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