Silly forum settings won’t allow me to recover my password so I had to create a new account…oh well. Anyway…
As one of the first few comments said: “This guy again.”
On just about every ice fishing forum available you’ve been pushing your tip-up on folks asking for feedback, feedback is given, questions are asked in return, and those posts/threads mysteriously disappear. I am certain that others who have commented here already have seen those interactions on other sites. The fishing industry is fickle. It takes time to build, tweak, rebuild, tweak again, field test, etc. a product before it will catch on. Even “big” companies can have a hard time getting a product to market and when they do, if it fails, it’s a bad deal. With little info on this product not many are going to jump at it. Just by saying “it’s better, it out fishes others” isn’t enough. Going on every forum imaginable saying “you’re 100% wrong” or “it’s better” isn’t going to win many friends and won’t help sell the thing. Get it in the hands of others, get it at shows where people can look at it close up, be humble when receiving feedback…instead of throwing it out there, getting defensive, and deleting conversations. Controlled testing will be essential. Are ALL factors the same when doing your comparisons? That fish has no idea if a $100 box is overhead or a piece of line wrapped around a willow branch.
It might be what you say it is…until I see it up close and/or use it I will not be convinced. It’s a $100 gamble that many of us are not willing to make based on your testimony alone. Make it more affordable, make it unique that it can’t be reproduced, and you might have something. Many of us are very crafty…years ago when the box tip-ups first started to pop up I took a look at one in a store and went home and built my own for a fraction of the cost. If I can recreate what you have for very little cost why would I be eager to buy yours?
That said…it is highly unlikely that I will ever go back to a box tip-up. Too bulky, too heavy, too much of a pain to drag on the ice. Beaver Dams are great but I gave mine away because they were too bulky and heavy. To me the perfect board style tip up would be an HT Polar spool/shaft on a Frabil Dog Bone body. Extremely light weight, compact, and if maintained properly an HT will last for ever. I have some that are pushing 30 years old and are still being used.
The box tip ups aren’t for everyone. A $100 bill for a single tip-up isn’t for everyone. Right there it becomes an very small niche market you are after. The trend is to go lighter and lighter and when you carry out many tip-ups you don’t want anything that is heavy and takes up space. That’s where I’m at. For me the lighter the better…and if I can get 10 of them for $100 great! That’s the direction I’ll go.