I just learned of San Francisco startup Ponoko via TechCrunch. I’m still trying to understand the details, but the concept rocks.

From what I can tell so far this is the premise. Upload your design for a product and Ponoko, which has a factory in San Francisco, will make it for you. You can sell your blueprints for other people to make and can also use the website to market your designs, which Ponoko will build and ship to you to ship to the purchaser — at least that’s how I’ve understood the process up to this point. The home page of their website shows links that direct to Your own personal factory (”How to make”) or and an Online showroom (”How to sell”).

They claim the process of on demand creation will cut down on the waste of overproduction, and also grants the desires of shoppers who may not find exactly what they are after in the aisles of big box retailers, lined with mass produced products. A service definitely worth checking out. I might try it out and see if I can’t successful plug my table design which I referred to earlier this week.