Tuesday, October 21, 2008

It's a dog eat dog world out there

One of the few drawbacks of becoming a guitar maker is that you can't just make guitars. In order to survive one must eat and in order to eat one must buy food (food doesn't just grow on trees, you know). Thus enters the business half of the guitar making business. Basic economic principles lead one to believe that in order to thrive in the harsh landscape of capitalism, competition must be beaten -- it's a dog eat dog world out there. As luck would have it, neither Jeremy nor myself eat dog and despite having separate companies we've decided that we are not in competition (besides, I would win).

Actually, this question about competition comes up quite a bit when we tell people that we're splitting a workshop. The reality is we (will hopefully) sell guitars all over the world and the competition would be the same whether Jeremy is working in Timbuktu or ten feet away. Over the past few years nearly every guitar maker I've meet has been encouraging and supportive about my entrance into the business. A few weeks ago at a crafts fair connected to the Pop Montreal festival, we met two local builders who were enthusiastic and excited to learn about our shop, despite being new "competition" a few blocks away. Here's video they shot as I tried out one of their neato cigar box guitars...

1 comment:

Daiyamondo said...

I added some pictures of alan onto my blog for you guys. their not the best shots but they'll have to do as i don't have a camera. you will also have to ignore the random people in the pictures