Retiring is such an odd concept.. it's a bit like "heaven" - it's this mind-set of completion with joy.. except it never really turns out like that.
The only "retirees" I know that are really happy are doing more than they ever have.. and they ended-up making other people wealthier doing it.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with doing less and profiting more.
As far as expending money in this pursuit.. there are probably people out there willing to take that risk for you. You would of course have to give up control though and take a lower percentage of the profits, but that's still more than no profits, and you would have to give up control to actually do less anyway.
I can't see that moving way up market makes life any easier. If Vanderstean is selling fancy cabinets at 10 times the price that looks like desperation to me. I tried some very high end models at Snell ($30k +) and there wasn't much of a market for them. The magazines got excited and you got some free press but almost no sales. In fact for most of our models the potential sales dollars were roughly fixed. That is, if one unit cost twice as much as the previous then you sold half as many. There may be millions of millionaires out there but that doesn't mean they will flock to your doors to buy exotic product. It is a fickle market and excitement over a product is short lived.
If you want to retire (or semi retire) I hope you have the means to do so and wish you the best.
David
You got it right!
This is precisely what should be done; else, make arrangement with an undertaker for your premature demise. A mind is like a muscle, if you do not exercise it, it will atrophy. WHG
Retiring is such an odd concept.. it's a bit like "heaven" - it's this mind-set of completion with joy.. except it never really turns out like that.
The only "retirees" I know that are really happy are doing more than they ever have.. and they ended-up making other people wealthier doing it.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with doing less and profiting more.
As far as expending money in this pursuit.. there are probably people out there willing to take that risk for you. You would of course have to give up control though and take a lower percentage of the profits, but that's still more than no profits, and you would have to give up control to actually do less anyway.
This is precisely what should be done; else, make arrangement with an undertaker for your premature demise. A mind is like a muscle, if you do not exercise it, it will atrophy. WHG
And to top it off, the sofa is not even comfortable enough to sit through one CD!
The key word here is "probably" . If you know anyone, then send them my E-mail - I haven't found anyone yet. I am more than willing to do this, I invite it in fact. A couple people have looked at it casually, but in the end see the same thing that I see. Not much of a market.
And yes, the idea is not to retire to do nothing, but to do less of what I don't like to do and don't make much money at. I am an expert witness on two major lawsuits at the moment so that pays the bills and fills the time. And Lidia is a Professor with tenure - no more stable job than that!
What you suggest would be ideal, I'm just not going to hold my breath for it to happen.
Not much mental exercise making loudspeaker enclosures. I suppose that the work has kept me fairly fit. I actually weigh less today than several years ago. But when I wiped out my shoulder it made things harder to do.
I see the market exactly the same way you do - a fixed set of dollars. So why not make less volume for the same dollars.
I see you are moving to Boston. Did you take the job at Bose? I know several people there. I met Dr. Bose once, I think that he would have been a little hard to take over the long term. The most interesting thing he said to me was "Good marketing people are a lot harder to find than good engineers." Kind of said it all.
Hard to believe nobody willing and able to step in. I'd be all over an opportunity to do what I am passionate about.
It would be a waist of knowledge to see the work you created disappear.
well he was a MIT professor, taught in the EE department, had grad students - hired many from MIT - so maybe his standard for "good engineers" was a little skewed?
if a growing profitable company is the measure then it seems his emphasis on marketing might have some weight
I've been to several BAS presentations that discussed some audio businesses - a couple of "serious" loudspeaker company startup sketches suggest several Million US$ marketing expense to launch a product, factors of several over all costs for everything else - development, tooling, manufacturing, inventory, distribution, overhead...
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Having been a partner in a loudspeaker startup in Thailand, I can attest to the costs. That is one of the things that put people off when they begin to look at the business seriously.
As a review, when the Thailand venture failed, I had designs that worked great, but I had lost a lot of money and only had my home in which to work. I built up my current business from nothing but a table saw and my garage with absolutely no capital. That's what I had to do and I don't see any other way (unless your rich!). But nobody seems to want to do that. They all want to do things exactly like the business in Thailand that failed. Since I've "been there, done that" when I point out the problems they all go, "Oh, I hadn't thought about that. This would be harder than I thought." Daaaa.
As a review, when the Thailand venture failed, I had designs that worked great, but I had lost a lot of money and only had my home in which to work. I built up my current business from nothing but a table saw and my garage with absolutely no capital. That's what I had to do and I don't see any other way (unless your rich!). But nobody seems to want to do that. They all want to do things exactly like the business in Thailand that failed. Since I've "been there, done that" when I point out the problems they all go, "Oh, I hadn't thought about that. This would be harder than I thought." Daaaa.
Here is the vision of people that I see:
Step one - place an order in China
Step two - pickup order on west coast (surf while there)
Step three - sell all the speakers
Step four - take the money to the bank
The rest are just "details" that "will get worked out".
I remember taking with one guy who wanted to establish a factory in China. In something like his second E-mail and continuing for several E-mails he fixated on the method for mounting the woofers - T-nuts, threaded inserts, etc. right down to drawings and the like. This was a trivial detail that would not become worthy of consideration for a very long time. Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
Step one - place an order in China
Step two - pickup order on west coast (surf while there)
Step three - sell all the speakers
Step four - take the money to the bank
The rest are just "details" that "will get worked out".
I remember taking with one guy who wanted to establish a factory in China. In something like his second E-mail and continuing for several E-mails he fixated on the method for mounting the woofers - T-nuts, threaded inserts, etc. right down to drawings and the like. This was a trivial detail that would not become worthy of consideration for a very long time. Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
startup investors are rolling dice - reasonably expect fewer than half of new company startups with good, well vetted business plans to ever return any money - need deep enough pockets to spread their bets so that they have a chance at the 10-20x returns on a very few winners
for the investor the team is more important than anything else – the expertise, energy, commitment, ability to execute – betting on people that have succeeded before gives much better odds
it can be hard on the entrepreneurs who may only have the time/energy/social and monetary capital for a very few startup tries
for the investor the team is more important than anything else – the expertise, energy, commitment, ability to execute – betting on people that have succeeded before gives much better odds
it can be hard on the entrepreneurs who may only have the time/energy/social and monetary capital for a very few startup tries
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Yes, I start in a few weeks.
I've been hesitant to mention it for all the anti Bose sentiment around the forum
.It seems like a very professional company with a lot of talent floating around. They know exactly the market they want to hit and do a good job at satisfying it.
As much as I have enjoyed designing big and expensive products in the past, working for underfunded companies on the verge of bankruptcy is less fun than you might think.
David
Yes, I start in a few weeks.
I've been hesitant to mention it for all the anti Bose sentiment around the forum
It seems like a very professional company with a lot of talent floating around. They know exactly the market they want to hit and do a good job at satisfying it.
As much as I have enjoyed designing big and expensive products in the past, working for underfunded companies on the verge of bankruptcy is less fun than you might think.
David
Congratulations! That's a heck of a resume. JBL, Snell, Kef, McIntosh, A/D/S and now Bose.
Yes, I start in a few weeks.
I've been hesitant to mention it for all the anti Bose sentiment around the forum
It seems like a very professional company with a lot of talent floating around. They know exactly the market they want to hit and do a good job at satisfying it.
As much as I have enjoyed designing big and expensive products in the past, working for underfunded companies on the verge of bankruptcy is less fun than you might think.
David
Bose is a very professional company and doing very well. Lost a lot of people recently though.
I am surprised that you didn't end up at Apple with all the people in audio that they have been grabbing up. (Apple is up to something! My bet is on OEM automotive audio - Apple Brand.)
John Feng is an old friend and his old officemate, Darby Hadley and his wife were very good friends of ours. We worked together at Ford. Darby is now with Apple.
I was in Boston this summer. That's a really great city! It would be a very nice place to live as long as you can afford it.
Lidia and I have our house paid off, we have basically no debt at all (not even our cars). Our sons private school is our largest expense and here in the Midwest things are quite inexpensive. So I can retire any time I want with no change in my lifestyle. The longer I wait the better it gets, so that's a trade-off. Lidia is only 52, so she has a ways to go yet. (Why fully retire if your wife still works?) But as I said, I have two mega-pocket clients (think the biggest names in the cell phone business) in lawsuits right now so finances are not an issue.
retired
I dunno.. can't really agree with that, having recently retired, I find, with maybe an hour spent every few days, I'm earning 4 to 5 figure daily stock market returns by carefully analyzing and buying select stocks and covering the gains with stops. May move on to options as well. hardest thing to get used to is watching my portfolios move up and down daily by more than I made yearly 40 years ago!
As for other pursuits, I'm upgrading speakers (hence the interest in this thread) and doing all the things I put off for 45+ years that I wanted to do.
never thought I'd be in the 1%, but the markets been good after the lessons learned in 2008
As for start ups and funding, my wife and I started her practice 12 years ago from nothing, and we now have retired after selling to a local management group. Successful business management is all in the execution... properly managing cash flow comes to mind, if you do that right, everything else can fall into place. I know, I've done it several times.
You also need to know when to get out. I've always said, managing success is MUCH HARDER than managing failure. It takes alot more work
John L.
Retiring is such an odd concept.. it's a bit like "heaven" - it's this mind-set of completion with joy.. except it never really turns out like that.
The only "retirees" I know that are really happy are doing more than they ever have.. and they ended-up making other people wealthier doing it.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with doing less and profiting more.
As far as expending money in this pursuit.. there are probably people out there willing to take that risk for you. You would of course have to give up control though and take a lower percentage of the profits, but that's still more than no profits, and you would have to give up control to actually do less anyway.
I dunno.. can't really agree with that, having recently retired, I find, with maybe an hour spent every few days, I'm earning 4 to 5 figure daily stock market returns by carefully analyzing and buying select stocks and covering the gains with stops. May move on to options as well. hardest thing to get used to is watching my portfolios move up and down daily by more than I made yearly 40 years ago!
As for other pursuits, I'm upgrading speakers (hence the interest in this thread) and doing all the things I put off for 45+ years that I wanted to do.
never thought I'd be in the 1%, but the markets been good after the lessons learned in 2008
As for start ups and funding, my wife and I started her practice 12 years ago from nothing, and we now have retired after selling to a local management group. Successful business management is all in the execution... properly managing cash flow comes to mind, if you do that right, everything else can fall into place. I know, I've done it several times.
You also need to know when to get out. I've always said, managing success is MUCH HARDER than managing failure. It takes alot more work
John L.
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It's not a question of what people will pay, it's just a question of supply and demand.
Here's an example of what I mean:
I'm a big fan of the EDM scene, and I've been going to shows for easily 25 years. In the EDM scene, the musicians had always been nearly anonymous. Although they might play to 20,000 people, you would never recognize them walking down the street. In fact, if they walked off stage, they would easily blend in with the crowd.
^^ For decades, this was basically what you saw when you went to an EDM show. Some dude with a baseball cap, a tshirt, and two turntables.
Nobody was getting rich doing this; it was a labor of love. (See where I'm going with this?
)Eight years ago a DJ popped up on the scene, and did something new.
He put a costume on.
Yes, this was a little bit silly.
Why does a musician need to wear a costume?
It's all about the music isn't it? (Or is it?)
Lo and behold, this dude became one of the worlds richest DJs in a matter of months. According to Forbes, he made $21,000,000 last year. He plays about 10-20 times a year, so that's a six figure check for a nights work. The World's Highest-Paid DJs - In Photos: The World's Highest-Paid DJs 2013 - Forbes
IMHO, his music is no better, smarter, or more interesting than average. But that costume! Sheer genius. In a field where nearly every single player is indistinguishable, a low-tech homemade costume instantly telegraphs to the audience : This is Deadmau5 you're listening to. (EDM shows used to feature as many as twenty or thirty DJs; I have no idea why it took decades for someone to figure out than in a situation like that, it's probably a good idea to figure out a way to differentiate yourself from everyone else. Ironically, Deadmau5 actually changed the EDM scene itself, because the 'scene' is now much more focused on "superstar DJs.")
In one fell swoop, one dude figured out how to differentiate himself from tens of thousands of musicians all over the world. He doesn't work any harder, he doesn't play any better, he isn't smarter. Just one dumb trick (as the ads say.)
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Interesting post, but what I don't get is how his fee's get paid. Let's say that there are 1000 attendees, which seems like a lot, that's $200 each just to cover his fee let alone the clubs overhead and profit. Is that what people will pay to hear someone play a record player? What am I missing?