Is Squawk Shoppe still in business?

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Nmm347

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Nmm347
I've been trying for a few days to get in touch with someone at the Squawk Shoppe with no luck. Their main line goes straight to a recording saying the line isn't setup to receive calls. They have a number listed for text and I sent one but haven't received a response. No response to an email I send as well. Any idea what's up with their business or how to get ahold of them?
 
Nmm347 said:
I've been trying for a few days to get in touch with someone at the Squawk Shoppe with no luck. Their main line goes straight to a recording saying the line isn't setup to receive calls. They have a number listed for text and I sent one but haven't received a response. No response to an email I send as well. Any idea what's up with their business or how to get ahold of them?
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try him over on mooneyspace.
 
I suspect they are done. From their Facebook page a few weeks ago.

"I decided to go ahead and just cancel everyone's orders for now. Now that we have the hack under control, things will start to come back online much faster. Once I have everything here in stock, I'll make some headsets and get them completed and ready to ship. Once that happens, I'll post it up so you guys can order if you'd like to, at that time.
This keeps me from being stressed out and then when they are available to order, they'll be ready to ship out the door to you immediately! :) Plus, if you decide to go another route, you have your hard earned money available to do that as well.

Thank you all so much for your amazing patience and understanding. Sorry for the communication issues and I look forward to earning your business back in the near future.

Now GO FLY!"

Doesn't sound good based on this and his lack of communication with customers since at least last September

Such a shame.
 
Yes, Shane's accounts have been hacked last fall. He's been trying to get things resolved ever since. If you've ever been hacked, you know it is not easy.
So ensuring that his life can continue and he can feed his family has become his top priority.
I would not want to be in his shoes.
 
BigBadLou said:
Yes, Shane's accounts have been hacked last fall. He's been trying to get things resolved ever since. If you've ever been hacked, you know it is not easy.
So ensuring that his life can continue and he can feed his family has become his top priority.
I would not want to be in his shoes.
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Good to know. I will be patient.
 
My guess is you never heard anything
 
I see the final nail was driven into the this coffin, website is no longer registered.

It was a good concept but I think he bit off more than he could chew and his supply chain either was not getting paid or increased their prices.
 
Or the product sucked.....
 
Maybe it didn't suck, but maybe people did not find headsets with flames painted on the sides appealing.
 
It was the “Hello Kitty” one !!!
 
Unit74 said:
Don't need to.... it's pretty obvious what people thought of them.
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Are you actually serious?

I don't recall reading anything negative about his product, seems as a small online business after he got hacked, which can be quite a pain in the butt for a small new company without full IT departments and whatnot, he ran into troubles getting back on track.
He posted on here a few times and seemed like a good dude, as I said I don't really recall reading any bad pireps about his product, just issues people had getting ahold of him after his site/business got hacked, sounds like he also returned people's money till he could get things back online, which leads one to believe the problem wasn't with the product, some of his designs seemed pretty cool and they weren't very expensive.

Gotta love it when pilots are so.... supportive of small GA businesses trying to make it and offer some something new in the industry :rolleyes:
 
A fool and his money soon part........

It was a novelty like fake poop, pet rocks and the Flobie. I would wager MOST pilots don't give two sheets about what the headsets look like. They want them to work. That's Great you want to wave his banner. But it was a novelty market and capitalism prevailed. The market spoke......
 
Unit74 said:
A fool and his money soon part........

It was a novelty like fake poop, pet rocks and the Flobie. I would wager MOST pilots don't give two sheets about what the headsets look like. They want them to work. That's Great you want to wave his banner. But it was a novelty market and capitalism prevailed. The market spoke......
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

I'm not waiving anyones banner, I'm just a fan and supporter of small business who try to make it, really it's the core of our economy and I also like helping those who have the balls to try to open up shop in aviation.

It would appear based on the information posted here, that it wasn't a demand problem as much as a logistical and fulfillment problem, which is a common issue for small startups with limited budgets, factor in his business falling a victim to crime, and that sadly was that. Also if pilots didn't give a crap about cosmetics why were you posting about all that work you put into detailing your plane a little ways back? Don't try to sell me on pilots not caring about looks lol
 
So you were ignoring the fact that up until he got hacked he had a severe backlog of orders. Got it.

I was actually planning on ordering three headsets from him prior to his getting hacked. I like different.

Sometimes I think you just like to **** on anything that's not yours.
 
I also was planning on ordering some of these headsets for my 3 year old before the hack. I’ll agree that this was a niche market, but there certainly was a market.
 
No, I don't really care that he failed. I wouldn't buy it because I think it's a waste of money. Everybody gets their own opinion. I have mine, you have yours. He couldn't deliver on orders. Regardless of why, it wasn't a functional business model. If you can't deliver product, you are done. Period.

But, but, but, but.....blah, blah, blah. Does it really matter? He is done. Maybe he will try again? If he did, I still wouldn't buy a cheap headset with a cool paint job. We call that, "Lipstick on a pig" where I come from.
 
So let me get this straight. I own a business that's been going on for 30 years. I have a very loyal customer base. But if someday somebody decides to come in and burn It to the ground I will have a failed business in your eyes because my customers will not be able to wait however many months and seek other suppliers in the time it will take for me to rebuild the warehouse restock supplies and get product to them.

Your logic is absolutely retarded.
 
Sorry he is not in business. I liked the guy and like the headset I bought from him 3 years ago. Works great at a good price.
 
Support your facts please. You are changing the circumstances to fit your agenda. Trying to play the "he got hacked" card is ignorant. What planet do you live on to think getting hacked stops an artist from drawing on a headset? It's a bump in the road he could have recovered from. Really, you guys are so wrapped up in the emotion you cannot see the big picture. He failed at business.
 
You aren't smart enough to understand what happened so there's no point in trying to explain it to you. Him getting hacked would be the same thing as my warehouse burning to the ground. Its not just drawing on a headseat, but you are too stupid to be able to make the correlation.

You fail at life.
 
EdFred said:
You aren't smart enough to understand what happened so there's no point in trying to explain it to you. Him getting hacked would be the same thing as my warehouse burning to the ground. Its not just drawing on a headseat, but you are too stupid to be able to make the correlation.

You fail at life.
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Uh no. And unnecessary name calling.
 
I didn't see any name-calling. All I saw was an assessment based on the posts that he made. His statements obviously demonstrate the fact that he does not know how Shane's business was run. I stand by my statement. And if I realized what an ******* he was at the time ( thats name calling ) I would have never helped him acquire the Lance that he bought and fly the broker all the way back on my dime as a favor.
 
EdFred said:
You aren't smart enough to understand what happened so there's no point in trying to explain it to you. Him getting hacked would be the same thing as my warehouse burning to the ground. Its not just drawing on a headseat, but you are too stupid to be able to make the correlation.

You fail at life.
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Business is business. He lacked the capacity to understand resilient business models and was not capable of running a business. What's so difficult about that? It is NOT the same as burning to the ground.

Ed, you are posting emotional not logically. Think about what you are saying. When someone resorts to name calling, it's a sign of tactless desperation.

In rudimentary terms, he bit off way more than the business could chew. Happens in many businesses. He got gut punched and could stand back up. He didn't have the product, capacity, redundancy and capability and thus, augered in.

You are getting emotional on a business model and that is ripe for Illogical expectations. Irregardless of WHO he was, his business was unsuccessful.
 
I would never consider a business that had a demand and a backlog of orders before it got burned to the ground metaphorically speaking a failure. Business that's a failure is one that doesn't have a product in demand constantly hemorrhages money and declares bankruptcy or just closes the doors because the numbers aren't there. He had the numbers but from what I know it was a side gig and didn't feel like restarting it from scratch. I don't blame him. No different than a five star restaurant with a 4 month reaervation customer base burning down and the owners deciding nope not going to start it back up.
 
Here’s an interesting data point. I was a customer of his. Bought a mooney part about six months ago. After I sent him payment I stopped getting any replies from him, even directly on mooney space when he was being active.

I didn’t know this story about being hacked until today. Never heard about it. Every communique I had with him was ignored. When he finally responded in a thread I complained in, he expected me to send him all the info about my order again, even though it was in PM messages he had ignored. You can’t blame that on hacking, and it was lazy, and irritating as hell.

He never mentioned being hacked. I can appreciate the nightmare that can be, it’s happened to me, I’m an IT professional so I could deal with it, but I get the nightmare. But passing on his misery isn’t cool either.

And last but not least. He eventually stepped up and fulfilled his obligation. It took 6 months being ignored and figuring I lost my money, but I still give him credit for that. He could have screwed me, but he didn’t. And I’m very pleased with the part.

So, I see both sides, and calling people stupid is just, well, stupid. As is calling someone a bad business person just because they shut down their business.
 
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Exactly..... he may have had the numbers, but there were unmanageable.

I wanted to buy a Subaru Accent last year. They were supposed to be a first of the year release for 2018. I waited patiently from summer 2017. When they could not deliver and pushed the date to summer 2018, I bought another car instead.

As a customer, I want it and as soon as possible. If you can't deliver, I go somewhere else. He was buried in back orders, but could not deliver. At what point does one decide to abandon an order in lieu of another functional product? I suspect it is quickly.

He had no product to deliver and got "hacked" whatever that means. Towel thrown, just like a bulk of many start ups. That's capitalism. Sink, swim or get run over....or a combination of those.
 
Unit74 said:
Exactly..... he may have had the numbers, but there were unmanageable.

I wanted to buy a Subaru Accent last year. They were supposed to be a first of the year release for 2018. I waited patiently from summer 2017. When they could not deliver and pushed the date to summer 2018, I bought another car instead.

As a customer, I want it and as soon as possible. If you can't deliver, I go somewhere else. He was buried in back orders, but could not deliver. At what point does one decide to abandon an order in lieu of another functional product? I suspect it is quickly.

He had no product to deliver and got "hacked" whatever that means. Towel thrown, just like a bulk of many start ups. That's capitalism. Sink, swim or get run over....or a combination of those.
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Makes me wonder how the QT Halo has done so well. Those things are always on back order.
 
CC268 said:
Makes me wonder how the QT Halo has done so well. Those things are always on back order.
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You know what’s weird about that? Both times I wanted one I got it in less than a week. Just lucky I guess.
 
Salty said:
You know what’s weird about that? Both times I wanted one I got it in less than a week. Just lucky I guess.
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Yea maybe it isn’t all that bad. Thought about trying one now that they have the Bluetooth version. The Clarity Aloft I have is super uncomfortable
 
Unit74 said:
Exactly..... he may have had the numbers, but there were unmanageable.

I wanted to buy a Subaru Accent last year. They were supposed to be a first of the year release for 2018. I waited patiently from summer 2017. When they could not deliver and pushed the date to summer 2018, I bought another car instead.

As a customer, I want it and as soon as possible. If you can't deliver, I go somewhere else. He was buried in back orders, but could not deliver. At what point does one decide to abandon an order in lieu of another functional product? I suspect it is quickly.

He had no product to deliver and got "hacked" whatever that means. Towel thrown, just like a bulk of many start ups. That's capitalism. Sink, swim or get run over....or a combination of those.
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By that definition, every decent aircraft paint shop is a failed business. Craftsmanship is not easy to scale.

I have no dog in this race but he could very have have just decided he was bored of painting headphones and the hacking thing was enough of an incentive to drop it all together.
 
The difference Brad is many people NEED to paint the plane. Nobody NEEDS flames or an American flag painting on there headset. Same with avionics. I waited months to get a slot for a transponder.
 
Brad Z said:
By that definition, every decent aircraft paint shop is a failed business. Craftsmanship is not easy to scale.
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So is the local print shop where I have to wait 2 weeks for a custom order with a custom logo done, just like Shane did. You could send him custom logos. So is my A&P who can't look at my airplane right away because he's got a 7 airplane backlog for annuals and other maintenance. So are most of my vendors because they all are make to order product and it's a two to three week lead time. So is the place that did my right side water jet cut for my instrument panel. I had to wait two weeks for them to get a slot on the water jet cutter. There's a slew of businesses that are not have it in your hand today I guess all of them are unsuccessful as well.
 
EdFred said:
So is the local print shop where I have to wait 2 weeks for a custom order with a custom logo done. So is my A&P who can't look at my airplane right away because he's got a 7 airplane backlog for annuals and other maintenance. So are most of my vendors because they all are make to order product and it's a two to three week lead time. There's a slew of businesses that are not have it in your hand today I guess all of them are unsuccessful as well.
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Apparently.
 
Brad Z said:
Apparently.
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Well at least we know know how to define a successful and unsuccessful business. Anything that's custom-made is unsuccessful because you can't have it the same day.
 
Unit74 said:
The difference Brad is many people NEED to paint the plane. Nobody NEEDS flames or an American flag painting on there headset. Same with avionics. I waited months to get a slot for a transponder.
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No needs a Tesla Model 3 yet they have a backlog of thousands.

You may not need flames on a headset but apparently the folks placing orders did. You're really going to argue this one to death?
 
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