Deal Andy and All,
Thanks for the good comments from the Wonderful people in in the Great State of
Oklahoma. I sincerely wish all of you great success.
Now to the small machine topic;
It is very difficult to raise money for development of a new and revolutionary
machine in an industry that has not enjoyed any great financial achievement.
AAROFLEX, Inc. as well as the other RP firms have invested heavily in an industry
without any return to the investors with the exception of one firm in the
midwest. AAROFLEX, Inc. was not a business decision, but rather a fulfillment of
a dream which has been achieved, " to design and build an advanced machine for
building models" . This has been proven. The financial success was hoped for,
but to date not realized.
I have developed a small machine that would sell for less than $50K and have
completed proof of concept testing. Paul Burr is seeking such a machine as well
as others. I have potential distributors willing to sign conditional purchase
contracts for a large number of machines should I produce them. The machine will
be produced should anyone with capital believe that it will provide an adequate
return on investment. How can I sell this to investors when we have invested
millions of dollars with no return and my primary competitor has lost over seven
million dollars the first half of this year while there management appears to be
in turmoil? The production of RP machines as an industry is so small that it
hardly deserves mentioning except for it's innovation to users.
Currently, an investor is looking for a twenty to thirty percent return on
investment. Can this industry provide such a return? The cathode ray tube was
around twenty some years before it became a success as a TV. The duplicator was
also around that many years before XEROX made it a success as a copier. When and
how will success come to this small industry? When the currents restraints on
thinking are broken.
Best Regards to a hard working group of people,
Albert C. Young
AAROFLEX, Inc.
ATiburon@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 99-09-01 13:35:37 EDT, ehunt@ces.clemson.edu writes:
>
> << While discussing a low cost system, someone quietly said there were several
> systems that could be marketed cheaply yet the developers saw no market.
> Guess they think like the old IBMer who saw no reason for a PC. >>
> I'll never forget an interview with Lee Iacocca, after discussing his
> successes, the mustang, etc., they asked him if he ever made any big
> mistakes. He said that one of his designers came up with the idea to put
> telephones into the lincoln continental, long before Cellular existed. Lee
> said he told him that was the stupidest idea he ever heard of, nobody would
> want a phone in their car. Even visionaries don't have all the answers.
> Personally I agree that the low cost market for replicators would sell like
> hotcakes. But somebody has to take the risk. Maybe we will have to wait for
> the chinese version.
> Andy Scott
> Lockeed Martin Aero Sys
>
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