[money4me247]

Did you get your soldering iron together?

...and registered at engineering classes at my local community college of course ;D

 

[StanD]

...and registered at engineering classes at my local community college of course ;D

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Clemmaster]

Haha, in France you cannot just drop a course because it's too hard. You either do everything all the way, or you quit (of course, you're not expected to shine in every courses. I sucked at mechanics, even though I liked it).
 
To be honest, I really liked to go deep down the fundamental equations of PN junctions to understand how they work. The transistor is not so much of a dark wizardry anymore and it actually makes perfect sense. That's useful math.
 
Then, there's linear algebra that was thought to us with absolutely no reference to real world applications. I called it brain masturbation (for the teacher, at least. Flagellation was more on the student side).
 
This sums it all:

http://www.gotfuturama.com/Multimedia/EpisodeSounds/1ACV11/05.mp3

 

[J&J]

I wonder if Jason had stuck to writing Sci Fi we might have a new religion ala L Ron Hubbard but I'm glad we got Amazing Schiit instead of Amazing Stories (pulp sci fi mag)

 

[Argo Duck]

Another fantastic chapter Jason. Pure gold. And you're giving us the benefit of this super-valuable advice and experience for free. When I think about how much some charge to give out just a few of these pearls at seminars and stuff...

 

[aqsw]

Way to go Jason,
That is a fantastic read!

You guys rock! I wish you the best. I will be ordering my self installed uber.
I just wished you supported the Canadian market more.marketing101
I know we are small, but we are right on top of you!

 

[SynthAddicted]

Just wanted to throw out a huge thank-you to Jason for this chapter. I have been studying audio recording and production in college for a few years now (alongside a regular liberal arts BA), and realized that while I might be able to become a competent electronic musician, I doubt I'll be happy unless I get into designing electronic instruments/studio processing equipment etc. So I've been asking myself: should I be going to engineering school? do I need to transfer to a bigger school where I can study engineering, dsp, etc? Looking at this latest chapter, it seems the answer is no: it looks like what I should actually be doing is designing some independent study contracts for my current school.
 
Cheers!
-MP 
 
P.S. Also thanks for the book suggestion I had the Self book on my to buy list, but I think I'll go for the Cordell first.

 

[dprimary]

I always tell people if you don't have plan in life you end up in audio, good thing I like it.
 
There is tons of jobs in audio and AV. I would say the is huge shortage in some fields. You want to mix FOH in arena size tour or mix platinum records those jobs are pretty limited. Designing amps for Harman or DSP for QSC it is going to be a long education path and only a few opportunities. Engineering, physics, and mathematical degrees can open many doors for you. Knowing how to actually produce anything with equipment is a big plus.
 
Harder to get into but there always seems to be room for someone with talent
 
You have consumer audio and pro audio, with manufacturers for each and some do both.
Live music production
music recording
theater
film production
game production
video production
theme parks
museums
 
 
Where there is shortages 
 
AV departments in colleges, universities, and corporations (IT background is helpful for these everything has been on the network for years now)
system design consultants
acoustical consultants 
Commercial AV contracting
System engineers
Installation techs
Service techs
CAD designers
Estimators 
Fabrication
 
All of them intermingle.

 

[kstuart]

 

---

Aside: I used to give talks on how to get published in science fiction at writing cons. Science fiction is pretty much the equivalent of audio in engineering. And my point always came down to: run the numbers.
 

1. Of everyone who writes, maybe 10% get the courage to submit something for publication.

 

1. For everyone who submits a story (and gets it rejected), maybe 10% send another one. That’s 1%.

 

1. Maybe 10% of that 10% aren’t completely crushed by the second rejection, and send another story. Now you’re looking at 0.1%

 

1. Maybe 10% of that 10% aren’t completely crushed by the third rejection—and they might even get a note from the editor asking for a rewrite. Now we’re down to 0.01%...and your odds are now looking a lot better.

 
Everyone kinda blinked at me, until I took out a chart of all the stories I wrote and submitted, color-coded as red for rejected and green for accepted. I printed it out large-format so everyone could see the great interstellar cluster of red, punctuated by a few lonely green dots. Then they nodded.

---

It is easy to split jobs into two groups - here is how:
 
* When you need a plumber, or a car mechanic, or a doctor, you need one person that is not attending to the other 7 billion people.  So, in general, we need lots of those people.
 
* Whereas all 7 Billion people can:
 
- Watch the same 10 actors in the hit movie of the week
- Watch the same 30 NBA players during the NBA Finals
- Read the same one JK Rowling book  (something I noticed first hand traveling right after Potter releases)
 
So, certain professions we need more of, the more people there are.  And, certain professions we need less and less of, in the age of globalization.

 

[jibzilla]

Reviewing? Headphones at least to me have taken off quite a bit and so have there prices. Maybe not so much now but I could def. see in the future people making a living reviewing gear without super duper engineering background. At least to me to be a good reviewer all you have to have is an incredible passion music, sound, and the English language which to me is something no school out there can give you.   

 

[catspaw]

Originally Posted by Jason Stoddard 

 

---

Aside: I used to give talks on how to get published in science fiction at writing cons. Science fiction is pretty much the equivalent of audio in engineering. And my point always came down to: run the numbers.
 

1. Of everyone who writes, maybe 10% get the courage to submit something for publication.

 

1. For everyone who submits a story (and gets it rejected), maybe 10% send another one. That’s 1%.

 

1. Maybe 10% of that 10% aren’t completely crushed by the second rejection, and send another story. Now you’re looking at 0.1%

 

1. Maybe 10% of that 10% aren’t completely crushed by the third rejection—and they might even get a note from the editor asking for a rewrite. Now we’re down to 0.01%...and your odds are now looking a lot better.

 
Everyone kinda blinked at me, until I took out a chart of all the stories I wrote and submitted, color-coded as red for rejected and green for accepted. I printed it out large-format so everyone could see the great interstellar cluster of red, punctuated by a few lonely green dots. Then they nodded.
 
 
I dont know man... If men beahaved like that with women, the species would have died eons ago.
I wrote 2 books in my early teens. One got thrown out by my grandmother (she thought it was a school notebook used up) and the second I never submited, I was not happy with it yet.
I wrote that second book 3 times over, every time adding and subtracting things to leave the story just as I would like to read it (I dont care about those who say your story needs A,B,C etc, Im writing this for myself, not for others).
Once THe book is done, im sending it everywhere for publication. And if nobody wants it, Ill put it on the internet for free .
 
WHat I am trying to say is, if you do the things you love, it dosent matter if others dont like it, you will keep going anyway. 
In a way this is a great thing, as we can get multiple branches of everything evolve into different real options in the future.

 

[Alex Martin]

Operations is probably the best path in, but the least sexy. And you may need to do some selling of your own capabilities to the company. They may be unaware of all their own internal inefficiencies, problems, and challenges. Talk about ability to deliver products in a timely manner. Talk about stocking challenges. Ask them how they deal with incoming and outgoing inventory. Ask them if they’ve really had a sit-down with all the shipping companies and compared rates. Find out how they’re doing things, and discuss ways to make them better. One thing’s for sure: both engineering-led companies and marketing-led companies would both be thrilled if the more “mechanical” parts of running a business “just happened.”
 

 
My job interview with Jason was on a Sunday morning at the Egg Plantation in Newhall in February 2012.  Jason brought Rena and I brought my wife and son.  We chatted a bit but the place was hopping and it was hard to hear.  After the meal we drove over to the SchiitHole.  I'll call it the proto-SchiitHole at that point.  Rena had already attacked the place with a shop vac and a broom.  There were six of the hundred dollar garage racks you can buy at Lowe's.  Jason is really good at laying things out- it may take off, it may go nowhere, no guarantee on hours.  Jason offered and I accepted.  We drove over to his place afterwards and my son and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, bagging, and packing Valhallas.  Rena was there watching me and doing sound checks- listening to the same 90 seconds of music over and over again.  That was my first day.
 
The following week I moved everything from the house over to the SchiitHole.  Rena worked with me for a little over a month.  Rena and my wife went off to a convention in March and that ended her day-to-day with Schiit as her own business had taken off.  Jesse was there about half the time.  There were other people who worked there but I never saw them.  Eddie and Tony only worked at night and I packed orders during the day.  I didn't meet them until a couple of weeks later.
 
Today, we have a 8000 square foot space that is bulging at the seams.  Jason and Mike do all the hard brainy work with help from Dave.  Tony is still the tech guru.  Amy handles order processing and shipping, Laura handles customer service and our distributors, and Maurice packs boxes and puts up with my crap.  Bill, Chris, and Olivia do all the sound checks, build Fullas, and handle upgrades.  Eddie and Miles build units at night (their choice).   Jesse is in charge of quality, handles basic repairs, and builds Ragnaroks.  Nick handles all of the tech support bumps and bruises.  12 people have good paying work because of Jason and Mike.
 
It goes much further than that.  The guys who assemble our boards work out of a big warehouse space in Simi Valley.  They have this giant room full of people and assembly tables.  We are currently their number one customer.  There are probably a good two dozen or more people at that location getting work because of Schiit.  We get pallets of metal delivered almost every day.  We have two places that do our metal, one in Chatsworth and the other is in Pomona.  Again, more people employed.  Then there is our transformer company in Willets, CA, the guys at the local FedEx depot, it goes on and on.  I like to tell people that one of the core philosophies for how we do things is that we want to contribute to our local community by keeping our friends and neighbors employed.
 
And I get to run the show.  Buying parts, coordinating schedules, negotiating with shipping companies, dealing with backorders, production problems, employee issues, running forklifts in to fire sprinklers, etc is not sexy.  If I didn't do it, all of the other stuff wouldn't happen.  Even with all the frustrations it is very fulfilling. 

 

[aamefford]

   
My job interview with Jason was on a Sunday morning at the Egg Plantation in Newhall in February 2012.  Jason brought Rena and I brought my wife and son.  We chatted a bit but the place was hopping and it was hard to hear.  After the meal we drove over to the SchiitHole.  I'll call it the proto-SchiitHole at that point.  Rena had already attacked the place with a shop vac and a broom.  There were six of the hundred dollar garage racks you can buy at Lowe's.  Jason is really good at laying things out- it may take off, it may go nowhere, no guarantee on hours.  Jason offered and I accepted.  We drove over to his place afterwards and my son and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, bagging, and packing Valhallas.  Rena was there watching me and doing sound checks- listening to the same 90 seconds of music over and over again.  That was my first day.
 
The following week I moved everything from the house over to the SchiitHole.  Rena worked with me for a little over a month.  Rena and my wife went off to a convention in March and that ended her day-to-day with Schiit as her own business had taken off.  Jesse was there about half the time.  There were other people who worked there but I never saw them.  Eddie and Tony only worked at night and I packed orders during the day.  I didn't meet them until a couple of weeks later.
 
Today, we have a 8000 square foot space that is bulging at the seams.  Jason and Mike do all the hard brainy work with help from Dave.  Tony is still the tech guru.  Amy handles order processing and shipping, Laura handles customer service and our distributors, and Maurice packs boxes and puts up with my crap.  Bill, Chris, and Olivia do all the sound checks, build Fullas, and handle upgrades.  Eddie and Miles build units at night (their choice).   Jesse is in charge of quality, handles basic repairs, and builds Ragnaroks.  Nick handles all of the tech support bumps and bruises.  12 people have good paying work because of Jason and Mike.
 
It goes much further than that.  The guys who assemble our boards work out of a big warehouse space in Simi Valley.  They have this giant room full of people and assembly tables.  We are currently their number one customer.  There are probably a good two dozen or more people at that location getting work because of Schiit.  We get pallets of metal delivered almost every day.  We have two places that do our metal, one in Chatsworth and the other is in Pomona.  Again, more people employed.  Then there is our transformer company in Willets, CA, the guys at the local FedEx depot, it goes on and on.  I like to tell people that one of the core philosophies for how we do things is that we want to contribute to our local community by keeping our friends and neighbors employed.
 
And I get to run the show.  Buying parts, coordinating schedules, negotiating with shipping companies, dealing with backorders, production problems, employee issues, running forklifts in to fire sprinklers, etc is not sexy.  If I didn't do it, all of the other stuff wouldn't happen.  Even with all the frustrations it is very fulfilling. 

I generally hate football analogies, still, operations is kinda like the offensive line.  No one ever knows their names, yet without them, that famous quarterback would be strawberry jam...

 

[burnspbesq]

Legal? OhLOLOL! Come on, these aren’t multinational entities—if they need a lawyer, they’ll hire one as necessary 

True, but:
 
(1) Legal problems, especially IP, tax, or customs law problems, can kill a young company just as dead, and just as fast, as having products blow up on customers' racks.
 
(2) Your accountant doesn't know nearly as much about tax as he or she claims to know, and that's especially true about international tax (and who's not global these days?).
 
(3) The return on investment in good, proactive lawyering is astronomical. If you wait until you know you have a legal problem before auditioning lawyers, you are likely to be in a heap o'trouble, and getting out of that trouble will be orders of magnitude more time-consuming and expensive that getting it right up front would have been.

 

[Maxx134]

My job interview with Jason was on a Sunday morning at the Egg Plantation in Newhall in February 2012.  Jason brought Rena and I brought my wife and son.  We chatted a bit but the place was hopping and it was hard to hear.  After the meal we drove over to the SchiitHole.  I'll call it the proto-SchiitHole at that point.  Rena had already attacked the place with a shop vac and a broom.  There were six of the hundred dollar garage racks you can buy at Lowe's.  Jason is really good at laying things out- it may take off, it may go nowhere, no guarantee on hours.  Jason offered and I accepted.  We drove over to his place afterwards and my son and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, bagging, and packing Valhallas.  Rena was there watching me and doing sound checks- listening to the same 90 seconds of music over and over again.  That was my first day.

The following week I moved everything from the house over to the SchiitHole.  Rena worked with me for a little over a month.  Rena and my wife went off to a convention in March and that ended her day-to-day with Schiit as her own business had taken off.  Jesse was there about half the time.  There were other people who worked there but I never saw them.  Eddie and Tony only worked at night and I packed orders during the day.  I didn't meet them until a couple of weeks later.

Today, we have a 8000 square foot space that is bulging at the seams.  Jason and Mike do all the hard brainy work with help from Dave.  Tony is still the tech guru.  Amy handles order processing and shipping, Laura handles customer service and our distributors, and Maurice packs boxes and puts up with my crap.  Bill, Chris, and Olivia do all the sound checks, build Fullas, and handle upgrades.  Eddie and Miles build units at night (their choice).   Jesse is in charge of quality, handles basic repairs, and builds Ragnaroks.  Nick handles all of the tech support bumps and bruises.  12 people have good paying work because of Jason and Mike.

It goes much further than that.  The guys who assemble our boards work out of a big warehouse space in Simi Valley.  They have this giant room full of people and assembly tables.  We are currently their number one customer.  There are probably a good two dozen or more people at that location getting work because of Schiit.  We get pallets of metal delivered almost every day.  We have two places that do our metal, one in Chatsworth and the other is in Pomona.  Again, more people employed.  Then there is our transformer company in Willets, CA, the guys at the local FedEx depot, it goes on and on.  I like to tell people that one of the core philosophies for how we do things is that we want to contribute to our local community by keeping our friends and neighbors employed.

And I get to run the show.  Buying parts, coordinating schedules, negotiating with shipping companies, dealing with backorders, production problems, employee issues, running forklifts in to fire sprinklers, etc is not sexy.  If I didn't do it, all of the other stuff wouldn't happen.  Even with all the frustrations it is very fulfilling. 

Great post both this and Jason's Chap5 are so very interesting to learn how it all works in your schiit operations!

I actually have a much greater appreciation for this company now as a whole and really hope the best for you guys and hope to be a proud owner of your schiit one day!