My 2025 personal recap
3DP War Journal #78
Guys, this really was an amazing year. Contrary to what my dear friend Tomasz Garniec wrote a week ago - for me it was not boring at all, but in fact the most exciting year in many years.
Today, however, I don’t want to write about the 3D printing market - you can read about that every single week. Today, for a change, I’d like to brag a little about my own achievements over the past year - and also mention a few projects that didn’t quite work out…
But before I go any further - a short statement: no, I am not leaving the AM industry, and I am not giving up writing about it.
Last Friday on The 3D Printing Journal I published the final farewell post of the AM Survivor series. Unfortunately, a few people got the wrong impression that I was quitting writing altogether.
Relax - nothing like that…
AM Survivor is coming to an end for the reasons I explained in that article. This cycle remains unchanged, just like RECODE.AM. Something new will take the place of AM Survivor – and I’m confident you’re all going to like it.
Coming back to my personal summary of 2025…
As many of you know, in the middle of the year I started working with Bambu Lab. First as a CSM responsible for market development and cooperation with resellers in Central Europe, and later my responsibilities were expanded to include PR activities.
Over the past six months, I visited a number of countries for the first time and met a lot of fantastic people. Together with the Bambu Lab team, we also accomplished several truly spectacular things - including a few historic ones - which, for various reasons, we are not publicly talking about.
Still, the fact that I had the opportunity to stand right at the epicenter of these exceptional events fills me with pride and disbelief. When I published my first articles on Centrum Druku 3D 13 years ago, I never imagined it would take me to the very top of the global AM industry.
Quite an achievement for an ordinary guy from the housing blocks of Łódź, Poland…
But hey - Bambu Lab is one thing, yet during the first six months of 2025 Anna Ślusarczyk and I also delivered several other great projects…
Here is the list of my personal achievements over the past year…
January 2025 - launch of The 3D Printing World Guide
This is one of the best projects I have completed throughout my entire journalistic career. Together with Anna, we published 9 catalogs presenting AM companies from 8 countries (plus one thematic edition focused on the LFAM sector).
On one hand, we showcased to the world a huge number of fantastic companies from often overlooked regions such as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, or Finland. On the other hand, we built many new relationships and contacts.
Each catalog consisted of three elements: an HTML version distributed by The 3D Printing Journal newsletter, a PDF version available for download on the AM Writer website, and a dedicated LinkedIn version.
The series was put on hold partly due to my involvement with Bambu Lab, and partly because of the extremely disappointing changes to the LinkedIn algorithm, which seriously discouraged me from using the platform…
That said, we do not consider the project fully closed. I hope that in 2026 we will be able to cover a few more countries.
February 2025 - launch of the AM History Book
In February, I published my first full-fledged e-book, describing all the most important historical events in the global 3D printing industry that took place in 2012.
Originally, the series was meant to include 12 editions and conclude with 2023, but… time ran out. So far, only 2013 has also been published, while 2014 is about two-thirds complete.
Nevertheless, I want to return to this project. The e-books can be downloaded here.
February 2025 - The AM Margin Masters - a project that failed (miserably)
In February, I also announced a new project aimed at showcasing profitable AM companies and awarding them badges (platinum and gold).
In total, only three companies applied, and ultimately none of them completed the entire process – not to mention the symbolic participation fee.
Well, profitability is still a taboo topic in the AM industry. Either it doesn’t exist at all, it’s marginal, or companies prefer to keep their success a closely guarded secret. And that last scenario represents a very small percentage…
I meant well - but it turned out I touched a topic that was simply too sensitive.
March 2025 – AM World Map
In March, we expanded The 3D Printing World Guide by introducing an interactive world map featuring AM companies. So far, we’ve published profiles of more than one hundred of them!
March 2025 - Dyndrite becomes official partner of The 3D Printing Journal
In March, we started a collaboration with Dyndrite - one of the most remarkable companies in the industry, pushing the development of AM software forward. This cooperation became the inspiration for creating the RECODE AM series, which explores and explains this segment of the 3D printing business.
Dyndrite has developed tools that make metal 3D printers far less unpredictable and no longer insanely difficult to operate. As a result, they have sparked a revolution in the metal AM sector comparable to the transition from MS-DOS to Windows, or from typewriters to Microsoft Word.
May 2025 - end of the historical series on LinkedIn
On May 13, 2024, I published my first historical post on LinkedIn as part of the series “On this day in 3D printing…”. From that day on, I kept publishing new posts – sometimes even three per day - for exactly one year.
I ended the series for several reasons. The main one was that over the course of a year, I had already covered the vast majority of interesting events that took place in the AM industry over the last 40 years. Additionally, the new LinkedIn algorithm increasingly became a burden, dramatically limiting post visibility - even among my followers.
Eventually, I decided that 388 articles in 365 days were more than enough. It’s better to end a project at its peak than to drag it on for too long and burn out together with the readers…
May 2025 - the most-read article in the history of The 3D Printing Journal (and my LinkedIn record)
I keep complaining about the LinkedIn algorithm, and yet at the beginning of May 2025 I set my personal record. My article “Why we should abandon the STL format” unexpectedly went viral, reaching 86,000 impressions on LinkedIn and over 12,000 views on Substack.
You might say - meh, nothing special…
I’ll reply - damn, 86,000 views for an article describing the weaknesses of the STL format??? How many people in the world even know what STL is, let alone understand its properties? Please don’t compare this result to “stolen” videos of 3D-printed houses, colorful snakes, or rainbow Labubus.
This is true 3D printing. Respect!
May 2025 - completion of the Polymer AM Market 2025 report for VoxelMatters
In May 2025, I also completed a market report for VoxelMatters dedicated to the polymer 3D printing market. This was the second report I wrote for VoxelMatters - the first one focused on the metal AM market and was published in January 2025 (although the work was completed back in 2024).
I am extremely grateful to Davide Sher and Federico Sher for the opportunity to collaborate and for the time spent working on these projects. At the same time, this was the most ambitious thing I have ever written in the context of AM.
June 2025 - collaboration with Bambu Lab
In June, I began working with Bambu Lab as a CSM (Customer Success Manager) responsible for the development of the 3D printing market in Central Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Greece – and, more recently, Slovenia). As of October this year, I have also taken on the role of PR Manager for the company.
June 2025 - final episode of The Atomic Layers
At the beginning of June, I also published the final - 300th - article in The Atomic Layers series. Just like the historical series, these articles were published daily. After 300 consecutive days and with the prospect of starting my collaboration with Bambu Lab, I decided to bring the series to an end.
But… stay tuned!
July 2025 – my very first visit to China
In July, I visited the Bambu Lab headquarters in Shenzhen, where I spent two extraordinary weeks. I described my experiences and reflections in one of the most-read articles of the series this year.
September 2025 - Belgrade, Barcelona, and Warsaw
September was filled with conference travel. Together with the 3D Republika team, I presented the H2D Pro in Belgrade:
Then, together with the Bambu Lab Europe team, we presented ourselves at the first edition of the Global AM Hubs Summit in Barcelona:
And finally, we arrived in Warsaw, where together with Edutech Expert we organized the Polish edition of the Bambu Lab Meet Up:
October 2025 – Next Layer Conference in Romania
At the very end of October, I attended one of the best AM conferences of my career. The event, organized by 3D Inbox – Bambu Lab’s Romanian reseller – brought together nearly 200 participants and a lineup of fantastic speakers.
November 2025 – a wonderful, though brutal, Formnext
It was fantastic – although extremely intense. In fact, I think you all still remember it…
December 2025 – realme conference
Finally, in December, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of a new realme smartphone, featuring customizable and 3D-printable housing components. The project partners are Bambu Lab and MakerWorld.
And that’s it – or perhaps that’s quite a lot!
Thank you all for this incredibly successful and exciting year. Thank you for all the meetings and conversations – both in person and on Google Meets.
I hope the coming year will be just as successful – I ask for nothing more.
And I wish you all the very best for the upcoming New Year and an amazing New Year’s Eve celebration! 🎉