All That Is Survive! Knives, Post Here Reopened

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On second thought, this thread really isn't for venting. I apologize and deleted my post.

I am gojng to ask for my money back instead of complaining to you all.

Carry on. :)
 
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I spoke to Guy on the phone today . Believe me , he KNOWS how everyone feels (I guess he's read this thread) . He's had some major growing pains with knives that I guess where wildly more popular than he could anticipate . He said the 10's where shipping this week and then focus was on the 3.5's and more 4.1's .

I only know Guy from speaking to him on the phone a couple of times . But he sure seems like a good guy who's really trying to make some great knives available to folks at a reasonable price ( for the materials he uses) and the design time he puts into them .

I didn't know about Survive GSO knives back when they had the pre-sale going on , so I'm not waiting like a lot of you guys . But I did manage to get my hands on a GSO 5 and find it too be a great knife . Guy told me today that the "pre-sale" idea was to offer his knives at a discount to get them out there , get people using and talking about them . To spread the word so to speak and have the Survive brand get more known . The way he spoke , he's not happy about how it turned out due to the setbacks he's had with meeting deadlines .

Anyway , his designs are good , his idea to make great knives and sell them at a fair price is good and his intent seems to be honest . So I hope Survive knives survive for a long time and become as established as companies like ESEE or KaBar down the road .


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HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS !
 
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You are correct on all accounts Mike-The-Knife. I think that the general consensus is that Guy is a good man, with good designs... etc. The pre-order concept was a win/win scenario, which is probably why it was hugely successful, perhaps beyond manufacturing capabilities. Great price on the knife, and Guy gets the use of customers money interest free. Great way to generate the buzz that he was looking to generate. But sometimes the buzz is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. As I have repeatedly said, communication from Survive would have mitigated any problems that I had, and better management of customer expectations would serve Survive Knives well. Guy had a lot of things go well for him in 2013 surrounding the buzz aspect. He got Nutnfancy to test and review his GSO 5.1 in collaboration with Blade HQ, had the limited Nutnfancy addition sold through Blade HQ, and successfully generated a lot of buzz and well deserved demand for his knives. Congratulations Guy and Survive! A job well done.

I cannot tell you how happy I am that my GSO 10 is on the way. I will post up some family portraits once received. Grandpa is coming home. I am well pleased with all of my examples, I suspect that I will be equally pleased with grandpa, when he arrives.
 
The people that are comparing Survive! Knives wait times to some high-end custom makers doesn't make sense to me... these are great blades but far from a custom made one at a time. I think most people wouldn't have a problem of waiting 6 months or even a year for a knife from Guy, if that was an accurate time-frame that was given to them. I will not be holding my breathe on my GSO 3.5 being shipped before St. Patty's. Sure hope I'm wrong. If Guy is reading this forum, it sure hasn't stopped him from giving out unrealistic time-frames for ship dates. If he can get a handle on his production schedules his customer complaints would go down tremendously.
 
Mike-The-Knife said:
Guy told me today that the "pre-sale" idea was to offer his knives at a discount to get them out there , get people using and talking about them . To spread the word so to speak and have the Survive brand get more known . The way he spoke , he's not happy about how it turned out due to the setbacks he's had with meeting deadlines .
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He's not the first fellow to have that idea, and he's not the first to have it bite him in the behind.

McVeyMac said:
...The pre-order concept was a win/win scenario...
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Except it's not a win-win. More often than not, this is exactly what happens. The fallout from this sort of thing can take years to get over, and it's stopped many, many beginning businesses dead in their tracks. It's a simple case of biting off more than one can chew. :(

Ask any handmade/custom knifemaker, much less any more-production-oriented factory or dealer... deposits are the Kiss of Death except in rare circumstances. You're basically taking free financing from the very people you're selling to... take that business plan to any banker and ask him what he thinks of it.

There's just WAY too much that can go sideways when you do that with one knife, let alone dozens or hundreds. Especially when trying to offer dozens of different options. I can't even imagine doing when basically every single part of the knife is farmed out to a different sub-contractor... yikes. Waterjet guy's machine is down for a few days, the CNC guy takes ill or breaks his wrist in a freak accident, the HT guy or the sheath guy gets backed up, suddenly the price of your chosen steel goes up or you have to wait another 2 months for the size you need to get rolled out, a batch of screws gets lost in shipping... any little thing can snowball into a disaster.

I won't even go into the communication issues. That's another ball of wax entirely.

Hopefully he will be able to keep enough capital from orders up til now to just put together a bunch of his 2 or 3 most popular models and sell them outright, without having to take deposits/pre-orders/upfront payments before anything is built. That works out a lot better for everyone. It limits options somewhat for the customer, but... which is better, a batch of knives with 2 or 3 choices that ship on time, or 3 batches with 5 options that are several months late?
 
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I'm not crazy about the realistic ship dates compared to the projected ship dates, but the quality and price savings (all of mine have been pre-orders) are worth the wait to me. Guy, I have no advice for you, but knowing the sort of person you are, I bet you are taking this all in stride and learning from it. Don't get discouraged by this, we're all knife guys too, and love what you are doing!!
 
james terrio said:
Except it's not a win-win. More often than not, this is exactly what happens. The fallout from this sort of thing can take years to get over, and it's stopped many, many beginning businesses dead in their tracks. It's a simple case of biting off more than one can chew. :(

Hopefully he will be able to keep enough capital from orders up til now to just put together a bunch of his 2 or 3 most popular models and sell them outright, without having to take deposits/pre-orders/upfront payments before anything is built. That works out a lot better for everyone. It limits options somewhat for the customer, but... which is better, a batch of knives with 2 or 3 choices that ship on time, or 3 batches with 5 options that are several months late?
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James, you would know better than I the history of people breaking into the business in this way, as you are in this business. Based on everything that we are hearing regarding Guy, I think the pre-order concept is over at Survive. Hopefully the latter part of your post is going to be the path forward for Survive. Slow steady growth while building an exceptional reputation along the way will win the long races. I am not sure if I would partake in another pre-order from Survive, if one were offered. I would have no problem buying another Survive knife based on the examples that I have, assuming that it fit a need or a want.
 
McVeyMac said:
Hopefully the latter part of your post is going to be the path forward for Survive. Slow steady growth while building an exceptional reputation along the way will win the long races.
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I agree completely. Clearly the designs and materials are sound, and there is definitely a market for them :)
 
I received an email yesterday indicating my gso 10 had shipped and should be here tomorrow. It's been a seemingly long wait given the initial projections on when these would be available, however if it matches the quality which is present in the 4.1 I have from Survive Knives, then it'll be well worth the wait.
 
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This should keep you drooling. Took my GSO 4.1 and put some Custom Sand Ghost G10 on them. Adding some Custom scales to my 5.1 in the next week or so if I can ever get caught up in the shop. Here's my .02. Guy made some mistakes in the beginning. Okay. I can do lots of things with my hands in the shop. That doesn't mean I know how to start or run a business. He's learning as he goes. Okay. What he does do is fill a need in our world for a really high quality blade with top line materials at an affordable price, AND gives us some options along the way. Instead of "hoping" he "survives", we should be doing all we can to help him survive here at the greatest blade forum in the world. It's a knife. You have more than one. So you have to wait a little longer than you expected. Okay. His stuff is worth waiting for. I own 3 of them and will buy more. I will wait however long it takes for him to get it sorted out. We will all be better off in the future if men like Guy can stay afloat and make it in this business. Imagine what he will do once he's caught up?
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Hale Storm said:
This should keep you drooling. Took my GSO 4.1 and put some Custom Sand Ghost G10 on them. Adding some Custom scales to my 5.1 in the next week or so if I can ever get caught up in the shop. Here's my .02. Guy made some mistakes in the beginning. Okay. I can do lots of things with my hands in the shop. That doesn't mean I know how to start or run a business. He's learning as he goes. Okay. What he does do is fill a need in our world for a really high quality blade with top line materials at an affordable price, AND gives us some options along the way. Instead of "hoping" he "survives", we should be doing all we can to help him survive here at the greatest blade forum in the world. It's a knife. You have more than one. So you have to wait a little longer than you expected. Okay. His stuff is worth waiting for. I own 3 of them and will buy more. I will wait however long it takes for him to get it sorted out. We will all be better off in the future if men like Guy can stay afloat and make it in this business. Imagine what he will do once he's caught up?
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I own: 2X 4.1s, 3X 5.1s a 7.7 and a 10 on the way. I guess I could do more to make sure that Survive succeeds, but I have to say, I cannot do much more. If everyone on this forum bought 7 Survive knives, Guy would never get caught up.

Edit: that 4.1 with your custom scales is beautiful!
 
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Thanks for the compliment on the scales. I seem to have an affinity for the Jade and Sand (Natural) G10. I pimped my Emie with some Jade and polished everything to convert it to a 'silver' finish. Added stainless screws and pocket clip and a titanium thumb disc. Put a small lanyard on with an emerson skull. I'll post a pic later.
McVeyMac, you're right. I just see a guy that has a pleasant problem. I'm sympathetic because i did the same damn thing back when I started doing custom kydex sheaths. It began simply enough. Build them and sell them. Then I made the mistake of taking custom orders. Before you could dull a 440 blade I was in over my head and living in the shop every night after work and putting in 18 hour days on the weekends to get caught up. Lesson learned. I do agree that communication is the key. Most of customers were very understanding and patient if I just sent an email or made a phone call. That of course took time too.
 
Really nice work Hale Storm. I am really digging that Jade. I might have to dress up one of my 4.1s. One is in M390 and the other is in 3V. I got the 3V version to carry in the unlikely event that I have to beat the snot out of it. However, it is also jimpless, so it has a refined looking spine compared to the M390 version. I might want to dress one of these up and make a Sunday-go-to-meeting knife out of it. But which one?

I'm certain that Guy's problems are exactly as you described and that James has eluded to. I do not think that there are any problems that are insurmountable here. Hell I would have gladly waited the 10 months to get the GSO 10, if I knew it would have taken this long (I think, do not have it yet). From a business perspective, I think that these are hiccups that Survive is experiencing which can be easily treated. But I agree with James that if left untreated, these could really hurt the business in the short to intermediate term. I have had several email conversations with Guy and several phone conversations with him over the past year, and I agree with all who have met him personally that he is a fantastic individual who disserves to be successful in this venture. I am glad he took the week off to go to SHOT and get re-energized and re-motivated. I recommend that he take off and go to Blade as well. There is a finite number of knives that his business can manufacture and support each year, yet still deliver the same quality of workmanship and materials. I do not know what that number is, nor do I know what the price point is that will enable him to make the living that he aspires to and pay his employees the amount that they require. But it will be interesting to watch this individual and this company grow over the next few years.
 
My GSO 10 has arrived. Great blade. Pics Later. So now I have 4, 6, 10 and 3.5 is still in production - fingers crossed it will get here sooner rather than later.
 
ridnovir said:
My GSO 10 has arrived. Great blade. Pics Later. So now I have 4, 6, 10 and 3.5 is still in production - fingers crossed it will get here sooner rather than later.
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I am really glad to hear that Roman, I look forward to the pictures. Throw in some family portraits as well, would you please?
 
Mine just arrived and it's a MONSTER!

Very well done and fits the hand nicely. This is one BIG blade!


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Size perspective with GSO 4.1

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Now I must have one. I'm blaming you dwarthog. If my wife calls...........
 
Well, I emailed Survive and had a nice oconversation with a member. Since they do not have what I ordered and don't know when it's coming in, they are changing my order to what they have on hand. Just got a shipping notice, I'm excited to see what's coming in the mail!
 
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