one to solve first and then solving the rest. By the end of each day, he hadn’t accomplished anything he set out to do. 

This went on for two years. 

At the height of all this, he caught Covid.

“I abandoned the company for two months," he says. "I literally called up one day, and I said to my chief of staff and my CFO, I said, ‘I'm not going to be able to answer any questions. I'm not going to be able to tell you anything. You're just going to have to run it.'"

Jamie Lea Stinnett was chief of staff at that time and remains in her role today.

“There was just so much going on that I think it was just kind of instinctual. You can't really stop and think about it, or you'll never get through it. You know, you just have to do what needs to get done,” she recalls. “A lot of our staff was out. I remember looking around one day and there's like three of us sitting where a room of 30 had been.” 

Stinnett credits the team for helping the company come through the crisis. “I was steering the ship, but it wasn't me. It was my people, it was all the employees," she says. "I didn't hear ‘That's not my job’ or ‘That's not what I get paid to do.’ Everybody stepped in where they could.” 

Soon after that, another turning point for Kirchner was being introduced to Chris White, a business coach and entrepreneur out of Orlando. Through White’s System and Soul coaching framework, Kirchner was able to begin implementing policies and procedures that calmed the chaos. 

“He saved me,” he says. 

The third obstacle: Tariffs 

Now there are more challenges, namely, tariffs. Given the firm's business connections in China, this is more acute. 

“When they put this tariff thing in effect, within an hour, all of the Chinese warehouses here basically said, ‘Until this is over, we're not selling to you.’ So they wouldn't even process the orders we had,” Kirchner says. 

Kirchner says he's trying to be both pragmatic and patient, having plan Bs and Cs depending on where things go with tariffs. “One day, boom, tariffs hit, and everything changes. So that's life, but that's business, and that's entrepreneurship. 

Adds Kirchner: People's lives are in my hands, so I can't quit, right?”