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Folks,
Yes, I've been very busy and have not had any time to work on the site for a quite a while. It's hasn't been much of a priority, since about all the document-related infomation I have is already up there.
I've asked several times in the past for help on the site, and outside of the efforts of Geof and a few others it's been all talk and no action. I've spent a great deal of time, effort, and money (about 2K) in getting that site together and acquiring the info. So I don't appreciate the *itchin'
About the time I brought up the issue of using a WWW-based discussion group, much like most other enthusiast groups use, that idea was pretty much shut down. I still think it would be nice, as members could post pics, and then the messages are in categories, and searchable.
And most of us are guilty of buying things outside of Bill (example: belts).. so Bill's business has become unprofitable.
So in talking with Bill,
1) He's not retiring, he's leaving the business.
2) Selling the business is not profitable as well - the last offer he had for "everything" was about 10K, but that also required Bill to inventory, tag, and box everything. It's a lot easier for Bill to sell the stock to a Scrapyard/Recycler who will simply forklift up the pallets, pay him, and leave.
3) Bill has contractual aggreements with Wheelhorse and GE on some information he's not to disclose, for example - names on prints. To clear this hurdle, Bill may have to edit some documents (and time costs money). Probably need a lawyer's time, too. $1-2K at best.
4) A lot of the things Bill sells are assembled from parts. There isn't any electronic version of this stuff.
I've asked Bill for:
1) What he would want for a "forklift pickup" of everything.
2) How much Bill would want for 40 hours of his time, during which Bill does a brain-dump of knowledge. Need a steno for that, tpo.
3) Cost to transfer vendor info, CAD drawings, etc.
4) If Bill would consider a Royalty agreement on parts, etc. (to lower the price of the forklift pickup)
I have now sent him a confirming formal letter about making an offer for the above.
What to do with it?
1) Ideally, it would be nice for some specialty tractor dealer to pick up the business. But it would take a lot of effort to get the stuff "in shape" to sell.
2) As far as marketing goes, it would be a interesting project to see what it would cost to make a "kit" to build an ET. That could be sold as somewhat of a premium price to generate income. Virtually all of the work could be outsourced.
3) From Bill's inventory, items with plenty of stock could be put on an EBay store.
4) Things that need manufactured (like sheet metal) would need to be pooled up, and the standard "group buy" done on them.
5) We can put the info (assuming legal issues cleared) on the Internet.
Changes as I see it
1) Parts will be more expensive, and in some cases may be gone forever.
2) If we get somebody to take over the business, as a group we'd better be unified to support them by always using them. ET's are still plenty cheap, buying your belt from Bill instead of the auto store, and paying a couple more bucks goes a long way.
Don
>>> "Darryl McMahon" <darryl econogics com> 5/25/2004 5:00:04 PM >>> Bill's departure from the scene will be a real loss to all of us. I ordered from
him several times, and had conversations about continuity of the Elec-Trak part of his business a couple of times, probably 3-4 years ago now. I am not prepared to just send my ET off to the scrap yard because Bill is moving on to (an undoubtedly well-deserved) retirement. So, I think there are a couple of things we can do in the short term. Following up on Ken Stieg's post, we can start a list of alternate replacement parts. I had started something like this years ago, but let it slide in favour of directing the business to Bill. However, with the recent news, I think that should be resurrected. I think Don Barry's site (elec-trak.org) is the appropriate place for that, but if Don is too busy, I will take on compiling the list and putting it on my website. (I may be behind the times, but I seem to recall that Don was not keeping up at the site - not a criticism, I'm in no position to throw stones - just my recollection. I also don't know if Don would be prepared to farm out parts of the maintenance chores.) The thing we will really miss will be Bill's knowledge and expertise. I don't think there is any way to replace that, but as a poor substitute, we could create a Repair & Troubleshooting FAQ area with problems encountered and fixed (which may often lead us back to the various manuals - some of which are on-line now - and presumably more can be in the future, or the list of alternate parts sources listed above). Again, I think elec-trak.org is the right place for this information as well. I'm not volunteering to organize or compile this list, but if someone else will, and Don won't take on putting it on the web, I will take that on as well. Beyond that, I expect this list will end up taking up the slack, and someone should take on harvesting new information that appears here and adding it to the R&T FAQs. I have nothing to offer regarding taking over any existing inventory or trying to set up a co-op. I have worked in such arrangements before, and I know they are a lot of work. Better ideas and volunteers welcomed. Darryl -- Darryl McMahon http://www.econogics.com/ It's your planet. If you won't look after it, who will? _______________________________________________ Elec-trak mailing list Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu https://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mailman/listinfo/elec-trak |