Brett's headers...

[Bryan Gunn <bgunn@voicetek.com>]

Hi,

I think the key here is that Mike is only going to tackle this project if
he can sell more than one or two of these headers. This indicates to me that
he knows what the task consists of. He realizes that an investment of a
couple months of his time, the creation and testing of a couple prototypes,
and whatever other engineering processes are involved, are not going to
be amortized by selling one or two headers. If he charges, say, $700 per
header and sells 20 of them, that's $14K. And like someone said, the actual
material and construction effort are not that great. So the majority of that
$14K goes toward remunerating Mike for the time and effort invested in the
design and test phase. Would $14K buy you a good one-off header? I think so.
But if you've gone to the trouble to build one, why not build more now that
the design is done? As we said, once the design is done, duplicating it is 
easy. Taken a step further, instead of waiting for someone to call you up
and buy a $14K header (which is highly unlikely), you build in the economy
of scale and say "I'm not doing it unless I sell 20 at $700 each.". As the
designer, you get at least the same amount of money, and a bunch of people
get a killer header for a decent price. Everyone wins. I think this is the
thought process that Mike is using. Unfortunately, there is risk involved
on Mike's part. There's always the chance that he won't be able to sell them
all, and be stuck with a closet with 18 headers in it (and out some serious
dough). This is why I am gung-ho about this project. If I can be convinced 
that the design is going to be done right, then I will absolutely positively
buy one.

Of course, I am putting the hardest possible positive spin on this and looking
at it through my darkest tint rose colored glasses, because I've got an '85
ur-quattro with a cracked exhaust manifold.

Later,
-- 
Bryan Gunn                  Email: bgunn@voicetek.com 
Voicetek Corporation          Tel: 508.250.7998
19 Alpha Road                 Fax: 508.250.9378
Chelmsford, MA  01824