About 2 years ago an idea popped into this little head of mine that has had quite an impact on me ever since.
I simply wanted to upgrade my bikes headlight to an LED. I looked high, low, and ended up where most of you also end up. The road ended at "Not Many Options Ln."
So on a whim I bought one of those new fangled DayMaker headlights to see if it would magically mate up to my bike and cause illuminating bliss. No luck, but!
I grabbed a piece of construction paper and started to lay out what would be the Adapter bracket I sell today. I roughed out 7 iterations on paper until I had what I thought was a shape that would work. I then traced that shape onto a piece of sheetmetal, and through caveman like grunts, groans, and tools a very rough metal bracket appeared.
I installed the new headlight, and went up to Misfits for a local Colorado get together. I thought everyone there would be astounded seeing a LED DayMaker headlight in a Valkyrie whereas none had ever been seen before! But it didn't seem to impress them. Either they were all in a food comatose from Damon's BBQ, or my idea was a flop.
My Father is a Mechanical Engineer who spent most of his career working in Tool & Die, and Metal Stamping. My Dad gave me his Valkyrie so I share all my Valkyrie related adventures with him. He took one look at my mangled piece of metal that was supposed to resemble a bracket and told me how easy it would be to have it manufactured. Well it wasn't very easy at all, but it did spur me to continue my endeavor.
After about 6 months of R&D I finally had something that looked half way decent, and would securely adapt a 7" LED DayMaker into a Honda Valkyrie.
The next challenge was writing up instructions on how to install the thing. Well my 13 year old son fixed that. He grabbed my wife's IPad, recorded me installing a bracket/headlight, produced the video, and uploaded it to YouTube before I could yell "HELP!".
Now onto selling the thing. This unfortunately got me involved into the Political world of the VRCC. After posted in the classified that I had something to sell, I was told that I could not do that?
I know right? But such as it may be, and a Vendor I became.
At first I just wanted to share my idea with the VRCC community. I sold brackets for about a year, and had nothing to show for it. God Bless Willow in his wisdom, I wish I would have taken it way back when. I remember him telling me to sell the bracket for "a bit more" I think were his words.
What happened is I sold more brackets than I thought I would. I spend a lot of time fitting, packing, running, buying hardware, and shipping supplies. I loved sharing my idea but after a year the busyness of the brackets was too much. I folded, I quit intending to sell my idea off to someone else.
I had a couple of interested parties, we discussed this and that, but in the end nobody stepped up to buy the business. Then Willow's wise words popped back into my head. Yeah! If I'm going to do this I might as well make it worth my while, Duh!
And so I recently up'd the price and am back in business, sharing my idea with my VRCC brothren.
I have been reflecting lately (we should all do this from time to time. Slow down, and think). What a wonderful adventure this has been. The saying goes, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda". My customers have been great. The support, and feedback has been phenomenal.
My proudest moments were at the last InZane in Billings, MT. I arrived early at ground zero having already been in up in Helena on business. I was excited to see all the Valks come rolling in. And to my surprise some rolled in sporting.. you guessed it LED DayMaker headlights. How fun it was. Daniel Meyer even allowed me to host a tech session installing a DayMaker into his bike! He made sure everyone understood that this was highly unusual. Honored I was.
So what is next? Well I have to get two kids off to college then hopefully I will have the time to expand the bracket business. I have had quite a bit of interest from all makes and models of older bikes wanting the upgrade. Could be a nice part-time retirement job.
I want to thank everyone for their support. I thank my customers who have bought brackets, and had nothing but good things to say about them. I am blessed to be a part of the VRCC community, and plan on being here for a long, long time.
Was it worth it? Yes, yes it was.
