The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1452

To be honest, Ves did not possess that much exposure with regards to the running of other mech companies. He only vaguely kept track of the rise and fall of the ventures of other mech designers when he spent some time on an industry news portal.

What he was teaching right now to the Rawlings mech design students ought to be part of the businesses courses in their curriculum.

However, even if they already learned these lessons in class, Ves believed that it might be different when it came from the mouth of someone who recently went through the startup process.

\"Starting a mech company to compete in a market environment that is already flooded with the products you want to introduce is difficult. Immensely difficult.\" Ves smacked his hand against his palm in emphasis. \"The basic question that should be roiling in your heads as you invest a fortune in a mech workshop or a larger production facility is what value you are bringing to the table. What distinguishes your mechs from the mechs designed by people who are older, more skilled, more experienced, more famed and more entrenched in the market?\"

Some of the students began to absorb his words. They were getting absorbed in his train of thought.

However, many others still remained unaffected. The lesson wasn’t catching on to them, either because they had no intention of going independent or they possessed too much confidence in their abilities.

Evidently, Ves had to work harder to pop the bubbles surrounding the latter group of students.

\"In the mech market, the bigger fish such as the Journeymen, Seniors and the huge trans-galactic enterprises already capture the bulk of each product segment. The good news is that Novices and Apprentices are still able to earn a decent living between the cracks. The bad news is that the amount of Novices and Apprentices competing over these tiny spaces in the market is enough to form a new black hole! Can you imagine such a sight?!\"

The strange analogy sure caught the attention of a few more students.

\"Maybe I should put it in clearer terms. Imagine a round pie where a dozen Seniors each divide the cake equally between each other. They’ve cut the cake so well that only crumbs are left behind. Now imagine you, the other students in this hall and multiply that by a thousand fighting over the crumbs that can barely fill your belly, let alone stimulate your taste buds! Does that sound great to you? Does that seem easy to you?\"

The gravity of the dire situation of startups became more evident when put in this way.

Ves smirked. \"Certainly, the crumbs of the pie is actually enough to sustain plenty of mech companies during their startup stages, but there is only so much hunger they can sate. Imagine all of you Rawlings students competing over a single crumb. Who gets to decide which mech designer gets to pop this crumb in their mouth?\"

He pointed at a random mech designer!

\"You?\"

He shifted his finger towards another mech designer?

\"Or you?\"

He let out a laugh.

\"The mech market isn’t a lottery. Relying on random chance won’t secure a place in the market for you and your business venture. You have to fight for it! Now, some of you may think that you are beyond such concerns because you enjoy advantages that others don’t. Perhaps your family or noble house is willing to dump a lot of money on you. Perhaps you have a generous mentor who is willing to prop you up.\"

Quite a number of mech designers nodded as they did indeed enjoy certain advantages.

\"Well, while enjoying solid backing guarantees that you can get a foot in the door, entering the building is another matter! The inside of the building is already bursting with other mech designers, and it is extremely selective of which mech designer is allowed to enter! Backing means nothing if your products and your mech design abilities are merely average!\"

For emphasis, Ves raised his hands. The main projection came to life again. Unlike the vivid footage from before, now the projection depicted several choice statistics in the form of giant graphs and tables.

Every mech designer was versed in statistics. They each took in the statistics and grimaced.

This was because Ves chose to project the figures of the survival rate of mech company startups in the Sentinel Kingdom in the last couple of decades!

Not only that, but he even chose to depict a graph that displayed the success rate of mech companies founded by mech designers of different backgrounds.

All of the figures were abysmally low and all of them reached the single percentages!

The other notable finding of this graph was that the background didn’t matter!

Mech designers with an ordinarily middle-class commoner upbringing succeeded just as much as those born with silver spoons in their mouths!

While there were some mild variations in the success rate of each different category of mech designers, the differences weren’t statistically significant!

\"Second, the independents among you with access to easy money and powerful backing frankly overestimate the role these advantages grant you! All the money and connections in Sentinel won’t help you sell more mechs if you suck! Forget your pride and birthright for a moment and make an honest assessment of yourselves! If you aren’t ranking in the top of your classes, what makes you think you will make it past the stupendously high cut-off point of the brutal mech market where you are competing against mech designers who are vastly more competent than your classmates?!\" _{fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓}