Tell us about Morelle. What made you decide to get involved with Ionblox?
There are two principals; they had this battery company, and it was really a breakthrough, and yet they weren’t happy with what they were doing; they wanted to do something more. They were already bike guys and they love bikes. And they said, ‘Hey, we can bring this to e-bikes.’ And I recognized, man, these guys are smart! And they developed a technology that would be wasted if we didn’t put it on bikes.
Why did you decide to get involved in making bikes again?
I asked these guys, ‘Well, do you want to sell it to another company, like a Bosch?’ And they said, ‘No. We want to do a whole bike because we know if you sell just a battery, it’s such an incremental part of the whole thing—we want to be bigger than that.’ And I said, ‘Okay! Wow you want to bite off the big thing.’ Well I’ve done that before. The complete bike! Oh boy! I know what a complicated thing it is; I appreciate it, and I’m ready to go.
Will you sell your bikes as well, or will you predicate the operation on the subscription model? You’ve talked about the first bike being fairly expensive.
Well, it’s not super-cheap. Let’s put it that way. Because I know that cheapness is a really poor approach because you wind up having something that’s completely unreliable. This is a way of giving something to somebody that is completely reliable, that you can trust and it’s called really building that trust. That’s what we want to build—something that’s indispensable and not just inexpensive.
In our previous conversations you’ve commented on how you want to see higher-quality e-bikes made, ones that use better materials, offer better features, improved durability and more. But given that the hot price point in e-bikes sits between $1000 and $2000, how do you propose to get people over sticker shock with your e-bikes? You’ve suggested possibly offering a subscription of $100 or $200 per month. What’s the business model here? Is this a lease or is it ultimately to own?
That’s a good question. I’m not sure what we’re going to do on that. To be honest, we’ve just been gathering all our competitors’ information, what they’re doing and what would be possible. People want options; they want to at least be able to buy if they can. We haven’t made up our minds on exactly what we’re going to do.
In terms of getting these e-bikes out into the world, are you thinking direct-to-consumer, or are you thinking of an IBD network?
It’s more direct-to-consumer, and it would be using people who are already out there when we can. There are a number of people who do mobile repair. We will partner with some of those folks. We’re still looking at different possibilities. Of course, in order to scale, you set up a system; we contact people who are already doing this in some way. I want to have the human touch involved; people want to have someone look them over and say, ‘Hey, this is what you need; this is what you’ve got going and everything.’ Of course there’s always the option of going with something that’s totally neutral; that’s what a chatbot is. These days you want to have every option available.
Will Morelle create jobs here in the US or will most of your workforce be overseas?
We’re going to create a workforce wherever we are. We’re going to start in the US for sure. That’s one of the reasons I want to get into 3D printing more. That can bring your goods anywhere. I like skilled workers; I like to be able to teach the skills, too.
How long before we start seeing Morelles?
It’s gonna be a year [laughs] it’s gonna be a little while. To be honest—
A year sounds pretty quick to me.
It is pretty quick—it’s really quick. It’s going to be one simple first model; it’s not gonna be a cargo bike or something like that. The technology for the battery is very unique; I think a lot of our ideas are pretty unique, too. I’m not worried about that; I’m rather comfortable saying this is going to take awhile; go out and buy another bike today, okay? And ride a bike and be happy. Cuz we’ll be along, but I’m sorry, I won’t be able to take care of you in 30 days or 60 days and I’m not going to make promises I can’t keep.
It’s really pleasing to get the press; it’s really nice and everything, but to be honest, I’m a little bit shocked.
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