developing products to protect hearing and improve listening

Creator of award winning eers custom-fitted earphones

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Message: Re: important article/interview

Jan 15, 2011 01:39PM

We are 1 of 17 products that were chosen as "Product of the Future Award" by Popular Science. That to me is a great acheivement.

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/gallery/2011-01/best-ces-2011-popscis-products-future?image=15

This next excerpt is taken from the "Montreal Gazzette " article:

Sonomax received a lot of attention through the competitions and showcase events, which resulted in several big meetings and a lot of foot traffic at the relatively small, bare-bones booth

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Montreal+upstart+Sonomax+steals+show/4112108/story.html#ixzz1B8rVGKus

To comment on this; it would appear that Nick has stirred some interest with "several big meetings". I, would like to know who these "big" meetings are with! He goes on to say;

The industry-only show wrapped up on Jan. 9, leaving Leperle to return to Montreal and cross his fingers that the mega brands that saw Sonomax at CES will want to use SonoFit technology in their own brands of headphones and Bluetooth devices.

“The vision for Sonomax is to become the standard interface for all in-ear products,” he said. “A company like Monster or Bose can execute a mass market retail strategy much better than we can. We want to enable the distributors to take the product, take it to retail, execute the retail strategy, make it successful, and pay us our royalty.”

Still, Sonomax won’t be sitting back waiting for Sony or Sanhauser to call.

“We’re not waiting on anybody,” Leperle said. “We’re bringing the products to market in the channels that people who want this product – runners, business travellers and musicians (who) understand the value of an isolated earphone.”



Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Montreal+upstart+Sonomax+steals+show/4112108/story.html#ixzz1B8u27AOM

So, I think its very good that Nick is being proactive here by not waiting for a "big boy" and putting our product out there on a small scale. A smart thing to do! This action will force a "big boy " to step up to the plate much faster if he thinks this technology in the hands of his competetors could jeopardize his market share niche.

IF, the products initial launch (in April)proves successful, and reaches 'bought out" status in a short time frame, the big guy will have to make his move (if he hasn,t in the meantime) IF, no big guy materializes, we can still go it alone at a smaller scale and keep building ourselves up to the mass production stage. An important thing to keep in mind is; it doesnt take many sales to start making our balance sheet look pretty.

Using common sense should tell you that the biggest percentage of users of earbuds will go for the 4 minute custom fit, $200 price tag, before they would go for a 4 week custom fit, couple of audiologist trips and a $1000 price tag. Not only this, many people that could not afford the other expensive earbuds, they now have an affordable alternative and will most likely purchase, enabling us to capture that gap niche.

IF, this sort of thing worries the competition too much, a buyout of us could be provoked. I personally would not want to see this happen, I beleive we have started to grow and our growth has an excellent chance to accelerate this year and forward. For us to get taken out around .50 would be a shame, but at this time it is a possibilty that should not be overlooked.

Again, do the math, to see how quickly profitable this company could be.

This is all IMO, and any comments or discussion is welcome!

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