Straight up.
If it would of been me buying your interests of Instroke cases from you.
I would of done everything I could of to put it in the contract that you could no longer make pool cue cases......
My statement is meant to be taken as a compliment
That would have cost them a lot more money. As it was they got four years before I decided to make cases again.
Earlier today I handed a customer her new JB Case. She brought her new cue so that we could do a little video on how we matched the veneer colors in the cue on the case. She has a fairly new Instroke. When I put her cue back into her Instroke I was very saddened to see it drop in and rattle around.
I put my fingers in the holes and they have eliminated all the padding. Essentially the very foundation I built Instroke on, superior PADDED protection is now gone.
I don't know why it's gone, easier to build, the trend of rubber-gripped cues....but instead of keeping the part that made Instroke so great they eliminated it. There are people around who can tell you stories of me turning the case over with their $10,000 cues inside when I owned Instroke.
I am glad that the brand continues. There is a certain pride for me knowing that I started a brand in my apartment building's basement storage room that has now been going well for 25 years. But I am sad that they ripped the heart out of the cases.
My thoughts on a non-compete are that they would have had to come with a seven figure amount to get me to stay away from case making. I have no desire to go into full blown mass production but should I ever get that desire then I will definitely make them regret not coming with an offer that sent me into another line of work. ;-)
As it stands right now I am the unofficial R&D for them anyway given that they copied my Mason design, badly copied it.
I will always cherish the time I spent building Instroke. Learned a lot about business and partnerships and manufacturing. All on a smale scale but still a great experience overall. I like to say I got 13 years of on-the-job training and small parting bonus.
