Starting any company poses challenges to overcome and barriers to hurdle; but, starting a fly rod company poses its own unique set of currents to navigate. And starting a fly rod company that offers rods in multiple designs, with each design being available in different weights.... well, who would do that?
It is always easy to envision the end version of a dream or goal. That is to say, it is easy to envision a beautifully crafted fly rod company with multiple rod series and everchanging designs and weights in stock and ready to ship; but, thinking about the logistics of getting to that point? Well that's not as sexy.
From the beginning, we knew one of the largest obstacles we would have to overcome would be the massive variance in our product offering. Imagine for a second you were starting a fly rod company and bringing your first flagship series rod to market. You've got one rod series that you have designed and you offer it in 7 different weights. When it comes time to build up your inventory for launch, you want to forecast which weights anglers will want as accurately as possible. Otherwise, you might be left with a ton of rods on the shelves. Rods on the shelves means money on the shelves and money on the shelves is not good because you can't take that money off the shelf to invest it in more product.
Now imagine you have 2, 3 or 4 different designs because your entire business is predicated on the creation of unique, limited edition fly rods. Well, now you have 14,21 or 28 different variants of your rod respectively. With this large variance of product, it would be very easy to fudge up your forecasting predictions and waste all of your available capital before you even get started. Fly fishing film tour would feature a film about your brand titled "the best that never was".
Don't worry, we planned for this from the start and set up our manufacturing model to enable us to offer a wide array of rods and rod designs; but, we do need your help to get this stone rolling!
I am going to lay out the rules and regulations of our launch in our next post.
Tight lines!
-Meeko