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Beck Besecker scaled $20M 3D software firm through grit, perseverance

"The reason we do this is we like to build things. That's pretty intoxicating, getting to kind of build stuff all the time." –Beck Besecker, 3D Cloud


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  • | 10:30 a.m. May 8, 2025
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Beck Besecker is the CEO and founder of 3D Cloud in St. Petersburg.
Beck Besecker is the CEO and founder of 3D Cloud in St. Petersburg.
Photo by Mark Wemple
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Beck Besecker and his brother Barry had already started two other companies together before founding 3D Cloud, a digital asset management company specializing in 3D products for interior design and e-commerce, in 2011.

Each venture was built on business-to-business marketing software, and 3D Cloud is the latest variation. The brothers glimpsed the future and saw that the way consumers shop online would someday be a 3D experience as opposed to traditional 2D product photography. They determined there would need to be a system in place to house all the digital assets needed for this service. 

3D Cloud found a niche in home goods, scaling the business to 130 employees in offices in the States and London with what executives say is "north of" $20 million in revenue with clients like Lowe’s, Macy’s and Ashley Furniture. Beyond showcasing static objects, 3D Cloud’s software allows customers to design interiors, everything from bedrooms to bathrooms to closets to offices.

“The vision for this company is that someday, every single product page on the internet will be, instead of being photos of products, will be 3D models of products that you can interact with, so that you can turn around, that you can change, that you can configure, and you can open and close and animate and inspect all the products," Beck Besecker says. "And so that's the original vision for the product or the company, and still is.”


Best advice

Besecker counts business titans like Norm Blake, with USF&G Insurance, and Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, as major influences in his life, saying “I consider myself maybe the luckiest person on earth in terms of getting good mentors. Another key mentor and investor in 3D Cloud is Tampa entrepreneur and philanthropist Arnie Bellini of Bellini Capital, who founded software firm ConnectWise. 

He’s gotten so much good advice that he put it all in a book, “Your Good Work Habits Toolbox” that he uses as an employee training manual of sorts. 

But specifically, curiosity and humility are the most important traits a person can have, according to Besecker. “Really smart people question everything and are not sure,” he says, “The combination of curiosity, just wanting to take things apart...rebuild models, test and validate, and then being humble enough to listen to what the data says [and] not be so firm in your own position is so critical to getting to the truth.”

He believes in this so firmly that if someone doesn’t have questions at the end of a job interview, the candidate is removed from consideration. “How in the world do you not have any questions? That is the weirdest thing in the world to me. Like, you would read the website, right? You would watch interviews, you would read press, you would if you're really curious, right?"


Biggest mistakes and how you overcame them

One mistake is putting funds early on to marketing and sales, as opposed to product testing, when you aren't sure "you found a solution that's actually solving a problem.”

Another mistake? Taking on too much. 

"It's like we're doing really good with furniture applications and somebody says, ‘Oh, do you want to do a decking project?’ And we're like, ‘Sure.’ So you just get overwhelmed," he says, "trying to deliver them too much at once and sacrificing maybe, the one thing you could do well."

Taking on too much, he says, is also one of the company's biggest threats. "Each market is unique and takes an investment of time and money to understand, regardless of profitability," he says. “It ends up deeper than you expect." 

The key, then, is to take measured investments and be able to cut when necessary. At one point, for example, 3D Cloud had to offload clients that weren’t in line with goals moving forward. He even hired someone once with the direction to "find a new place for these 15 clients in the next 12 months and transition them out, hand them the code, find them a partner." That was hard, he says, but he also knew it was the right thing to do, adding "it wasn't gonna be good for them long term anyway."

Overall, he's learned the outlook toward the mistake is what counts. “You just have to look at it like, ‘Oh, I learned something not to do. That gets me closer to what I want to do.’”



Tipping point

Technology catching up to the reality envisioned when the company started pushed the company into its current trajectory. “Really, there were a couple inflection points. One was when you could do 3D on a browser and it looked good. That was probably 2018, 2019 where that started to become true. Before, it had to be on a mobile device. Browser didn't have the capability to do 3D in a meaningful way. So it was really when the browsers accepted 3D and we were a big part of making that happen.”

Another key point: the pandemic, which caused an overwhelming consumer shift to online design and shopping. 


What you would tell your 16-year-old self about starting and running a business

“To build anything of value, where you're solving a real problem and getting it to scale, it takes 10 years to really get it there,” Besecker says. “Most businesses take time, and the amount of grit required. Grit is this idea of being able to see something in the future, long term, and just stay on that path every day, be consistent every day, working toward that path. It's years of that kind of behavior, and years of having a short memory and overcoming mistakes.” 


Best part/toughest part of being an entrepreneur

“The reason we do this is we like to build things,” he says, “That's pretty intoxicating, getting to kind of build stuff all the time.”

Of course, just like anything worth doing, it’s not without its challenges. Tough market conditions and unpredictable external events like Covid-19 are just a few of the storms Besecker has navigated. Regarding Covid, he describes months trying to keep the ship right in the face of the unknown. “We had to be very proactive and go to (clients) and say, we have a plan, and here's how we're going to get through this together.”

 

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