Controversial opinion within, was Euro harnesses

["Brandon Hull" <brandon@cardinalventures.com>]

>Sorry to sound so harsh, but welcome to the business world. As was
mentioned
>by someone else, this was not a philanthropic endeavor,


I gotta weigh in here.   I invest in companies for a living and see a lot of
businesses of all sizes from the inside out.  Professionally and
ideologically I'm committed to the principals of market disciplines.

HOWEVER.  I've been a car buff for a long time, and bought stuff from lots
of aftermarket venders for Jaguars, Chevy 3100 trucks, Porsche etc.  I once
passed on an opportunity to be the US distributor for the major UK
aftermarket Lotus vender.  I would maintain that _anyone_ who is doing
business as a performance Audi manufacturer is partly doing it as a labor of
love.  Why?  Because performance Audis represent a _tiny_ market.  There are
scads of Corvette, Mustang, Porsche, Honda etc parts places which are
$10-20M businesses, just check DUNs.  The _entire_ annual market for
(non-dealer) Audi aftermarket parts is probably a few million bucks, likely
>$1MM if you cut out A4s.

While I'm not apologizing for Todd (No affiliation, spoken w/him by phone
last winter), I will argue that despite his commercial interest, anyone
serving the Audi community deserves more than the conventional slack.  No
one is going to get rich selling us strut bars and brake kits:  Not TAP, not
2B, not Ned, not Todd.  Not until such day as Audi sells performance cars in
big numbers, for a long time.

OK, it's a bitter experience when you pay for something, and are
disappointed.  But I view this circumstance as a consequence of driving
something unique.  You want blue chip customer service, cheap off-the-shelf
upgrades, and ready availability, get a Mustang and a copy of the Summit
Racing catalog.

So offer to cover Todd's costs to rework the harnesses, and treat him like
what he is:  An enthusiast like us, whose enthusiasm for Audis is such that
he's put his capital, time and career at stake in order to devote more time
to it.  I don't know what he thought he'd make on these things, but it
couldn't have been much to begin with, and I promise you he now wishes he'd
never heard of them.

One guy's opinion,

Brandon Hull
'91 ersatz S2