Lisa
Of all those tid bits you produced did any of them stand a chance of going Viral? Or was it just stuff that board geeks spend money on?
I think the complete wand set up could have continued on but all the rest was ultimately at heart for the huge financial drain you guys suffered..
We lost money on every wand we sold through a distributor, same with the metal joiners and wyes, valves and such. In order to make a profit enough to make it worthwhile for both manufacturer and distributor, they would have to have sold for too high a price on the retail end. We weren't going to go to China for production, we wanted to make it US made by family businesses, and overseeing Chinese production and quality is WAY too problematic.
Maybe if we had a great stash of working capital or working credit to get larger production runs and buy raw materials in bigger runs, but we didn't. Jeff LOVED to develop and design stuff, but he had no sense as far as the business end. I always said he should have been in a large company's R&D dept., but he would have butted heads there, as he wanted to do what he wanted to do and didn't want any part of control or direction.
I have not heard from him in a very long time and I hope he can find peace and put his many demons to rest and really put his brilliant mind to use and be successful, personally and professionally....but I'm glad that chapter in my life is closed.
There are still several designs kicking in my head for wands and a non-clogging filter box, but I prefer to keep the business at a small enough level that I can warehouse and run it from the home base. Larger items like wands, hose and such require a warehouse, palleting and such and I can't do that at this point in my life.
Take care,
Lisa
