18 Jan 2023, 20:06
This is quite interesting; and $5000 is frankly a steal.
Still, I imagine this would be much more appealing if paired with a selection of PCBs designed to drop into popular, available cases. Because the sockets are only useful with PCBs anyway. I know I’d buy one or two hotswappable Alps PCBs if such things existed. The sockets alone? Nah.
Tl;dr: see if you can partner with one of the Alps/Mathias vendors on this.
Here’s how I would do it: first I’d pay the 5k for the 100k sockets (which is approximately 1000-2000 keyboards’ worth).
Then I’d have maybe three different PCBs designed: a TKL, a 60%, and as the third maybe a 75% or a numpad or a fullsize. There are plenty of talented people in the community who could do this.
At this point I would put up an IC post describing the project to gauge interest.
Getting the PCBs made would likely be the most challenging, since we need to ship the sockets to the manufacturer and they need to setup their pick n place for them, which shouldn’t be a problem but it is a complication.
I’d get quotes and MOQs from the PCB manufacturer and have samples produced to test for fit and function. Getting it right will take at least a few iterations, and in the meantime I’d put up the GB post with price tiers.
Now, this is Alps we’re talking, so there’s never enough interest. We’d be lucky to get 150 orders, and we should expect a few as maybe 50 even with really fair pricing.
I’d have to order extras to hit a decent price tier (ballpark $35 production cost per PCB?), maybe ordering a 50 of each type, for 150 in all. Now I’m out $10250 ($5000 plus $35*150) and I’m going to charge $50 plus shipping in the GB. Depending on how many people participate in the GB, I expect to recoup part of my investment, but not all of it:
At 50 participants: $2500 in, $10250 out
At 100 participants: $5000 in, $10250 out
At 150 participants: $7500 in, $10250 out
I’d be saddled with a loss but also with >85k spare sockets to use in subsequent runs. Over time this could end up paying for itself or even turning a profit. Hopefully.
However, add to that the tedious effort involved in re-packing, bubble wrapping, and shipping 100 PCBs and handling returns and QC issues, and the whole thing is looking like an awful way to spend my time when I’m not even turning a profit.
I could of course raise the GB price to $75 or $100 or $500 per PCB in the hope that rich punters would pay it and cover my costs, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
So as much as I’d love for this project to happen, I think what you need is for one of the Mathias vendors (or Mathias) to partner with you and cover the up front investment, since they could afford to up the initial production run to reduce the unit cost, they could cross-sell / bundle the PCBs with cases, switches and keycaps, and they already have the infrastructure in place to handle the shipping, warehousing, returns etc.
