At 12:04 PM 1/26/00 -0800, you wrote:
>On Wed 26 Jan, Mayuresh A Kathe wrote:
> > Hi,
>
>It turns out that you could probably manufacture this in large numbers for
>around $250, which sounds great until you find out that you would need to
>charge retail customers maybe three times that in order to have a survivable
>business plan. And now you find out that your target customer base is only
>really willing to go for $400 or so. What to do? I don't know the answer to
>that part. If any of you out there do, talk to me in private and I'll find 
>some
>way to introduce you to some acquaintances of mine with money waiting to 
>invest.

Three times the manufacturing cost is a reasonable, but perhaps low estimate.
A cottage industry manufacturer can usually avoid actually losing money at that
markup, though. As quantities ramp up, substantial cost savings can be 
realized,
but incidental expenses will grow too.

Working in your favor, a significant number of early adopters of the 
proposed product
will be willing to pay a premium to have one of the first units, myself 
included.

Go for it!