DaHo Products.com...

We how have our official new business name, bank account, accounting system, PayPal account, domain name and soon to be developed web presence - Welcome to DaHo Products...

That stuff is just the big stuff. We also have the product packaging, product labels, inventory in place, shipping materials and online postage generation systems, a couple of gyrations of tools and development technologies - the list just goes on and on...

Then, over the past few days I developed 3 new companion products, developed prototypes and sent them off to review and acceptance.

We also had our first big product order from one of our new distributors for 60 needles which have been made and delivered - right in the middle of getting all the stuff to make and package and invoice and shipping and mailing them.

The good news is that they were well received and are up on his website. So, we shall see how that goes in terms of volume of sales he generates.

So, now that I have the 'technique' down and have figured out most of the production issues, they can be made in higher volume than I first anticipated.

As part of getting my domain, I get this web site hosting service. So, I am checking out putting together a combination web site to present product info and usage documentation as well as probably setting up a web store for direct purchases. My ideal would be that all my sales would be wholesale to my dealers and distributors, but we shall just have to see how that goes. I really don't want to compete with my dealer/distributor network directly if possible, but if that doesn't produce enough volume, at least up front, the direct store or ebay sales will probably happen.

Friday, Pam stayed home from work and we were planning on going camping and try to get a big one or three. But, the weather was bad and we decided to stay home. They came and turned on our sprinkler systems last week, so it was time to get the garden started. We didn't get it started last year, and ended up not having one which we both weren't happy about. Anyway, we borrowed our neighbor's Mantis roto-tiller. It's a little gas powered one that is about a foot wide and goes about 8 inches deep. Our garden is about 15 feet by 25 feet, or less, and did it all, including mixing in 10 bags of fertilizer and compost and getting it all prepped for planting. It took us about 4 hours of heavy work and we have been recovering from it ever since. Even with all my Yoga, this thing kicked our butts. Ouch - and I am sure Pam would say the same about it...

In my spare time, I have been trying to recover upgrading a new CPU into the Guestsuite eMachine computer. With the Vista OS and Media Center, such a radical hardware change screws up all the new DRM (Digital Rights Management) crap, and I do mean real crap to read about sometime you really want to get mad, and none of the media recording or playing hardware/software would work. So, after hours of messing with it and researching the problem on the Internet, I was able to get it all running and its running well.

It snowed here again last night a little, so I am glad we didn't go camping for sure. We had other bad weather that would have sucked if camping, but snow and freezing cold wind would have been way over the edge, IMHO...

My pool game has sucked as my back starts hurting most times I play for more than an hour or so. That really is bad, as throughout all this medical crap, the one thing that I could usually do was play pool. But, right now that is the one thing that really is bothering my back... Grumble, Grumble... ... ...

Today was the John Adams marathon on HBO, so we watched the whole thing. What an event. I just finished it and wasn't mentally tired, just physically sore, and got back up and started writing here.

Pam made this totally awesome lamb rack dinner tonight. It was one of her usual great meals...

Grandson Oliver's 16th birthday is tomorrow. He called tonight and all is doing well. He is such a great young man. We cannot wait for him to come and visit for a while this summer again. He and Pam both caught a large 6'er while camping here at DaHole last year.

Well, its late and that is all that is happening here in DaHo...

Business 101...

Sorry for not posting for a while. I have been working on starting up a little online business that I have discussed before. It is basically manufacturing and selling little needles used to threading monofilament fishing line into hollow spectra fishing line. I won't go into all the 'details' of why these are needed, but I think there is a little niche market for them and it gives me something to do besides fish, upgrade computers, and housework.

I have setup the books on Quickbooks for the enterprise. Speaking of Quickbooks, you can get a free version of the software, called Quickbooks Simple Start 2008, at their website for free. It doesn't import anything into it, it is designed for those just starting up, and has some other limitations, but is perfect for my needs. Anyway, I have setup the books in Quickbooks. I have also started printing shipping and postage labels, via PayPal, with our little Brother QL-500 label printer - which is very cool. I have tracked down the packaging materials I need for the products and developed the labels and product materials and gathered all the parts and materials I need to produce the products.

It took me a while to figure out how to make them easily and correctly, but after much trial and error, I have it pretty much figured out at this point and they are better, cheaper and more usable than the other commercially available products out there.

I am making 6 different sizes of the needles using medical grade stainless steel hypodermic tubing and have built and sent 3 sets of product samples for potential distributors. So, we shall see how they go over. Either they will be ordering more product from me or I will be starting up an Ebay store to sell them.

Anyway, that is what I have been up to and why I have not been writting blog entries as often...

We went to Pam's Top Performers banquet at Dell last week. It was pretty underwhelming IMHO. The theme was "March Madness" to go along with all the college basketball frenzy. They had these arcade type basketball throwing games and had contests that were all disasters, again IMHO. Also, they didn't have an open bar this time, I heard the hall staff called in sick or something, so that reduced the overall fun, as usually people get more 'active' with liquor at such events...

I haven't been fishing forever. On the days I have available to go, the weather has been crappy...

Pool hasn't been going to well either. Last week, I went to play in the tournaments and both of them were cancelled due to lack of players. I guess everybody is still recovering from the league playoffs. But, they should show up again in a week or so.

Well, that is about all I can think of to write about right now - More when it happens...