[Elecraft] Elecraft Honchos!!!

[David Yarnes]

Folks, I am sure we all wish that supply at Elecraft was conveniently equal 
to demand.  Order a K3 today, and have it by the end of the week or so. 
Clearly that isn't the case.  I don't profess to know just how sophisticated 
Elecraft's market analysis is, but I'm relatively sure they aren't doing any 
exotic market surveys either.  They are a small company with a big product! 
Also, I have no idea how they are evaluating just how much they can/will 
ramp up production.  Doing so is expensive for one thing.  It also adds 
greater complexity to the organization, particularly if that includes adding 
staff.  I'm reasonably sure they don't want to increase staff only to reduce 
staff later.  Some of that may be necessary, but it gets very sticky making 
those kinds of moves.  Training new employees to get them up to an 
acceptable level of productivity, and then dropping them later, really 
hammers the bottom line.

Personally, I would have expected the wait time to have decreased more than 
it has.  But it hasn't gone down as much as I thought it would, and that 
suggests to me that K3 demand remains relatively strong--even 1 year later. 
I can only assume that it has surprised Wayne and Eric a bit too.  Although 
all of us can fuss and complain about the wait time, it's really their 
product, and they are presumably doing what they think is right.  Whether 
they are dealing with it correctly or not, it's their decision, not ours. 
So we just need to grin and bear it.  That doesn't mean that allowing the 
"wheel to squeek" a bit won't encourage some positive response from them, 
but generally I think there will only be limited success in doing so.

I think the best thing to do is to try and view all of this positively.  By 
proceeding on a "conservative" path, Elecraft is hopefully minimizing 
screw-ups, not to mention protecting the company's viability.  The longer 
they can sustain strong demand, the longer you have assurance that they will 
be around to help you keep their products running.  Dealing with smaller 
companies can be somewhat risky.  If they run out of demand, or ideas, or 
both, they tend to disappear.  You don't have to think very long to come up 
with a bunch of names of companies like this who met an abrupt demise.

If you don't like that suggestion, consider this one.  I think the strong 
demand for the K3 would have easily enabled Elecraft to raise prices even 
more than they did.  That would have probably have helped lower demand 
closer to supply, and they could later offer some "blue light" specials to 
prop up demand when it started waning.  But they didn't do that--yet!  So, 
even though I'm a bit frustrated about some things just like most of you 
are, I think I'll keep my complaints muzzled a bit.  Besides, few if any of 
us have all the facts anyway.  We have no idea what all the issues are that 
Elecraft is dealing with.  We are all just a bunch of "sidewalk 
superintendents", and what we think should be simple may well be just the 
opposite.  In truth, I think a lot of our frustration is enhanced by the 
knowledge that the K3 is a great product with superior product support.  We 
want it!  Now!  We don't want to go for the closest alternative.  We just 
don't like dilemmas.

Dave W7AQK