We're looking at a net loss on plans sales this year ... Prices will go UP on January 1st, 2024 and then we'll wait to see how '24 goes. Details later ... Just an FYI
UPDATE - I've been giving it a lot of thought lately and here's the rough plan of the future for Glacier Boats of Alaska - Private discussions of things like our country's economics are welcome, BTW.
- Glacier Boats of Alaska will stay in business for the indefinite future, but we need to cut overhead and manage for lower sales due to the current, and expected future, economic conditions
- Our primary costs are the two CAD software packages and the marine modeling software - BricCAD, Rhino 3D, and Orca 3D - $4500 in total. I am stopping upgrades on all of them until something forces me to upgrade
- Primary overhead other than software is the cost of production of printed plans. I will keep the cost of downloadable plans the same for the next year or so, but I'm going to have to raise the price on printed plans - if that results in fewer sales, then so be it. They have to sell in the black, not the red
Other future plans for Glacier Boats of Alaska:
Revisit the plans for the Great Alaskan:
- Develop a new center of gravity spreadsheet that is specifically designed for helping builders produce the best, most-balanced, boat possible
- Rewrite portions of the plans - there are things that I want to add, and things that I want to remove, e.g. nobody builds the Rockport - it's going away
- Perhaps tune the designs for longer boat lengths - The most popular length for the standard version is 28', and the most popular length for the Kodiak is 30'. The original designs were optimized for 26' and 28' respectively. A re-tune would help make the longer builds more forgiving of variations in layout and accommodations, e.g. move the center of buoyancy (CB) slightly forward, slim the transom a tad etc.
- Start exploring, noting that I plan on retiring from the day job in a year, other boat plans and designs ... smaller, cheaper to build, boats that have a good audience and won't break the bank in spite of today's out of control epoxy and plywood prices
- And ... what else? What would YOU like us to do next? What additional boat designs would YOU like to see?
Thanks for listening,
Brian
