i’ve been pricing parts with the idea of making maybe 40-60 boards at once and doing preorders for them.
do you think anyone would be interested in a $750 dual drive longboard? Obviously i’d have to use more “cost effective” parts and buy them in volume to get this price, and it wouldn’t be the “brand-x” killer the custom builds are but people keep asking me for a more budget board and i just can’t build boards in that price range that are completely custom.
So i thought maybe i could bring my styling to some kind of short run preorder lower-price lower-performance slurpee run type board that could be built using parts from some of these vendors that have popped up recently. I could probably get boosted type polish/performance out of it with better range.
Jesus 40-60 boards? That’s insane. $750 sounds like a great deal considering it’s an LHB and dual drive. Maybe you should start up a crowd funding campaign for this. It’s sure more attractive than the dozens of Chinese rebrand kick starters out there.
I think that number of boards it pretty much the only way we can get the cost that low and still deliver something that isn’t crap, yet still be able to deliver all of them within a reasonable window.
i think it can be done with the cells i typically use with just pure VESCs ordered in bulk from macrofab, some 5055s, bestech BMSs, slower chargers, and generic chinese mounts and trucks and clone wheels on blank decks that we stylize and modify on the xcarve. I won’t be pressing decks for these, it will actually be more cost effective to get a bunch of blanks.
we’re still sourcing possible parts suppliers and asking questions at this point, but if assembly and paint is the only thing we’re really doing, i think we can do it and maybe even turn a profit.
my custom boards take approximately 25 hours to build. If we can nail down a solid assembly routine, i think we can do these lower cost boards in maybe 4-6 hours total time each while building them in parrallel.
the devil is going to be testing them. Defining tests that can be done without riding all of them will be a challenge, and of course supporting that many boards will be a challenge.
but i’m determined to get somewhere with this esk8 business and this seems like a viable path.
I think if you’re going to do it go all in.
You would need minions to assemble the boards and you just do the business stuff. plaster the net with ads and video clips. It’s own website SEO fb that stuff. You can’t hire your friends! You would have to fire them if they can’t assemble 3 boards a day. You need people with assembly line experience.
Batches of 100 sounds more realistic to me as you really need to beat down the parts price from your suppliers to make a real business out of it.
I agree 100%. Hiring friends will be a problem unless they are as passionate about this project as you are. I would NOT pre-order it only because I have too many boards $750 seems like a great deal for a dual with the LHB slapped on it as long as you personally oversee the quality control aspect of it.
I know I would definitely buy one, and I know a lot of other people that would too. Personally I haven’t managed to design a decent single drive build for under $500 (and this is with clone trucks and wheels, lipos with no BMS, etc.). So I know for me at least, and many other local e-skaters, that a dual board finished and with laptop style charging for $750 would be a great deal
Good idea, I think it would be popular offering a start out budget board.
People want different things from a board some wana cruise along,others tear down the road at 30+mph “me”
I think 20+mph is still plenty for beginners.
The beauty of these boards though is they can always upgrade parts the more experienced they get or when they have the cash.
ok we were spitballing and we came up with 9Ballers. 9S4P sammy 30Qs pushing twin vesc 4.12s though a bestech 9S 60amp BMS.
probably a standard bottle nose type dh slide deck with 11 ply and an ABS box. i’d likely use black woodstain, bare edges, and have a screen burned for top side graphics. standard black grip in a cut that compliments the artwork.
that’s why i have to do so many of them. There’s no way in hell you could do a one off for that price. I mean that’s probably a $1500 build in the garage using premium diy parts.
all i build are one offs. That’s why they’re so expensive. But i’d like to bring their costs down too and this might help me do that in some way.
if i can get a large enough pre-order base, yes. i can get crazy low prices at volume. In fact a very helpful forum member just sent me some priceless info on who to get what from. Thank you, you know who you are.
i think this industry needs to learn some shit from us. i want to bitch slap it with a flavor stick.
its already a struggle keeping up with the flood of crap out there. We need to step up our games and guid this industry like the leaders we are. we’re the ones on the bleeding edge. Us. Not them. Me and you ass hats with your grossly over powered rocket sticks. They watch us and take our ideas to thier factories. That means we have all the power but they get the money.
Sorry my wife got these 11 ounce cans of stella artois and my god they’re delicious.