# Buttonsmith Inc.

🏆 Software bringing American factories into the 21st century

## Elevator pitch
We are using software and automation to reinvent US manufacturing. Instead of building thousands of units at a time and shipping them halfway around the world, we build products one at a time in the US to be exactly what customers want, using software and new kinds of manufacturing processes to do it quickly and efficiently. It's not only better manufacturing, it will also help save the planet.

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/buttonsmith.inc
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:82277
- Last updated: 2026-06-22T05:03:18Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-22T18:53:48Z

## Quick facts
- 🚀 Beta factory: $13M+ in cumulative revenue & 580K customers across 50 states
- 🔥 World-class team from Microsoft, IBM & Xerox with $250M+ exit to Amazon
- 🎯 Channel partners include Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and eBay
- 💥 Average customer rating 4.9 out of 5 stars
- 💸 Positioned to disrupt the smart manufacturing market — slated to surpass $384BN
- 📰 Featured in Fast Company, Forbes, People, NowThis, Business Insider & more
- 🥾 Bootstrapped, until now…

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:45024: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:45025: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## Story
Buttonsmith is revitalizing American manufacturing for the 21st century. Our proprietary software-driven manufacturing process allows manufacturers to make exactly what consumers want on-demand, with essentially no waste—and without having to ship products halfway across the world.Despite its wastefulness, manufacturing is critical to the U.S. economy. It contributes an annual $2 trillion to U.S. GDP and employs 8% of the U.S. workforce. Current manufacturing processes are inflexible, unable to adapt quickly to changes in demand. COVID-19, for instance, made it abundantly clear that adaptable manufacturing is a necessity in today’s dynamic world. The status quo of manufacturing is failing. Our beta factory, powered by the Buttonsmith Operating System for smart manufacturing, has already achieved extraordinary results. We’ve generated more than $11.3 million in cumulative revenue, our 580,000 happy customers love us, and we’re rated 4.9/5.0 across all major eCommerce channels.Our beta factory started with just 232 SKUs. The Buttonsmith Operating System enabled us to scale to more than 10,000 SKUs, all while cutting out wasteful inefficiencies. Harnessing the power of software and computing, the Buttonsmith Operating System marries the efficiency of the assembly line with the personal touch and connection of the artisan craftsperson—in a format that’s profoundly scalable. For the first time in human history, it's possible for nearly every manufactured item to be made exactly how the customer wants it, when they want it. Our software significantly improves manufacturing processes while saving a noteworthy amount of time during production. On-demand production reduces the amount of inventory that manufacturers have to carry, and because they can send things directly to the customers, we can eliminate the upcharges that emerge along the distribution chain.How the Buttonsmith Operating System works:(1) The Makinator extracts information from order channels, translates orders to machine-ready files, automates hand-off to partner factories, and updates order status as item manufactured.(2) The Productinator creates and defines products on different sales channels and determines how to configure products.(3) The Pictinator eliminates the need to manufacture and photograph sample products with virtual photography software that generates life-like images.Our leadership team has a long history of solving challenging technical problems and building industry-creating software solutions. We’re leveraging everything we’ve learned from driving digital innovation at companies like Microsoft, IBM, AT&T Bell Labs, and Xerox to revolutionize the manufacturing industry. What started as 10-year-old Henry Burner's school project turned into an online business that quickly grew, making Buttonsmith a multi-million dollar business with a novel vision. Henry's mother, Darcy Burner, helped Henry grow the company at home and eventually took on the role of CEO to run the day-to-day operations of the company. Now Buttonsmith not only makes things, but we're a software company at our core, focused on optimizing American manufacturing.  We’re in the right place at the right time. Global smart manufacturing is a massive market, expected to reach $384B by 2025 with a 12.4% CAGR. We’ll more than double revenue this year as we scale our proprietary manufacturing operating system on a national level. As we scale our software to more manufacturers across the nation, our Operating System for smart factories will generate the majority of our revenue. As we transition into a software company, Buttonsmith will receive a transaction fee every time a manufacturer uses our software platform to fill an on-demand order for their customers.Here at Buttonsmith, we believe companies should only raise money if they’re firmly committed to delivering a return for their investors. We’ve bootstrapped our company all the way to $11M+ in revenue to prove that our manufacturing Operating System can make an impact on the smart manufacturing market. And it does—in a big way. We can’t predict the future, but our leadership team will work with resilience and passion to get you the best return on your investment. Plus, our team has the track record to prove that.*Forward-looking projections cannot be guaranteed With the capital raised, we’ll roll out the Buttonsmith Operating System to 100 factories nationally by investing in: (1) software and engineering; (2) sales and marketing, and (3) automation & robotics. We can’t wait to have you along for the ride.

## FAQ
1. **How do you plan to minimize the environmental impact of one off delivery?**
   - Hi Mark, When we think about the environmental impact of manufacturing, there are four key areas to look at: 1. What’s the impact of the manufacturing process itself? 2. What’s the impact of the energy used for manufacturing? 3. What’s the impact of the transporting the goods? 4. How much waste is there in the supply chain? Different manufacturing processes have different levels of environmental impact. We have consistently made a point to choose processes that do not create environmental dam...
2. **With over 7000 products, it seems that the company vision is to be all things to all people. Is that a correct assumption? If not, how do you define your customer and how large is your market? Also, what's the exit strategy?**
   - Hi Kevin, There’s actually one big problem we are trying to solve: to fix US manufacturing through software-driven digital manufacturing. While plenty of politicians wax poetic about the joys of US manufacturing, there’s been a pretty big gap in the question of exactly how US manufacturers will compete. There is widespread agreement that having China manufacture everything and ship it here on big cargo container ships is not working out so well right now. So what’s the alternative? What we’ve...
3. **Hello, congrats on your revenue growth from $2M in 2019 to $5M in 2020. Are you going to repeat or exceed this growth rate to get you to the $8-10M revenues range in 2021, or based on Q1, Q2, and Q3 numbers you will most likely plateau around the $5M? Can you license the softw...**
   - Hi Vilem, Both 2020 and 2021 have been challenging to forecast accurately; however, our nimbleness at adapting as circumstances and the economy change has served us well so far. With the Delta variant creating hiccups in the economy and the problems we’re seeing with global supply chains, right now our manufacturing team is filling customer orders at a flat out sprint all day every day. We are constrained at the moment by space and the need for additional automation hardware, both of which ar...
4. **What is the ROI?**
   - Hi Jay, That depends on the scope of the question. :-) If you are asking, "How does Buttonsmith make money?" the answer is that we make money every time we sell a product, aka the old-fashioned way. Our unit margins are pretty high, in the ballpark of 90% when accounting for materials COGS. We also apply some employee labor and incur shipping, sales, and marketing costs, but those are more variable. If you are asking, "What will we be using the investment for that will produce return?" then t...
5. **Hi, congratulations on your achievements, well done! Is there a way to see your financial statements for the last 2-3 years? Do you expect competition from the 3D printing industry? Thank you.**
   - Hi Boris, Thank you! When we file our Form C, it will include audited statements for the last 2 years, and anyone who has made a reservation to invest will be able to review them prior to any investment becoming final. The work being done in the 3D printing industry is entirely complementary to what we are doing. For any manufacturing technology, it's critical that there be a way to tell the hardware what to manufacture to meet customer needs. The software we have built does exactly that: it ...

## Team
- Darcy Burner (CEO)
- Jonathan Shapiro (President)
- Michael Burner (CTO)
- Sarah DeNike (Chief of Staff / VP of Marketing)
- Katherine Fugitt (Director of Design)
- Henry Burner (Founder)

## Q&A
- Q: When and how often will Buttonsmith, Inc. provide investor updates?
- Q: any updates?
- Q: sorry if i am missing something obvious here, but why did revenue deteriorate in 2021?
  - A: In 2020, we were able to reshape our manufacturing operations in response to COVID, and when the CDC recommended that Americans wear cloth masks (since at the time N95, KN95, and surgical masks were in short supply), we were one of the first companies in the country to produce high end cloth masks. That manufacturing agility resulted in a bump in 2020 revenues. In 2021, the supply of medical grade masks became more stable, decreasing the demand for cloth masks and we once again refocused our manufacturing.
- Q: Hi Darcy, Your investor slide deck includes a map of the United States showing current partners and future partners who are in the pipeline. Can you please provide more information about who those partners are and what types of products they manufacture (both current and in the pipeline)? Also, your growth plan is to license the software to other manufacturers. Yet, the use of funds for this round sounds like it will be primarily for square footage and equipment to expand your current product line. When and how do you expect to make the transition to licensing your software and having that become the primary source of revenue? Thank you.
  - A: Hi Jacqueline, Our manufacturing partners make a variety of products including lanyards, dog collars, leashes, pinback buttons, banners, signs, stickers, business cards, refrigerator magnets, t-shirts, face masks, greeting cards, boxes, mugs, tote bags, shoelaces and the like. As we scale up and add more manufacturing partners, we will be continually expanding the products that can be purchased using our software. One thing that has been critical to our success to date has been having access to our beta factory in order to develop and test the connectors to different types of manufacturing processes. The kind of file that we generate for a digital cutter is different than the kind of file we generate for a 3D printer. Our typical processes involve building out and testing the appropriate connectors, and then rolling them out to our partner factories. Our beta factory is a critical tool in the development of the software. The software we have built is a platform that connects purchasers and the US factories that manufacture products. Every time a purchaser orders something and we process the order and hand it off to one of our manufacturing partners, we get a portion of the transaction revenue from the order. One of the things that is often confusing on any platform connecting two different types of customers is what we mean when the term “customer” is used. For instance, when someone pays a merchant using PayPal, who is the customer: the merchant or the person purchasing something? The answer is both, of course. In our case we are connecting purchasers of products and manufacturers who make products. We believe that our transaction-based model will be significantly more straightforward to scale and better for everyone involved than a model based on software licensing fees. Darcy
- Q: Would like to see an update from Buttonsmith. I noticed that the Buttonsmith online store is currently closed. When will it be generating orders again? Is the company still an on ongoing business. Thank you (dated 3/3/2025)
- Q: Checking out your product line it seems like it is a lot of dollar collars, buttons, masks. Do you plan on expanding the product range?
  - A: Hi Ethan, we absolutely will be expanding our product range as we expand the number of manufacturing partners we work with. Our goal is to not be a manufacturer, but rather a software company that will power factories to manufacture virtually anything customers want, on-demand with little to no waste. Darcy
- Q: where does all the material come from you seem to only talk about the manufacturing?
  - A: Hi Robert, great question! We’re making software to power factories that use a variety of kinds of raw materials; our initial prototypes were built with materials sourced in the USA. Our software allows factories to make what customers want, on demand. Factories today are operating on a model that is a century old, and Buttonsmith’s software is changing that so we can restart manufacturing in America.
- Q: Think big. Why limit your product line to smallish, mostly wearable, objects? Why not morph Buttonsmith into Rocketsmith!
  - A: Hi Richard, good question! Our mission is to power manufacturing in the 21st century. That means that we’ll be helping American factories make all kinds of products efficiently and sustainably! Our software could conceivably help manufacture rockets, and we’re proving working out the next phases of our model before jetting into space, so to speak. Also, between you and me, we’ll announce a name change in the not too distant future to capture this broadened vision!
- Q: I don't see any details on what the early bird terms are - could you please elaborate?
  - A: Absolutely! Right now early-bird terms put our pre-money valuation at $20M, or $9.45/share but once we sell out of our early-bird terms, our pre-money valuation will be $25M or $11.81/share.
- Q: Clearest update that Buttonsmith is no more: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FaxxnAtE9/
- Q: So the promotional buttons and lanyards are now primarily a testbed for creating productivity software. Correct? Can that part of the business be deemphasized with the higher goal of bigger success, otherwise it could be a little confusing. What is the $20m valuation based on? If software, are there software sales yet? Or is it on the promotional products which is more like R&D for the software? Also, does your software solution require your customers to invest in additional manufacturing equipment to be successful? Thanks again.
- Q: Hi Darcy, I think I read customers are either the end user or the company they are buying from, so on demand isn't necessarily one-off, individual items, rather could still be a number in the thousands by a supplier. How would your software help the manufacturer to such a supplier versus not having your software? What types of mfgrs would most benefit; a custom mfgr (which is likely small like a custom motorcycle co) or a mass mfgr (like say a proctor and gamble that has huge similar product lines)? What is your competition, moat, differentiators? Finally, what level of connection has Button already made with the 100+ companies defined as your pipeline? Thank you.
- Q: In your presentation you say that you invented the first Alexa which was later acquired by Amazon, can you go into more detail regarding this claim please? Who invented it and why it was invented? OK I found the answer and your claim is very misleading. In your presentation you have an Alexa assistant, when in reality, the person that was involved in the Alexa you refer (Michael Burner) to was merely VP of Development for the Alexa internet ranking system. Here's the info from his Linkedin bio (needless to say I will not be investing due to deception): Original developer for the Internet Archive and Alexa Internet; ran development team for Internet Archive and Alexa Internet Developed the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine Created first archive of the World Wide Web for the Library of Congress Created Alexa ranking system, the first algorithmic system for ranking website popularity through user behavior Created Alexa predictive engine, since acquired by Amazon.com for preference predictions based on past behavior Researched and developed algorithms for mining and inferring pertinent data about web sites Designed and implemented multi-terabyte database of web data and metadata Pioneered work in web crawlers; wrote widely-cited "Crawling Towards Eternity: Building an Archive of the World Wide Web" published in Web Techniques, May 1997
  - A: Hi Shirly, I'm glad you were able to find the information explaining the role that Michael Burner, our CTO, played as the original developer of and VP of Development for Alexa Internet, which was acquired by Amazon and used as the basis of Amazon's preference prediction algorithms. (And yes, we agree that it's a little confusing that Amazon has used the term "Alexa" in multiple ways.) Darcy
- Q: My wife and I are interested in investing in this company. Have concerns about your revenue projections also will like to have more information on your past year financials, interested in investing with significant amount. Thank you in advance for this information.
  - A: Our complete audited financials for prior years are posted here on WeFunder as part of the SEC filings for this offering. In terms of projections, while the current state of the economy makes many kinds of predictions unstable, we believe that the flexibility of our manufacturing process and the increasingly clear need for a manufacturing policy that isn't dependent on bringing goods halfway around the world will result in continued growth in the medium term.
- Q: Hi Darcy, I like what you are doing! I have a couple of questions; thanks for taking time to answer. In one of your answers below, you say "We have consistently made a point to choose processes that do not create environmental damage or harm our employees or community. For instance, we don’t use solvent-based printers; we use latex, inkjet, UV-cured, or toner-based printers instead. (Buttonsmith rule #1: Don’t kill the employees!) We also use 100% clean energy in our manufacturing processes, from a combination of wind, solar, and hydroelectric power. And because we are building our products in direct response to customer demand, we waste essentially no inventory." However, I believe your core business is the software platform you have built, not the buttons-- Is that correct? 1) How do you control what your manufacturing partners are using as inputs? Or is that sustainability focus in fact not a core part of ButtonSmith process, but only the "buttons" your beta factory produces? Please say more about this. 2) Can you share your revenue model and forecast for the next 5 years? What percent of the $100M revenue you forecast will be from "buttons" you make and sell vs the software platform you are licensing to factories? And how much will be Annual recurring revenue? 3) How many jobs is your manufacturing software enabling, replacing or removing in American manufacturing? 4) Have you thought about seeking B Corporation Certification? Seems aligned with your values! Thank you! Kacey
  - A: Hi Kacey, These are fine questions! 1) When we agree on specifications for product materials and processes with our manufacturing partners, we are specifying and focusing on the environmentally-friendly and worker-friendly processes and materials we've identified. In some cases this means seeking out partners who are already using the processes in question and collaborating on materials; in some cases this means we are collaborating with partners at the level of identifying suitable equipment. So far, our partners have welcomed collaboration on this front, and we have watched them switch more broadly to the better processes and materials across their whole lines of business, not just the parts with us. 2) We anticipate that as we scale, the vast majority of our revenue will be generated through software, with manufacturing partners making essentially all of the products. We find it's useful to have a beta factory where we can prototype and test things--or, as they described it at Microsoft, "eat our own dogfood"--but the focus is on the software. The revenue model is transaction based: we get a cut of every transaction we facilitate. As we bring on more manufacturing partners and more channels, the baseline number of transactions we process will continue to increase. Since we will be bringing revenue and business to our manufacturing partners that they couldn't easily access without us, we believe they will have incentives to work with us over the long term. 3) Our software is allowing us to bring manufacturing back to the US, largely from China. As much as possible, we're trying to optimize for those US jobs being *good* jobs, where workers are well-paid and use skill and ingenuity, rather than simply do repetitive things until they damage their bodies. As we increase revenue for our manufacturing partners and increase the number and breadth of products we can make in the US, we put them in a position to expand and hire additional workers here. We view our employees and the employees of our manufacturing partners as important stakeholders in this, and are working to ensure they derive fair benefits from what they build. We're also a union shop, and are disproportionately targeting other union operations for our initial partnerships. 4) Yes - we are actually in the queue for B Corporation Certification! Our evaluation score is well above the required threshold and we can document everything, so we're just waiting for them to assign us an evaluator to complete the process. Darcy