Happy 2014

So first time I spend time in Rotterdam during New Years Eve and different then most other parts in Holland is there is an organised fireworks display, while most cities and villages people lid up their own fireworks. Here above you can see fireworks going off on the Erasmus Bridge, which is quite nice, but having seen the ones in Hong Kong and also filmed the International fireworks competition in Macau, I do feel it a bit of a short nor much special fireworks. Like in Hong Kong they even can fire up Chinese characters displayed in the air by fireworks. However the thing is the best place to see it is on the island next to the bridge but looking from the footage looks like the whole island been covered up by all the smokes from the fireworks. Have to say not being in Holland for few years and now being back, the weather is cold. Its not the coldest yet as its not showing yet, but for me I adapted to Hong Kong's warm weather and seem the Dutch cold is bit harder to adapt to.

However for 2014 I have tons of big plans written down, will restart my Dutch company which already have been there since 2007 I think as its registered at the Chamber of commerce. The plan is to fully make it in to a good running company and start pushing money into it and get profits running so its become a good running company. However it will change directions from being a design company it will now be a movie equipment company, but not in renting things out but building own brand of film equipments that are aimed towards independent filmmakers. Mostly be more affordable equipments and also DIY makers parts, cause there are allot of parts that are hard to find or you need to buy a big batch or if you order one you spend 10times the actual price for only administration cost. But the main point will be that I will also design my very own products, prototypes have been lined up and certain ones I still need to figure out the total production part and some I still need to get my hands on some manufacturers in Holland to figure out the price and cost. Mainly finding a manufacturer who can give me a nice quote and another option will be designing designs that could work in combo with laser cutting companies like Ponoko to be able to build up parts that are more affordable but do not need a gigantic storage for a bulk order to able build up a product. First thing is in January is to build up several finished prototypes and will start an indiegogo project for them to find a start up capital so I can not only produce the products but able to rent a workspace in Rotterdam for storage and manufacturing, assembling and packaging. Mainly at the moment allot of calculations are being done to find the right mix of pricing for the products. At the moment the only big hassle is the 21% VAT that is killing the prices as its slightly more than 1/5 of the price. And other thing would be also looking at what and which changes would there be if I would hire extra hands to help manufacturing as even though I can design a manufacturing line by setting up special moulds and preset movements to lessen the time needed to do something it might still need quite some time to build up a product. However if I would build up 100 for the first batch would be easily done in a week, however if there be some shop that would order 1000piece it probably would take me few months to actually build that many and would eventually need to hire people to do that instead. Yet also have then look at insurance, and safety as its would be a workshop or I could from that point expand in looking for manufacturers for them to fully build them in Poland or China. Possibly would be China as most of the materials are produces there and able to lower the cost down. But have to say I have big plans for 2014 and hope to look for the best and leave 2013 which ain't that great of a year behind.