I'm not going to offer any more custom DAWs

My wife’s laid down the law…

After the Fedex incident, which I’m still fighting with them on, I’ve decided that it’s not worth building & selling these computers. I have 5 happy clients so far but it sucks dealing with shipping agents.

I’ll still help people who want to build their own & maybe build one or two for people here but that’s it for me.

Mike

That’s a bummer Mike. Another budding entrepeneur snuffed out by some uncaring shipping company dweeb…You are not the first…

TG

It’s just a part-time venture/hobby (which I enjoyed doing) but my wife, righty so, sees that it stresses me out when I had problems like the recent one. The bottom line is I don’t have time to deal with problems & I don’t have time to sue Fedex.

Hi Mike,

I’ve been building custom DAWs since the Amiga days. At one time, I thought I would get into business on a grand scale and put ADs in various computer and musician mags. The difficulty that you had is just one of the reasons I decided it wasn’t worth the time. You would need to carry insurance against incidents like the one you had and so many other problems that could crop up.

DOn’t get me wrong. It can be done. But you would need some real start up capital to cover all contingencies and you would need at least a group of 10-12 employees to help. Keep in mind, Dell had to start somewhere.

Mike

PS.

By the way, if you are really interested in trying, you should try getting music school (college) contracts. This way, you can deliver the product on your own, and you will be making 10 to 20 at a time. :;):

Yeah, Dell started in an office above a cattleyard… Or was that Gateway…

No, Gateway started in an old run-down barn with startup capital of 20 cents.

And Microsoft started in the street, they didn’t even have a barn. They had to steal the electricity from their neighbours and used a cardboard box to protect their computers from the elements.

See? - Everyone can live the American dream. You don’t have to be rich or have a fancy office. You don’t even have to have an education!

DOn't get me wrong. It can be done. But you would need some real start up capital to cover all contingencies and you would need at least a group of 10-12 employees to help
Right - I had thought about doing that. Actually I presented a business plan a manager at Guitar Center where they would sell their own custom DAWs (they sell Mac's) and I would make the machines for them.

But I had a full-time job & this is just a hobby. Hobbies are for fun & Fedex has made this not fun.

I finally got the machine back & they hurt it pretty badly. They have agreed for me to replace the cabinet & motherboard (which appears to have been damaged) so I can then determine what else is damaged (but the machine won't boot up right now).