V5F+ Beginner - Help Please

[Jason McNeil]

17 hours ago, dpong said:

Took me forever, so any buyer's remorse you may be feeling should be temporary.

True. It's one of the reasons why allowing people to try the Wheel is actually detrimental to sales. Typical initial impression by punters is 'how hard could it be?'—classic case is Richard Hammond on the Grand Tour/TG Christmas special—then their confidence takes a beating, feel disheartened & give up on the idea... For the serious Buyer, they do the research, know that there's going to be a bit of pain involved, but once they pay, they're are committed to making it work.

[RooEUC]

30 minutes ago, Jason McNeil said:

True. It's one of the reasons why allowing people to try the Wheel is actually detrimental to sales. Typical initial impressions by punters is 'how hard could it be'—classic case is Richard Hammond on the Grand Tour/TG Christmas special—then their confidence takes a beating, feel disheartened & give up on the idea... For the serious Buyer, they do the research, know that there's going to be a bit of pain involved, but once they pay, they're are committed to making it work.

It sounds a bit like learning to play the guitar or the violin. People make it look like it's not that hard so you give it a try. But it's really hard initially, you think "I'll never be able to do this" and your fingers hurt for a few weeks. But then you get the hang of it and it becomes very enjoyable and rewarding.

[houseofjob]

Ha! @Jason McNeil I took things out of order then! 

As a beginner, I went:

1.) buy $$ with minimal research, NB1E+, ooh pretty lights

2.) "how hard can it be?"

3.) after 15 min trying to ride, severe buyer's remorse

4.) well, I might as well invest the time before this thing becomes an $800 doorstop.

[Joe Holliday]

Thanks for the advice so far everyone!  Here is a video of my attempt after about 4 hours of practice.  I'm still rusty and I'm not able to completely steer yet, and I still lose control occasionally and have to stop.

temp1euc2.m4v

[Carlos E Rodriguez]

3 hours ago, Joe Holliday said:

Thanks for the advice so far everyone!  Here is a video of my attempt after about 4 hours of practice.  I'm still rusty and I'm not able to completely steer yet, and I still lose control occasionally and have to stop.

temp1euc2.m4v

Keep practicing. Don't overdue it

[Paddylaz]

9 hours ago, Joe Holliday said:

Thanks for the advice so far everyone!  Here is a video of my attempt after about 4 hours of practice.  I'm still rusty and I'm not able to completely steer yet, and I still lose control occasionally and have to stop.

temp1euc2.m4v

Remember: going slow is harder than going fast. It sort of seems there you had to come off because you're not good enough yet to maintain balance at such a low speed. Otherwise you looked pretty solid on it.

[Mono]

18 hours ago, Jason McNeil said:

It's one of the reasons why allowing people to try the Wheel is actually detrimental to sales.

There seem to be one or two quite successful shops in Paris allowing people to test ride any wheel they want.

[Jason McNeil]

15 hours ago, houseofjob said:

4.) well, I might as well invest the time before this thing becomes an $800 doorstop.

5. Your signature tells the rest of the tale 

4 hours ago, Mono said:

There seem to be one or two quite successful shops in Paris allowing people to test ride any wheel they want.

I just visited Vincent in Paris from URBAN360 last week (will post my thoughts from this trip a bit later). From what I saw, most people trying out Wheels were existing Wheel owners, which  of course makes a lot of sense.

[Mono]

1 minute ago, Jason McNeil said:

I just visited Vincent in Paris from URBAN360 last week (will post my thoughts from this trip a bit later). From what I saw, most people trying out Wheels were existing Wheel owners, which is of course makes a lot of sense.

Sure, but I wouldn't say it is detrimental to his sales, as you suggested it were. Even experienced riders trying out stuff might beginners convince that they make a good choice to buy such a thing.

I don't like the apparent implication of your point (don't let beginners try out as it is detrimental to sales, apparently for several reasons): you sell a product under a false flag, that is, you leave the buyer in a false belief until they payed.

[Jason McNeil]

3 minutes ago, Mono said:

I don't like the apparent implication of your point

It's just a statistical observation. I've been selling Wheels for over three & half years, my firsthand experience is that when most novices try the Wheel before buying, there's not a very good chance of following through on a purchase. I know another company in the UK who had also tried this model, in fact, they were pretty committed to it, with weekly sessions, dedicated individual, etc., they dropped it after a couple months.  

[Jason McNeil]

11 minutes ago, Mono said:

 you sell a product under a false flag, that is, you leave the buyer in a false belief until they payed.

Don't quite see how you drew this conclusion. The considered Buyer will have an appreciation of what's involved, there is no misleading of the facts.

[Chris Westland]

 

41 minutes ago, Mono said:

I don't like the apparent implication of your point (don't let beginners try out as it is detrimental to sales, apparently for several reasons): you sell a product under a false flag, that is, you leave the buyer in a false belief until they payed.

@Mono I think this is a bit unfair.  @Jason McNeil states a pretty obvious point: that there is a steep learning curve for EUC's.   EUCs are enticing pieces of technology, but fundamentally what marketing academics call an "experience good"; you won't know if you'll like it until you've tried and mastered it.  Motorcycles, skis & snowboards, etc. are similar in this respect, and I think marketers need to learn from other sports what might be the best path to grow an EUC enthusiast community.  Schools, competitions and so forth are, I believe, the route forward.  https://www.dartdrones.com (as seen on Shark Tank) ,for example, has been instrumental in expanding the drone community, which is especially important for DJI which has 80% of the market.   In most states you need to attend a motorcycle school before getting your license, and club racing is a popular hobby.  In both of these sports there are problems in "trying before buying" but the marketers have figured out how to do it; and no one complains about "false flags."

 

[Mono]

20 minutes ago, Jason McNeil said:

Don't quite see how you drew this conclusion.

It's seems pretty easy to see when looking at a few posts in this forum, like: "I thought it was a peace of cake to learn but then I tried..."

I see your point that for some buyers it might in the end be better to not have had this information before, but it remains to be a somewhat deliberate misinformation, therefore I called it a false flag. I stand corrected if you tell them why you don't let them try, namely that it would drop sales. In this case I am perfectly with you.

[US69]

14 hours ago, Joe Holliday said:

Thanks for the advice so far everyone!  Here is a video of my attempt after about 4 hours of practice.  I'm still rusty and I'm not able to completely steer yet, and I still lose control occasionally and have to stop.

temp1euc2.m4v

Thats quiet good after 4 hours!

Dont worry...it will from now on get better every day and after some weeks you are not thinking about what you are doing on the wheel!

[Mono]

1 minute ago, Chris Westland said:

 I think this is a bit unfair.  @Jason McNeil states a pretty obvious point: that there is a steep learning curve for EUC's.

I guess the only point here is that we find it obvious because we have experienced it. However, we seem not dare to make it obvious to someone who doesn't yet own one. I really don't know why I am not fair by wanting to let them know the obvious beforehand.

4 minutes ago, Chris Westland said:

In most states you need to attend a motorcycle school before getting your license, and club racing is a popular hobby.  In both of these sports there are problems in "trying before buying"

When you have to get a license, you obviously do try before to buy in almost all cases. I know that from personal experience  

[dpong]

@Joe Holliday You're doing great!

[Paddylaz]

30 minutes ago, Mono said:

I guess the only point here is that we find it obvious because we have experienced it. However, we seem not dare to make it obvious to someone who doesn't yet own one. I really don't know why I am not fair by wanting to let them know the obvious beforehand.

When you have to get a license, you obviously do try before to buy in almost all cases. I know that from personal experience  

Difficulty level is totally subjective. It cannot be measured or quantified empirically as it depends on a person's age, natural balance, coordination and dare I say it....intelligence level. Besides.......surely anyone with an IQ above that of a bagel would (should?) realise that balancing on the spine of a wheel with no fixed platform is going to be a skill.

Also if any seller even just wrote next to a product 'this is difficult/hard to ride' it would be a bit condescending. Besides unless you're an impulsive billionaire/millionaire you're not going to be handing over £££/££££ to someone without doing full research on the product from multiple sources (forum, youtube, word of mouth).

I won't mention the name of the company @Jason McNeil is referring to (just in case he doesn't want me to), but the company he mentioned who had the London wheel try-outs? I was one of the people who went to those. You can see why the business model didn't work. I was only there because I had seen and spoken to someone in public riding one. I had done my homework. Everyone else was there as a sort of 'experience day' because they had advertised heavily on social media. Pretty much everyone else who tried it was turned off by the learning curve and dismissed it after an hour of laughs. We also roughed up their wheels pretty heavily. I only stayed on and kept coming to these  sessions because I wanted to crack it and I already knew I would be purchasing one.

And when I DID purchase? I purchased from elsewhere anyway.

[Mono]

As we seem to have negative and positive examples for this business model, the reason of failure cannot be the business model itself.

[Carlos E Rodriguez]

12 hours ago, Carlos E Rodriguez said:

Keep practicing. Don't overdue it

That is fantastic! Well done.  you will find that swinging your arms out make is harder. Straighten up, relax, left and right arms down and curbed slightly. when you turn don't lean. Point your shoulders towards the turn. Also shifting the left arm or the right arm slightly forward with the shoulders makes the turn happen. 

Don't try to go on a long trip yet. keep increasing distance and and as you increase also practice stop, dismount, remount. For long distance you still will find out that suddenly your muscles get fatigued and you start wobbling not understanding why. Its normal. just need more hours and become more efficient. At the beginning our entire body is tense making sure we stay balanced and that is tiring.

[LanghamP]

What do you say when someone asks you how hard to learn a wheel is?

I've thought about this question, and have come up with a simple answer.

"If you can make it to the top of a flight of escalators going the wrong way then you can ride one of these."

[Paddylaz]

4 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

What do you say when someone asks you how hard to learn a wheel is?

I've thought about this question, and have come up with a simple answer.

"If you can make it to the top of a flight of escalators going the wrong way then you can ride one of these."

Id put it very much on par with learning to ride a normal bicycle proficiently.......only problem of course is only those with a very good memory will actually remember that experience

[Joe Holliday]

Thanks for all the encouragement and advice so far!  I'm starting to really enjoy the learning process as I see progression!  Unfortunately it's raining today so I'm having to either take a break today or practice in the house.

[RooEUC]

What do you guys tell acquaintances when they ask "Can I try it?".  How do you convince them that them trying it will involve completely destroying the exterior of your $1000 - $3000 device, without them thinking you're just possessive with your toys?

[Mono]

3 hours ago, Paddylaz said:

Id put it very much on par with learning to ride a normal bicycle proficiently.......only problem of course is only those with a very good memory will actually remember that experience

Right, and that most of us never had the experience of learning to ride a bicycle as an adult. 

[Mono]

9 minutes ago, RooMiniPro said:

What do you guys tell acquaintances when they ask "Can I try it?".  How do you convince them that them trying it will involve completely destroying the exterior of your $1000 - $3000 device, without them thinking you're just possessive with your toys?

I let them try using a learning belt, no question about it.