Well, I'm not very active in posting here, but figured I'd come by and give a few words.
Lubix History:
Not sure if anyone knows, but next week is the one year anniversary for Lubix. (July 17th), 2 days before my birthday, Yay!
Last year at this time I was just introducing my silicone to the cubing world... which was immediately pounced upon and torn apart by pretty much everybody. Come a year later... the attacks still continue, but the difference is that now a lot of people have found good results with my silicone on various puzzles, using what was at the time an unpopular method of "lube the core".
Thanks to Patrick Kelly motivating me to join him, and Tyson Mao for letting my launch my silicone at US Nationals 2010... flash forward a year, and I'm a sponsor of the US Nationals 2011 this year. I'm giving away over 60 various puzzles for prizes every event, and all 3 places. Also I'm donating over 60 silicone, several ELITE cubes as well as percentage of my sales to help make competitions like this one happen. I've been to a bunch of competitions now, and having prizes to win definitely make the events more fun. I'm grateful to be in a position to make such an impact on the biggest US competition of the year, as well as the smaller ones that lead up to it. (Especially after only being in business a year.) So for those of you who have supported my business and my ideas, Thank You.
Let's see...
After getting amazing results with using my lube on the GuHong shortly after it came out, and stumbling upon the best way to lube them because of the annoying spring squeak, the Ultimate Lubix GuHong has become the main for a lot of people, and made it's way to the worlds fastest cube. This also set a precedence for our business, that we are only interested in releasing the best products possible to customers. This is why we have stuck with the Dayan company who has some pretty amazing designs. Our interest in selling "the best" should be apparent by us not selling another Dayan cube the "LingYun" because of popping problems.
The ELITE:
I went nuts on modifying my own cube, and experimented with every modification I could think of. This lead to the ELITE. By popular demand I introduced them to my website... which was immediately a bad idea because I couldn't keep up with the demand. Choosing to go with the eBay auction route has caused the cube to go pretty high in price, but also keep the building of them manageable for Ben and I. I'm personally still using the same one I made 8 months ago or so, and love it. I can guarantee you that you can quadruple the prices they fetch on eBay, and I wouldn't sell my personal ELITE for that price. To sum it up, you get what you pay for.
The products I sell are top shelf, and unless we think it's worth using ourselves, we simply won't sell them. Keep in mind I can get any cube or puzzle from my distributer, but I choose to mod Dayan cubes because people like those cubes and appreciate our work. Believe me that it would be much easier to simply buy all kinds of cubes in bulk, and re-sell them in without doing any work to them... there's quite a few reputable companies already doing so. What Ben and I do, anyone else could do... but on a big scale, other stores would have a rough time working this business model in addition to resale.
I speak with Tall5001 pretty often about what goes on in the Lubix world, so for the most part if he has a comment about Lubix, it's generally accurate. He's trustworthy, and I enjoy sharing what ideas we have with someone who is objective, has good opinions and ideas, and respects my confidentiality. People either love us, or hate us. There's a handful of people that defend Lubix, because they quite simply are defending themselves because they have gotten good results with Lubix products. People that tend to oppose Lubix (not everyone) do so because they have not used our cubes or lube, and join on the band wagon of "too expensive, or ripoff". Which is a bit harsh. I have a money back guarantee, if anyone felt ripped off, they could simply ask for a refund. Ripping off someone who has never bought anything from us seems to be unfair, and the idea of defending this mentality is both exhausting and futile. I'm not interested in defending every decision we make with our business... so I simply won't.
New Lubix things:
I've been testing a version of the Fusion for a few months now... and it's simply perfect. However, the manufacturing for the Fusion is not ready yet. It's close though. I've been pushing my manufacturer to get it finished, but even now today he said that it would be ready on Tuesday instead of Monday. Unfortunately I have a full Audio Engineering schedule this up and coming week so even having the time to pick up the Fusion, get everything packaged, and getting the website updated will be a task. It looks like the earliest I'll release it and start taking orders is Wednesday. I need the finished product in hand to do the videos, so I want to get things like that done first. Sorry in advance to anyone who will feel ripped off at the price. Yes, I am in business like anybody else to make a profit. But how someone runs a business can say a lot about their morals. What I have planned for my profits is to keep introducing things that cubers will benefit from. An idea without means stops most people from taking action. I'm privileged to have both. I'm not a big company, but I feel with the help of people around me (especially Ben!) we can make a positive impact to the cubing community. I enjoy cubing, and simply want to become the best I can. If our products help other people feel the same way, mission accomplished.
I wanted to let those of you who are waiting, that the ZhanChi's were shipped out to me 2 days ago, and it usually takes a week at best for my cubes to come in from Hong Kong. Once they are in I'll update my site with pricing, pictures, etc. The preparation for the cubes (Turning them into Ultimates by assembling them, doing the 48 point edge mod, lubing them from the inside-out, tensioning and stickering.) should be the same amount of work as the LunHui, so expect the price to be the same at $21.99. I don't like the idea of doing pre-orders like other companies do. So when they are actually in my hands, I will put them up for sale.
Not sure really where to end this banter... but I guess I'll leave it at this.
Lubix is 2 people, so please try to bear with us. We strive to work at 100%, but Lubix is a 7 day a week business, and at times we have to prioritize to keep things moving. To read people arguing over semantics frustrates us because we take pride in our work. The 2 of us have built thousands of cubes... stop for a moment and really consider what dedication that takes. Could you do it? There's tons of things that we are doing to make our business more efficient, but all things take time. Running a business like this is not easy, but we do our best, and look forward to what the future may bring.
- FIN -
After coming across the thread where people were making a joke about a cube better than the ELITE... I had my designer work up some new stickers for me: I'll have them Monday.
I'm also looking at changing up the center logo stickers a bit... the word "Lubix" is behind the logo. Do you guys like it this way, or does the normal way with the word "Lubix" in front of the logo look better.
Lastly, I pretty much wrote this here so that I don't need to update my website today, and then again on Wednesday.
Everyone take care, and know I'll release the Fusion as soon as possible.
- Pixel -
