2024 Chapter 10
Schiitr 2: The Sequel
So now there’s no Schiitr.
For those of you just stopping by, the Schiitr was our first retail store. It was a fully captive operation—as in, it sold only Schiit products, was owned and operated by us, and had Schiit employees (Will, of late) running the show.
And, what started as a bit of a lark (on April Fool’s Day, no less) really ended up being an unqualified success. The Schiitr made money. The Schiitr hosted meets—you may have seen me talking at one. The Schiitr drew visitors from around the country and internationally—yes, internationally. And the Schiitr provided a place for us to do important demos and launches, like when we had the press out for Yggdrasil LIM and MIL.
“So if it’s so great, why is it closed?” someone asks.
In short, lots of little reasons, and one big one.
The little reasons were largely due to, ah, size.
- The Schiitr was physically small—less than 1000 square feet.
- The smallness meant a very small speaker room, not ideal for demoing what our 2-channel stuff could do.
- The smallness also meant that the home theater area (for Syn) was also, well, less impressive than it should be.
- And, without a lot of room for stock, we couldn’t always guarantee we’d have every one of our products, in every one of their variations, there at all time.
- Finally, without a lot of room for additional stock, it’s not like we could carry anyone else’s products, like, say, a couple of key headphone brands.
The big reason was moving everything to Texas. We had logistics problems when the Schiitr was less than 10 miles away from Valencia. Increasing that distance by 100x would make things untenable.
So we decided: let’s close the Schiitr for now, and re-open in Texas, near our San Antonio production facility. And this time, let’s go bigger.
Aaaaand that’s where we are now.
The Logistics Morass
“Ah hell, why not go to New York?” someone asks. “Or at least Austin? Or Dallas? Or Los Angeles and San Francisco and Chicago and Atlanta?
Yeah yeah, I hear you. And I would like to have multiple locations in the coming years. But let’s discuss where we are and why we decided to go the way we’re going.
Here’s what we got:
- We can create a profitable retail business selling only our stuff
- We can do it in a relatively weird place (Newhall is in no way “Los Angeles”)
- We were constrained by size and lack of planning (we never really decided to “go big” with the Schiitr, and implement a lot of our more interesting ideas)
Now, what do we do with this? It seems logical that a bigger space in a more accessible area could do better, especially if we start implementing some of our more interesting ideas, like:
- Partnering with local businesses, like a coffee shop that wants to expand, to make it more than a place to buy gear
- Offering a small selection of complementary products like headphones
- Having more interesting events beyond product intros, such as live music
And, if we’re going to do this, we need to focus on it like we mean it, which means this Schiitr 2 location should be near one of our facilities.
Corpus Christi?
Oh, that’s remote, even in a state where a 2-3 hour drive is no big deal. Flights into Corpus Christi airport are also limited. I can’t really see having the new Schiitr in Corpus. This is not a diss on Corpus, I really love this funky town. But we have to be realistic.
San Antonio?
Now you’re talking! San Antonio is a sprawling city with a lot of interesting areas to consider. We could locate near the touristy areas of Riverwalk, in a gentrifying area of Southtown, in the fancy La Cantera mall, in a commercially zoned old house…or we could consider locating a bit farther out, because we could be in the Hill Country San Antonio-Austin corridor, which is somewhat akin to where we were in Newhall.
And that’s one of the problems: there are a lot of options. This time, while the operational chaos of San Antonio production is being transformed into order, we’re looking at all of them. There have been no decisions made yet.
“Ah hell, I want a new Schiitr faster!” some will say.
And yeah, I hear you. I’d prefer to have a new location faster as well. But I’d rather get this one right. Or at least
more right. At least in part because we have a new perspective on things. In California, we owned none of our buildings. We were, in at least one important way, transient. In Texas, we own all of our facilities. Which means we’re here. It also means that we have a much more solid basis of operations for the future…no constantly increasing lease rates, no sudden decisions by the landlord that it’s time to move, etc.
Taking a bit of time to make this decision also means we can listen to you. As in, are we crazy? Off-base? What do you want to see in a new Schiitr?
So let’s talk about that.
What’s Your Ideal Schiitr?
Okay. Here we go. Knowing that we’re not going to be doing a multi-city, international SchiitrBlitz, what would you like to see in the next Schiitr?
Feel free to blue-sky.
I mean, you can be as concrete as “I live in Texas and I’d choose to locate in a historic house in Blanco because there’s a couple of distilleries there.”
You can talk about the gear you’d like to see, the set-up of the shop, the partners (audio or otherwise) you’d like us to bring on.
Feel free to propose the next city we should hit, once we’ve proven the new and improved Schiitr in a logistics-friendly location here in Texas.
Or you can be as blue-sky as “heck why have a location, kit out a mobile home as a mobile Schiitr and do it that way.”
Aside: oh please no I hope not, the speaker room would be, ah, well…I don’t know how we’d do it, plus paying people to be on the road doesn’t thrill me and will probably thrill the employees even less over time.
You get the picture. Go ahead and dream. Blue-sky it. Leave off sci-fi technology like Tardises and warp drives. Otherwise…what’s your ideal Schiitr 2?
, you're on satellite!!
