Well Fil, usually I wouldn't respond but I simply won't ignore a personal attack. I am happy to accept that you have nothing to do with this venture as stated earlier, despite you promoting it in a few threads and seemingly having the CVs of the team involved and an in-depth knowledge of the latest developments.
Here are a few facts to consider about market conditions for PIDs.
1: Home brewing is a hobby, a pastime, involving the creation of beer, wine, cider, mead, etc.. People do it for a wide range of reasons: it's fun, it passes the time, it allows the creation of a personalised product, it's low cost, it challenges and entertains (and at times disappoints) and it allows some people to entertain their inner geek. As the end result is beer/wine/cider, it's a win-win. People involved in this hobby can spend as little or as much as they wish. That said, a fair few are on a budget and try to get by with minimum investment. That rules out a good percentage of home brewers from investing ã100 or similar in a PID.
2: The so-called craft brewing revolution has opened up choices for beer and cider drinkers, and now we're seeing spirits and wines joining the fray. Despite this, many brewers still opt for general recipes and clone established beers. Why? For some it will be because they can make a similar product cheaper, for others it will be because they want to 'do' it themselves. If you can afford packaged beer, why not buy it? The simple answer is it's more fun doing it yourself. Every brewing forum has a section for Brew Days, which people enjoy. It's the measuring, the tinkering, the adjusting that gives this hobby an interactive element. If I could push a button and beer came out of a hose, would I do it? No, because I enjoy the art of brewing, of tweaking, of perfecting. Not everyone does, but many do. Tinkerers and those who want to be hands on won't invest ã100 or similar in a PID.
3: Think of the pride when you stand with a glass of a great beer in your hand, knowing that you created it. That buzz is also achievable by building a brew shed, converting a picnic box into a mash tun, culturing a yeast, building a fermentation fridge and wiring up a PID. Admittedly some people can't be bothered or think they lack the skills, but many will give these things a go and find out how easy they are. Not only do they save money but they also get that buzz of having done something themselves. I do. People who think similarly won't invest ã100 or similar in a PID.
4: I love technology. I earn a living from it. I'm all over it like a rash. However, I also appreciate that beer has been made for millennia, and the methods that have used before often allow a simpler way. Brewers in previous centuries didn't have Star San, PIDs, stainless steel, campden tablets or temperature control. Things were more basic but they still made beer. I love being able to do something basic that equals or betters a complicated (and often expensive) process. It's the ethos of technology but facing the other way! People who have the same way of thinking won't spend ã100 or similar on a PID.
5: Some people want PIDs; that is very true. I have a few. I don't use them as much as I thought I would. I built mine specifically for various tasks. I don't think I spent more than ã10 on each. The reason I like them is because I built them, I customised them for specific tasks and I could make them look and interface the way I wanted for simplicity when brewing. Would I have bought one for ã100? No. Would I have bought one for ã30? No. I probably wouldn't have bought one for ã10. People who like to build stuff won't invest ã100 in a PID.
6: Whilst the homebrew community is large and diverse, the potential customer base for a ã100 PID (or any ready-made PID) is a fraction of the sector. Rule out those doing things on a budget, those who actually enjoy the process of brewing, those who like the pride of producing their own devices, those who prefer old fashioned methods and those who simply don't want or need a PID, and the potential audience is quite small.
7: The market for ready made PIDs is well established. At the lower end you have kits (either ready-made or to be assembled) via home brew shops and auction websites, you have low cost temperature controllers, you have controllers with remote management, you have purpose-built PIDs and you have a number of IoT devices and tools from other sectors that easily adapt to homebrew. These are all available today with prices ranging from ã10 to ã250+. Most work very well; you pays your money and you takes your choice. Is there a gap in that market? Not one I - as a technologist and a brewer - can see. Companies can add bells and whistles, but that's all they are. Some people will buy products for a superfluous feature, but the uptake required to switch from innovators and early adopters to early majority or even late majority won't happen for bells and whistles. The diffusion if innovation is an established law for a reason!
8: Launching any technology product to a small percentage of a relatively small market is risky. That risk significantly increases if the product is entering an established market and does not display clear disruption in its design and operation. As such, the business case for a high end PID only makes commercial sense if it can be disruptive to existing products and services and can attract new customers to the technology.
Now, the above points are facts, plain and simple. Anyone doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for a new venture will not only easily identify these points, but by investing in research and carrying out due diligence will be able to identify greater detail about market conditions and associated risks. This, coupled with detailed figures for business costs, R&D, manufacturing and marketing, will form the basis of a business plan. Once the business plan is in place they will take a decision as how to progress.
Commercial businesses usually take one of three routes; they invest themselves in their plan or if they can't raise the capital they use the plan to persuade outside parties to invest. The third option is to scrap the plan because it doesn't make commercial sense to proceed. If they can't or won't invest themselves, and third parties won't invest, it typically indicates the plan isn't robust. Most small businesses will invest, take the risk and reap all of the rewards (or lose the lot). That's business.
Crowd funding originally started to fund non-viable projects, typically those that had some ethical or environmental benefit rather than a financial one. People gave because they believed, and were compensated by some token reward.
When a commercial entity uses the system, they are asking for others to take the full financial risk but want to keep all of the rewards for themselves. If it goes wrong, then others lose their money, If it works, the company enjoys the full return. They want to have their cake and eat it. It's basically a very low risk free ride.
Interestingly these companies rarely offer scaled rewards dependent upon the success of the venture, simply because they want all of the rewards for themselves. It could (and should)be argued that their ideas aren't strong enough for those involved to work to raise the capital or to attract outside investment. The potential results also don't inspire confidence in those seeking crowd funding either, because if they were they'd be more willing to offer structured rewards.
Now, with this specific project, they're targeting a hobby sector with many people who enjoy it on a limited budget. Their entry level investment of 5 euros gives nothing at all back. Why? Why not offer 7 euros back if they hit targets in the next 12 months? Why not declare how they will use their profits (if any) to repay those who took a financial risk? After all, they want people's hard earned money and want to give nothing back.
You mention that I must not forget their time in developing the product. Well, as they're reaping all the rewards and taking money off people to fund it with no intention of rewarding many of them, I think it's the least they could do.
They might sell a few, they might even make a living from it, but they want to ride on the money of others with little return. That, given the facts, doesn't indicate a good and robust business plan.
Mind you, Fil, as you said, I'm cheap and ignorant, so what would I know?
bleeding edge and future proof !!!
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