Industry question

I like the story about the guy who goes to his 20 yr high school reunion.
Everybody remembered him as being a slow learner and they were surprised at
how well he'd done financially.
"Well, I knew I wasn't as smart as the rest of you so I looked around for a
simple product and found one that I could make for $1 and that I could sell
for $5. You know, you'd be amazed at how fast those little four percents add
up."

I'm a retired architect in San Diego, CA. After some expensive lessons in
product design & mold engineering I decided to get some machine tools and do
molds myself. (Lagun FTV-2 mill, Emco-Maier maxi-mat 11 lathe) As a means of
learning to use the machinery, I made shop accessories. (for tap alignment,
a knock-off Burr-Beaver, lots of stuff) It takes 3 or 4 prototypes to get it
right and then I made finished drawings to sell.

I advertised my website in HomeShopMachinist. My cost was $1/sheet and I
priced the drawings at $15 ..... $20 if it involved a motor. I figured that
a lot of basement machinists would be interested in plans for useful shop
stuff and that trial & error would exceed the cost of the plans. Well, to
make a long story short, even with that mark-up, no inventory, no tooling or
overhead........ I broke even. It wasn't worth the effort. Advertising is
the killer.

In summary, I really don't know what the answer is to the selling part of
the equation. Once you get bit by the invention bug, it's hard to let
go....... booze & women are a less expensive addiction ;-)

Good luck Paintball.



"LCT Paintball" wrote in message
news:a8Z0e.2760$NW5.1868@attbi_s02...

In my opinion..........
Market it yourself.
Get yourself a website. Costco seems to have a good program -
costco.com/services/Web Site Hosting & Design Tools.

You mean like this one www.lctproducts.com ?


Advertise your website in magazines aimed at your audience........
boats,
planes, fishing,etc.

I looked into that. A one month add in a popular womens magazine can cost
over $100,000. I'm not sure I could get enough orders to cover that kind
of
expence.


That's the key..... advertise your WEBSITE w/ a teaser describing your
product. A website is the cheapest way to get the information to the
people
out there. Advertising can kill you.

I've even given away free product for clicking on an add. Again the cost
of
advertising usually excedes the number of orders I get.



Forget about getting your product into Home Depot, Costco, Sports
Authority,etc. ..... they really don't want to hear from you
because.....
A) they have 35,000 sku numbers and they can't deal w/ 35,000 vendors
B) they don't buy "sole source".... meaning, from only ONE vendor/
manufacturer
C) somebody in the company has to back your idea as a good product.....
unlikely.... because if it bombs, that's not good for their career
D) whatever price you want, it's too high
E) if you could afford to put a million dollars of product into their
pipeline (for free) you wouldn't be in the game
F) I thought this was interesting..... stores don't own anything except
the
cash registers .... all the merchandise doesn't get paid for (to you)
until
60 to 90 days after it's been sold BY THEM. Neat, huh? In the mean time
you've re-stocked their shelves.
G) Forget about selling your patent to a big outfit like Stanley. They
don't want to hear from you either, for a different set of reasons.

Ah,, I see you've done this before. I decided my product would go great in
the grocery store right beside the taco products. Just like you suggested,
large chains don't want 100,000 different vendors. Most of them buy from
one
of about 4 major wharehouses. In order to get your product into their
wharehouse, you have to "rent" the space from them at around $10,000.
Then,
you have to convice each individual store to place an order. And, for some
of the large chains, you have to "rent" the shelf space too. I can afford
to
produce the product, and wait 3-6 months for payment, but I can't afford
to
grease all the pockets. ;(



I'm wishing for a surface grinder and an EDM machine and struggling w/
the
question...... should I build an RV-7A .... or .... continue ****ing
away

You've come to the right place. I've got a manual EDM for sale that has an
orbiting head on it that lets you produce undercuts like threads for about
$7,000... Or, I know a guy that has a large old machine that runs that
he'd
give away if somebody would hall it off. Both machines are near Kansas
City,
Mo


time and money on "bright ideas" and molds. The plane is a sure thing,
developing products is more creative and potentially could pay for a
Bonanza...... see the dilemma?

Yep, I LIVE the dilemma.


Above all, KEEP YOUR DAY JOB.
Do it yourself. The fewer people you have to deal with, the better.

My day job may be tough to keep. Mold work is heading to China. ;(
Anybody want to buy a mold shop?

wrote:
One of the
most interesting was the issue of insurance, not for the builder but
for the manufacturer. I know that in the eyes of the FAA a kit
manufacturer is not the airplane manufacturer, that is instead the
builder.

Interesting that you should mention that. My buddy and I were
discussing that last week while putting together the RV-10. In our
professional opinion g, Van most of his assets socked away offshore.
When the 1st big lawsuit hits, he'll close up shop and be off to the
Caymans.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

I can only speak from my own experience, and I am yet another
non-lawyer, but here is the proverbial anecdotal evidence (evidence of
what? That I have anecdotes):

Exhibitors at OSH were/are required to have liability insurance for
ourselves and to also name EAA as co-insureds. Fine and dandy, this is
normal trade-show stuff. It's like interlocking fields of fire-if
someone gets hit by a crashing plane in YOUR booth, you just shove them
into your neighbor's booth and act like you didn't see a thing.

So, when we first shopped around for the insurance for the show, I
phoned up various agencies and told them that I needed insurance for a
trade show.

Agency: "No problem. What product, what show, where, how many
attendees" etc.
Me: "The EAA airshow in Oshkosh . . ."
Agency, "Stop talking. Go away."
Me: "We're not selling anything, we're just exhibiting. Not even
giving anything away." (we had a mock-up)
Agency: "You promise?"
Me: "We promise. We don't even HAVE anything to sell."
Agency: "OK, one time price of . . . $,$$$."
Me: "Uhhhhh, that's more than it cost us to get a booth at the
show. Is that for a whole year or what?"
Agency: "That's just for the week of the show."

I asked the nice lady, off the record, if that was pretty steep. It
seemed steep to me, compared to other trade shows I have done in other
industries. She said it was much more than the biggest one she had
ever seen before. I asked her why, even though we all know the answer.
She said, "If the word 'airplane' even gets mentioned, your
premium will triple." And that, folks, was just for a mock-up.

A REALLY interesting question will be when various manufacturers want
to sell turn-key LSA's. I hope it didn't take ~10 years to create
a hybrid category of planes that no one can really afford to sell
because of the insurance.

Steve S.

(Matt McCoy-if you are Major Matt McCoy in the Marine Corps from the
Mountains of Missoula, Montana and your Mom is named Mary and your Dad
is Mark and you are currently in Minneapolis, Minnesota with your wife
Meg and your dog Mugger and the head of your MBA program is Marshall
Miller and you owe me money-3M is looking for you . . . just kidding.
Give me a call.)

In summary, I really don't know what the answer is to the selling part
of
the equation. Once you get bit by the invention bug, it's hard to let
go....... booze & women are a less expensive addiction ;-)



If it was easy, I guess everybody would do it.

Steve S. wrote:

I can only speak from my own experience, and I am yet another
non-lawyer, but here is the proverbial anecdotal evidence (evidence of
what? That I have anecdotes):

Exhibitors at OSH were/are required to have liability insurance for
ourselves and to also name EAA as co-insureds. Fine and dandy, this is
normal trade-show stuff. It's like interlocking fields of fire-if
someone gets hit by a crashing plane in YOUR booth, you just shove them
into your neighbor's booth and act like you didn't see a thing.

So, when we first shopped around for the insurance for the show, I
phoned up various agencies and told them that I needed insurance for a
trade show.

Agency: "No problem. What product, what show, where, how many
attendees" etc.
Me: "The EAA airshow in Oshkosh . . ."
Agency, "Stop talking. Go away."
Me: "We're not selling anything, we're just exhibiting. Not even
giving anything away." (we had a mock-up)
Agency: "You promise?"
Me: "We promise. We don't even HAVE anything to sell."
Agency: "OK, one time price of . . . $,$$$."
Me: "Uhhhhh, that's more than it cost us to get a booth at the
show. Is that for a whole year or what?"
Agency: "That's just for the week of the show."

I asked the nice lady, off the record, if that was pretty steep. It
seemed steep to me, compared to other trade shows I have done in other
industries. She said it was much more than the biggest one she had
ever seen before. I asked her why, even though we all know the answer.
She said, "If the word 'airplane' even gets mentioned, your
premium will triple." And that, folks, was just for a mock-up.

A REALLY interesting question will be when various manufacturers want
to sell turn-key LSA's. I hope it didn't take ~10 years to create
a hybrid category of planes that no one can really afford to sell
because of the insurance.

Steve S.


I was aksed to bring an MX over to a new mall in Evansville, IN many
years ago.

The exposure was fun and seeing all the new people was fun too.

I called to set up when I could come over and discuss the area to setup,
the forms to fill out, etc.

The lady said i would need a million in insurance, so I called the local
insurance guy and found it would be over three hundred for the two day
event.

The lady insisted the lawyers needed this coverage with them as named
parties. So I called back and found that adding them would add another
hundred.

I called the lady and said I'd pass on the show since the time, the
hassle and the last straw, the 500 or so bucks,, just decided i would
not do it.

Friday afternoon, the lady called back to say i could come and didn't
really need the insurance afterall, but i told her too, late to
disassemble, load, assemble, etc, and I had a bunch of studenets
scheduled for the weekend by then,,,,

Nut i asked if they had any problems where the insurance was needed,
accidents, etc.

She said there was an ongoing case where a painter had backed his ladder
laden pickup through a jewelry store window, set off the alarm, cops
came, broken glass, etc,,,,

I asked how much the insurance had to pay for that, and she said it was
in litigation as the insuyrance company was trying to weedle out of the
deal for some reason.

I told her I'd fix most anything out of my pocket really quick, but too
late for that,,,,,

Just goes to show, the insurance didn't pay for squat,,,,,,and i would
have,,,,

BTW, I never bought another insurance policy that wasn't mandated by
law,,,,,,,,,,,

--
Mark Smith
Tri-State Kite Sales
1121 N Locust St
Mt Vernon, IN 47620
1-812-838-6351
http://www.trikite.com

A REALLY interesting question will be when various manufacturers want
to sell turn-key LSA's. I hope it didn't take ~10 years to create
a hybrid category of planes that no one can really afford to sell
because of the insurance.

Steve S.
I expect most if not all turn-key LSA's will be built off shore
partly due to labour costs but mostly due to insurance.

From the manufacturers perspective - it's the *tooling* costs that kill
off lots of great (but lower volume) product ideas. So, in that regard,
both of you ostensibly have a head start. BUT, there's the rest of
the equation which you've both mentioned - marketing and
distribution in particular. Venture capital pukes will throw literally
millions at marketing - but they hate paying for R&D - especially
"D" (and that includes tooling)...

Once upon a time a place like San Diego was great for developing
niche products because all of the infrastructure was in place for
"light manufacturing" - tooling, metal, plating, etc. Not so true
anymore, unfortunately. It's now less expensive to make multiple
trips to Hong Kong and Taipei even though it's a pain in the neck
(great for racking up airline miles though 8-)...

The high volume, heavily-automated work is probably gone for
good. But if small business is the key to rebuilding things here in
the U.S. - the small businesses better start banding together now
to get things moving.

My cheap advice to Paintball and Larsen? Find some other
entrepreneurs where you can contribute your piece of the puzzle
and go for it *together*.....

BTW, my apologies to the original poster for contributing to
taking this thread so far off-topic!

Bill
[wr_shields *AT* "yahoo" - and then add the "DOT com bit]

"LCT Paintball" wrote in message
news:6e31e.3851$NW5.3085@attbi_s02...
In summary, I really don't know what the answer is to the selling part
of
the equation. Once you get bit by the invention bug, it's hard to let
go....... booze & women are a less expensive addiction ;-)



If it was easy, I guess everybody would do it.