RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] do a serious concrete sub project

["Jon Wallace" <jon@psubs.org>]

Wilfried,

My two cents...for what it's worth...

I like your energy and sense of adventure.  However, I think your potential
market for a commercial venture is a lot less than what you might be
thinking.  I think your market is limited to high-end private ownership.  Of
that group, you need to find people that live next to a big enough body of
water to support a "yacht", that actually want to own a yacht, and that want
a yacht that travels underwater as opposed to on top of it.  On top of that,
your sub will not be attractive to people who are not fairly stationary
geographically since your sub can be difficult and expensive to transport.
I think you need to be careful of terms such as "submarine yachting" because
"yachting" gives an impression of spacious luxury that can transport you
long distances within reasonble durations of time.  I don't think you will
be able to deliver on any of these expectations.  And lastly, I think most
people who yacht in the traditional sense do so because they want to be out
and about in the open air and open sea.  Except for a cramped conning tower,
your sub will force the occupants to remain inside.  Looking out portholes
will be novel at first, but I suspect fairly boring in short time.  Assuming
your sub could cruise the caribbean in a manner that made it attractive from
a time perspective (how many knots do you expect your sub to cruise at?),
there won't be very much to look at out of the view ports of a moving sub
that is in 500 feet of water.

Now, I'm not saying you can't make money with your idea, I just think from
an investor perspective I don't see alot of practicality with it, which
means I'm not likely to risk my money in it.  By the way, I liked the idea
of cruising the caribbean, getting exposure, and taking orders, and I'm sure
you won't mind that being MY job if I do invest in your business..right?

I think the way you ought to approach this is just the way you are doing it
now.  On your own with small orders from people who have a specific need or
desire for such a product.  You get to build them a custom vehicle with
their own money up-front that THEY take a risk with, and then build upon
that experience for the next order.  If I'm wrong and your product does have
commercial value to a lot of yachters, word-of-mouth advertising from your
first one or two deliveries will get you a lot more exposure than a set of
investors who are going to be after you from day one to show profit for your
work.

My suggestion is to forget about the investors at this point and concentrate
on taking out some advertisements in BOATING MAGAZINE, or some Yachting
publications, and see what the response is.  If you can show a record of a
handful of orders, you'll probably get investors coming to you rather than
you looking for investors.

Jon




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