Today in the Dutch Newspaper: PV-Productions! Philip Verbeek, the founder of PV-Productions, gave an interview on how PV-Productions was founded and developed along the way. The result: a well written article in which the different aspects of our company are described!
Translated version:
Dutch Lego wizard has customers all around the world: ‘This has never been seen before’
With Lego you can not only have fun tinkering, but also set up your own company. Philip Verbeek (26) from Heythuysen discovered how you can make ingenious and wonderful ‘ball machines’ from existing LEGO sets. His construction drawings and accessories are in demand worldwide.
An impressive industrial installation in the form of a glorified marble track, pimped with all conceivable and unimaginable bells and whistles. Slides, stair lifts, seesaws, tilting buckets, swivel arms, sorting tracks. Driven by an ingenious interplay of gears and drive rods, in a synchronous ballet of moving parts that let the balls frolic through the machine fully automatically. Yet the 3350 parts in this wonderful spectacle all come from one existing Lego box. For a crane.
Ball machine
You can build this ‘ball machine’ even without technical insight, says Philip Verbeek (26) from Heythuysen. But then, in addition to this Lego set, you will need a manual that explains how to do it brick by brick. Those instructions, almost 500 pages, can be downloaded from the website of Verbeek’s company PV-Productions – for a fee. Prices vary between 10 and 25 euros, “depending on the complexity, development time and wow factor.” Free blueprints are available to try out the concept.
To spice things up even more, you can immediately order some extras on the site: glow-in-the-dark balls that give the machined Lego colossus a magical appearance in the dark, LED strips, a specially designed funnel that giving balls a twist, a xylophone that you build into the roller track to elicit some cheerful sounds from the marbles.
YouTube
All this is the core of Verbeek’s company. He started this as a teenager, when he noticed that the videos of his self-invented marble track creations on YouTube attracted a lot of attention. “I have always been involved with technology and Lego,” he explains. “If I received a Lego box, I first made the model for which the set is intended and then I got creative with it myself.”
With his technical tinkering and software knowledge – partly acquired with Lego – studying mechatronics at Fontys University was the obvious choice. He then went to work at Canon Production Printing in Venlo, although he added his company part-time.
Wings
A golden idea gave the start-up wings: “People who saw the videos wanted to replicate my creations. But there is a good chance that you do not have those specific blocks, you have to order them and that is expensive. A complete Lego set is relatively three to four times cheaper. I thought: it is smarter to make the ball machines from a Lego model from such a box. The number of views exploded. That you could build something like this from existing sets! They had never seen that before.”
It is a time-consuming job, transforming a set with, for example, a mineral digger into a spectacular ball machine. Verbeek has been working on this for about six months. He then makes a 3D model of it in the computer, works out the detailed building instruction and produces a video for the site. Lego has no problem with the activities, as long as PV-Productions does not use the Danish brand name for the items from Heythuysen.
His customers can be found all over the world. Target audiences? “Very broad and therefore difficult with marketing: children, their dads, pensioners. AFOLs, ‘adult fans of Lego’, have a large community for me.”
School
Educational institutions have also discovered the ball machines. “The concept turned out to be interesting for the educational market. For example, a school in Canada has exclusively purchased a building plan intended for its summer camps. Building gives you insight into technology, constructions, mechanics. We also explain in the drawings why we chose certain construction steps.” Groups can work with different parts of one machine at the same time. “Learn to think together, to discuss. Working together is essential to get somewhere”.
PV-Productions has grown to such an extent that Verbeek has taken on part-time employees and recently resigned from Canon to devote himself fully to the business. “We come up with simple structures in collaboration with designers in Canada, the US and Hungary.” Verbeek and direct colleagues get their teeth into the large and complex ball machines.
The basement and attic of the parental home have been completely annexed by PV-Productions. Laughing: “Yes, sleeping over here is difficult.” In the attic, 3D printers run 24/7, producing some parts for the ball machines, such as funnels and loops.
3D printer
Adapters are also produced here – with the help of the 3D printer and custom electronics – that fit exactly into a Lego battery house, for example. Originally born out of necessity, that application, now just for sale. “Lego models only run on batteries, but that is difficult at trade fairs where our machines run for several days.”
The company is growing at the seams, which is why she is moving. Verbeek and his girlfriend are going to live together in Posterholt and realize a commercial space at the house. “Plan? Making even more electronics, coming up with new designs for more sets.” And attract permanent employees who can think along. “I would like that, working together. Otherwise you’re just sitting in your room all by yourself.”