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Bad Survive! Deserves A Permanent Post In The Hall Of Shame
- Thread starter ncrockclimb
- Start date
Just finished the video from that HST guy out of curiosity. Jotted down some notes as I listened for anybody else who was curious too. (I think this is accurate, but could've heard something wrong.)
$75k for 20-30%, putting $375k valuation on the high end.
Initial check for $30k, got CNC equipment as collateral.
Survive had 0 in business account, negative in personal account.
HST was told by mutiple previous business parters to not do it.
Guy would disappear throughout the day.
$48k to $50k a month in bills, $1k in knives a week going out.
Company debt is in the hundreds of thousands, personal in the tens.
$500-600k worth of unfinished knives in stacks.
3.5k preorders unfinished.
Some people have $5k in outstanding orders.
HST was literally locked out from the shop.
Doesn't think he personally deserves the anger, but he understands it
Trying to make ammends, but wants people to know most people are SOL.
Calls Guy a savant, claims he could spot a 1 thou difference (human hair 3 thou).
Guy is so broke he just gave his dog away, but is taking a backpacking trip through East Asia.
$75k for 20-30%, putting $375k valuation on the high end.
Initial check for $30k, got CNC equipment as collateral.
Survive had 0 in business account, negative in personal account.
HST was told by mutiple previous business parters to not do it.
Guy would disappear throughout the day.
$48k to $50k a month in bills, $1k in knives a week going out.
Company debt is in the hundreds of thousands, personal in the tens.
$500-600k worth of unfinished knives in stacks.
3.5k preorders unfinished.
Some people have $5k in outstanding orders.
HST was literally locked out from the shop.
Doesn't think he personally deserves the anger, but he understands it
Trying to make ammends, but wants people to know most people are SOL.
Calls Guy a savant, claims he could spot a 1 thou difference (human hair 3 thou).
Guy is so broke he just gave his dog away, but is taking a backpacking trip through East Asia.
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Wow. Just wow. The house of cards has fallen. I'd have rather them skim a few thou off and laser the correct steel. Unacceptable. Of course they sold their cnc machines so skimming a few thou is out of the question.A friend of mine bought 5.1 with weird inscription of steel type:
I guess they couldnt decide which one is it?
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I think that's one of their foreign collaborations. It's not two logos, it's actually just a bicolor one in some offshoot of the cyrillic alphabet.
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Was saying the same thing about SK a decade ago
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I've been following this for years. I actually picked up a survive knife on the secondary market. A GSO 12.
It was a really, really well made knife with flawless fit and finish. Therein lies the problem.
A 12in knife made from 3V with a perfect fit and finish and sheath retailing for like $400 leaves absolutely zero profit margin. I make knives that size from the same materials. They cost over well over $300 just in steel, handle material, machining, and HT to make. This does not count any hand finishing, grinding, sharpening, sheath making, assembling, and even packaging which all take substantial amounts of time and are prone to failure.
The only way to overcome a low profit margin is through increasing volume which was never possible because Guy's fit and finish standards are too high, and knives, by their nature, require an extensive amount of skilled hand work to create which slows things down. Big knives cost ALOT to make AND they take ALOT of effort to finish because the surface area is so large.
Even simple things like sharpening are very difficult to get right and are highly prone to failure on large knives. Even just attaching the scales to the tang and grinding them flush can take a very long time and it all has to be done by hand. Make a mistake, and congratulations, you now have to refinish your entire blade.
While you can mass produce a tiny folder like a Sebenza with a perfect fit and finish, Ultra high quality large blades with big surface areas to finish are just not scaleable with the profit margins that exist in knifemaking. This is why real quality is only available in small batches and at higher prices.
I think I fell for this trap when I started making knives over 10 years ago. I wanted everything to be 100% perfect AND affordable for my customers. Its just not possible on a big knife.
I've now decided to make blades that offer elite performance, a great aesthetic, and are reasonably priced, BUT have tooling marks on them or a tang thats only 96% flush instead of 100% flush. Trying to get that last 10% of fit and finish can double or triple the number of hours you put into each blade, destroy your entire profit margin, and leave you with alot of factory seconds and customers without knives.
I applaud what Guy tried to do, but at the end of the day, the ultra high performance large fixed blade knife with a perfect fit and finish at an affordable price point is a myth and no one should ever fall for it again.
Survive models would have needed to cost twice as much to be a legitimate business. However, if that were the case, no one would have done any pre-orders and would have just continued buying from great makers and manufactures like Busse or Carothers instead.
The entire business model was never legitimate. Something about wanting champagne on a beer budget.
It was a really, really well made knife with flawless fit and finish. Therein lies the problem.
A 12in knife made from 3V with a perfect fit and finish and sheath retailing for like $400 leaves absolutely zero profit margin. I make knives that size from the same materials. They cost over well over $300 just in steel, handle material, machining, and HT to make. This does not count any hand finishing, grinding, sharpening, sheath making, assembling, and even packaging which all take substantial amounts of time and are prone to failure.
The only way to overcome a low profit margin is through increasing volume which was never possible because Guy's fit and finish standards are too high, and knives, by their nature, require an extensive amount of skilled hand work to create which slows things down. Big knives cost ALOT to make AND they take ALOT of effort to finish because the surface area is so large.
Even simple things like sharpening are very difficult to get right and are highly prone to failure on large knives. Even just attaching the scales to the tang and grinding them flush can take a very long time and it all has to be done by hand. Make a mistake, and congratulations, you now have to refinish your entire blade.
While you can mass produce a tiny folder like a Sebenza with a perfect fit and finish, Ultra high quality large blades with big surface areas to finish are just not scaleable with the profit margins that exist in knifemaking. This is why real quality is only available in small batches and at higher prices.
I think I fell for this trap when I started making knives over 10 years ago. I wanted everything to be 100% perfect AND affordable for my customers. Its just not possible on a big knife.
I've now decided to make blades that offer elite performance, a great aesthetic, and are reasonably priced, BUT have tooling marks on them or a tang thats only 96% flush instead of 100% flush. Trying to get that last 10% of fit and finish can double or triple the number of hours you put into each blade, destroy your entire profit margin, and leave you with alot of factory seconds and customers without knives.
I applaud what Guy tried to do, but at the end of the day, the ultra high performance large fixed blade knife with a perfect fit and finish at an affordable price point is a myth and no one should ever fall for it again.
Survive models would have needed to cost twice as much to be a legitimate business. However, if that were the case, no one would have done any pre-orders and would have just continued buying from great makers and manufactures like Busse or Carothers instead.
The entire business model was never legitimate. Something about wanting champagne on a beer budget.
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CPK has managed to offer large and small blades at very reasonable prices for years, especially considering the quality of the build and materials, and the extremely tight tolerances. When they've raised prices to confront the realities of the cost of materials and production, they did so reluctantly...and no one batted an eyelash because they could appreciate the product being offered for the excellence and value it represented.
gscreely
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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This is exactly right. Here is what has left me flummoxed over the years. On the one hand, Guy was super particular about his quality for the sake of the company's reputation, and on the other hand, the company's reputation was roasted due to the unfilled orders. Why would you care so much about one thing and so little about the other?
Perhaps the one was always a smoke screen for the other.
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Pure conjecture, but I think Guy started Survive with an idea that sounded great and some back of the envelope math that made sense on paper. However, the whole thing ended up being a fraud that took millions of dollars from knife customers.
I think very quickly, he realized that the blades were much harder to make than expected and there was basically no profit margin at his price point.
I don't think he properly estimated how much profit is lost due to scrapped blades, mistakes, factory seconds, or just how profoundly difficult it is to get a great finish on a supersteel.
To his credit, he did reach out to knowledgeable people in the industry to get production help. However, at this point, Survive was probably low on money and needed more cash to stay afloat and make the existing pre-orders. I do 100% believe Guy wanted to deliver on these orders and in his mind, he would get the production process fixed, complete the backlog, and then move forward. The problem is, the cost is so great and the margins so low, he probably got continually in the cycle of taking money from new pre-orders to pay past debts until he ended up with a backlog of 5,000 blades.
I'm sure he also had some legitimate problems with steel, HT, etc.. it happens to all of us. Its happened to me. Its part of the game. However, I think by 2024, he probably realized it would take another $200+K of debt and literal years of work to finish all of those blanks and it just wasn't possible. Things were not improving with his processes or finances, the blades were always fundamentally unprofitable because of low prices and I think the problems with steel and HT were the final straw that made him realize there was no coming back.
I do have pity for Guy and feel his plight. He started out wanting to make a great product at a great price. He probably didnt have any real business or knifemaking experienced and underestimated how difficult it is. When I started knifemaking, I definitely fell into some of the same patterns and completely understand the stress of getting so far in over your head and not knowing how to find the way forward. And then you have problems with steel or HT which happen in any industry all the time and its enough to break you.
I actually quit knifemaking in 2019 over 2 bad batches of steel that lead to me having to refund or replace 40+ blades. It was absolutely brutal BUT I had amazing customers that stood by me and were very patient and I replaced or refunded every single blade.
This is where Guy really went wrong. I don't think he was ever that honest with his customers and if he had been, I think they would have understood. Instead he dug himself into a hole until he hit rock bottom and took millions from unsuspecting customers.
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I candidly feel you are giving Guy too much credit. There have been plenty of instances in the decade or so of this Scumbag!Knives debacle where it was clear that whenever he didn't want to work on a run of preordered knives, he'd head to the drawing table and come up with a new design to take a million plus in preorders against and make some of those instead. People were lefting waiting on knives he never had any intention of finishing, and as far as I can see, there's nothing to applaud. Perhaps years ago, back in his early days he actually made a sincere effort to try to make good knives, but I think the road to his ultimate downfall he's experiencing now happened the moment he still had unfinished knives on his bench but discovered that his idiot fanbase* would take him at his word and pony up hundreds of thousands more dollars for "preorders" just on his say so and some pics he put together.
Once he realized that all he REALLY had to do in order to keep the scam going was make some of the knives he owed people (so he could spend the huge majority of the cash he took in on his personal bills/purchases/etc.), while continuously running preorder after preorder, and even selling seconds which in actuality were knives that hadn't even been made yet (the purest example of fraud in this whole sordid mess, honestly), and when he realized how few people would actually challenge him for refunds, the grift became super easy for him. I do not feel bad for anyone who got rooked by the guy, sorry I just don't. The word was out about him years ago, and still a lot of people defended him right up until
shinyedges
and a couple of others gathered all of the postings proving the fraud from their own sub here, presented it to Spark, the owner of the site, and got their sub shut down. Even then, in this very thread, we have had defenders still pop up to defend poor ole Guy who's just doing the best that he can, and if you'd just be patient, he's definitely going to get your kni....LOL JAYKAY, his house of cards has finally burnt down since the fanbase of people he was able to scam effectively dried up. Guy is a fraudster and everything bad that happens to him from this point forward in his life is well deserved. Nothing he's done is worth applauding.
Also, as others have said, plenty of companies make great large fixed blades that can be used hard that don't have the issues Guy had. Guy's issues were because he doesn't know how to make knives. He never did. All he was good at was bolting parts together that were made by actual makers who were contracted to do that work. I mean, if he knew how to actually grind a blade, the whole Magnacut issue his dumb ass had been bleating about would never have been an issue! Hell, so many times he used the excuse of "We're still waiting for the sheathes for the GSO whatevers to come in, please be patient!". So really, Guy didn't have the issues that you describe having, because it sounds like you actually do the work. You're cooking at home, dude was Doordashing McDonalds, huge difference.
* Idiot too harsh a word? Not really sure what else can be said when from the beginning Guy made it clear that these knives were all being made by him personally (due to his incredibly high standards LAWL), and so even a moment of critical thinking being done when he released preorders for new knives would have had smart people wondering "Hmmmm....if dudebro is going to start work on those new model knives....who's making the knife he still owes me?". Folks missing this simple and glaring issue over and over and over again (which so many of his ardent defenders did)...whelp, if the shoe fits., you know?
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This. All of this. Hot damn.I candidly feel you are giving Guy too much credit. There have been plenty of instances in the decade or so of this Scumbag!Knives debacle where it was clear that whenever he didn't want to work on a run of preordered knives, he'd head to the drawing table and come up with a new design to take a million plus in preorders against and make some of those instead. People were lefting waiting on knives he never had any intention of finishing, and as far as I can see, there's nothing to applaud. Perhaps years ago, back in his early days he actually made a sincere effort to try to make good knives, but I think the road to his ultimate downfall he's experiencing now happened the moment he still had unfinished knives on his bench but discovered that his idiot fanbase* would take him at his word and pony up hundreds of thousands more dollars for "preorders" just on his say so and some pics he put together.
Once he realized that all he REALLY had to do in order to keep the scam going was make some of the knives he owed people (so he could spend the huge majority of the cash he took in on his personal bills/purchases/etc.), while continuously running preorder after preorder, and even selling seconds which in actuality were knives that hadn't even been made yet (the purest example of fraud in this whole sordid mess, honestly), and when he realized how few people would actually challenge him for refunds, the grift became super easy for him. I do not feel bad for anyone who got rooked by the guy, sorry I just don't. The word was out about him years ago, and still a lot of people defended him right up until
LOL JAYKAY, his house of cards has finally burnt down since the fanbase of people he was able to scam effectively dried up. Guy is a fraudster and everything bad that happens to him from this point forward in his life is well deserved. Nothing he's done is worth applauding.
Also, as others have said, plenty of companies make great large fixed blades that can be used hard that don't have the issues Guy had. Guy's issues were because he doesn't know how to make knives. He never did. All he was good at was bolting parts together that were made by actual makers who were contracted to do that work. I mean, if he knew how to actually grind a blade, the whole Magnacut issue his dumb ass had been bleating about would never have been an issue! Hell, so many times he used the excuse of "We're still waiting for the sheathes for the GSO whatevers to come in, please be patient!". So really, Guy didn't have the issues that you describe having, because it sounds like you actually do the work. You're cooking at home, dude was Doordashing McDonalds, huge difference.
* Idiot too harsh a word? Not really sure what else can be said when from the beginning Guy made it clear that these knives were all being made by him personally (due to his incredibly high standards LAWL), and so even a moment of critical thinking being done when he released preorders for new knives would have had smart people wondering "Hmmmm....if dudebro is going to start work on those new model knives....who's making the knife he still owes me?". Folks missing this simple and glaring issue over and over and over again (which so many of his ardent defenders did)...whelp, if the shoe fits., you know?
100%. The "his knives were great" crowd kills me. Pick up a fixed blade from volunteer knife, cpk, worktuff, and a plethora of others and they are immaculate. I have gone through so many manufacturers blades in the last 12+ years it's insane. Fixed blades make the largest portion of my collection by a country mile, I'm a fixed blade guy, who has owned a survive! knife (before the shenanigans) and handled others, idk what people are seeing that cpk and the others don't have?
Guy and Ellie (she's guilty too) have known for 10 years that they were missing the dead lines posted on their website that stated 90 days. They continued to take orders KNOWING they were not going to fulfill them in the stated time. They took peoples money and then made 2nds and 3rds and sold them to other people while the paid in full customers sat with nothing. Still till this day people from 10 years ago are waiting on their knife. Think about that. You could have had a child the year you ordered your knife and now you kid is double digits and you still have no knife.
The knives were good, not amazing. Amazing is what happens when Ben Seward makes a knife. When Don Hanson makes a knife and many others.
Zero sympathy for Guy or Ellie, when I made the thread that got their forum closed look at the lies that were said. Ellie bold faced lied about what was happening. Neither are great characters in my book.
But for crying out loud, let's be real about their knives, they aren't in a league of their own. The market is rich with equal or better quality knives in the same exact price range for most of their blades.
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Yep, and in all that time what did they do? Took more than 1,000,000 with of money from people and delivered nothing.
What do you think is happening now/next? I did a search and couldn't find any bankruptcy fillings, not that there couldn't have been one. Do you think guy is just selling off the equipment to raise money? Will the banks just auction everything off? I wouldn't think skids of half made knives/handles/sheaths would be worth much to most people.
SimplyMinded
I'm Tolerated!
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They also appreciated actually getting the item they paid for. All Guy had to do was hire some semi talented people and assembly line the knives out the door. The materials were already there. Not one you boober but 5 or 6 people until its done.. Nobody expected perfection but they did expect to get a knife delivered.
I suspect there's an addiction afoot here and Guy taking off for "walks" multiple times a day is a big clue for that. He and possibly Ellie too could have cracked/snorted/injected up that much money in a decade easily and still want more.
SimplyMinded
I'm Tolerated!
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I think the supposed backpacking trip will be Guy hauling butt with however much cash he can get any way he can get it. No wife and gave his dog away.
There's another reason recently divorced men give stuff away..because they soon won't be alive to need it. I hope it doesn't come to that.
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For those who sympathize with Jon from HST, when he posted this short:
Do you think he was being honest?
Do you think he was being honest?
