xTool's long-time rival looks back on the journey: When a pioneer stands at a crossroads | Exclusive interview by 36Kr

Text | Zhang Ziyi

Editor | Yuan Silai

By the end of 2025, the hardware track was not short of highlights. However, the news that xTool, the leader in the laser engraving field, submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was still one of the eye - catching moments.

People may not notice the competitors behind xTool. However, the crucial decisions they faced, the fleeting opportunities, and even some coincidences and contingencies together shaped the current market landscape.

In the consumer - grade laser engraver field, another company, LaserPecker, was an absolute pioneer. The team launched its first handheld consumer - grade laser engraver in 2019. The weight of the first - generation product, LaserPecker Pro, was only 1.9KG, and it was palm - sized, allowing users to operate it by hand.

At that time, in the laser engraver industry, the price of an engraver used in factory production lines generally ranged from 10,000 to 50,000 yuan, the machine body was up to 2 meters long, and a single operation took at least 30 minutes.

This was a completely blank market. There were a large number of undiscovered handicraft enthusiasts overseas who had a demand for laser engraving but were troubled by the complexity and high cost of industrial equipment.

However, LaserPecker's start was not smooth. Xie Qingpeng, the founder and CEO, recalled to Hard Krypton that many consumers who bought the first - generation product used it very infrequently. They only realized the problem of insufficient product functionality through exploration.

On the way of trial - and - error and finding customer needs, the prices of LaserPecker's laser engravers covered a wide range from entry - level to professional - level, from 2,000 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan. Its overseas customer base mainly consisted of small - B users. For example, handicraft leather goods shop owners in the United States used it to engrave custom trademarks, dessert chefs in Japan used it to mark dates on cakes, and the owners of trendy brands in China used it to distress jeans with lasers...

The path of handheld laser engravers that LaserPecker adhered to found a large number of small - scale work and creative merchants. As of 2024, the cumulative global crowdfunding amount of LaserPecker exceeded 300 million yuan, and the annual sales volume was nearly 500 million yuan. It also successfully entered the hardware shelves of Walmart.

However, the trend in the consumer - grade laser engraver industry quietly changed. xTool officially launched its laser engraver in 2022. Its products were desktop - type, and the sales volume reached 800 million yuan in just one year. Its revenue exceeded 2 billion yuan in 2024.

The sudden rise of xTool made people realize the vast potential of the laser engraver track. With the decline in supply - chain costs, more and more players entered the market. Everyone was pursuing higher power and continuously launching new engraver and cutter products.

Meanwhile, LaserPecker, which insisted on self - developed handheld laser engravers, was held back. Smaller products meant that all components had to be miniaturized, which would incur additional costs in the supply chain and R & D.

This was the first detour that LaserPecker took. The second cross - road was whether to enter the consumer - grade market. Xie Qingpeng chose to give it up at that time and insisted on the portable path. Looking back now, it was a wrong decision.

However, he didn't regret it. Compactness and portability were the characteristic paths that LaserPecker chose, and it also gained a large number of audiences.

In September last year, LaserPecker launched its laser cutter series, LX2, which had been internally developed for two years. They admitted their limitations and accepted that the cutter market had greater demand and a larger audience.

Xie Qingpeng worked at Huawei for 12 years, mainly engaged in relatively radical innovation businesses. When starting the business of LaserPecker, he chose to proceed steadily. Because the consumer - grade laser engraver industry was too new, it was easy to become a "martyr". However, the speed of industry change exceeded his expectations.

This was also a common story in the hardware industry. From Nokia's smartphones to Dyson's high - speed hair dryers, once the pioneers fell behind, they would be quickly overtaken by later - comers.

For this reason, LaserPecker was not without opportunities. Xie Qingpeng noticed that the laser cutter market was always in a state of rapid growth, with an annual growth rate of at least 30% - 40%. At this stage, xTool became the pioneer, and LaserPecker turned into a chaser. "The only barrier is to always be close to users and run faster than others," Xie Qingpeng told Hard Krypton.

And LaserPecker finally waited for the "right time". The hardware track caught the upsurge, full of excitement. Xie Qingpeng had no time to regret and had to look forward to the future.

01 Taking the "Portable" Path

36 Krypton: You were in charge of cutting - edge technology pre - research at Huawei. Why did you decide to start a business around 2017?

Xie Qingpeng: At that time, e - commerce entrepreneurship had been booming for some time, which was a trend. In addition, the country also called on the public to start businesses. I had worked at Huawei for 12 years, and I wanted to see the opportunities outside. The definite opportunity was that a friend was engaged in the overseas business, mainly on Amazon, selling shoes, hats, and general consumer electronics. Their business grew very fast, thanks to the wave of overseas expansion. At that time, I thought that going global was a great opportunity.

36 Krypton: After starting the business, why did you choose the "laser engraver" track? The background of Huawei seems quite different from this.

Xie Qingpeng: At that time, we saw a product on Amazon - a small square - box - shaped machine, which is still on sale on Amazon. It was a small machine similar to an XY - axis device.

We bought the product back for research and found two points: First, the sales volume of this product on Amazon at that time was quite good. A single store could sell about 1,000 units per month. For such a new product, the sales volume was very high. Second, from our perspective, the product was not well - made. In terms of hardware design, software, and user experience, it was relatively poor. So we judged at that time: First, it had application space and demand; second, the current product lacked overall design. If we redesigned it according to our ideas, there would be a great opportunity.

36 Krypton: Was it because semiconductor lasers were relatively mature that you thought there was an opportunity?

Xie Qingpeng: Yes. If you want to make a small laser engraver, you need a laser first. If you only look at industrial lasers, they are very large.

At that time, due to the emergence of semiconductor lasers - they were first used in optical drives, with a blue - light laser. Someone innovatively disassembled it and used it as a laser engraver. Since the lasers used in optical drives were naturally small, it was possible to make civilian lasers. So the first group of people made it into a square - box shape. After seeing it, we wanted to make it even smaller.

36 Krypton: Why did you think of making it smaller?

Xie Qingpeng: First of all, the laser was already small, and the square - box form could not fully utilize the performance of the laser.

The square - box was limited by its motion architecture. It was an XY - axis device, and it needed to move. The motion efficiency in the XY - axis direction was very low. So when we made it, we didn't choose the same technical solution as the square - box. We chose the galvanometer - type solution. Relatively speaking, the performance was much better because it controlled the movement of light through the reflection of two mirrors, and the movement speed was much faster than that of the traditional square - box.

Combined with the galvanometer and a small semiconductor laser, it was possible to make a very small and high - performance laser engraver.

So, combining the galvanometer and the small laser, these two together made it possible to make a very small laser engraver.

36 Krypton: Re - making the engraver was a completely new track and a new product. Did you encounter any difficulties, especially from the demo preview to the formal production?

Xie Qingpeng: The main difficulty came from product definition. Because we defined it as a small and portable laser at that time. The biggest difficulty with this "small" was the lack of a supply chain.

There was no supply chain for you to buy the relevant components you needed. Except for the laser, there was nothing else. Even there were no suppliers for motors. We had to make everything by ourselves.

So we accumulated a lot of experience with the first - generation product. We basically had to make all the internal parts by ourselves. Another difficulty was the lack of knowledge about lasers. Our team had no previous experience and didn't know what effects lasers would have on different materials at different powers. This required starting from scratch, conducting a large number of experiments with a laser every day.

36 Krypton: Did you encounter any pitfalls during the process of lacking knowledge?

Xie Qingpeng: The first problem we encountered was the accuracy of galvanometer motion control. Since there was no ready - made supplier, we built a system ourselves. It was quite difficult to make the laser reach the accurate position. We spent about half a year just on this. There was also the engineering aspect, such as heat dissipation. Since we wanted to make it as small as possible, how to dissipate the heat was a problem. We also conducted many heat - dissipation simulations. The whole process took about one and a half to two years.

36 Krypton: Was it very difficult? Because you weren't very sure about the market at that time.

Xie Qingpeng: Actually, while making the engraver, we were also working on some other projects, which brought in some cash - flow income. It was only after this project succeeded that we cancelled all the other projects.

Our initial judgment was that this thing could definitely be made, it was just a matter of time and effort.

36 Krypton: After the crowdfunding of the first - generation product in 2019, what was the real feedback from users?

Xie Qingpeng: Many people bought the first - generation product because it was novel. But after analyzing the data, we found that after the first - batch users got over the novelty, most of them didn't turn on the machine after half a year. It was more like a "toy". We reflected and found that although the first - generation product seemed acceptable on the surface, its functionality was not satisfactory. The laser power of the first - generation was relatively small, and it could only engrave on leather, wood, and paper, and the speed was slow. It took more than ten minutes to engrave an ordinary image. For those who wanted to use it as a tool, they were not satisfied.

36 Krypton: So the second - generation product was improved based on this?

Xie Qingpeng: Yes. Immediately after that, we started working on the second - generation product. The main task was to increase the power, speed up the engraving, and make it more practical.

We spent less than a year making the second - generation product, and the effect was very obvious. The crowdfunding result of the second - generation was very good because it solved the functionality problem.

After the second - generation product, the users' demands changed. In addition to wood and paper, they required engraving on metal.

Since there are many types of metals, such as gold, silver, and copper. Based on this demand, we developed the third - generation product. At that time, we specifically customized a laser from a laser manufacturer to solve the problem of engraving on metal.

After the third - generation product was completed, we found that users wanted to engrave on "everything". So we specifically made a fourth - generation product. In fact, the fourth - generation product combined the lasers of the second - generation (for engraving organic materials) and the third - generation (for engraving metal).

36 Krypton: What are the requirements for you in this kind of technological iteration of "engraving everything"?

Xie Qingpeng: Technically, the laser must keep up. We need to find a laser suitable for miniaturization and portability. This is very important.

Semiconductor lasers are naturally small and suitable for portability. However, if you want to engrave on metal, semiconductor lasers won't work. You have to find industrial lasers to make up for it. So at that time, we found a manufacturer to cooperate and customize a laser.

36 Krypton: Was it easy to talk about cooperation at that time when the company's scale was not large?

Xie Qingpeng: It was very difficult. At first, they didn't really believe in this. The development path in the industrial field is very simple, which is to continuously increase the power. Today it's 10 watts, tomorrow it's 100 watts, 200 watts, without caring about the shape and size. Few people require making the volume small while sacrificing a certain amount of power. At that time, most manufacturers didn't even think about this problem and were more inclined towards the industrial field.

36 Krypton: How did you persuade them?

Xie Qingpeng: I showed them our market. Since our second - generation product had been successful at that time, with sales data in front of them, it was relatively easy to persuade them. Without this data, it would have been really difficult at that time. Now it's different. The market is mature, and many manufacturers will actively embrace this area.

36 Krypton: It's difficult to balance making it small, maintaining performance, and dealing with the supply chain, isn't it?

Xie Qingpeng: It's quite difficult. The performance of our portable products is the same as that of the large machines of our competitors, with no difference at all.

This requires a high - level supply chain and extremely high - level heat - dissipation design. For example, for the fan, how to design the air duct to take out the hot air? We need to dissipate heat with the smallest area, and the design is for extreme - type applications. The direct problem is that our product iteration is slower than that of our competitors, and the cost is higher. But there's no way. Since we've chosen the portable path, we have to do it this way.

02 Exploring New Product Categories Despite Internal Competition

36 Krypton: The laser engraver industry has developed very fast in recent years. Looking back, do you think the company missed some time points in terms of strategies or decisions?

Xie Qingpeng: Actually, until this year, our strategy was to focus on "portable laser engravers". I always thought that we were taking a very characteristic path, which was to be compact and portable. This path was our characteristic, but it also limited our development.

In order to achieve portability, we set many difficulties for ourselves. To make the machine small, it needed a laser to match, and the internal process requirements were very high. Simply put, the cost of our machine was much higher than that of others. This was the result of our own choice of this path, and of course, we don't regret it.

Another point is that we found that the portable engraver was more suitable for marking, and its cutting effect was not particularly good, which couldn't fully meet the users' needs. We noticed that many competitors were doing very well in the cutting market, and the market was very large. This was a track that we had ignored.

So starting from September 2025, we also launched a cutting series called LX2, which belongs to the large - scale cutter category. This market is larger, and there is more user demand. We didn't do this before, and now we've opened another line to expand our functions and are no longer limited to the portable area.

36 Krypton: Are you worried that it's too late to enter the market?

Xie Qingpeng: It is indeed late. It would have been perfect if we had entered two years earlier. But looking at the data now, it's not too late because the market is always in a state of rapid growth, with an annual growth rate of at least 30% - 40% in the overall market. Moreover, the capacity of the cutter market is at least twice that of the marking market we used to focus on.

36 Krypton: What do you think is the most challenging and confusing part?

Xie Qingpeng: It may mainly be the product direction, which is very crucial. The market also confused me. I did miss the opportunity of the rapidly growing cutter market. I was involved in that decision at that time, and there's no need to regret it. It was the best judgment at that time. We judged that the cutter would become a mass - consumer product, but it would take time. In fact, the market education didn't take that long.

36 Krypton: Will the competition be more intense? What are your advantages?

Xie Qingpeng: The competition will definitely be much more intense than that in the marking -