EEVBlog BM235 Multimeter Dilemma

[boggis the cat]

Probably best to try to organise small shipment batches with Brymen, and "trickle" them in to try to match demand.  Provided you haven't seriously over-estimated demand that should be a good compromise (although obviously this could also cut into your margin somewhat).

I have put an order through for one.  We don't see many Brymens at all over here, and I was looking at the BM257s for a possible look over a recent model.  This new model is just what I need, and I'm happy to support your efforts.

(Will be checking it against our calibration suite, so hopefully that production bug you mentioned has been properly squashed.   )

[ADC-1995]

Must be sold out as Dave's shop says on back order when i went to pay... Or is it??

Dave do you have any left?

[SeanB]

Dave will probably send a big box to Simon to sell in the Sparkylabs shop, to cover the EU with less hassle, and I hope he does do an arrangement with Chris and Frankie to have 2 distributors that can handle the USA and worldwide distribution at a better price than AUSPOST. Of course this presupposes the others are willing to do this, and I do know that certain countries ( my one included) are on a rather informal greylist so far as international postal delivery is concerned, due to losses and delays in delivery of international parcels sent via regular post, tracked or not.

[ez24]

Dave have you contacted Tequipment to sell the meters and have the factory ship them directly to Tequipment?  Seems a logical way to sell them in the US.  Hope you could make something using this method.

[EEVblog]

Dave have you contacted Tequipment to sell the meters and have the factory ship them directly to Tequipment?  Seems a logical way to sell them in the US. 

If I want them to make more on each meter than I do, sure. There is a reason I sell it myself:
https://www.eevblog.com/2014/05/28/the-economics-of-selling-your-hardware-project/

[EEVblog]

Must be sold out as Dave's shop says on back order when i went to pay... Or is it??

Yes, sold out.

[Howardlong]

Dave have you contacted Tequipment to sell the meters and have the factory ship them directly to Tequipment?  Seems a logical way to sell them in the US. 

If I want them to make more on each meter than I do, sure. There is a reason I sell it myself:
https://www.eevblog.com/2014/05/28/the-economics-of-selling-your-hardware-project/

This is absolutely true.

When I started selling my first widget five years ago, I had very little idea of the market and certainly I wasn't about to give away my margin to a third party. After two months, I started receiving enquiries from retailers but as I couldn't keep up with demand as it was, why would you give away your cut to someone else in that situation?

Due to its unexpected success, it took me eight months to be in a position to hold any stock as as soon as I added stock it was sold and it went straight out the door. During that time, pretty much all income was reinvested into making new stock. Once I was able to hold stock, I then went back to negotiate with distributors and did reasonably well as it goes. They now sell 2/3rds of my inventory, but they do targeted advertising and other marketing, and I'm reasonably happy with the arrangement despite seeing my margin being eroded!

My own opinion is that if you can possibly avoid it, crowd funding is a last resort. There is a financial and administrative overhead associated with crowd funding, especially when things don't go according to plan. I'd rather take on those risks myself and not have a throng of stakeholders acting as armchair quarterbacks telling me how I should or shouldn't approach a problem.

[tequipment]

Dave has a point.   Most distributors just take orders.  A few of us think we create value.  Buying say 250 units at once and paying for them does bring some value.
Displaying a product to customers who have never seen a brand or item brings value.  It really is about incremental value. Do we reach enough people to provide extra value.

Dave if interested we would buy a few hundred.  I would email it out to our database and feature it on the site.  We also have a marketing system and the ability to market to people with certain interests. Our email database is about 200,000 people.

If not we understand.  On a side note I like to listen to the videos while driving. My kids are starting to ask questions about oscilloscopes!

Cheers,
Evan Cirelli

TEquipment.NET

[EEVblog]

Thanks for the offer Evan, I'll certainly keep it in mind.

The problem is that I'm trying to build up a business selling some bespoke products. Mostly I hope it to be my own designed products, but there will some thing like this meter that make sense because of the inherent popularity of meters, and in this case, Brymen's hopelessness at marketing and distribution provides an opportunity. i couldn't do the same thing rebadging Uni-T's for example.

Now, setting up a business like this is a bit "all or nothing". What I mean by that is either I set up the systems and sell and distribute stuff myself, or I don't.
I either go fully dropshipped gloablly, or I don't. Although a good argument can be made that the EU is difficult, and it is.
If I go half arsed and have distributors in every country selling them, then what's the point selling any myself at all? What's the point setting up my own system and store etc?
The distributors will take a much bigger cut than a dropshipper would, so potentially leaves me hanging in the breeze not earning enough money to make it all worthwhile.
Because I ultimately want to hire someone to take care of this side of things for me (I don't want to be packing and shipping), going "all-in" and doing as much packing and shipping myself makes sense, because:
a) I already have decent systems in place to do it.
b) Do so provides enough profit margin to hire someone to do.
c) I at least start building a business that's mine, and hires local people.

The problem with Amercian distributors is that America is:
a) Probably my biggest market
b) Provides the least hassles in terms of shipping
So I have to ask, what advantage do I get with an American distributor?
Some of Evans points are valid of course, but would it be undermining my goal to have a little bespoke company of my own packing and shipping stuff and bringing in revenue and hiring someone local? That's likely.

[boggis the cat]

The problem is that I'm trying to build up a business selling some bespoke products. Mostly I hope it to be my own designed products, but there will some thing like this meter that make sense because of the inherent popularity of meters, and in this case, Brymen's hopelessness at marketing and distribution provides an opportunity. i couldn't do the same thing rebadging Uni-T's for example.

Possibly you could ask anyone else in the same position if they wanted to sell their bespoke products through you.  Maybe even see if you can get volume up enough to get some batches of open-source hardware (with additional tweaks as deemed necessary).  Once you have the capability to take orders and ship you may as well have a number of products.

Brymen do seem to be terrible at marketing.  Perhaps they see no reason to try to sell into new markets and compete when they can do fine domestically?

[cs.dk]

Brymen do seem to be terrible at marketing.  Perhaps they see no reason to try to sell into new markets and compete when they can do fine domestically?

I think their "rebranders" holds up their ass - Here in DK, every sparky has an Elma meter - Yes, it is a Brymen in a green rubber holster.

[EEVblog]

468 people have signed up to be notified when the meter is back in stock 
Will be interesting to see how many of those actually buy once they get the notification.

[RobertoLG]

468 people have signed up to be notified when the meter is back in stock 
Will be interesting to see how many of those actually buy once they get the notification.

just guessing here, but you probably will run out of stock very quickly again lol

[Wytnucls]

Never underestimate the multiplying power of the internet. If the devious brothers managed to raise 300,000 USD with a flawed gizmo, a straight fellow like you with a solid product ought to do a lot better.

[idpromnut]

468 people have signed up to be notified when the meter is back in stock 
Will be interesting to see how many of those actually buy once they get the notification.

Oddly enough, I brought in my BM235 to show the guys at work, and immediately was asked to go buy a couple for the company; this was just about when you ran out of stock.   

[RobertBG]

Dave,
Please dont take this the wrong way because not too long ago I was in a similar spot starring down a $100k order and sweating bullets over it.

In your second to last post you answered your own question............At this point it is either all or nothing.This is not a crowd fundable product like some of yours have been in the past.Either bite the bullet and use the stock to launch your brand to another level or continue within the nice little niche that you've made for yourself.But you cant use crowdfunding to hedge your bets in a instance like this and the fact that you posted this on the forum means that you have some doubts.Trust me I can relate to that as I had numerous sleepless nights about what could go wrong but in the end I pulled it off as I'm sure you'll probably do.I went from making products in a rented garage to a 10,000 square ft proper facility and havent looked back since.

No matter what you decide no one is going to think any less of you and considering what you've done so far there would be nothing wrong with keeping the pace you've chosen so far without making a big leap.Maybe it's all your market will support for now,but only you can decide this.

One thing that really helped me take the plunge was there comes a point where you have to stop looking just at the sales numbers and profit margins on a few products one or two at a time.Making a big order like this should also be a investment in your brand.So if you have a few other projects in the pipeline,get your ducks in a row and pull the trigger when the time is right and dont worry so much if you have some stock sitting around.You just have to look at that stock as the cost of taking your brand to a new level

Last but not least,don't be afraid of pulling in a investor.If the time is right dont miss the wave because of trying to self fund something in house that most times would take a investor.You might never be able to get the momentum back later on down the line.

Good luck no matter what 

Robert

[stryker]

Hi Dave

If the lead time means delivery isn't too distant, could you consider booking backorders so you have pre-paid orders to both reduce your risk by providing certainty in demand and assist your cashflow? 

Geoff

[EEVblog]

Last but not least,don't be afraid of pulling in a investor.

I can't think of anything worse!

[EEVblog]

If the lead time means delivery isn't too distant, could you consider booking backorders

I'm currently taking backorders. Delivery early April.

[station240]

Last but not least,don't be afraid of pulling in a investor.

I can't think of anything worse!

Bingo, there are lots of jokes about Venture Capital online, most of them are true.
It's akin to having a new staff member you need to train, only they don't do any work!

[RobertBG]

Last but not least,don't be afraid of pulling in a investor.

I can't think of anything worse!

Posting this thread asking about crowd sourcing a multi meter is a lot worse if you ask me as well as others,it's just most folks tried to sugar coat it for you

If you think you're going to sell a lot more than 5% of the 466 meters people are currently waiting for on your website when they get notified in April your in for a rude awakening.Ten percent would be a generous number to look forwards to.

I dont know about you but I can pick up the phone at lunch time and easily have $50 k by closing from a previous investor with little more than a handshake to close a deal with terms as good or better than a bank.Investors arent all sharks,you just have to know the right ones.Although part of their investment is in you and not the business,so if you arent confident or a trustworthy person your mileage may vary.I didn't have half a million when I decided to step things up but I did know the right people and they wanted to back me.

Like I said before,you made a nice niche for yourself and if your only comfortable dabbling in a product here and there its fine.But when you posted about trying to raise capital via crowdfunding for a rebadged meter that most see as a item that should be a stocked on a shelf     It's not like it is a breakthrough item that you're bringing to market here.

[EEVblog]

Posting this thread asking about crowd sourcing a multi meter is a lot worse if you ask me

I just floated the idea, thinking out loud, no big deal.

If you think you're going to sell a lot more than 5% of the 466 meters people are currently waiting for on your website when they get notified in April your in for a rude awakening.Ten percent would be a generous number to look forwards to.

I'll bet you a free multimeter you are wrong.
I've been selling niche stuff to niche audiences for 20+ years, I have a reasonable spidy-sense.

I dont know about you but I can pick up the phone at lunch time and easily have $50 k by closing from a previous investor with little more than a handshake to close a deal with terms as good or better than a bank.

I'm happy for you.

Investors arent all sharks,you just have to know the right ones.

Better to have no investor at all.

Like I said before,you made a nice niche for yourself and if your only comfortable dabbling in a product here and there its fine.But when you posted about trying to raise capital via crowdfunding for a rebadged meter that most see as a item that should be a stocked on a shelf     It's not like it is a breakthrough item that you're bringing to market here.

I know. I knew that before I posted.

[EEVblog]

Bingo, there are lots of jokes about Venture Capital online, most of them are true.
It's akin to having a new staff member you need to train, only they don't do any work!

I'd rather simply borrow the money from PayPal (who are desperate to lend me money), or a bank, or some dodgy loan shark 

[RobertBG]

I'll take that bet,like I said between 5-10% of the 466 will actually order within 7-10 days of being notified

This is not including the preorders that you are now offering though.

[EEVblog]

I'll take that bet,like I said between 5-10% of the 466 will actually order within 7-10 days of being notified
This is not including the preorders that you are now offering though.

What are you putting up in return?