This is a big update that will certainly affect some people more than others. Firstly, the elephant in the room.
Zero
QuadRacer Zero 3D production is now going full tilt, a combination of multiple suppliers, self production and the help of some great loyal customers who have 3D printers means we are churning out parts faster than ever before. We will start shipping this week. You all have my utmost appreciation for your patience.
Workload
The success of the Zero has made something very clear; this business was a sustainable workload initially, when it was locally successful, but now with international purchases and pre-sales through the roof, it has become abundantly clear that the workload required for this to be and stay successful is huge. It creates a difficult position, the growth is too large to sustain the workload but the profits in FPV are too low to support an additional staff member at this time. The only way to go forward is to streamline the product offerings and improve overall efficiency. This means a couple of changes as below.
Colour Choices
Offering multiple colours for standoffs means I can't have kits ready to go as easily as I'd like, it also means additional cost in keeping multiple colours in stock all the time. Going forward, Kaiser and Kaiser Acro Frames will come with Blue Standoffs only (by far the most popular colour). We know this is a little piece of customisation many people like to make, but it limits our ability to pre-pack orders which delays us getting them to you in good time.
Product Line Minimisation
With our wide product line, we have seen that a number of models do very well and some do quite poorly (Kagami I'm looking at you). We can no longer afford to sustain underperfoming product lines. Every time we need to restock the underperforming components, it eats into the margin of everything else. It's a costly downside and a result of trying to cover off every market. At some point in the near future, we will trim our product line down to a core offering.
Straight off the bat, I can guarantee that the following will be discontinued:
- 3 Inch Dart
- Kagami
Possibly on the chopping block:
- Acro
We know the Acro has a decent following, but we have something better in the works.
Our primary focus will be on our most reliable frames:
- Zero
- Kaiser
- Predator
What will happen to the old designs? We'll fire sale existing stock and open source the designs; for you to get cut where you like.
Arm Offerings
This too needs a change up. We have found the foam arms, while lightweight to not hold up to the battering we give racing frames. They are more durable at first, but once they fatigue, they fatigue quick and in clusters, leading to multiple broken arms in a short amount of time. For racing, we think we are doing our customers an injustice to encourage their use. There are a few other factors, they're more expensive to make and sell. Ultimately we think a narrower full carbon arm is a better choice for weight reduction. However, for longer arms, freestyle or long range set ups, we will continue to stock. In summary:
Discontinued:
- Foam - X - Medium
- Foam - X - Small
Maintained:
- Foam - S - Medium
- Foam - S - Large
- Foam - X - Large
- Foam - X - Extra Large
- Carbon - All
Coming Soon:
- Carbon - N - Medium
We will review these again in due course.
The Predator:
The predator frame is getting an upgrade. The current predator, pod options and all will be scrapped in entirety and reborn from the ashes will be a narrow carbon frame that carries the Zero canopy. We'll keep the name (Phoenix was taken). We'll be implementing everything we've learned over the last year to make it lean, strong and fast while also making the arms affordable as they will still be more susceptible to breakage. This will be a dedicated racer with a bit more thought and function than we previously achieved with the predator.
Thanks for reading. I hope you all understand the reasoning for these changes. Part of being a more affordable, quality option means making hard choices around product lines so we can sustain our ethos.