Chas,

You first asked us what _we_ wanted. "What would you like SEMROC to provide first?" Later, you asked a different question: "What should SEMROC offer to the (unwashed) masses...?"

Selling to the masses requires either a manufacturing breakthrough, a differentiated product that can be leveraged to the mainstream, or lots and lots of capital to outspend the entrenched players. The latter is only done when there is rapid growth potential of the whole market - ie, a new market. The MR market would be considered mature, and hence bad ROI for an attack of capital. This leaves a process breakthrough or leveraging product innovations.

Simply making mainstream motors under a new brandname is a tough marketing strategy. Yes, it has a new brandname, and higher quality. But is that enough difference to be a catalyst for change? Will it overcome the existing paradigms? I already have 1000 motors or so at the house. I don't need any B6-x's or C6-x's - I've got plenty of everything currently or recently available.

I'm like the buyer-planner at Wal-Mart. I already have a source (Estes) for B6-x's and C6-x's. I don't need another source. I need a supplier of complementary products. For example, for a while there, Quest MicroMaxx were at Wal-Mart. My guess is they made sense to Wal-Mart as fitting nicely alongside Estes (without redundancy).

At this time, I don't see any clear plan for displacing Estes. But complementing them makes sense. Hence gap motors. Even that probably won't get them on the shelf at Wal-Mart. But I'll certainly get out my check book for differetiated product.

Doug