Dustin from Smarter Every Day ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbEj7M3aZIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbEj7M3aZIg ) actually has a really solid answer to

Dustin from Smarter Every Day ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbEj7M3aZIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbEj7M3aZIg ) actually has a really solid answer to this. The TLDR is: 3D printing can start instantly. Someone with CAD skills can have a design made, 3D printed and out for evaluation in hours. In takes days (or weeks) to get a good injection mold tooled and up and running. Then once the injection molding is going, 3d printing can switch to working on something else. This is all about fast. fast. fast.