Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay Johnson.
Jay, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
In my previous work, I was a system engineer and in executive management for a large Fortune 500 laser equipment company. We patented laser technologies that enabled dramatic shifts in the ability to manufacture new and exciting products that we now know and love like the smart phone, high density memory chips for your SD cards and thumb drives, and virtually every electronic device made. The machines we made could fire a laser pulse at a different location on a semiconductor wafer with nanometer precision and do these 200,000 times a second. The technology was impressive and expensive. The lasers we used were over two hundred thousand dollars apiece and the equipment sold in the millions. I was always looking for ways to take the technology that we used and make it smaller, faster, better, and cheaper. Some of the ideas were radical, and sometimes they didn’t work, but in the end, I had 10 patents and a view for the next generation of technology to come.
After many years in an industry that keeps getting faster and faster, with more and more stress, I decided it was enough. I sold everything, moved on a boat, and sailed the Caribbean for 5 years with my wife and dog. It was a life changing trip. You get new perspective when you live out of the country for many years and it gives you an appreciation for how blessed our country really is. I knew I would come back at some point and move onto the next adventure of starting my own business.
I have always been a faithful believer of rapid prototyping, and in 2010 3D printing was just starting to get some steam. I have many techniques for developing integrated circuit boards in a quick turn fashion, but mechanical parts always have been a slow process. I knew 3D printing would help when it came time to start building our company. I purchased our first 3D printer from Makerbot in 2010 and the first thing I thought to do was how to put a laser on it. That started the business as it is now.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
We started the business with just a small amount of money. The idea is always to be lean. Avoid spending money on large sums of inventory and do “just in time” manufacturing. In the beginning, whenever we made money on selling our new products we would put that money right back into the company. Whether that is new equipment to keep up with production or raw materials, it was always put right back into the company. We never wanted to take investors or debt. We wanted to control 100% of our destiny. In the beginning, you do have to struggle a bit when you also need to have money for living, because you are supporting your business 100% at the time. You make sacrifices to start something yourself and keep it going without taking on investors.
There are times when you think, maybe I should go back to work for someone else and get a job. But then you realize that you are making something substantial for the future. You can also directly see the effect of your efforts of your work and eliminate corporate politics that plague large corporations.
Keeping lean however also tends to make it so we can’t hire as many people as we would like to accomplish as much as we want. Our growth is limited by the number of new products we can develop and the time we spend marketing, selling, and servicing our existing products. We have our future roadmap lined up, but it is hard to get to everything when you are also multitasking between so many different functions in the company. Our summer interns help us to get to projects we have had on the table for a long time, which makes things easier. However, I will take consistent steady growth versus the ups and downs sometimes associated with companies.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with J Tech Photonics – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
J Tech Photonics sells high power laser kits for upgrading 3D printers and CNC machines to turn them into laser cutters and laser engravers. When we put a laser on our first 3D Printer, we tapped into a new market of upgrading existing equipment to have more capabilities. Why have a separate machine for both, when you can combine them to save money and space?
We started this market 6 years ago, with no competition. The laser technology in the last 10 years has completely changed to allow for laser processing at a fraction of the cost. This fact opens the doors to a whole new group of customers who thought laser engraving was out of their budget. By combining this new diode laser technology with the emerging maker movement of innovators and creators, we have unleashed a whole new wave of businesses focusing on making custom products in their garages.
We have sold thousands of units of our laser kits to a wide range of customers all over the world. It is exciting that we can call industrial names like Intel, Ford, GE, BP and Seagate, research institutes like MIT, University of Illinois, and Columbia University, and thousands of Etsy creating garage makers all as good customers. We get examples every day what our laser tools are doing to make better products, scientific discoveries, and projects for small business and makers around the globe.
We are proud that we design, develop, and manufacture all of our products here in Houston. Our fleet of 3D printers manufactures all our mechanical parts and we hand build all of our production here in our shop. We fell this creates a quality product with a value that the customer can see. We have several competitors in China selling cheap versions of our product, but nothing compares to the quality, safety, and customer service we provide. Our products include the safety features that are required in the United States, and we can rest better at night knowing that our lasers have them built in.
We also provide an entire solution that includes helping our customers through the technical difficulties of upgrading their machines. Our Chinese competitors might be cheaper, but you get what you pay for in the end with no safety features, and they don’t answer the phone.
We are also proud of our involvement in the open source movement. We have sponsored and contributed to the development of GRBL, the open source CNC firmware that runs on Arduino. Thousands of machines run GRBL and our laser code allows them to engrave seamlessly on it, including laser engraving pictures. All of our instructions are posted on our website open source and we also provide an open source laser plugin for the popular Inkscape drawing software. We also support makerspaces around the country and donate to STEM school programs to get the next generation of makers excited about science and technology.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We started selling just lasers to upgrade other company’s 3D printers and CNC machines and have grown to support more than 25 different machine upgrades on our website. This was great because it kept us doing what we know, the laser part. We now are planning on offering our own laser engraving machine in case you don’t have another machine to upgrade already. We have increased our production capabilities and our staff to roll out this product in the next few months.
We also have been experimenting with new 3D printing technologies including printing in metal and advanced sensor technology. Our next generation products most likely will include 3D printed heat sinks and integrated accelerometer and gyroscopic sensors to make them even more efficient and safe for the everyday consumer.
Technology is always changing and if you don’t stay ahead of the curve then someone else will take your place. We are always thinking of how to push the boundaries of our lasers and how our customers use them to find new applications and more efficient ways to accomplish manufacturing.
Contact Info:
- Address: 228 Marina Bay Drive STE D
Kemah, TX 77565 - Website: www.jtechphotonics.com
- Phone: 713-826-2122
- Email: sales@jtechphotonics.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/jtechphotonics/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/jtechphotonics
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jtechphotonic
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
