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Thread: RTR Gargoyle

  1. #11
    Hey Rodney, welcome to my forums.

    Your post was initially caught by the spam system due to the links and so held until checked by a moderator. We have been busy so it took a while to get to it.

    I have seen one of your Gargoyles in person and they really are a beautiful product, but I must admit I was stunned when I saw how much you were needing to raise in order to get this project underway.

    Based upon my experience with smaller niche, and more main stream products, I would find it difficult to believe you could sell 500 niche guns in 40 days, which is really what the Kickstarter campaign amounts to. I am not sure there is even that market for a full year of sales of such a niche product.

    If your gun is really costing $500 to make on a 500 unit basis, I think maybe you might look at the design and try to design out some of the cost. 85% of the cost of any product is controlled at the design stage.

    I think for a niche item trying to get the funding just to cover the costs of getting the product made, and then having more time after to sell the extra units past the break even point in order to make your profit, might have had more chance of being an attainable goal.

    I do wish you the best of luck though.

    BTW, the way the renderings were done and the presentation for the funding campaign was absolutely fantastic. Nice work on that.

  2. #12
    Insider Davros's Avatar
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    Dec 2013
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    482
    Hello, Rodney.

    Never heard of the Gargoyle marker. Read the details of your version two and it sounds great. Tonnes of positive comments by users of the first one. So I encourage you to keep trying. No idea what you should do if your campaign comes up short, but I hope you think of something. I very much encourage you to keep going and wish you much luck. Regardless you should be applauded for trying.

    Keep in mind the people here (not me) really know what they are doing with manufacturing. If any of them can help please keep an open mind despite the years you spent struggling with it.

    Here is hoping I can buy a Warthog marker from you one day.

  3. #13
    Insider
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
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    Knoxville, TN
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    2,303
    Rodney,

    While imperfect in some ways, I have put a marker on the market also. I am fairly familiar with both cost to produce, minimum runs and related. And I am familiar with your gun, very familiar with Nelson guns, your design, and I see where there are some impressive improvements over stock, and I love so much about it.

    My assumption about cost of marker is two part: one, being having produced markers myself, and second the basic business MSRP to Cost ratio of 1:3 - if it costs you $1 for the parts, make $1, and let the store make $1. So retail is 3 times initial cost of the parts. Our product retails for $850, but not counting overhead or related, just the cost of parts is supposed to be under $300 (which we might get it down to some day.)

    There are some exceptions to that in this industry, but that is about how most items are priced.

    After your comment, I am a bit shocked at the cost to produce. I wasn't expecting that much at all, and you would be competing with $1500 markers. Actually cost to make 500 guns for us would be significantly less than yours, and still less with electronics and solenoid and everything included, and we have a higher part count. A good part of that was changing parts to be easy to machine, or looking at the way to machine a part a bit different to save time or reduce the number of change outs on the machine. We reduced over $400 from MSRP because of that, using the 1:3 ratio.

    Agreeing with what Simon said, there is a lot that can be done at the design stage to drop the cost, and a good part of that is working with the machinist. This is a forum with some experienced people, a good number of manufactures and machinists are here. This isn't MCarter or PBNation, it is a more for production guys and people with experience and we share. You get Simon, Jack from Planet, James from MacDev, Lurker, Boss and towards the end myself.

    Unlike most other places, feel free to lean on us for any advice you might have, you are working with people who know much of the same things you do, several who know way more, and quite a few who know something you could learn from to help you and your project. I can't speak for every one else here, but you will find that most of us here like myself would love to help, and you are more than welcome pick our brains. Feel free to learn from our mistakes!
    Josh Coray
    J4 Paintball
    Lead Design
    www.j4paintball.com

  4. #14
    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2012
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    Los Angeles
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    3,084
    $32,996USD raised

    I'm actually pretty impressed, that is not a small number considering the size of the pump market and the nature of crowdfunding.

  5. #15
    Insider
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
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    Knoxville, TN
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    Well, I see from his post he learned a good bit, plus also he made some great connections.

    So, there is good potential to move forward later.
    Josh Coray
    J4 Paintball
    Lead Design
    www.j4paintball.com

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