Thinking of going pro? Read this first

[anon68659156]

Thanks Walt. I’ve done a lot of the menial, repetitive work in my life, and I like it, for some reason. As I’ve been learning, I’ve told myself that if I focus on bikes for tall people I can refrain from competing by making something that doesn’t really exist at the moment and also demand a premium for a production bike, much like dirty-sixer, but with better components and no wagon wheels. I have solved a lot of the problems inherent to big bikes and am working toward production hardtail model that is well-considered, complete, and would require a minimal amount of back-and-forth with the consumer. You seem to have the most experience of anyone making bikes for the tall. I’d love to know what you think about that market.

Nick

[adamsklar]

@Meriwether

if we all did what Moots or Co-motion, etc. did there would be a limit to general interest in the US made handbuilt market IMO.

I really think the opposite would happen. The more visibility there is for handmade bikes, the larger the market will be. Look at Walt’s whole argument for Surly’s being the gateway drug to handmade… Rising tide lifts all boats sorta thing.

@anon91558591

So you’re competing against companies with much lower labor costs and higher efficiency. In the past the way to compete with that was with custom design/added value.

Handmade bikes are not competing against those companies. If you have a successful/sustainable/relatable brand then there is no competition. If you are going into this business and want to be successful, you need to have a compelling brand. Building wacky custom stuff will always be there, but it is a super crowded market and it is not what the vast majority of contemporary customers are looking for. Sure it is a good way to get started, but it is where most new builders get stuck and fizzle out because they fail to move on to a larger customer base.

The business model does not have to be binary. Production is super boring, but it is not possible to make a living from wacky custom stuff. There needs to be guard rails in the product you offer. The middle ground is where anyone getting into this business should be aiming. You get to charge boutique prices and you get to streamline your business. Provide value to your customers by having something to say.

[Meriwether]

@adamsklar

Production is super boring, but it is not possible to make a living from wacky custom stuff.

There are several successful “whacky” custom builders. Blacksheep and Oddity. Chapman and English. I imagine it’s not as easy or efficient but they appear to be doing very well.

I like that there ARE so many people trying to make a go of it and trying different business models. Most of us pro builders didn’t get a business degree so there will be some growing pains and a ton of leaning but it’s fun to see how it all plays out. Like our bikes, we don’t have to all be the same. Some will carry another job to make it work, and prefer it that way. Some will diversify by offering framebuilding classes, or do production work for other companies. Some will be lucky enough to have a financially supportive family or wife and not need to make ends meet necessarily (everyone hates these people but also wants to be them). Some will try it and realize it’s not for them, let’s all hope they leave in a better way than some have in the past, leaving customers high and dry without their deposits or the frames they already paid for.

One thing I’ve always wondered about with this community: do those with means take away business from those that really need the work? Does artwork from movie stars piss off those artists that don’t have funding to fall back on if their art isn’t successful? Do other hobbyist craftspeople in boat building, car restoration, making knives, etc. resent the Etsy-weekend-craftspeople that have “real jobs?”. By doing my own plumbing am I taking away work from a local plumber who actually needs to make a living at it?

[Daniel_Y]

@adamsklar

I really think the opposite would happen. The more visibility there is for handmade bikes, the larger the market will be. Look at Walt’s whole argument for Surly’s being the gateway drug to handmade… Rising tide lifts all boats sorta thing.

100% agreed! That is why I created this forum. Even though it appeals mostly to amateur and aspiring framebuilders: better community > better bikes > better business (if you choose to pursue it)

[adamsklar]

@Meriwether I think we are all on the same page with wanting to see the bar set high. A higher bar is good for everyone involved. There’s a lot of ways to do it, and sorry to be dogmatic, just sharing my experience.

I’d be really careful with observing other’s businesses. I know for a fact that not everyone on your list there needs the income to make ends meet. A lot of my frustration comes from copying those business models early on in my career only to find dead ends because the people I was copying had a hobby business. Absolutely no value judgment on those people. Framebuilding would be a wonderful hobby business, I’ll probably get back into it when I retire. I just hope I can provide a little insight to prevent others from going down that road and encourage them to build a successful business that will provide them with a nice quality of life. It really is possible.

[Meriwether]

@adamsklar

I’d be really careful with observing other’s businesses. I know for a fact that not everyone on your list there needs the income to make ends meet. A lot of my frustration comes from copying those business models early on in my career only to find dead ends because the people I was copying had a hobby business.

This is a good point, i imagine there are many who have fallen into the same trap, including me.

It’s really an interesting line of work. Unless you were working at a production shop and decide to go out on your own with the experience you gained on the job, you necessarily start as a hobbyist and see if you can even do it, if you like the work, and if you have a unique idea and brand that resonates. Some succeed and many don’t, not sure how else this would work?

I definitely didn’t go about it the right way but I also didn’t think I’d be trying to make this my career since it seemed so out of reach at the time. It’s funny, after 10 years I think i finally have enough experience and knowledge to change aspects of how and what I do to succeed. Slow learner. I hope we can help new builders learn from our mistakes and skip those parts of the process that capsize so many.

I didn’t realize, you aren’t building any frames yourself these days? Would be interested to hear what your new production model is these days as one of the few who has truly succeeded at this

[anon91558591]

I think there’s maybe room in the tall person market. Lennard is stuck in the 90s geometry wise and obsessed with 220mm cranks and such so imo those bikes are pretty bad. Dirty6er is it’s own super weird thing.

That said, there’s not that much money in mountain bikes, especially hard tails. And there aren’t that many super tall people either.

So the answer is I have no idea.

-Walt

[poopieprancer]

This was really insightful stuff. I don’t have much to contribute except that building totally custom whacky frames is not my cup of tea after doing it exactly once. The original business idea I had in mind when starting framebuilding was to batch build for a niche market and focus on the brand instead of the framebuilding details and custom aspect. I realized I had so much more to learn before my process could be quick enough to earn a decent income that I backed off big time. Not to mention the supply issues that were happening during the pandemic. I have a well paying job (and a well-paid spouse too…), but maybe a kid soon?? I certainly don’t want to be that drag on pricing power for serious professionals or promise something I can’t deliver. Ultimately I think I can get efficient enough with the process, but it’s going to take some serious refinement. Brazing is probably going to have to go in favor of TIG for one thing.

[Matt]

I am not a framebuilder, BUT, my father was in the photography business and so was I when I started college.

What happened in the photography world is happening to the framebuilding world, let me explain:

Back in the 70’-80’-90’ to be a photographer you had to have the expensive setup, no real skills needed as the people with the equipment were so few and far between that whoever had it was a pro, doesn’t matter if the town photographer was good or not, that’s who would have taken pics at your wedding. Period.
Enters the digital revolution of the early 2000 and up to our days.
Now everybody can make a technically perfect photo, equipment is cheap and learning resources abundant, now you really have to be GOOD to make a career around it, the entry level bar was removed and now we see who is a great photographer from who is an amateur, no matter the equipment (that is in fact the same)

Now, I can see a lot of parallels with framebuilding, I am from Italy and talking to some literal legend of the cycling world you understood that they knew very little of what was going on or the technical aspect of it, or the metallurgy, etc, hence why most of them went belly up or sold-out their names when they could not compete with frame builders from the US. I have had so many conversations about tube bending, “It’s impossible to bend a tube!!!”… Cool, I went as far as proposing a frame builder in my area to buy him the equipment to bend and the tubing to try it out - nope, can’t do.
Can you build me a frame that accepts 700x45? What for? You can’t win races with those! Can you slope this tube? “They don’t make the lug for that angle” or “I know geometries and you don’t need that, it’s not aerodynamic”

My local shop and friends were “forced” to import Retrotech’s, Black Sheep’s, Ventana, Calfee’s to satisfy the need and yet, no local frame builder wanted to take on, they kept on with the classic lugged road frame, same geometries from the 70s, same steel.
I had a Chumba with a Maverick DUC32 fork and a Marin PineMtn, etc, in Italy, in the early 2000s, found them at my local dealer, no Pinarello, no Bianchi, no Scapin, no Faggin, no DeRosa, no Masi and I could go on and on.

What usually happens is that a new-comer undersell, stays in business for a few years but in the meanwhile the damage is done and now the street price is set to that lower one, and they do keep coming forcing long-timers to lower their prices to stay in business.
But is that what is happening in the industry? I have seen some prices for up and coming frame builders and I am sorry but they are not cheap. Should they be higher?

Could the problem be that the process to build a completely custom frame is too elaborate maybe?
Could a frame builder survive by building batches of frames to sell at lower prices and then build the very few custom frames for customers that really needs it?

This discussion goes very well with the one on marketing and I do have a hot take on that one as well

[anon91558591]

I think you were just witnessing a generational shift - from the lugged racing frame builders who didn’t want to do 45c tires or disc brakes or whatever to the newer builders who happened to be from the US, because in the early 2000s there was a huge wave of custom builders and innovation that happened because of 29" wheels.

We had/have the same set of crusty lug guys in the US too (but let me be clear, lugs are super cool and everyone should probably build at least one classic lugged road frame in their life) and as they/their customers have aged out of building/riding, we have a new generation of crusty jerks (Meriwether and Sklar, plus that Walt guy) who are ready and willing to poo-poo any new innovation that comes along. If ISO and 80mm of travel was good enough for Travis and JHK, it’s damn well good enough for “enduro”, whatever that is.

On a more serious note, I don’t think you need to overanalyze anything. People start with insufficient experience in both building and running a business, and because of IG, they think that glossy photos of fancy stuff is what you do, instead of spending an afternoon counting steps between machines so you can save 30 minutes per frame.

-Walt

[Neuhaus_Metalworks]

You know you can hold an iPhone and be on Instagram while you count those steps looking for your 30 minutes.

[anon91558591]

Impossible, you irrepressible young whippersnapper.

Is this “iPhone” device capable of sending a telegram to San Fransisco on the VERY SAME DAY (in most cases), I ask you?

Pfah.

-Walt

[Neuhaus_Metalworks]

As a matter of fact, it is! There’s an App for that.

[anon91558591]

With that kind of attitude we’d never have defeated the Kaiser!

In all seriousness, building bikes is cool and glamorous, at least sort of. Making a living building bikes is much less glamorous and actual work, and production bikes are way better and more diverse than they have ever been (or at least, more diverse than they’ve been in 120+ years).

-Walt

[Neuhaus_Metalworks]

Running any independent business is just hard work and very little glamour. My family has owned a business for over 30 years, it actually was just sold a few months ago. Anyone that thinks being self employed is easy has never done it.

[Smoothsailor]

Just went thru all the posts, and mostly read it.
I’m guilty of everything and have the same sentiments of everything.

At the moment I’m that middle aged guy with a hobby and dreams.
I’ve been tattooing for 26 yrs and the business seems alike to framebuilding.
When I came up it was hard to get your foot in the door, get information, or find supplies.
Reading in, the oldtimers “complained” about the new guys/girls. Now I moan about the young kids with instagram, apprentices with apprentices……
On the framebuilding side of things I’m the new guy.
I will try and don’t race it to the bottom

[Meriwether]

@anon91558591

we have a new generation of crusty jerks (Meriwether and Sklar, plus that Walt guy) who are ready and willing to poo-poo any new innovation that comes along. If ISO and 80mm of travel was good enough for Travis and JHK, it’s damn well good enough for “enduro”, whatever that is.

You taught us well!

We need a new Bruce Gordon! The Yin to the Yang. I am not that person or builder, but for now I propose it be Paul Sadoff. If you kids don’t know who that is, you really should. Here is a good sample of his blog and you can read all he’s written in a couple of hours. There are other great posts but you’ll have to find them on your own.

Frankly, sir....you know nothing of my work.....

[anon91558591]

I find Bruce’s life story simultaneously impressive (he built so many cool bikes for so many people) and terribly sad (he died a year after retiring and based on what he wrote, was not particularly happy with how his career had gone).

Worth a read:

Retirement Interview: Bruce Gordon hangs up the torch

-Walt

[Daniel_Y]

That was a great read. Quite an inspiring story. He did what he believed was right, despite the criticism, and barriers.

Here is some inspiration:

[Alex]

@anon91558591

The reality is that if you want to be a production/batch builder, it really makes very little sense to build the frames yourself pretty quickly

This is where my mind got to when I was thinking about what life would be like as a framebuilder (over a decade ago). The one business model that I was slightly interested in would be making prototypes myself, having good riders test them for me, then contract out production runs to Maxway. When I was an active hobbyist Kogswell and then Rawland were making bike after bike with production problems because they didn’t make prototypes. The most extreme example was the 700C Kogswell P/R where the frame was designed around a 650B fork. I “repaired” multiple of those frames by removing the 3cm extra headtube that was under the downtube.

Honestly I think Crust figured this out without having a framebuilder on staff.

I was also interested in what it might be like to make framebuilding tools instead of frames — but that is also a very hard way to make money.

I concluded that I’d have a much happier life staying in software engineering (which is what pays my bills) and playing with bikes on the side. Though I’m 2 years older than Walt and not yet retired….

Alex