CM5908/5907 Plug-n-Play Bluetooth upgrade board

[bradnic]

I'm sold. Hope the wait time isn't TOO long.

Stop by sometime and check it out Trent.. have it installed in my vert

[TrentW]

I'm sold. Hope the wait time isn't TOO long.

[jaysterling]

As much as I wish you the best of luck, I will caution you, that for every "Take My Money! PLEASE!" reply you get, it's only about 1 out of 100 people actually cough up cash. Even if you have a hot item, you'll be sorely disappointed in the difference in excitement of a product vs actually sales. Take this from someone that has been there and done that.

With that said, I love my customers. I've been selling stuff to the e30 community for 10 years now. I have had some good success - but the e30 market is way to niche to do anything full time. Doesn't matter if it's sub woofer boxes, or radio upgrades. It's way too small of a market to quit a job over. I hope I'm not right....And you rock on with this - and prove me totally wrong.

Thanks George. The e30 market itself would be too niche, but I'm not planning to only support e30's. I want to build up a line of these boards that support different cars. Other BMWs, Mercedes, Porsche, older Corvettes - anything that's desirable and doesn't have a solid retrofit product already available, I'm interested in supporting.

Even still, the question will be whether this is a large enough market. But I'm ready for a job change anyway. If it turns out to not be viable, I'll go join the workforce again and maybe sell these on the side, slow down on development of new products. I see that possibility and I'm OK with it.

+1 would rather just buy and send you mine as a core.

I'm thinking I'll probably offer a mail-in installation service, but sending out a complete unit up front and taking a core later I don't think I'll do. The reason is that I'm not completely rebuilding these radios as is often the case with sending back a core. Because of that, I'd have to start testing of all the cores to make sure they function 100% correctly before I could resell them. If they don't, I'd be stuck repairing them on my own dime and time. On top of that, the cores would be in a range of cosmetic shapes. I can't sell someone a unit that's all banged up who is sending me a pristine core. So I just see a lot of headaches and unhappy customers going down that path. If I install in a customer-supplied radio, all that goes away.

[Court M3]

Question, as the CM5907 is next out (and what I have lying around) may I just buy an outfitted CM5908 from you to save the hassle?

+1 would rather just buy and send you mine as a core.

[george graves]

So, after a lot of thought, I've announced that I'm leaving the company in January to pursue this full time.

As much as I wish you the best of luck, I will caution you, that for every "Take My Money! PLEASE!" reply you get, it's only about 1 out of 100 people actually cough up cash. Even if you have a hot item, you'll be sorely disappointed in the difference in excitement of a product vs actually sales. Take this from someone that has been there and done that.

With that said, I love my customers. I've been selling stuff to the e30 community for 10 years now. I have had some good success - but the e30 market is way to niche to do anything full time. Doesn't matter if it's sub woofer boxes, or radio upgrades. It's way too small of a market to quit a job over. I hope I'm not right....And you rock on with this - and prove me totally wrong.

[James Crivellone]

Question, as the CM5907 is next out (and what I have lying around) may I just buy an outfitted CM5908 from you to save the hassle?

[jaysterling]

Not to be a total buzz kill here...but IMO there should be a 1 per person limit because of the very limited initial quantity. I would be willing to bet that there are more than 50 people interested. Obviously this is up to Jay, just my 2 cents.

Really looking forward to this, nice work!

Yes, forgot to mention, it'll be 1 per person. I'm even thinking a group buy thread might be better since it's all out in the open and timestamped to avoid early posters. I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks for the thumbs up guys, can't wait to rock and roll with this. I just installed a whip antenna on top of my workshop for radios on the bench, so now it's really official ;)

[Court M3]

I'm down whenever these are ready!

[DetroitEE]

Jay,
That is super cool good for you man! I am looking forward to hearing back from you when units are available for sale (I need two).

Hamik

Not to be a total buzz kill here...but IMO there should be a 1 per person limit because of the very limited initial quantity. I would be willing to bet that there are more than 50 people interested. Obviously this is up to Jay, just my 2 cents.

Really looking forward to this, nice work!

[stonea]

Congrats on the self employment! One day I hope to do the same.

[Hamgul]

Jay,
That is super cool good for you man! I am looking forward to hearing back from you when units are available for sale (I need two).

Hamik

[agent]

I am not sure how many other businesses do this, but if you could modify those old muscle car radios to do something like this it would open up an enormous market.

Indeed. Most of the replacement units I've seen with modern features look terrible.

[earthwormjim]

I'm surprised your company didn't give in after saying you're leaving. I can honestly say that I wouldn't want to work at a place like that, so good for you.

[Todd Black 88]

Congrats on taking the plunge into self employment! I am envious.

I am not sure how many other businesses do this, but if you could modify those old muscle car radios to do something like this it would open up an enormous market.

Hell I would love to have my Z4m coupe radio Bluetooth the music. It only does phone from the factory, and you need to plug it to the aux for tunes. Trivial I know, but it's still a nuisance.

[jaysterling]

Ok, I have some short-term bummer but long-term bright news I can share now:

The issue that's been causing delays is with my current employer, a big tech company here in the Bay Area. It turns out they have pretty restrictive rules around employees having side businesses, any of which have to be approved. Early conversations with my manager made it sound like this was more of a formality than anything, but when I started going through the official approval process, I began hitting road blocks. There was a lot of bureaucratic slowness and ultimately a decision from higher-ups that the only way I could distribute the boards is if I simply open-sourced everything and let it free, which isn't how I'm going to do it.

So, after a lot of thought, I've announced that I'm leaving the company in January to pursue this full time. That's right, come January I will be working full time on supporting, developing, and selling these boards and others like them. It's a big step but it's the right time for me to try and turn this into something. The reason for January is I've been working on a project at my job for 5 years that is finally shipping at the end of the year, and I want to stay to see it through. I know that means another 3 months of waiting, sorry guys.

What does this mean for those interested in buying boards?

1. In late January, I'm going to open orders for the first 50 boards I have ready. I want to make sure everyone here who has been following along at hone has a chance to get one first, so I'm thinking of doing a PM-based reservation starting at a particular announced time, then payment due within X days.

2. For these first boards, I'll be selling them for the CM5908 only. The CM5907 audio noise floor is just not where I would like it to be. It rides about -68 dB below full scale, you never hear it with music playing, but you can with a cranked podcast, so for this round, I want to sell strictly for the CM5908 where the noise performance is way better. I've started work on a new board to address this, and you can count on a CM5907-ready one soon after launch.

3. After the initial 50 are gone, I"ll be having more made and open them for sale on cantalouperadio.com (not live yet). Oh yeah, I renamed the company Cantaloupe Radio, Inside Out Radios was just too long.

Apologies for having to be MIA over the last several weeks, I needed to let everything at work settle out before I made any announcement, but at this point, I"m committed and I'm pretty excited.