Herbaltherm was designed to be a Lean Start-Up company. Lean Start-Up is a cost effective way to test your business plan. With the vaporizer market in the valley of it's fall from grace, a quick market test was still in order.
Given the declining condition of the market over the past few years, no one in there right mind would decide to make an entry. However, I had been designing the last few years and still had the old machinery and tools so minimum effort was required to execute a lean start-up plan.
I also had a secret weapon, my friend and mentor Pakalolo2. An accomplished business man that thought like me, a healthy and flavorful way to consume has to blow up given the health techno conscience consumer. So we build a plan to sustain a business on the low volume of a niche industry... we called it Craft Batch Collectibles.
So, with the plan in place we started making Minimal Viable Products to test market with. A MVP is a "product" made using the least amount of elements, materials, steps... aka as low cost as possible and still deliver the core value. In our case, it was quality thermal liberators.
Started with the 3TM which received rave reviews but did not impress the Dynaverse. The second release was the 14DE or Daberb. Again folks loved the secure cap and hybrid vapor produced but interest remained low. So, we made a bigger one, the 19DX and suffered to same fate of minimal demand. For fun, the 8RD was released bring back 2017... again no sales but no worries.... they can be used for cooling mouthpieces for the 2ZM. Then the 5DT and 1MT were released along with the hot hole which makes them cordless. These devices cordless produce the best (1MT) and hardest hitting vapor on the market imo.... still no love. The 2ZM was a chore as the woodworker backed out of making them. Given that there was a strong demand at the pre-order the 2ZM was redesigned to use a 3D printed part to enable it to be fabricated using the tools I had on-hand. Unfortunately, only 30% of the folks that put down a deposit came to claim their 2ZM. Another bust. Given the issues with the 2ZM execution it was theorized that the addition of the 4MI and the 4MD could collectively make HerbalTherm sustainable, however this does not appear that it will provide long-term sustainability.
I do have to admit, I believe the plan was solid and making 11 designs in just over a year is an accomplishment that I am proud of. However, the numbers don't lie, the industry is cooked lol. No one is posting about vapes, the forum are down to a slow crawl of "experts" and the help me pick my new vape guys. viewer count is down from 50k to 500 most places and even the Puffco is gasping for air with it's new budget peak. We are now past the freak out sales and the industry seems to be a ghost town maybe foreshadowed by the Ghost? This I new, but thought some fresh offense in the midst of the defense would pan out. What I found out, is that RBT tech is ho hum as best, but there is always a silver lining.
The plan was to leverage existing designs from the past and spring board off of them to by the necessary machinery, tooling, etc. required to design fully custom vaporizers and there is already a design for an unregulated, variable heat intensity, battery indicator, ceramic housed redesigned heater, POD or not, integrated cooling, USB C charging, fuse protected design... so unfortunately we wont be getting there but, there is good news in it if we look at the data and take what the universe was so gracious to give.
There is strength enough in the 2ZM, 4MD and 4MI that they will be executed as "projects". This allows me to do what I love which is the design, proto, test, refine process as you can see by the 4 videos on the 4MD on the LubeTube. The great thing about lean start-up is the data is there to predict how many to make based on the pre-order signal. These projects are a high number of intricate steps so they most be done as a batch so you need to decide the "lifetime demand" and make them all in one batch step by step in order to gain any level of efficiency.
So rather than try and force the universe to give me more, I will graciously accept what has been given to me. QTY 50 - 2ZM 100 - 4MD and 200 - 4MI will be made to fullfill the pre-order demand with 25% extra to sell direct post launch. Once the pre-orders are complete the www will be shut down and the remaining units will be sold on Herbaltherm.freeforums.net. This should be around the first of the year. The price of the pre-orders have been adjusted to reflect that every unit will come with a repair kit and videos will be released to aide in repair. Guess I saw this coming and the DIY repair design philosophy will ease those worried about my going out of business. Additional repair kits will be available at this time. This will leave a home base for the 400 people who will own a device and the DIY repair should keep these devices going for decades as the RBT has proven the reliability of the tech and the Herbaltherm will make one last go as perfecting it.
Thanks again to all who came along for the ride with the godfather of the unregulated portable thermal liberator ;) I am proud of the work done in executing the plan that Pak and I put together and the joy is in the work, and not in the results as they are well out of my control. No lie, it is hard to lay it down after a decade of fukin with it, but I am excited to find my next role in mechanical engineering design!
Peace, Love and Happiness,
Ryan