I think we have two very different areas of focus here. The one I'll address first is actually the one I'm least interested in because it concerns manufacturing....................................Whilst it is true that I know very little about manufacturing I'm an intolerant and inpatient sort with a make shit happen attitude. On that, suppose I had an idea to make money 'cos I knew people would buy a stainless version of a Trangia burner. I figure all I'd need would be contacts with expertise in making them and marketing them. Sounds to me like a classic Dragon's Den pitch. You demonstrate that people will sell that for more money than the original costs if you make it from stainless and one of them says great we could have those in stores by the end of the month. No fannying around just crack on. If the Dragon says I'll work with you but I've got yay excuse why it'll take me a year and a half to get them made and shipped, I tell him no thanks and look for someone more suitable. I figure if the guy at Tatonka reported to his boss that he had an great idea for a stainless Trangia clone but it would take him a year and a half to get it moving the boss should be looking to sack him. And if that idea did actually belong to the boss and that was the fastest most efficient job he could do of cloning a Trangia in stainless well then he deserves bankruptcy........................Although it's not the thrust of my case I'm thinking along the same lines here. Here is a stainless Crusader cook unit that costs £6 new.
and here is a stainless Crusader mug that is £10 new
. My pitch goes, if we add in a stainless bottle and make some superficial changes we can sell the lot as a set for £75, there's about a £50 discrepancy per set, when we have deducted costs how much profit is in it for us. As I see it time isn't really the factor there it's just a case of having an excellent bean counter to cost it out. Likewise, if I wanted to make some small cosmetic changes to one of these
, and pitched as we could bang these out in stainless and throw in a stainless bottle and a cup, and instead of retailing for £15.95 new we could sell them for about £100. It's not just a grate over some twigs it also has a fully functioning cook system with spirit burner and pans etc.. Whilst I could definitely grasp feedback that said, nah, nobody will go for that, it would be a ridiculously heavy lump with a PPP at that price, what wouldn't sit well with me would be feedback that said excellent idea, that works, it'll take a year and a half for us to make them for you........................Mebe that's another reason why manufacturing doesn't interest me. At best I can't abide working with pricks and at worst they aren't all pricks and that is genuinely how long it would take anyone and my naivety cushions me from that knowledge. In short, I'll concede I am outside of my area of expertise, but even so I am suspicious. Too many links in the chain, too much procrastination, too much dealing with the world how it
ought to be rather than how it is, too much in efficiency; seems to be closing enterprises left and right. Meantime other ventures can deliver an inspired by version of a knife in short order or find instant wins with Reggae Reggae sauce.................................Anyway, enough of that aspect and on to the good stuff, persuasive communication:..........................I don't believe for a moment that the This kit has taken us 15 months to develop and we are proud to be able to offer it to you! is on that page for any other reason than to persuade me their product is good because they spent a whole bunch of time thinking about it. I don't believe it is meant to convey the hassles and uplifts of going from a fag packet drawing to something available in stores. If everything really does take that long to manufacture and market then there's little point in saying it. So what. And if it took them a conspicuously long time to get something so simple made that suggests incompetence. Nope, nobody wants a lurid backstory tale of the production line and how hard life is for them in an advert. Surely adverts aim to display competency, efficiency, mastery, and stuff like that, so quite the opposite. My contention is that nothing of the actual making process is implied when they put that there. Rather, I think it would be more akin to implying after a year and a half of thought we have come up with something novel, the BioLite stove, and all that time in thought and testing should suggest to you that it is good............................... Going back to what you said about novelty and a disconnect with manufacturing, and I completely agree. Then you took it down a route as if that 15mth statement was in that page because of a manufacturing story. I think you have focused on the wrong element because I don't believe there was any persuasive advantage conferred by them stating that if you are correct. In contrast, implying that you've spent 15mnth wrestling with the solution to a problem, have made numerous prototype tests, and all that jazz, does afford some leverage. And recursion back to my original point leaves me seeing through the advert to 15 months of scratching your head and that's all you've got to show for it. Or better, "it took you 15 months to come up with that".
Seriously though, if you have an idea, and tested design, try to bring it to manufacturing from this first scribble, even use kickstart and such. Takes more time than a novel scribble to actually get it done. Takes good old American elbow grease and more time than one normally has in a day.
