I just wanted to say that I am calling it quits on my company, Off Grid Pro. My partners and I had a falling out, and I am going back to the DIY playground. I am very proud of what we accomplished, and want to thank Gary Gilmore, Koen Van Looken, Stephen Abbadessa, Wayne, and everyone else that I leaned on—or “borrowed” ideas from—in my gasification journey.
I believe we built a superb product. However, with few sales, the business is just not sustainable. And let’s face it. This is a tiny niche.
In the end, it was a great lesson to me. Fabrication for profit is a tough road, and one that I have a whole new respect for after being in this space for a couple of years. But I’m hanging it up fellas… I’m tired, broke, and no longer have delusions of grandeur.
I am not sad in the least… In fact, I’m excited about getting back into market farming with aquaponics, growing mushrooms, and red worms, and microgreens… I get to geek out on these other systems for a while.
Soon enough, I’ll build a new gasifier, but this time it won’t be to sell… it will be to charge my battery system for my micro-farm. Heck, I’ll even take a wack at my first WK system soon enough.
So, for now, I’m saying goodbye to the gasifier business, and hello to the homestead life with my wife and girls.
This education couldn’t come from a book and you learned something. An ole timer once said to me “even a turtle can’t get anywhere until he sticks his neck out”
Good luck on the next project
Hello TroyMartz,is that the gasifier that you have built,if so it looks too nice too abandon and should be be a good second sales job.I thought about building gasifiers for trucks,most think the price is high and dont have the drive too do it them self,or see the hours involved, and the rest would rather not get there hands dirty, or dont believe its as clean burning fuel as it is, Good luck with the other buisness,perfect timeing too switch out work for a season.
Troy,
That is the first time I seen that gasifier. Sure is a good looking unit. I’m sure the gasoline prices has a lot to do with the lack of sales. I’m guessing when those prices climb to $5/gallon, interest will grow.
One thing that can’t be taken from you is all your knowledge. Maybe some day building these on your own will be an option for a little extra cash.
I would be interested in hearing about your experiences to try to commercialize this technology.
If I was a betting man, I would guess that this market would be stratified into the “low end” populated by do it yourselfers who wanto to build their own, and the very high end, who want everything to be push-button easy.
Yes, what I have discovered since being up here is there are a lot of homesteaders and the people I’ve met haven’t heard of gasification as a fuel option. With all the trees, it would be a good fit.
Hi Troy, Like others have said, the knowledge you gained from this experience is yours and I think nearly all of us will agree that it is valuable information. Thanks for letting us know what is up with your situation so we don’t have to speculate. I also want to thank you for being so open and willing to share your gasifying experiences. Can I speculate that you will be using charcoal (biochar) in your farming system? Hope to be hearing from you in the future!
Gary in PA
Troy,
Your Crossfire is a beauty and holds a high place in the story of this reawakened technology. Thanks so much for sharing your journey and perspective with us. Blessings to you and your family. If you haven’t tried it already, you will find that worms love charcoal. It helps keeps my vermicomposting wrigglers happy.
Bruce
Very few people have worn our shoes. This is a special club we belong too and in many ways we are pioneering our way down this hard road.
This market is just plain crazy!! haha but that is the truth, it’s unpredictable, it fluctuates from one product level to another, it is extremely diverse and the market sectors are all niche at this point. Many will tell you; when you first start up a business to not get too many products out on the market or get too big. With this market I don’t see how that is even possible. You have to be able to cover the diversity of this market with products that can meet those demands. When I first broke into the market it was about timing, I didn’t know it at the time. But we had a cheap inexpensive gasifier on the market just in time for the Mayan calendar to end. Throw in comet Ison and you get lots of sales for entry level gasifier units. Did not make a dime, but what we did do was establish and claim our stake in the gasifier market world wide. The recovering economy and low gas prices are crashing sales in small scale renewables. I mentioned awhile back how this was effecting things. But you can see this on the forums as interested has declined and there is much less activity. Like Ben’s forum back in 2011/ 2012 was very busy and very active. Our business will only prosper if we have products that are in demand at any given economic state. Right now mid level small scale systems are less in demand. The larger scale 15 kW plants and larger are a whole different story. This is different client base and is 95% over seas, these clients are a whole different animal then the ones purchasing our smaller scale systems. We have major sales coming for the large ones.
Typical sales trends are early in the year January to May. They then slow down and then trickle in durring mid year and then pick back up in September. Last year sales declined, and this year… YIKES!!! We made one sale in early Jan and then a Micro in Feb. Thats it!!!. So this is why you see our new little Micro on the market along with the rest of the other products. So now we have products that will better fit the feel good times. This is all fine by me, I am having a blast with the Micro and adapting it to all kinds of usable applications. At this point I just want to manufacture that one haha. The other ones are so advanced and so much work its nice to build something thats so simple for once. But in the end it will be our large 25 kW unit that keeps us going. I will never abandon any of our smaller units, market trends are always temporary. However, you have to have product diversity to meet those demands once they flare up. I hope your machine does not go away Troy I hope you can at least keep developing it. If you keep at it and get it manufacture ready for the large market trend you will sell them, You will sell a lot of them!!
I like most everyone else here is always sad when you hear of someone’s hard work and dreams go down the pan , its a sad fact of life that nothing is forever , but there is a change coming , and this week news from the UK “was make the most of the cheap fuel because prices will be on the rise very soon” , so I guess it wont be long before our bargain fuel prices will be hitting the roof again , that will certainly help a few builders like Matt , but far too late for Troy and co .
I wish everyone success in what they do be it for profit or smiles , just keep on chugging along that road .
Dave
