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I still get lots of email about
beavis board availability. I guess it would be good to explain why it was discontinued and why it
won’t be coming back.
The simple answer is: economics. The amount of
time to build the beavis board itself (wood, cutting, finishing, sanding, parts,
screws, enclosure drilling, labels, finishing, components, soldering,
etc.) was pretty crazy at that price point. But the real killer: the
parts. Each kit comprised hundreds of parts that needed to be sourced,
ordered, counted, packed, etc.) All in all, a more realistic price point
for the full beavis board + parts should have been over $500, just
to make minimum wage through the whole process. And at over $500, well
that’s just not a very good price point. We tried all sorts of things
to streamline the building, ordering, inventory and fulfillment processes,
but nothing came close to addressing the fundamental issue of cost vs. revenue.
To me, the surreal part of the whole experiment was the comments
from various folks on forums saying it was overpriced. And I found
out there is no arguing with logic like that.
So that’s the bad news. It’s dead and isn’t coming back.
The good news? It was a great experience. I put 8 months into the design,
tinkering, refining prototypes, figuring out the parts mix, and creating
the big-ass user guide and designing all the projects. I learned a lot about
the creation of a product, supporting it, selling it, and all that
good stuff. I still think it was a pretty nifty idea, but in the
end, just not sustainable at a price level approachable by hobby builders.
Of course, the best part of DIY is doing it yourself. So
go ahead and build your own.
So have at it my fine DIY friends!
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