Serotta lays off 40% of workforce, planning shutdown

[FlashUNC]

For me, it all comes back to the Meivici as everything that was both great and terrible about Serotta.

A no-expense-sparted, top-of-the-line carbon frame that I'm sure was exquisitely manufactured and rode great.

How many people are buying $8,295 carbon frames and forks in this economy?

And given the competitive landscape, was it any better than something Mr Crumpton was turning out? Was it worth the nearly $3,000 more than a Crumpton SL road? Or $2,000 more than an Argonaut?

Or $1,200 more than a full 6.9 Trek Domane bike, with parts and wheels and stuff you could ride? Or $1,000 more than a fully-built Calfee Dragonfly?

The numbers just didn't work, and haven't for a long time.

[beeatnik]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

For me, it all comes back to the Meivici as everything that was both great and terrible about Serotta.

A no-expense-sparted, top-of-the-line carbon frame that I'm sure was exquisitely manufactured and rode great.

How many people are buying $8,295 carbon frames and forks in this economy?

And given the competitive landscape, was it any better than something Mr Crumpton was turning out? Was it worth the nearly $3,000 more than a Crumpton SL road? Or $2,000 more than an Argonaut?

Or $1,200 more than a full 6.9 Trek Domane bike, with parts and wheels and stuff you could ride? Or $1,000 more than a fully-built Calfee Dragonfly?

The numbers just didn't work, and haven't for a long time.

Someone has to be the most expensive.

[jr59]

Originally Posted by beeatnik

Someone has to be the most expensive.

Very true. but that same someone, needs to sell enough units, for enough profit, to keep the doors open.

That appears not to have happened in this case. To much overhead? OK, maybe, but who signed on for all that overhead? And who didn't change with the marketplace?

[slidey]

I don't think the problem is just the MeiVici, and I know that you didn't say it was either. I think its the entire approach of selling only superlative bikes which cater to the 1% of the biking world. Its alright for custom builders to do so as they usually operate out of their own backyard, or at least with a much smaller overhead and can also afford to spend the time to personalise this experience for the customer with little overhead on their end. It is nothing short of stupidity for a company the size of Serotta to attempt to take on the custom builders from within a bloated infrastructure. Its a fantastic ideology - to be the best, and sell the very best, but where everything falls apart is when it comes down to charging head and shoulders above the rest.

If one's customer base is the 1%, this implies that the companies revenues are also 1% of the industry total, which means that the allowable overheads can be around 1% as well, which translates to a backyard operation << a mid-sized one.
Of course, the figures here are not accurate but they represent the problem which Serotta have chosen to not address for a very long time.

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

For me, it all comes back to the Meivici as everything that was both great and terrible about Serotta.

A no-expense-sparted, top-of-the-line carbon frame that I'm sure was exquisitely manufactured and rode great.

How many people are buying $8,295 carbon frames and forks in this economy?

And given the competitive landscape, was it any better than something Mr Crumpton was turning out? Was it worth the nearly $3,000 more than a Crumpton SL road? Or $2,000 more than an Argonaut?

Or $1,200 more than a full 6.9 Trek Domane bike, with parts and wheels and stuff you could ride? Or $1,000 more than a fully-built Calfee Dragonfly?

The numbers just didn't work, and haven't for a long time.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by slidey

I don't think the problem is just the MeiVici, and I know that you didn't say it was either. I think its the entire approach of selling only superlative bikes which cater to the 1% of the biking world. Its alright for custom builders to do so as they usually operate out of their own backyard, or at least with a much smaller overhead and can also afford to spend the time to personalise this experience for the customer with little overhead on their end. It is nothing short of stupidity for a company the size of Serotta to attempt to take on the custom builders from within a bloated infrastructure. Its a fantastic ideology - to be the best, and sell the very best, but where everything falls apart is when it comes down to charging head and shoulders above the rest.

If one's customer base is the 1%, this implies that the companies revenues are also 1% of the industry total, which means that the allowable overheads can be around 1% as well, which translates to a backyard operation << a mid-sized one.
Of course, the figures here are not accurate but they represent the problem which Serotta have chosen to not address for a very long time.

You've more eloquently stated my clumsily worded point. The bike was emblematic of everything that was both right and wrong about the company, but it's merely a symptom of the larger issue. Pursuit of the very best -- and producing a top notch product -- but at a price that many were unwilling to pay when other superlative options were out there for much less. Would Serottas have been worse if they ran, say, Enve forks instead of in-house carbon?

I can understand the mission -- and applaud it in fact -- but there also has to be some economic realities built into it as well.


But as an outsider, that