Music: Re: [oddmusic] Wheelharp

Hi Jon,

coming back to this quite late, apologies.

I'm 10 years building unusual instruments commercially and I do quite a bit
of bespoke building, maybe not as odd as some of the one-off stuff you'll
see here but it often has to be commercially viable, suitable for outdoors
and to safety standards etc etc so I have to work within specific
parameters. I've installed this stuff in hundreds of schools & parks and
worked with as designer Stomp, IKEA, 20th Century Fox and was bridesmaid on
the TV ad for Ford car part musical instruments (congrats to Bill Milbrot!)

There are a bunch of things to consider when you make the change from a cool
hobby into a business. Be prepared to experience moving further and further
away from the design/building side that you love, it's unfortunate that the
building of the instruments themselves is the fun and easy part, it's
maintenance of a business that sucks away your life. 10 years later for me
I'm spending my time managing the business instead of making all the cool
stuff that I have in my head, on scraps of paper and on sketchup (what a
terrific tool!). I still design but it tends to be only the bespoke stuff
and only when I have someone who has commissioned it - that's so much fun
but it needs to be done quickly because these people want to talk concepts
with you on Monday, have firm CAD plans on Tuesday and have it built by
Thursday and they want it for half of what it costs to make it - ok so a
sight exaggeration!

I'm happy to exchange private emails if that would be useful but I will say
off the bat that the marketplace that you are looking at is pretty small and
would be difficult to maintain as the sole income source, particularly if
you are formed officially with the requisite insurances and the various
overheads that it takes to keep it a commercially viable entity. If you wish
to service a wider/related market like my own then be prepared for
workshops, staff, raw materials, tooling etc etc, before you know it, you're
spending $5k every month just to keep the business afloat so you've to sell
$10k worth of stuff to make it worth your while and then austerity measures
kick in so budgets are cut, the market shrinks.... On top of that you get
the customers who decide thay they want 60 days to pay instead of 30 so as a
result, you can't pay your suppliers or sub-contractors or staff and then
you have to manage all of that when really you just want to be designing
cool new stuff.

I would say at the heels of the hunt, be careful what you wish for. My own
experience was to get carried away with the excitement of the design side
but even though I have an MBA, I didn't really give the business side
sufficient gravitas until it really became unavoidable, at which stage
you're already up to your neck. A business plan is good but be prepared to
change it every few weeks once you start to get down & dirty in the trenches
and work out that you need to re-evaluate everything that you had assumed to
be something different that what it was.

Drop me an email if you have specific questions, I may be limited about what
I can say in some areas, I'm happy to help fellow builders but there may be
points beyond which I won't/can't go :)

Cheers

P
______________________
Paul Marshall DMS MBA
Managing Director

2001-2011 - 10 YEARS OF OUTDOOR INSTRUMENTS

www.bingbangbong.com
The Outdoor Musical Instrument People

---- Original Message -----
From: jon
To: oddmusic@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 6:32 PM
Subject: [oddmusic] Wheelharp

Hello everyone-I'm the guy who came up with the wheelharp several years ago,
and it seems that Oddmusic has generated way more interest than I would have
ever thought. I have had several people wanting me to build them one, or a
varient...but I still felt the design had a few bugs to work out, so I have
spent the past seven years experimenting with new designs as time allows. I
am starting on an instrument now that uses what I feel are the best
qualities of everything I've tried so far. It's home will eventually be a
gentleman in L.A.,who I am sure will master the thing...goodness knows I
never will. Anyway...I am slowly trying to learn the business end of things-
and am taking some free business classes offered by a local university
extension office. Aside from being FREE, there is even the prospect of a
grant to fund start up of a small business if they feel it has a shot. Has
anyone here ever done a business plan, and demographics of who potential
customers would be for odd musical instruments? I know there are folks out
there- they may be few and far between, but they are there. I was even
contacted by someone who worked for Bjork, as she was interested in
commissioning a wheelharp- unfortunatly, my spam filter trashed it, and I
didn't find the email till over a year later.

So...any ideas as to who future wheelharp owners might be hiding?

thanks!

Jon