No worries Mike!
As many of you know, I came to Fodera rather late in life. I am 44, have played bass since I was 13 and got involved here rather by accident. I was a Fodera customer (like many of you) that became good friends with Vinny and Joey (also like many of you), started researching for a book that I wanted to write about the shop and instead ended up becoming a partner.
I have a business degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and have been involved with the start-up and management of multiple companies -- every one of them far more profitable than Fodera and all of them somewhere between reasonably and wonderfully satisfying (intellectually, financially and managerially). But none of the other companies that I have been involved with ever had anything to do with creating art and that makes a HUGE difference.
When Vinny and Joey first asked for business help I was both thrilled and reluctant. These guys were (and very much still are) my good friends and I did not want to risk that. Additionally, as a business person, I knew very well that getting involved with something that had been run one way for 26+ years and trying to make change was fraught with risks...
The culture of the shop needed to be changed without changing much of what actually made it so wonderful.
The way the business was managed needed to be changed without going so far as to make it become "corporate."
The scale of the company needed to be increased to get to profitability without growing so much that we no longer had the time to respect each customer and their instruments as unique.
The company needed an infusion of a LOT of money and yet it was vital that Vinny and Joey's equity stake in the business remained significant.
Several long-time work associates of mine and I were going to need to spend an incredible about of time and energy working to turn things around and yet there would be no money (initially) to compensate us for doing so.
I could go on and on with all of the "red flags" that we enumerated and thought through as we made our "go / no-go" decision back in the summer of 2009. At the end of the day even though everyone in the room making this decision was a seasoned business person with years of analytical thinking under our belts, the final decision was made with our hearts. We felt strongly, and still do, that Fodera was an American icon that needed to continue being part of our cultural landscape.
Yes, our margins are very thin now, but 2011 was actually the shop's first year with any real measurable profit (for 2011 we were at far LESS than 10%). Over time we'd like to get those margins up to more reasonable / sustainable levels, but again there are those paradoxical relationships that must be kept in mind...prices and volume can only increase to certain levels without threatening the very spirit of what we do here. We are also very much committed to NOT raising prices at rates that are faster than the increases that we are experiencing for our costs.
Fortunately, we are all very long-term oriented and I think one of the best things we did was to set down from day one that what we all wanted to achieve with this partnership was to create a sustainable, vibrant company so that our grandchildren would be able to play Foderas at the same (or better) quality level than what the shop was producing before we became partners.
For those of you that know the shop well, thus far we believe that we are correctly striking those ever-so-delicate balances. I am certain that from time to time we will take a misstep, but if / when we do, we have an incredible number of people that care as much about Fodera as we do and they are never shy about letting us know what they think!
Kindest regards,
Jason
While you'll pay more for a Fodera than most other brands, not that much is for the name. As Jason has pointed out repeatedly, much of the cost goes toward creating a good employment experience for the employees.
As a former leader of an engineering company, one of the things I learned is that there are a lot of engineers out there who are great engineers but lack the business acumen to run a company in an efficient manner. Their comfort zone is designing cool things for their clients.
From the outside looking in, I get the sense that luthiers have similar tendencies. They love to build beautiful instruments, but may not give all the necessary attention to running the business. Jason clearly has experience and expertise in business, and his involvement at Fodera is producing a better operation overall. If I'm not missing my guess I'll bet that, while Jason is all over customer service, he runs a very tight ship on the business end of things.
And Jason, please forgive me for talking about you in the third person.
On the other topic, there are numerous luthiers out there who produce basses of comparable quality to Foderas, and many have excellent customer service. Then there's the grumpy one.
