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Looper's Delight
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I got to thinking wiht my day job hat on, and these days when it is becoming harder and harder to make money off of technological products, because of competition, pricing preasures, consolidation, and the overall commotization of consumer products, the long term money is in services. How do services pertain to looping gear? I may be giving away a great marketing/business opportunity here, but it seems to me if someone had the resources they could sell "laptop looping packages". Part of the problem with some folks getting into laptop looping is that it can be painful buying a laptop that will do the job, buying all the gear to connect to it and get started, upgrading, etc, etc. These things take time for the looping consumer, and time is money. And there are risks that come along with building your own laptop system, such as teh overall system not working as expected because of hardware/software compatibility, and so on. And this too equates to time or rework, which again equates to money. So basically the "laptop looping package" would be a system that someone experience and knowledgeable would construct and test, and then sell as a ready to go looping system. You could sell different types and grades of packages, For instance, a very basic setup might include an entry level laptop, inexpensive cardbus soundcard, Mobius installed, and a cheap MIDI controller like the MIDI Mouse, MIDI Moose, or some other small controller. Then your totally kick ass package might include a screaming Intel Duo machine, an external firewire audio/midi interface, and a Behringer controller. Or better yet, the deluxe pacakge would include a VST host and a ton of free VST effects, all ready to work. The Service here, which you can't bottle up or put in a box, is the expertise and knowledge of constructing a looping kit or ensemble that works right out of the box. So, if I were a new looper interested in getting a laptop looping system, I would buy one of these package, turn it on, and it would essentially work immediately, everthing down to the Behringer buttons mapped to Mobius functions, buttons labeled, etc. Then of course, I could customize it after that point. It wouldn't take much to get started on this idea. I don't have the time to do it, but if I did I would assemble just 2-3 looping packages and sell them...and then use the profit to buy more packages, etc. Incidentally, there are a lot of smart cookies making money hand over fist using this re-packaging concept on eBay. Folk are actually buying products on eBay, packaging them up based on a theme of some sort, and selling them for a profit. Why would people buy something like this when they could buy the individual items themselves? Well, this sort of answers the question...the value is in the service or the convienence of not having to do the research or spend the time to do this. ************************************************************************** Krispen Hartung / Improvisational Looping Guitar www.krispenhartung.com / www.myspace.com/krispenhartung My Tribe: http://people.tribe.net/krispen-hartung info@krispenhartung.com / 1.208.724.5603 Discography - http://www.krispenhartung.com/catalogue.htm CD Baby Discography (CDs for only $5): http://cdbaby.com/all/khartung