Hi John, Lots of people have seen my subs, and the reaction is always "How on earth did you end up doing this? I wouldn't want to go in one if you paid me". Courtesy of being raised on Cousteau and documentaries, my typical garage-tour subject understands that the underwater world is interesting. But for whatever reason they also assume any home-built submarine is an inherent death trap, a risk that "interesting" does not come close to justifying. For this reason of mistaken perceptions, I'm very convinced there's no mass market for PSUBS. The potential market also reminds me of the folks who still design and build classic wooden sailing yachts. It is possible to survive doing that, as from time to time an individual might show up with enough cash to keep you occupied for a year or two on a one-off project. But a target market of "enlightened eccentrics" doesn't support wooden yachts as product lines. In the role of PSUB builder, I think the most I could hope for would be a "lifestyle business". Something that I'd enjoy doing, but not something that's going to make a whole lot of economic sense compared to other careers. Personally, I find it more worth while holding down a conventional job to support my PSUB habit. It's true it leaves me much less time than I'd like to build subs. But on the other hand I get to build whatever I like, and keep it too. If we accept that the target market is basically people on this list, plus a few more just like us who have yet to discover the web site, the next step is to look at consumer behavior within the group. Unfortunately, I don't see anyone here going out and ordering a new sub. However, there are always a couple of people building K boats from plans. So perhaps, while a modest start, the thing to do is to sell a new and improved set of plans. While an updated design would presumably command an updated price, the volume would clearly not translate into making a living. Still, I can see how doing that could be a very satisfying activity. cheers, Alec -----Original Message----- From: john [mailto:mongo14904@yahoo.com] Sent: Fri 12/24/2004 7:34 AM To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org Cc: Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] sub building business Hummmm After watching all the posts. My thoughts are there probably isn't much of a market out there for a true K-boat type sub. Even with improvements and upgrades (which I'm am persuing) you still would'nt be able to get the selling price down enough for the little guy. (below $50,000.00)unless you build it out of wood maybe. Also Im just wondering of all the K sub builders out there how many logged dives has everyone done with their subs????. We (father and myself) have logged over 500 dives with Lake diver with 3/4 of them being below 300ft. And underwater we find the K-350 to be just fine. On the surface towing ,launching etc is where the challange is. Best regards John Ps thanks to evereyone for the great inputs __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ The personal submersibles mailing list complies with the US Federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Your email address appears in our database because either you, or someone you know, requested you receive messages from our organization. If you want to be removed from this mailing list simply click on the link below or send a blank email message to: removeme-personal_submersibles@psubs.org Removal of your email address from this mailing list occurs by an automated process and should be complete within five minutes of our server receiving your request. PSUBS.ORG PO Box 311 Weare, NH 03281 603-529-1100 ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************
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