Just chiming in to say that I definitely agree with everyone that we need some sort of engineer to verify everything. I think the problem we run into is twofold:
- Where do I find someone that we would only need for a few hours here and there? We can’t afford a full time engineer and honestly I’m not sure we would have the project(s) to take up 40hrs/wk
- Overhead – this is the big one – right now we just simply cannot afford an engineer and have been trying to get by without one as, for the most part, China has done a great job.
Now one can argue that we can’t afford not to get someone and that’s where I’m at right now. I know we need someone, but where do we find one? And find one that we can also trust?
If I’m being completely open here, COVID and the last couple years has done some incredible damage to cashflow which we’re finally starting to get out of. But, there’s still a ways to go. I won’t bore everyone with the nitty gritty, but the gist of it is that we’re trying to climb out of the back-order/pre-order cycle where we place an order for product, but by the time it gets here, it’s all sold out and the cycle continues.
We do much better cashflow-wise when we’re fully in stock and unfortunately due to us being out of stock, we’re running lean and we’ve had to watch every nickel/dime (I’m exaggerating, but also not really).
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Just trying to paint a picture right now of where we’re at.
So how do we solve this?
Well, there are a couple of options, but I’m open to any and all feedback:
- We have a group of passionate community members who have a background in engineering who can verify and we compensate them somehow – be it free product, an hourly rate, or something
- We wait it out a bit until we’re in a better place capital-wise – I’m hoping based on some insider info that we will be out of this mess within the next few months, but you never know. I feel like I always am saying that and something inevitably comes up.
Thoughts?