I feel like when even starting the project as soon as you got to the point of what do we have to charge and someone said $500 the project should have died lol
Introducing the new Bitman rack 😳
- Thread starter trob
- Start date
That is really what killed many, perhaps most, projects when I worked in R&D. The dreaded "Not commercially viable." It is hard to recovery R&D costs on short run products. One reason that some of the ridiculous looking NASA and military payouts are actually fair. Some are BS, some not. It took years to develop a chocolate bar that wouldn't melt in desert heat. Not just coated with something, the chocolate doesn't melt. A bug sized drone that can zip through a door as it is opened and closed when somebody walks through it, unnoticed!
There are lists of what the government or military is interested in put out at least yearly if not more often. I noticed it was often over ten years from "wish list" to reality. One project I worked on, one man air conditioning, was obsolete before it was ever completed. During Desert Storm we claimed to have all of the NBC suits needed. True enough maybe, but what we didn't admit was that the suit itself would kill our soldiers in two hours of desert heat. While we were working on stopgate measures a suit was created that breathed and still protected from Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical agents.
I don't know if $500 represents a ridiculous mark-up or a fair price per unit. I am skeptical they will ever sell enough units at that price to get back production costs.
Hu
We began making pool racks a couple months ago. They are in the same market segment as the Delta 13.
The racks are only viable for us because we run them when we have no other, more profitable jobs to run.
It's better to run parts that make us $20 than to have the equipment sit idle.
When we quoted the basic, design-free rack components at other shops they became $400-500 apiece, just to break even.
There are some surprising things like that. The last I knew the very cheap wooden house numbers at places like Home Depot were like that. Free scrap from next door, cheap labor maybe through some program I don't remember. The company got so big that they considered NC production. NC required standard sized pieces to run through the machinery and the whole business model fell apart. They stayed with the scrap and hand labor.
A bearing race split and my large outboard engine went from sound to scrap in a split second. I had three hundred new crawfish traps I had made for my use. Sold them and kept right on making traps through that season. Didn't get rich but I paid the bills and fed my family.
Hu
This is a skill that needs to be learned from working in a particular industry. A lot of the time someone inexperienced won't know the total cost until they get their final quotes from their supply chain. Even then maybe some don't even realize until after they have paid.
For consumer electronics, the average markup needs to be at least 4 times the COG (cost of goods) which is what you spent to make the product, usually in bulk, in order to make a 50% profit. And that is if you do a lot of work yourself. The more logistic help you require the more the factor increases. I am sure it is similar in other industries.
"Will someone buy this for what it costs to make" should be the very first research goal, followed by "make it and see if it even works", and then "please convince me that no one will buy this" when you show it to friends/test group. I don't think the bitman rack followed these steps.
One of life's funnier moments: I had designed a benchrest for a rifle. A few novel features, I knew a market was there to sell in hundreds, low thousands over time.
I needed two bearing and race sets, one slightly larger than the other. The bearing supply didn't have the bearings in stock but would be happy to make them. Lead time three to six months, which was a warning. Price? $120,000 for the smaller bearing, $140,000 for the bigger bearing! Before considering other materials which were going to run around a hundred dollars, I was a quarter million over budget on the bearings!
Back to the drawing board.
Hu
boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
No hustle? I ain't interested.
Wait, that rack will give me a powerful break?
I'm in.
I'm in.
boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
Catch is I wouldn't let my opponent use a special rack unless I was using it too. I think most people would be that way unless they simply said it couldn't be used. Most equipment has to be preapproved by the rules body, very possibly an issue with a five hundred dollar rack. If it really was better I would outlaw it rather than force everyone to purchase one. That is a hurdle from the jump, unique equipment is usually illegal to use by default.
The only way people are going to buy a five hundred dollar rack is if it increases their win percentage in cold hard cash.
my opinions anyway!
Damn it, already changed my mind. I would gladly give five hundred for a rack,... if it was attached to a young Sophia lookalike!
Hu
Couldn’t say it better. Even if you own a restaurant and you’re coming up with something new for the menu the last question you always ask is what do we have to charge and will our customers pay that. That’s just basic business . You are very correct someone here forgot that step.
My point was no rack can give someone a powerful break.
Break speed does not come from the rack.
Just pointing out their false advertising.
Once they saw $20+ chalk they probably thought they had a green light for a $500 rack.
You’re comparing a $30 piece of chalk that lasts me a year and a half to a $500 rack that something that cost $10 can do just as well? That’s a stretch lol
Plus the $30 chalk solves a problem that people want solved: reduced messiness.
The $500 rack creates a new problem: the large footprint makes it unusable for 14.1.
I think $30 for less mess is worth more than $500 for a tighter rack. Zero mess and complete tightness are impossible to achieve.
I don’t know if you saw my post earlier but its actually over 1k because you can’t play 8 ball and 9 ball with the same rack lol
I don't see how this is any different from a $3500+ cue.
That $500 rack will last a lifetime, the $30 chalk will need to be replaced many times. 15 cubes would cost almost as much as that 1 rack.
