The Makelab team in their new space. (Courtesy of Christina Perla.)Christina Perla, CEO and co-founder of Makelab, did not set out with a master plan to become one of New York’s best-known additive manufacturing entrepreneurs. Like many good manufacturing stories, hers began with a mix of instinct, timing, and recognizing an opportunity others might have overlooked.After graduating from Pratt Institute, Perla worked in design roles, including a stint at Converse, before feeling a strong pull to build something of her own. She and her then-boyfriend, now-husband and co-founder Manny Mota, originally planned to start a design firm. But while outsourcing print work for client projects, they began working closely with a small family-owned 3D printing business in Bushwick, Brooklyn. When the owners decided to relocate, they offered Perla and Mota the chance to acquire the operation. That unexpected opportunity became Makelab, an on-demand 3D printing service for rapid prototyping, medical models, and production parts. “It was happenstance,” Perla muses. In 2017, Perla and Mota acquired the company, which was generating less than $100,000 in annual revenue, and hired their first team member a few months later. Makelab has since grown far beyond its modest beginnings. The company recently signed a five-year lease for 3,840 rentable square feet on the fifth floor of MADE, a 20-acre campus for manufacturers, artisans, designers, and entrepreneurs.Makelab’s Growth Through Inbound DemandThe Brooklyn-based company positions itself as a 3D printing partner for parts, prototypes, and production, serving industries that include robotics, hardware, medical devices, consumer products, and industrial manufacturing. Its workflow emphasizes clarity, speed, and engineering support, enabling the company to produce everything from early prototypes to thousands of parts. Early projects focused primarily on prototypes of devices and products being tested in the field, but over time, the company expanded into larger production runs.Makelab’s growth has been somewhat unusual. Rather than building a traditional sales team, the company relied almost entirely on inbound demand. “We never did outbound sales,” says Perla. “Everything has always been inbound.” Instead of cold outreach, Makelab focused on content, brand experience, and strong client relationships.As projects grew larger and more complex, the company gradually expanded its team and equipment to match demand. Makelab now works with a range of industries, from robotics companies and consumer electronics startups to manufacturers testing new product designs.Designing the Business Like a ProductPerla’s background in industrial design has always shaped Makelab’s operations. Industrial design training emphasizes empathy, understanding the people who use a product and identifying friction points that prevent things from working smoothly. Perla applies that same thinking to Makelab’s internal operations. “I treat my employees in our process like a design challenge,” she says. Rather than blaming mistakes on individuals, she sees them as signals that a process needs improvement.That philosophy led Makelab to redesign many of its internal workflows. In the company’s early years, staff relied on handwritten documents such as bin labels, order tickets, and build sheets to track production. As order volume increased, the system became difficult to scale, so the team developed its own solution. “We’ve now built complete, homegrown systems that translate the data to all these different formats, printing it automatically,” Perla says. She explains that “staying organized across thousands of parts, orders, and clients takes real hours and effort. Our new systems handle this effortlessly. Information that is relevant to the task at hand is now readily available at the snap of a finger.” The systems reduce errors and help the team track jobs more efficiently from order to production.Perla believes improving processes is an ongoing design challenge. “We just kept adjusting,” she says. “It's just small adjustments all the time.”Learning About Focus the Hard WayAs Makelab expanded, Perla and her team also learned the importance of discipline in choosing which opportunities to pursue. Early in the company’s growth, Makelab accepted a large contract that included both additive manufacturing and painting and finishing services. While the project initially seemed like a major opportunity, the finishing work proved difficult to scale. When the client withdrew after only part of the contract was completed, the company reassessed its strategy.Makelab eliminated painting and finishing services and concentrated entirely on scalable additive manufacturing, a move that helped streamline operations and clarify the company’s long-term direction. “Focus and saying ‘no’ is the key to being able to scale,” Perla says. Bridging Additive and Traditional ManufacturingNearly a decade into her career in additive manufacturing, Perla says she is increasingly focused on real-world applications rather than the latest technology.“If I could speed up one thing in the industry, it would be better education and communication around what additive manufacturing can actually do today,” she says. In her view, additive manufacturing has spent years surrounded by excitement and hype, but wider adoption will depend on clearer communication about practical applications and capabilities.“For so long, this technology was the new kid on the block; everyone was infatuated with it. But infatuation does not necessarily mean education and longevity.”Perla also shared her impressions of IMTS - The International Manufacturing Technology Show, where she attended as a speaker through her involvement with Women in 3D Printing. “IMTS left me impressed with how much the industry is pushing forward,” she says. “But it also reminded me how early we all still are in scaling additive manufacturing for real production.”For Perla, the future of additive manufacturing lies in stronger connections between additive specialists and the broader manufacturing industry. Bridging that gap, she believes, will help the technology move from experimentation to widespread industrial use.Register today for IMTS 2026 and explore solutions in the additive manufacturing sector.Do you have input about this article? Tell us about it.

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