Cloudprinter.com
A SaaS platform connecting print buyers with print suppliers
Introduction
In 2015 Martijn Eier (as CEO) and I (as CTO) founded Cloudprinter.com. By the time of writing Martijn is still CEO, while I did exit Cloudprinter.com in September 2023. We are both shareholders.
We both had first-hand experience with the printing business and it did not take long for us to see that with Martijn's experience and contacts on the business level, and my experience and knowledge on the technical side, we could build a service to disrupt the industry, and so we did!
The platform
With a great deal of experience from previous projects, the new multisided Restful API service was built. Worker services for order routing, price calculation, PDF modification, and much more were also added. All are built from the same flexible PHP-based framework.
All cloud from day one, and AWS was the partner of choice. First developed and running on EC2 instances, then migrating everything into the world of docker and containers.
The API's
As mentioned before, the service was a multisite API service, here is a list of the major APIs.
- A client-side API for product information, quotes, and order posting.
- An admin side API as the backend for all admin systems
- Apps APIs to support more feature-rich applications, such as web-based ordering systems and integrations with other systems and APIs
- A production partner-side API for file access and status updates In this modern age, using API on the client side is normal and all developers have done that already. But for the print partners, it was still rare to find.
Changing an industry
But APIs could not make it on their own. Print productions around the world needed orders from the platform and in an easy way. We took the high road here and defined simple and easy-to-implement APIs and easy-to-parse order documents. We also required that we post the order to an API endpoint and not upload it to an FTP server. With the API we would get an immediate response that the order was accepted, which was key information.
Over time more and more print partners started to see the idea or at least the need to move into the age of the apis. Those who saw the opportunity and joined Cloudprinter.com to receive orders from all over the world, and automated their production workflows, came out changed and prepared for the future. We managed to take the high road, stick to our vision, and change the industry.
A growing team, a growing leader
We started with two people and topped at around 90 people around 6 years in. Reorganization of the company structure and managing teams was suddenly a large part of every day. In the end, I had 2 development teams, a QA team, a Product team, and a Print Operations team.
With more people, the task has moved away from the hands-on development to a leader and a mentor role. With a young and dynamic team, a clear direction was needed. They were growing as individuals, team members, and in their positions, while I was growing fast as a leader.
I have always been a big-picture thinker, which has helped me greatly when making large system designs, talking integrations and solutions with clients, and also pushing the developers out of their comfort zone where they are all under control. This helps them see things from a bigger perspective, the bigger picture. Gradually moving the perspective at a pace they can handle, helps them grow as developers. They suddenly understand more of the larger concepts, and do more design work on their own. To me this is one of the great goals as a leader, to empower people and give them a bigger perspective.
Where is it now
Cloudprinter.com is on the path to even greater success. The switch from a start-up to a scale-up has reshaped the company once again. Only the future will tell how high it can go.
The takeaway
The Cloudprinter.com journey has made me grow as a person, a system designer, and not least as a leader.
I love to get my hands dirty from time to time. Working with high-level system designs is great, but so are making prototypes and chacing complex bugs.