Paul Baron’s international business focus led him to his newest vertical: literally and figuratively. Although he retired about five years ago from a career as an international business consultant, Baron couldn’t stifle his entrepreneurial instincts. While involved in several endeavors, he learned about the process of vertical printing, which can be done by a specialized machine on a wide variety of upright surfaces and can reproduce existing artwork or create signs.
Baron wanted to own the product, but the German manufacturer of the first printer he encountered would not agree to a deal. So, he looked worldwide and found five companies that make vertical printers.
“The best one was a Chinese company founded about 15 years ago,” he said.
After a courtship process with the Chinese company in 2019, he forged a manufacturing relationship with it and co-owns with that company three patents related to the product.
The generic term for what the machine does is vertical printing, Baron said, adding that his is the only vertical wall printer sold by a U.S.-based business.
“Wall Printer is our name for an inkjet printer on steroids,” he said. “Our Wall Printer will print vertically on any wall – indoors or outdoors, metal, glass, tile, concrete – not even necessarily smooth. It prints up and down and puts out any digital image reliably and quickly. We don’t take food off the tables of artists but allow them to create their artwork or signage on an up to 50-foot mural on the outside of a building.”
Images are converted to a digital format and loaded onto a USB drive, which is then inserted into the printer. The printing machine’s software takes that image and creates a faithful reproduction using the correct proportions, Baron said.
The Wall Printer company maintains a simple model: It sells its patented vertical printers to entrepreneurs who want to start their own vertical printing businesses.
“The Wall Printer is not a franchise system,” Baron said. “Our customers create their own businesses and their own brands. They get their equipment from us, and we give them a lot of support. We don’t take royalties. This is all about entrepreneurship: creating opportunities for others. It’s their own hopes and dreams, delivering wall art. It’s about cooperation, not competition.”
Included in a customer’s purchase from The Wall Printer is an exclusive territory to ensure that there is no unwanted geographic overlap. Baron’s company now has 120 customers, spread throughout Canada, the U.S., Mexico, South America and the Caribbean.
Baron describes his relationship with the Chinese equipment manufacturer as strong. The company has now expanded with a floor printer: a full-color digital machine that uses UV technology to enable it to print any digital image on any floor surface, smooth or uneven. It’s early days yet but The Wall Printer has sold about 10 of these machines to people who want to put logos or other markings on floors, swimming pools or other horizontal surfaces.
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