When to start and quit

Re: [spiers] When to start and quit

Hi John-

I enjoy very much reading about your suit project. The insight you
give by pointing out the various considerations, corrections, and
thoughts is valuable to me. I look forward to hearing both more
details, and more progress as you move along. In particular, I would
like to understand more about the people you are teaming with, what
their interests, are, and how you determine ahead of time, when/under
what conditions to shutdown the project.

This discussion is relevant to me, as I have 2 projects going on, and
I am wondering what my "shutdown" criteria should be. I have had
dialogues with vendors, both, coincidentally in Taiwan, and they each
have produced samples (products are as different as chalk and
cheese). One of the vendors has worked long and hard on a sample
that frankly, doesn't look too good in the photos he has sent to me.
Yet some of his other products look good. So I am chalking part of
it up to lousy communication, the other to the possibility that I
simply have the wrong vendor. I plan to obtain samples in September
and take them to the retailers I have already engaged, in order to
get their feedback. If they pan the sample, as I frankly expect, I
will be stuck with whether to a) stop the project, or b) switch
vendors, or 3) evolve the product with that vendor.

I plan to travel to both vendors in September to pick up the samples
(yes, mail is cheaper, but I am combining it with a vacation
elsewhere near that time zone, part of the allure of this business),
and that will give me an opportunity to clarify requirements for the
products. Which brings me to another question. Although I am an
experienced spec writer, my opinion is that foreign vendors just
don't have the time nor the ability to understand details of specs,
no matter how simplistic I write them. What is the role of the spec,
and when is it appropriate to visit the vendor in order to discuss
requirements? I understand that you recommend to minimize costs by
having the vendor mail samples and you improve the product by phoning
in changes. But if we are developing innovations to existing
products (or creating entirely new products) is it realistic to
develop a sample entirely remotely?


> Last week the tailors from Hong Kong came to town and a half dozen
> of us met with them to go over capabilities and target customers.
>
> As these discussions proceed, i feel the same old excitement I felt
> 30 years ago, that dangerous "o boy!" that I know now from
> experience is simply fantasy getting ahead of reality. We've
> carefully constructed what we are doing to be limited to
>
> 1. What no one else is doing
>
> 2. solves a problem
>
> 3. has customers...
>
> oops...see ... i just made customers #3 on my list... it is so easy
> to not make them first... so consider them moved back to #1...
>
> 4. If this does not pay from day one, we stop. Day one we all
> ordered clothes, far better than anything else we cpould buy off
> the rack, and at a better price, although we'll not be competing
> oon price as we go "public." We'll compete on access to the best
> the world offers in each fabric category, and first rate
> tailoring. Price is not going to matter.
>
> Stopping is important... it breaks my heart to see people
> struggling to get a biz going, as they keep running this way and
> that, trying to get something, anything to work. As we narrowly
> define what we are doing to mean only what we want to do, either
> there are custoemrs or there are not. if there are, we proceed.
> if not, that is the end to it. And worse case scenario is we got
> beautiful clothes at a good price.
>
> As to a carpet project I am working on, the artisit for whom the
> carpets samples were made has found the first minmum or requirement
> is sold, so we are on to the second minimum. Y'all recall we work
> only on frequency, never in volume at the small biz level.
>
> John

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