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Re: [TowerTalk] Cushcraft Parts from MFJ

To: Andy <ai.egrps@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Cushcraft Parts from MFJ
From: jimlux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:37:27 -0800
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Andy wrote:

> There's little reason to change how you do business, if you are making
> a profit at it.
> 
> If the rumor of a possible buyout are true, perhaps Martin Jue is just
> looking to retire.  He is 66 and has been running it for four decades.
> 
>
MFJ strikes me as the garage business, grown up and expanded, but 
essentially run the same general way. I've worked for companies like 
that.. they sell moderately complex widgets, with maybe 50 components, 
but most with less than a dozen.  they buy parts to make 100 or so units 
at a time, whenever the stockroom looks emptyish, or they happen to have 
some spare cash. They're happy running it the way they do, they've got 
limited staff, who are moderately busy most of the time.  Business gets 
good, it gets bad, they hire, they layoff, and the owner keeps chugging 
along.  Sometimes they absorb other smaller garage businesses that are 
growing up or for whom the owner wants to retire.  That smaller business 
may have an established product line with a half dozen products, and a 
slow but steady sales of a few units a month, perhaps some spare parts, 
etc.   All that's required to keep it going is warehouse space, and 
someone to pick and kit the parts and ship them out.  Maybe someone to 
cut and drill holes in metal stock once a month or year.

And, businesses like that generally do not survive the departure of 
their founder, at least not in the same form.   They split up, they sell 
off, they just wither away, and very rarely, someone comes in and uses 
the base to bootstrap into a bigger business.

Since this *is* towertalk, I'd venture that there's a whole lot of 
antenna and tower companies that fit this model.  Say you're selling a 
particular design of HF beam.  You've got 3 or 5 models, maybe, and you 
buy a batch of tubing once a year or so, maybe you contract out some 
aluminum castings for brackets and get a pallet load when you need them.

You might not have enough business from making up antennas alone, so 
maybe you also do something else with metal tubing, like coat and hat 
racks, or fancy bed frames or something (the company that made the brush 
guard for my wife's Land Cruiser also makes brass bedframes and 
furniture.. once you have all the tubing benders and welders...)


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