Is it really two months since I last visited this hallowed page? Yes, I am afraid so.
What have I been doing, you might ask (if anyone ever looked at this meagre blog).
I have been incredibly busy, I am behind with the accounts, my other patent work has gone onto the back burner and the Dryline takes up nearly all of my waking hours. Other wise everything is just tickety boo.
I passed the thousandth sale point last week; over a thousand happy customers are using my invention - and they keep telling me how much they like it! Now to move into the larger market; a new integrated website to take the pain out of processing orders, a new version to sell cheaply enough to enter the retail market, a much-overdue price rise and hire an apprentice to learn the online retail trade. Alan Sugar eat your heart out!
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
After May Day
Preparations for the Euro and County elections have taken a lot of time lately, and the Malvern Mayday also took its toll. However, it's great to have a prominent role in establishing a great local event like the Mayday parade and party in the park. We have actually created a folk tradition that could (why not?) endure long after we are in the sod.
Straight after that I plunged into the RHS Spring Gardening Show, where for four days I displayed several Rotaire Drylines and handed out leaflets with instructions on how to measure your airer. The best part of the positive feedback that I received was when ladies would come up to me and shake my hand, saying that they had bought a Dryline last year and it had been brilliant; they loved it and wanted to thank me personally! You can't buy that sort of satisfaction.
Anyway, that excuses the lamentable lack of entries to the blog. I now intend to display the Dryline at more shows this summer, as it is the most direct route to engaging people. Public awareness is building up nicely, and I still get a lot of referrals from the Chris Evans Show last year - amazing how important national media is.
Straight after that I plunged into the RHS Spring Gardening Show, where for four days I displayed several Rotaire Drylines and handed out leaflets with instructions on how to measure your airer. The best part of the positive feedback that I received was when ladies would come up to me and shake my hand, saying that they had bought a Dryline last year and it had been brilliant; they loved it and wanted to thank me personally! You can't buy that sort of satisfaction.
Anyway, that excuses the lamentable lack of entries to the blog. I now intend to display the Dryline at more shows this summer, as it is the most direct route to engaging people. Public awareness is building up nicely, and I still get a lot of referrals from the Chris Evans Show last year - amazing how important national media is.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Light at the end of the tunnel (2)
I just re-read my last post, and it's strange that one's view can change so completely over such a short time. Two weeks later and the prospect of selling Drylines seems easy. The Rotaire Dryline sells itself! The only matters that prevent more sales are uncertainty (because it is a totally new concept) and the relatively high price. It is obvious when the Dryline is shown to a customer that it is well made, without cutting corners - and that the Dryline is made to last, unlike so many imported products.
I look forward to the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, where people show such enthusiasm for the idea. After all, it is so simple, and so obvious, that if you want to dry clothes in the British climate you need to cover the laundry. The Rotaire Dryline washing line rain cover is the first and only cover to fit existing airers - across the range.
Roll on the April Showers!
I look forward to the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, where people show such enthusiasm for the idea. After all, it is so simple, and so obvious, that if you want to dry clothes in the British climate you need to cover the laundry. The Rotaire Dryline washing line rain cover is the first and only cover to fit existing airers - across the range.
Roll on the April Showers!
Sunday, 1 March 2009
The Light at the end of the tunnel
Some days the light at the end of the tunnel just seems to go out, as if turned off by an invisible hand. I searched my soul to find out if I really thought I could pull it off; the international marketing, patent costs for all those territories, the sheer day to day grind of fielding questions and sending out orders. It wouldn't be hard if I had not had to invest so much money to get the project to this stage. Now maintaining the debt is getting more and more difficult. Moreover, the financial melt down has caused the jolly British Pound to tumble to 75% of its value, meaning that I can only buy 3 Drylines for my money instead of 4.
If the product is adopted by a major retailer (negotiations under way) I will have to take on an extra £100k in short term debt from the bank in order to bridge the gap between purchase of goods and payment of invoice. The little entrepreneur gets trampled by the bigger fish! And the rates they are charging??? At a time when the bank rate is lower than ever in history the banks are still lending at premium rates. There ought to be a Law...
Don't expect cheap imports to go on forever. Tomatoes have gone up considerably, as will anything from the continent.
If the product is adopted by a major retailer (negotiations under way) I will have to take on an extra £100k in short term debt from the bank in order to bridge the gap between purchase of goods and payment of invoice. The little entrepreneur gets trampled by the bigger fish! And the rates they are charging??? At a time when the bank rate is lower than ever in history the banks are still lending at premium rates. There ought to be a Law...
Don't expect cheap imports to go on forever. Tomatoes have gone up considerably, as will anything from the continent.
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Into the New Year with a bang!
I usually can't get going until the second week of the New Year, can't remember to write the correct year on cheques, that sort of thing. This year was different. I crashed into it well refreshed, though slightly hung over, and started work with relish. Plenty of orders to process!
I've made enough this month to pay the heavy fees to keep the Intenational Patent cover in force, and even got an Australian patent application in place. Australia is the home of the rotary airer - probably their only invention, so it seemed right to take the Rotaire to them.
The next problem is to get through the winter, when people don't think of drying outside and sales will be low. If only they realised: some new users found they could dry their clothes in the sub-zero temperatures we we've been experiencing this Season. The problem after that is to afford new stock, as levels are dangerously low on some sizes, and completely out on others. However, I seem to be faring surprisingly well in this Global Squeeze (why won't anyone call it a slump? It clearly is!) so long may my good luck continue.
Oh yes, I got a call from a buyer at Argos too...
I've made enough this month to pay the heavy fees to keep the Intenational Patent cover in force, and even got an Australian patent application in place. Australia is the home of the rotary airer - probably their only invention, so it seemed right to take the Rotaire to them.
The next problem is to get through the winter, when people don't think of drying outside and sales will be low. If only they realised: some new users found they could dry their clothes in the sub-zero temperatures we we've been experiencing this Season. The problem after that is to afford new stock, as levels are dangerously low on some sizes, and completely out on others. However, I seem to be faring surprisingly well in this Global Squeeze (why won't anyone call it a slump? It clearly is!) so long may my good luck continue.
Oh yes, I got a call from a buyer at Argos too...
Sunday, 28 December 2008
The Breakthough!
Thank you Chris Evans and Foxy! My best Christmas present was on the 5th December when I went to London to be interviewed on the Chris Evans Show. It was very lucky to be on Drivetime Radio 2 at the beginning of the Christmas season; on a friday evening at 6.30. It could hardly have been bettered. My three minutes of fame were very pleasant and barely intimidating at all. Chris genuinely thinks I am going to be very rich.
I spent the rest of the night over a bottle of brandy with a good old friend called Nigel, who I haven't seen for years, and I woke in the morning to a call from my wife saying that the website had crashed; a customer had phoned to tell us about it. I rushed home to find that it had indeed exceeded its bandwidth in one night! It meant that a lot of people were unable to see the product, but I already had more orders than I had had in the previous month! I got the site back up when the host site returned to work on monday morning and the orders just kept coming. It was only two days before Christmas that I was able to stop, amd take breath. Since then I have enjoyed a full Family Christmas with my delightful family and partners and I am feeling well replenished for the next stage of the development of the Dryline.
If you want people to know about something these days you have to shout very loud and get a vast crowd of people to hear you; the proof is in this brief window of time. Three minutes exposure equals three weeks of work. I have had wonderful feedback from the customers, genuinely pleased to hear of someone working against the tide of depression and bad news, who has a simple yet effective idea, one which some of them had envisaged but not carried through, and one which simple stunned others with its obviousness.
Thank you all for buying from me, and trusting in the change it can make to your lives. It works!
I spent the rest of the night over a bottle of brandy with a good old friend called Nigel, who I haven't seen for years, and I woke in the morning to a call from my wife saying that the website had crashed; a customer had phoned to tell us about it. I rushed home to find that it had indeed exceeded its bandwidth in one night! It meant that a lot of people were unable to see the product, but I already had more orders than I had had in the previous month! I got the site back up when the host site returned to work on monday morning and the orders just kept coming. It was only two days before Christmas that I was able to stop, amd take breath. Since then I have enjoyed a full Family Christmas with my delightful family and partners and I am feeling well replenished for the next stage of the development of the Dryline.
If you want people to know about something these days you have to shout very loud and get a vast crowd of people to hear you; the proof is in this brief window of time. Three minutes exposure equals three weeks of work. I have had wonderful feedback from the customers, genuinely pleased to hear of someone working against the tide of depression and bad news, who has a simple yet effective idea, one which some of them had envisaged but not carried through, and one which simple stunned others with its obviousness.
Thank you all for buying from me, and trusting in the change it can make to your lives. It works!
Saturday, 22 November 2008
After Tesco
Last weekend I tried something very challenging: to spend the weekend in the local Tesco car park! I discovered that they rent out space in their car parks to businesses wanting to display their products, so I signed up with risk assessment and all to a two day campaign - which cost £600!
I had high hopes of interestingTesco customers and using Tesco's incredible customer profiling system to discover the demographics of my buyers. However, although we had a fair amount of interest I have only had one enquiry, which has not yet resulted in a sale. Most of the weekend was spent hanging around trying to keep warm, although the miserable wet and windy weather on the sunday did prove the point: the washing on the lines stayed dry.
It was an expensive piece of advertising then, but at least it put the Rotaire name and the product in the minds of thousands of people who otherwise may not have known about it, and next time their washing gets soaked they may look it up. It was fascinating to see the operation at close hand, a constant flow of shopping trolleys in and out of the store, the busy times and the less busy times - there was never a slack period. The car park nearly always full, the lively people going in, and the same people coming out devoid of interest, looking at the pavement. A large number thankfully used ther own bags; others emerged with six or eight of the things. Despite the weather, many went shopping in tee shirts, obviously coming from overheated houses to a heated car and a heated shop woth barely any contact with the outside world. Truly it was a watering hole for the masses.
As Edison once said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." It is a very steep hill to climb if you want to introduce an entirely new concept.
I had high hopes of interestingTesco customers and using Tesco's incredible customer profiling system to discover the demographics of my buyers. However, although we had a fair amount of interest I have only had one enquiry, which has not yet resulted in a sale. Most of the weekend was spent hanging around trying to keep warm, although the miserable wet and windy weather on the sunday did prove the point: the washing on the lines stayed dry.
It was an expensive piece of advertising then, but at least it put the Rotaire name and the product in the minds of thousands of people who otherwise may not have known about it, and next time their washing gets soaked they may look it up. It was fascinating to see the operation at close hand, a constant flow of shopping trolleys in and out of the store, the busy times and the less busy times - there was never a slack period. The car park nearly always full, the lively people going in, and the same people coming out devoid of interest, looking at the pavement. A large number thankfully used ther own bags; others emerged with six or eight of the things. Despite the weather, many went shopping in tee shirts, obviously coming from overheated houses to a heated car and a heated shop woth barely any contact with the outside world. Truly it was a watering hole for the masses.
As Edison once said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." It is a very steep hill to climb if you want to introduce an entirely new concept.
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