The Cycle Continues

This is Steven Petrick posting.

Things here are in a kind of good news/bad news mode.

The good news is that we our products remain in some demand.

The bad news is that we are somewhat pressed to meet the demand, which takes time away from working on new products.

For insurance reasons, only myself, SVC, and Leanna can operate the trimmer. So as Mike Sparks binds books for our customers (whether and individual or a distributor) I have to leave my own design work and stand before the trimmer.

We have a lot of "raw material" (reams of paper and cardboard, stacks of published covers and counters, and etc.) that we convert into product. However, most of that raw material only becomes product when someone trims the books. None of those books appear, however, unless the design staff can sit at their computers and create them.

There is always this critical division in a small company (of any sort). We have to design products, but we also have to keep providing our older products so that newer customers can get what they need to explore the whole of the Star Fleet Universe. And, yes, sometimes players need to replace parts that have worn out or been destroyed by acts of God or simple human error.

So some "design time" is constantly being diverted to trying to "refill the ammo bins", which in turn requires more time to be allocated to do the next product in anticipation of the time that will be lost restocking products that have been sold.

It is a continuous cycle, and not one to complain about (I am not complaining here). Without the demands from our customers, we would not be in business at all, so serving them is one of our highest priorities. It is just that the highest priority (serving the customers) applies both to restocking, and creating new products that are interesting and fun.