[catspaw]

Kickstarter is a dangerous game. Too many hyenas there.
I watched the film Veronica Mars to check out if kickstarter could deliver anything worth the money. It didnt turn out totally hideous, so i assume in the right hands it can be a good system.
However, Once I saw that Oculus VR started well, then some investors came along, and eventually everything got sold for 3 billion to FB, it didnt look too promising.
Schiit started small with its own money, and even then it still delivers what consumers actually want (at least it looks that way).
 
When I first bought my asgard 1 amp, I went to a store to audition some amps. I wont give brand names to not get into any form of discussion, but I clearly could see the quality difference, both in build and sound quality.

 

[Alex Martin]

In terms of calling out high end audio, one does wonder whether prices reflect the bill of materials and R&D costs or some kind of gentleman's agreement among the high end not to undercut each other out of business. In any case it's great that there are companies out there th at are innovating at more sane price points and not just in high end.

Things that need to be considered when setting a price:
 
1.  Cost to purchase the device components
2.  Labor to stuff the board, test and program the board, assemble the board in to the chassis, burn in the unit, final testing, cleaning and bagging
3.  Cost to package and ship the item
4.  Warranty service costs
5.  Overhead that is not directly related to the cost of the individual unit: Lease on the warehouse, liability insurance, customer service, advertising
6.  Price theory: AKA why does every product cost end with a 9
7.  Distribution model:  B&M, Direct, some hybrid of the two- each of these models has costs that impact price.
8.  R & D  (Thanks judmarc)
9.  Risk & Profit: Every product that is manufactured at the most essential level is a bet that someone will want to purchase what you produce.  You risk losing your investment if you get it wrong. There needs to be a reward when you get it right.  Without this, we'd still be a subsistence level species hunting with our hand-made spear chuckers.  When James Watt invented the steam engine he wasn't doing it because his wife was out of town and he didn't have anything better to do with his time.

 

[judmarc]

 
Things that need to be considered when setting a price:
 
1.  Cost to purchase the device components
2.  Labor to stuff the board, test and program the board, assemble the board in to the chassis, burn in the unit, final testing, cleaning and bagging
3.  Cost to package and ship the item
4.  Warranty service costs
5.  Overhead that is not directly related to the cost of the individual unit: Lease on the warehouse, liability insurance, customer service, advertising
6.  Price theory: AKA why does every product cost end with a 9
7.  Distribution model:  B&M, Direct, some hybrid of the two- each of these models has costs that impact price.
8.  Risk & Profit: Every product that is manufactured at the most essential level is a bet that someone will want to purchase what you produce.  You risk losing your investment if you get it wrong. There needs to be a reward when you get it right.  Without this, we'd still be a subsistence level species hunting with our hand-made spear chuckers.  When James Watt invented the steam engine he wasn't doing it because his wife was out of town and he didn't have anything better to do with his time.

 
Thanks Alex.
 
Re 1-7: R&D?
 
Re 8: To the contrary, I have it on good authority she didn't know Watt was up.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

 
Things that need to be considered when setting a price:
 
1.  Cost to purchase the device components
2.  Labor to stuff the board, test and program the board, assemble the board in to the chassis, burn in the unit, final testing, cleaning and bagging
3.  Cost to package and ship the item
4.  Warranty service costs
5.  Overhead that is not directly related to the cost of the individual unit: Lease on the warehouse, liability insurance, customer service, advertising
6.  Price theory: AKA why does every product cost end with a 9
7.  Distribution model:  B&M, Direct, some hybrid of the two- each of these models has costs that impact price.
8.  R & D  (Thanks judmarc)
9.  Risk & Profit: Every product that is manufactured at the most essential level is a bet that someone will want to purchase what you produce.  You risk losing your investment if you get it wrong. There needs to be a reward when you get it right.  Without this, we'd still be a subsistence level species hunting with our hand-made spear chuckers.  When James Watt invented the steam engine he wasn't doing it because his wife was out of town and he didn't have anything better to do with his time.

 
Ha, it's amazing how much of the early Schiit work was done when Rina was out of town...

 

[David Aldrich]

Ha, it's amazing how much of the early Schiit work was done when Rina was out of town...

When she was out of town or because she was out of town?

 

[jacal01]

Not sure if profit was the motive, but James Watts was trying to solve the problem of how to pump water out of the coal mines of the day.  It may have been owner's interest or safety related.

 

[jacal01]

   
The fire wasn't as big a problem as the eruption of resin that now caked the walls of the fume hood. Good times indeed

 
 

 
I kinda fudged the data in the interests of a good story.  The plastic bearing (race?) material was on the fan moter impeller blade in the direct path of the hood exhaust air, but more to the point, the exhaust hood and ducting was for an atomic emissions analyzer, whose sample burning for elemental spectra detection in the ultraviolet generated some rather intense temperatures, so the hot exhaust was pretty much continuous.
 
My mistake was building the initial analyzer exhaust system out of regular ducting components procured from the local friendly hardware store (Grainger?). And this analytical lab setup was a business park garage operation akin to Schiit's early days.  So in that sense it was good times.

 

[Armaegis]

You can only have that kind of fun once... then you need a new building

 

[jacal01]

Nah, nah. All that was needed was exhaust fan/impeller make/model and ducting material upgrades.  The flame was always contained, and indeed tightly controlled.  More red faced than red alarmed...

 

[girion]

  For me, hiring an outsider is a bigger transition than moving from the garage to the Schiit Hole or from the Schiit Hole to the Schiit Box.  How do we keep the Schiit culture alive as we bring in more people and by necessity start giving our original employees supervisory responsibilities?

 
I've put a few teams together, and for me there is a simple truth to this: You don't. You should not even try to prevent the change, and you can only control it by so much.
 
Every person you add to a team will bring themselves into it and there the whole team will transform. The culture will often not "die" (though it is possible to disrupt a group to the extent that it stops functioning efficiently) but you can be very sure it will transform the team, especially a closed-knit one like the one you have. The way your leader handle the conflict stemming from the change will determine how the group will change and what culture you will get.
 
It's plain and simple group dynamics.

 

[aamefford]

   
I've put a few teams together, and for me there is a simple truth to this: You don't. You should not even try to prevent the change, and you can only control it by so much.
 
Every person you add to a team will bring themselves into it and there the whole team will transform. The culture will often not "die" (though it is possible to disrupt a group to the extent that it stops functioning efficiently) but you can be very sure it will transform the team, especially a closed-knit one like the one you have. The way your leader handle the conflict stemming from the change will determine how the group will change and what culture you will get.
 
It's plain and simple group dynamics.

"Plain," simple" and "group dynamics" should never be used in the same sentence.

 

[girion]

 
"Plain," simple" and "group dynamics" should never be used in the same sentence.

"Insightful"

 

[Ableza]

 
Things that need to be considered when setting a price:
 
1.  Cost to purchase the device components
2.  Labor to stuff the board, test and program the board, assemble the board in to the chassis, burn in the unit, final testing, cleaning and bagging
3.  Cost to package and ship the item
4.  Warranty service costs
5.  Overhead that is not directly related to the cost of the individual unit: Lease on the warehouse, liability insurance, customer service, advertising
6.  Price theory: AKA why does every product cost end with a 9
7.  Distribution model:  B&M, Direct, some hybrid of the two- each of these models has costs that impact price.
8.  R & D  (Thanks judmarc)
9.  Risk & Profit: Every product that is manufactured at the most essential level is a bet that someone will want to purchase what you produce.  You risk losing your investment if you get it wrong. There needs to be a reward when you get it right.  Without this, we'd still be a subsistence level species hunting with our hand-made spear chuckers.  When James Watt invented the steam engine he wasn't doing it because his wife was out of town and he didn't have anything better to do with his time.

10.  What we call the "assh*le tax."  This is an added cost (usually a GM percentage add) just because some of your customers will be assh*les, and adding together all of the other considerations often just does not cover this or pay you enough to deal with the headaches.

 

[aamefford]

10.  What we call the "assh*le tax."  This is an added cost (usually a GM percentage add) just because some of your customers will be assh*les, and adding together all of the other considerations often just does not cover this or pay you enough to deal with the headaches.

In our shop we assume all of our customers are ass... Uhm challenging so our standard margin covers this. There are a few that are so special they do warrant a GM adder. Oddly (or not) these include other departments within our own company...

 

[David Aldrich]

 
"Plain," simple" and "group dynamics" should never be used in the same sentence.

Ask three people a question and get four answers.