Pillar 1: Efficiency Through Limitations and Standardization
Design around what’s possible locally. Use small-scale tools and standard processes to make manufacturing accessible, repeatable, and community-driven.
Traditional manufacturing is shaped by global logistics, maximizing margins, and minimizing shipping costs. Products are often designed not for usefulness, beauty, or sustainability — but for how efficiently they can be boxed, shipped, and sold.
Profit 3rd turns that on its head. Instead of designing around distribution and investor returns, we design around what’s possible locally. The limitations of small-scale tools — like 3D printers, CNC routers, and laser cutters — become the creative boundaries within which we work.
Standardization across materials and techniques makes it easier for others in any community to participate, reproduce, or remix the work. Yes, this narrows the type of products we can build — for now. But the world of community-based, on-demand manufacturing is evolving fast. Within a few years, many of the things we rely on to live comfortably could be made locally, anywhere.
Pillar 2: Product Design as Art
Design with heart. Let creativity and curiosity drive what gets made — not just what will sell at scale.
Most modern product design is transactional: “What will sell the most? What’s trending? What’s cheapest to produce at scale?” There’s little room for true artistic vision. Profit-first thinking strips creativity down to what’s marketable.
In the Profit 3rd model, we reframe product design as art — an expression of personal vision, experimentation, and even play. With low-cost tools and processes, creators can make things that reflect their values and curiosity, not just mass-market expectations.
As Rick Rubin says, “Creating something solely to appeal to an audience is not art, it’s commerce.” True art comes from the inside — and when you build from that place, chances are someone else will resonate with it too.
And if only a few people do? That’s fine. Because low-overhead, community-driven manufacturing means even niche products can be successful — without relying on huge factories or investor buy-in.
Pillar 3: Transparency
No black boxes. Everyone involved should understand how something is made, what it costs, and who profits.
Profit-first models thrive on opacity. Consumers rarely know who made their products, how much it cost to make them, or what corners were cut to maximize margin. When information is hidden, accountability disappears.
Transparency is essential in the Profit 3rd model. Every part of the process — from design to material sourcing to pricing — is open and shareable. Customers know who made what. Makers know where materials came from. Everyone in the chain has a clear picture of how things are built.
This isn’t just good ethics — it’s good community-building. Transparency fosters trust, inspires learning, and encourages others to participate. It also keeps everyone honest: no black boxes, no hidden agendas.
Pillar 4: Win–Win–Win
Products should benefit everyone: the user, the maker, and the planet.
In traditional business, success often means someone else loses. The customer overpays, the worker is underpaid, or the planet is exploited.
In Profit 3rd, we aim for a win–win–win:
- The end user gets a product that’s thoughtful, useful, and human-centered
- The designer and the local manufacturing chain earn a good living doing meaningful work
- The planet and local community benefit from small-scale, sustainable, transparent systems
It sounds idealistic — but it’s not out of reach. When every decision is run through a “win–win–win” lens, choices become clearer. The more you act with intention, the more people will want to support what you’re doing. Good motives attract good collaborators.
Pillar 5: Free Training for All
The barrier to entry should be as low as possible. Free, open training empowers anyone to become a designer, builder, or collaborator.
The Profit 3rd model only works if everyone has access to participate. That means breaking down barriers to entry — especially around knowledge and skill.
Free online training is a crucial piece of this puzzle. Whether you want to be a designer, maker, or just someone who fixes and customizes their own gear, you should be able to learn without spending thousands on gatekept education.
With the right training resources, a teenager in a small town or a retired builder in the city can become a contributor to the Profit 3rd movement. When people understand the tools and the process, they can:
- Design their own products
- Customize what exists
- Join or build local manufacturing hubs
- Teach others and grow the ecosystem
Open access to training keeps the system decentralized, resilient, and equitable. It’s how we scale this model without losing its soul.
Pillar 6: The Profit 3rd Community License
Open, but protected. The license ensures contributors are credited and compensated when designs are used commercially.
To ensure the long-term health and fairness of the Profit 3rd ecosystem, we need a licensing structure that protects shared contribution while allowing fair use and growth. That’s where the Profit 3rd Community License comes in.
Traditional open-source licenses, while great for access, don’t protect designers and makers from exploitation. They allow anyone — even large corporations — to use designs for profit without sharing anything back. That runs counter to the spirit of community manufacturing.
The Profit 3rd Community License flips that script. It allows free use, remixing, and local manufacturing — as long as it’s in the spirit of community benefit. But when someone wants to use a design commercially, they must:
- Credit the original designer
- Share a fair portion of profits with everyone involved in the production chain
- Keep derivative works open and accessible to others
This ensures that designers aren’t cut out of the loop, and that every person — from CNC operator to educator — shares in the success of the products they help bring to life.
It’s not just a license — it’s a contract of shared values, designed to keep the Profit 3rd movement aligned, ethical, and thriving.
Pillar 7: By the People, For the People
No big money, no gatekeepers. Profit 3rd is about keeping power and value in the hands of makers, not investors.
The most fundamental principle of Profit 3rd is this: keep the power in the hands of the people. Big money investors — whose sole priority is rapid growth and high returns — tend to force decisions that center profit above all else. Once those interests are involved, it becomes nearly impossible to keep people and planet first.
That’s why keeping big money out is essential. Profit 3rd products are made by communities, for communities. They’re built with tools that are affordable, accessible, and increasingly powerful. This enables small teams — or even individuals — to create meaningful, high-quality goods without needing millions in capital.
This model preserves creative control for designers, dignity for makers, and transparency for users. It allows decisions to be made locally, based on what’s right — not what’s profitable. And it ensures that value created by the community stays in the community.
By resisting the pressure to scale in the traditional sense, we open up space for something more sustainable and inclusive. It doesn’t mean growth is off the table — it means growth happens organically, through shared values and collective benefit.
Profit 3rd is built by the people, for the people. And that’s how we keep it truly ours.
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