=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 161 ===
Title: Chatting To Toby Osmond From Hobby King
Recorded: 2018-09-27
Hosts: Andy, Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash, Wayne "CurryKitten" Andrews, Andrew "Frank" Hyams
Guest(s): Toby Osmond
Total audience: 3,482
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKdP1svnPmU); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/515317911-letsdroneout-chatting-to-toby-osmond-from-hobby-king.m4a)
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So at the Hobby king Festival of flight, the guys at Ldo ran into Toby Osmond the new Chief Executive Officer so he's staying up really late to talk to us.

[0.0] Jack: Hello and welcome to another episode of let drone out. I never thought I'd see the day
[11.42] Jack: where we have a big important company on. He is very sleep. Oh my god. I muted it on
[24.62] Toby Osmond: this. Wait. Fail. Are those polka dot pens he's wearing? And this is why we don't have
[35.76] Curry: important people from big companies coming on. He will say that's never happened before.
[40.64] Jack: I'm surprised he's wearing pants in front of his. One day I will I'll print some boxes that say
[48.16] Jack: like I love Andy RC on the back of them. Speaking of who doesn't love Andy RC, hobby king.
[54.48] Toby Osmond: Segue. Yeah. So yeah look we've we've got an Andy RC poster in the office actually and every
[61.2] AndyRC: now and then people just throw darts at it. Is that really true? Yeah little effigies that we burn
[70.16] Toby Osmond: and a little lock of hair on a voodoo doll that we poke holes in. Oh man that explains a lot. I
[77.44] AndyRC: I supplied the hair. I knew it Jack. I knew my hair had gotten shorter. Yeah yeah right. So hang on
[86.8] Jack: let me do this again. Hello welcome to another episode of let drone out. Tonight we are joined
[90.8] Jack: by Andrew slash Frank. Hi. Hobby king's most wanted Andy RC. Good evening. We are joined by Toby
[103.2] Jack: from hobby king. Hi guys. And my lovable favorite Curry kitten. Hello. And if anyone's wondering
[114.56] Jack: where Tony is he's quit gone insane and moved to America. He started up a let's tone out right.
[120.88] Jack: Yeah so if you'd like to subscribe there the website is www dot let's tone out dot org.
[128.16] AndyRC: I have to say I really enjoyed last week's episode which was just basically Tony getting
[135.04] AndyRC: banned and then you spend an hour trying to unban him. I was getting all sorts of messages
[141.2] AndyRC: saying Tony's quit the show and he started his own thing. I can only wish. All I was thinking
[148.56] AndyRC: is this what happens when I don't turn up for a week. Yeah. So we all thought any zone. Yeah. So
[156.0] Jack: any volunteers to read out people in the chat to say hello. We've got under flicked in the
[163.92] Frank: chat. RC dude crash test dummy long range FPV zero ladders. Who else we got in there. Richard
[170.24] Frank: Warwick Clive. We've got Dave Story Bill M. Andrea Haku. We have loads of people in the chat win
[181.28] Frank: following with style. Hello everyone. Clive has donated a pound already. Where's the where's the
[188.4] Frank: noise. No noise. Anyone. This week we get banned. Yeah. Start. I'm going to start. You instantly
[197.84] Jack: get a P45 and a ticket to go to let's tone out. Any noise is played. Right. Can I ask some things
[207.52] Jack: about Harvey King then please. Yeah. Why are you banned because you opened the PayPal dispute.
[213.04] AndyRC: No. No. Where did you guys meet. You all went to Harvey King Live. Is that how you guys met.
[220.8] Toby Osmond: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had Harvey King Live in the UK in Elmset a couple of weeks ago and everyone.
[228.24] Toby Osmond: Well not everyone but the chaps from Let's Drone out were there and bumped into me and it was
[234.88] Toby Osmond: really just sort of a chance meeting wasn't it guys. And they they sort of spoke about Let's
[242.72] Toby Osmond: Drone out. I don't really follow podcasts too closely and and invited me on the show. So yeah.
[250.88] AndyRC: Just to warn you that's exactly the same way I bumped into them. And now I seem to be on every
[256.16] Toby Osmond: week. Unless you guys change your on air time. I don't know if I'm going to be doing something like
[263.76] Toby Osmond: that. Yeah. It's 3 a.m. over here actually. So where are you based then Toby.
[270.48] AndyRC: At the moment I'm in Perth in West Australia. Oh right. OK. Is that because we've had
[278.88] AndyRC: we've had final glide. I was on the show before and it's usually about 7 o'clock. So is it that
[284.8] AndyRC: Australia is a really big place. Yeah. A different time in Brisbane. So
[294.16] Toby Osmond: Brisbane is two hours ahead of us. So yeah it'll be five o'clock for Chad. And that's not too bad.
[299.36] Toby Osmond: That's just an early morning but 3 a.m. That's just ridiculous. Yeah. Well thank you. Thank
[305.04] Toby Osmond: you for doing that. So where are you guys all based. Do you guys all in the UK. Yeah. We're all
[310.4] AndyRC: about an hour away from each other. What you have to remember is an hour away is from one
[318.0] AndyRC: side of England to the other. And to us that's very far. Well we're all an hour away from each
[325.36] Curry: other. And then Andy I see is way up north. It's like the second secondary part of the year. I'm
[330.72] AndyRC: an hour. I'm an hour and a half. We never see him. Yeah we should do. We should be better at that
[341.76] AndyRC: really. But yeah a lot. Most people are based down south near London Brighton and I'm in the middle
[348.8] AndyRC: but they call it north because it's further than further than the bottom or something.
[354.0] AndyRC: Yeah. Okay. Yeah cool. So I'm sorry go on. Toby when you're not being collared by
[366.96] Frank: random podcasts you're the now the CEO of Hobbyking. So
[375.6] Jack: I'm wondering if you can see. Very interesting. Great question. Could someone
[389.84] Jack: repeat thank you. Well that's a tough question. I think we all found it tough let's be honest.
[401.04] Jack: You want him to answer in zeros and ones. All right. Give up on me then. Why is your
[409.04] AndyRC: internet so bad Andy. What have you got Virgin Media or something. He can't even. No he's now
[417.1] AndyRC: resigned. Just give up on me. He's just a picture. He's just a picture that will move every 20
[424.46] Curry: seconds or so now. Maybe Frank was going to ask something along the lines of what exactly is
[428.86] Curry: involved in running Hobbyking all over the world. What is what is your day to day life like.
[435.26] Toby Osmond: Yeah right. OK. Well that's a great question. I'm still kind of learning that if that makes sense.
[442.38] Toby Osmond: I've only been in the role of CEO for maybe three weeks now. It's a new role to me. Previously
[451.26] Toby Osmond: I suppose I was well I was one of the company's vice presidents and that meant that I headed up
[458.62] Toby Osmond: one of the divisions of the company. So so I looked after the sales and marketing and customer
[463.1] Toby Osmond: service side but I had nothing to do with warehouse logistics IT operations. I had I could
[474.06] Toby Osmond: put pictures on the Web site but I couldn't really affect any major changes in the Web site.
[479.18] Toby Osmond: So you know my new role is a little bit different in that I get to fiddle and medal in
[488.3] Toby Osmond: the warehouse and the logistics side the IT side including any integrations with third party
[495.26] Toby Osmond: vendors and that sort of thing. And how has the first three weeks been. It's been interesting.
[504.46] Toby Osmond: We we we're we're a company of about 200 people. So the new teams that I look after now are about
[511.5] Toby Osmond: I used to look after about 60 and now now I've taken on the other 140. So I've just been meeting
[519.18] Toby Osmond: with people trying to work out the bugs and the issues. I mean working in the sales and marketing
[523.98] Toby Osmond: and customer service side. I've always been at the front end of the business in the sense that I deal
[530.86] Toby Osmond: with customers and that sort of jazz. And I see people complaining and I and I see issues popping
[535.74] Toby Osmond: up but I have no I've never had real power to sort of affect these things. All I can do is prepare a
[539.9] Toby Osmond: report send it on to the other the other department and sort of hope that they fix
[543.98] Toby Osmond: whatever is going wrong. But now I actually get to delve into it. So that's exciting.
[548.54] Toby Osmond: You know it gives me more ownership of the entire service level that we're offering
[555.1] Toby Osmond: and the product range that we're offering many three weeks into it. So there's still plenty to
[561.74] Toby Osmond: learn. I'm still trying to work out what to do and and trying to focus my efforts on things
[567.58] Toby Osmond: that are probably going to return the biggest changes the fastest. If that makes sense. Does
[573.42] Curry: that does that answer your question. Yes I guess so. And maybe I should ask the follow up question
[578.7] Curry: because I think it pops up every time people talk about hobbyking they mention the website. So we
[584.22] Curry: should ask you about the website and how it is and how are you affecting change there. I didn't do
[592.06] Jack: that. I'd just like to point that out. Frank's getting drunk now. Frank's giving up.
[600.14] Toby Osmond: Yeah it looked really really good question. One of the first things that I did
[606.14] Toby Osmond: when I got my new role is I sat down with the head of our IT department and and I mean he he's
[613.98] Toby Osmond: known that we the sales marketing side of the company hasn't loved the new website
[620.46] Toby Osmond: for at least two years now. So the first thing we did is we sat down with him and we tried to
[625.82] Toby Osmond: understand what are the challenges that they're facing because we see their department working
[629.18] Toby Osmond: really hard on the website and we've got about 20 to 25 developers working full time internally
[635.42] Toby Osmond: and then we also outsourced to a couple of other companies who help us down top of various parts
[641.02] Toby Osmond: of the website and I suppose the first thing that struck me was that it is huge. It's huge in the
[650.62] Toby Osmond: sense that it's so much bigger than small Shopify websites or WordPress websites. It's a genuine
[658.54] Toby Osmond: enterprise level website which means that there's quite a lot of complexity. So it took us two days
[665.66] Toby Osmond: to go from woe to go on the things that the IT department's working on. There's about 245 known
[672.06] Toby Osmond: issues right now that they've isolated that they're working on. The big question from us was well why
[679.34] Toby Osmond: did we go live with the website that we knew had bugs and the answer to that is that the IT team
[686.86] Toby Osmond: generally didn't know that it had bugs and neither did two of the third party vendors that we worked
[691.66] Toby Osmond: with when apparently a lot of these bugs really only show themselves when you put the website
[699.18] Toby Osmond: under load and you know with us we're running seven nodes around the world because now we've
[705.9] Toby Osmond: changed from physical servers to cloud-based servers so that was a big infrastructure change
[710.86] Toby Osmond: for us. Scaling each one of those nodes at different times is more complex than what it used to be.
[718.22] Toby Osmond: So yeah there's a ton of intricacies behind it but it's something that we're absolutely working on
[726.14] Toby Osmond: and again they're focusing on issues that they think are going to deliver results as quickly
[730.94] Toby Osmond: as possible. So for instance something that's going live this week it might actually I think
[735.34] Toby Osmond: it might have already gone live yesterday the day before was the filter system you know you used to
[739.9] Toby Osmond: have to select a filter and then the page would refresh and then select another filter and the
[744.3] Toby Osmond: page would refresh and that was causing a lot of consternation because every time the page refreshes
[751.74] Toby Osmond: was like a five or ten second issue in areas where our nodes weren't loading the content as
[758.94] Toby Osmond: quickly as possible. So now they've implemented something that allows you to select multiple
[764.78] Toby Osmond: filters and then apply all. On top of that they've built in a better more powerful content
[770.38] Toby Osmond: distribution network which loads all the images in that much faster. They've dropped a lot of the
[774.86] Toby Osmond: redundant sql queries in the back and they've minified the css and the j query on the front
[779.82] Toby Osmond: of the side so yeah it is getting faster. I think it's taken page load times from like eight seconds
[784.7] Toby Osmond: down to three or four seconds which is more palatable but it's still not perfect. I think
[788.62] Toby Osmond: best practice is around one second but yeah it's definitely something they're working on.
[793.58] AndyRC: Cool. So it looks like we've had a Tony turn up but it's not dark where he is. What's
[801.74] AndyRC: out in tone? Can't hear he's muted. Can someone unmute Tony? I'm unmuting he's got to unmute himself.
[809.1] AndyRC: Tony you need to unmute yourself mate. He's not he's not he's got. You're an idiot. Is he going
[816.03] AndyRC: to ban himself again? No that wasn't me. Someone said I thought someone muted him and you need to
[823.87] AndyRC: microphone button Tony. Well it looks happy anyway and it looks warm. That's good stuff.
[831.07] Curry: Hey we had a couple of questions in which are quite interesting because they're kind of connected
[835.71] Curry: to what we talked about with Tony when we met him. Under Fluke is saying in terms of growth we
[841.39] Curry: hear a lot about drones being a huge growth opportunity worth billions of pounds dollars
[846.03] Curry: worldwide. Hobbyking seeing any of this growth in real terms and another one and under Fluke again
[854.59] Curry: saying what percentage of RC cells are quad related. Is this increasing or stagnant because
[859.15] Curry: we were talking about you were talking about has the quad bubble reached its its peak and is
[865.55] Toby Osmond: actually coming down again. Yeah well from our experience we experienced gosh sorry it's 3 a.m
[873.79] Jack: so my brain is like. That's his excuse. Can I make sense? Yeah English is not his favorite uh no
[881.87] Toby Osmond: first language. I don't know what to do with my hands. Yeah but drones were huge for us between
[892.75] Toby Osmond: 2012 and 2015 we we had never experienced growth like that before and even in our formative days
[902.35] Toby Osmond: we were experiencing annual growth of 20% annually and when you compound that over
[907.87] Toby Osmond: over three years you double the size of the company every three years. So the quad revolution
[915.71] Toby Osmond: I suppose you could call it particularly when racing drones had only just hit that growth for
[923.07] Toby Osmond: us was extraordinary. We saw that Peter off between 2000 and 15 to the beginning of 2017
[934.59] Toby Osmond: and then our experience since then has been a steady decline. Now that doesn't mean that
[944.83] Toby Osmond: groups aren't growing it just means that it might not be growing as quickly and our company operates
[951.95] Toby Osmond: across the five major categories so that's planes, boats, cars and airplanes and what used to be
[959.15] Toby Osmond: helicopters and we had users in each one of those categories testing out drones and that obviously
[968.03] Toby Osmond: contributed to the growth but then I think they might have gone back to their original sort of
[972.75] Toby Osmond: passion like maybe planes and cars and whatever. So what we're left with is a drone community that
[980.03] Toby Osmond: didn't really exist there before but I mean we at one point we simply couldn't stop drones quickly
[986.99] Toby Osmond: enough. Now in terms of the question about it being a billion dollar industry I mean like there's a
[992.11] Toby Osmond: huge amount of hype associated with drones and you sort of got to split them into two camps so
[998.67] Toby Osmond: you've got the hype masters who are coming along with just the drone industry in general they're
[1004.91] Toby Osmond: talking not just about consumer drones but they're talking about commercial applications and
[1008.59] Toby Osmond: industry and that sort of thing and that's obviously worth a huge amount of cash and then
[1014.75] Toby Osmond: on the consumer side you've got companies like DJI who've really almost consolidated the market
[1020.27] Toby Osmond: with their offerings. It was a much more competitive market maybe three years ago
[1025.07] Toby Osmond: but they've drowned out say 3D robotics who we all thought was probably going to be one of those
[1030.59] Toby Osmond: the strongest competitors. When UNIQUE came to market with their obstacle avoidance drone
[1036.43] Toby Osmond: I mean DJI had such a large market share and such huge margins in their products
[1040.99] Toby Osmond: that they just halved the price of their premier drone and just destroyed the business case for
[1046.19] Toby Osmond: UNIQUE. But I don't think so that's just the consumer drone side but then the other side is
[1052.75] Toby Osmond: the drone racing side so that's how we segmented in Hobbking. We keep the drone racing and freestyle
[1058.27] Toby Osmond: guys sort of separate to the commercial and consumer drone guys and we don't see much growth
[1067.31] Toby Osmond: anymore in the drone racing side of the community. In fact if anything we've seen quite a lot of
[1074.59] Toby Osmond: contraction in that market and that's sort of been reflected in some of our competitors who we know
[1081.39] Toby Osmond: have also experienced these issues and some of our suppliers who've experienced contraction
[1089.55] Toby Osmond: in their markets too. I think if you were going to ask anyone for real numbers because it's
[1097.23] Toby Osmond: difficult that we might be losing customers to someone else or gaining customers from someone
[1101.39] Toby Osmond: else but I think if you were going to ask for probably the best data it would probably be at
[1108.19] Toby Osmond: Fat Shark with Greg French because most drone racers will get into drones to the point where
[1113.55] Toby Osmond: they want a really serious set of goggles and to my experience most people are buying Fat Shark
[1119.71] Toby Osmond: goggles. So if you wanted really good data you'd look at your Fat Shark sales and talking to Greg
[1125.95] Toby Osmond: I think we're about 30-40% of his market and we don't see huge growth in goggles. We're still
[1133.39] Toby Osmond: selling a constant amount but we're not we're not selling 20% growth on growth you know.
[1138.67] AndyRC: Can I just ask because that what you're saying is consistent with anyone that we've had on the show
[1146.27] AndyRC: my question is is it the same when it comes to consumer drones such as DJI is that in decline
[1155.07] AndyRC: as well as the race drone or is it because I have a theory that people come to race drones they see
[1161.47] AndyRC: it's too difficult they got to get their head around, beat a fly and filters they and then they
[1166.91] AndyRC: go this DJI thing does all I want and that's so how do you see I suppose do you don't really deal
[1176.51] AndyRC: with DJI though kind of stuff do you? I don't know we do we do. You don't have to answer that objection
[1182.11] Jack: that was a leading question. What do you think of the leading question? Permission the tree here was
[1187.31] AndyRC: hostile. I'm fascinated by the industry and yeah as having an RC channel and speaking to other
[1197.23] AndyRC: people speaking to suppliers speaking to everyone the the the race drone thing is in a slight decline
[1204.03] AndyRC: but I because I don't really have much to do with the the camera drone and I mean I've got one but
[1212.03] AndyRC: my channel's not about that. Is that also in decline as well compared to you know the start?
[1220.75] Toby Osmond: We do have a lot of consumer drone offerings. What we've found is that if it's not DJI at the moment
[1228.83] Toby Osmond: it's just not selling. Well it is selling but it's just in far smaller numbers you know the
[1236.19] Toby Osmond: stuff that is really entry level almost toy grade that is super super super cheap that stuff's
[1242.43] Toby Osmond: selling and it looks like people are using that to dip their toe in the water and then the moment
[1245.95] Toby Osmond: they're happy or confident they'll they'll get a phantom or you know the the Mavic Air or the Mavic
[1253.55] Toby Osmond: Pro. So we're still experiencing growth in that by single digit growth but with those models we're
[1260.67] Toby Osmond: dealing well we're competing with like big chains so we're competing with Best Buy and you know just
[1268.11] Toby Osmond: large genuine things like FMCG electronic chains. Yeah no I think it's it's interesting but I find
[1278.43] AndyRC: it sad at the same time and I try I think about this a lot because I see the interest in race
[1284.67] AndyRC: drones and copters declining and I think it's I think there was a huge explosion and I think it
[1291.71] AndyRC: was people got you know having a go at this new thing and then realizing that you have to be an
[1298.27] AndyRC: expert and beat a flight there's no return home and when you crash you've got to you know it can
[1304.59] AndyRC: get expensive and replace things and I don't I don't think I think that's going to keep happening.
[1312.67] AndyRC: And there's always going to be a community of people that that obviously
[1316.51] AndyRC: light flying race drones but there was this huge explosion like you say 2015 up to 17 and
[1322.59] AndyRC: and it's just gone like that I think things like beat a flight is too complicated I think that
[1329.47] AndyRC: needs to get more simple and maybe even GPS although it does seem to be coming to race drones
[1336.67] AndyRC: I think that now the GPS technology can get smaller I think that that'll help it but yeah
[1342.27] AndyRC: it's just it's sad to see it in in decline because it's it's it's fun I'm I find I mean
[1348.35] AndyRC: I've got DJI stuff but you know after 10 minutes of flying you've got all your footage you know
[1354.19] AndyRC: you can't do loops and spins and things you know so. Yeah it's actually really funny you mentioned
[1358.51] Toby Osmond: that I sold my DJI drone yesterday I had this great little Mavic Air and it's the second time
[1364.27] Toby Osmond: I've done it like I buy one I think oh this is great I'm going to get some great footage here
[1369.23] Toby Osmond: um I took it on holiday with me a couple of weeks ago and I didn't even take it out the box um
[1374.19] Toby Osmond: and it was just basically because like how many times can you see an aerial shot you know
[1379.31] Toby Osmond: it just kind of gets a little bit samezy after a while so yeah and the thing is there's no
[1385.87] Toby Osmond: challenge to fly them um so yeah I find them kind of boring and they're almost I don't even know if
[1391.71] Toby Osmond: you can even consider them an RC product anymore they're they're so good now that they're almost
[1396.67] Toby Osmond: just like um more of a photography tool than anything else. I've got a friend who describes it
[1401.39] Curry: as a giant eyeball that you push around the sky as opposed to something you'd actually fly. It's
[1406.11] AndyRC: almost like a crane it's almost like a crane a camera crane isn't it? Like a tripod or something
[1410.67] Toby Osmond: totally yeah that's kind of how I see them and it just sort of it just to me it makes it uninteresting
[1416.51] Toby Osmond: um yeah I I originally bought it to put it up uh just over the beach I don't know if you guys
[1421.31] Toby Osmond: know but where I live there's a huge I'm not going to say problem but there's there's a lot of sharks
[1426.51] Toby Osmond: right and um and I put it up above the beach before I'll go for a surf or something purely to
[1433.15] Toby Osmond: see if there's anything in the water and then if there is obviously I land and go home and um
[1438.75] Toby Osmond: and just thank god I didn't go in the water that day but most more often than not there's nothing
[1442.27] Toby Osmond: but even that I was just I just got to the point where you know like it kind of saps the joy out
[1447.79] AndyRC: of it um yeah it does there's only there's only so much yeah so that and it makes me wonder about
[1454.19] AndyRC: but but that's the thing though that they're just so easy to fly anyone can buy one so I think that's
[1459.15] AndyRC: why that's increasing and maybe it needs to be that on the race drone side I think I think we
[1465.47] AndyRC: need GPS we especially now as we're as we're going long range with crossfire R9M and we need some more
[1472.67] AndyRC: safety features on our race drones and I think that that maybe might claw people back hopefully
[1479.39] AndyRC: I'm hopefully because I just don't want it to decline to a point where oh it's not even worth
[1484.43] Curry: talking about anymore you know well it's the is the other answer is is it going to go a different
[1489.63] Curry: way so a question we've had in the chat from uh crikey who I was out flying with the other day
[1495.87] Curry: is do you think there's any chance we might see an explosion in small inexpensive winds for racing
[1500.83] Curry: in the same way that happened to quads because um it used to be the fact that you know planes
[1507.07] Curry: were like two meter wingspans and then you've come down to the techs got better so you've got
[1512.19] Curry: tiny little flight controllers things like my nav in tiny little wings which don't have the same
[1517.95] Curry: issues with space and you can chuck them in the car and they handle the wind better um do you
[1522.75] Toby Osmond: do you think that's going to be a thing well uh around I don't know if you guys I'm sure you guys
[1528.19] Toby Osmond: remember the the drone world championships that were in hawaii there was a lot of talk around
[1535.15] Toby Osmond: wings and that around that time and um and we jumped all in and and we started developing a
[1540.75] Toby Osmond: bunch of wings and and a few of them came to market and we saw that the people buying them
[1545.23] Toby Osmond: weren't necessarily drone racers or former drone racers yeah well exactly the tomahawks one of them
[1551.87] Toby Osmond: so um yeah we saw that the people buying them were more airplane guys who wanted to sort of dip
[1556.27] Toby Osmond: their finger in the water rather than drone racers who wanted to sort of try something else
[1561.63] Toby Osmond: and um yeah I think these things get pushed by the communities that are using them and and
[1568.11] Toby Osmond: I still think in those in like if you're comparing race wings against um uh drones
[1574.11] Toby Osmond: drones would have to be 10 to 1 at the moment because I just don't feel like race wings have
[1579.07] Toby Osmond: captured the imagination in the way that drones did when they first came along um I think they're
[1583.95] Toby Osmond: struggling to hit that critical mass where people will go buy one because they know that there's
[1587.87] Curry: going to be a race on at their local club with wings yeah although I kind of feel that although
[1595.26] Curry: there's lots of talk about race drones and people buying them there's um a lot of people just sort
[1599.98] Curry: of flying recreationally you know like there's a tree in the field I can loop around it and do
[1604.78] Curry: some fun things much the same way that you do with wings you go out with a couple of mates
[1608.7] Curry: and you just chase around and crash a lot and that's sort of where the funds to be had rather
[1613.26] Curry: than getting into the nitty gritty racing of it yeah personally I actually have more fun with a
[1618.94] Toby Osmond: wing that flies kind of slowly that I can do like proximity stuff with and go through trees and that
[1625.82] Toby Osmond: sort of jazz rather than something like we've got this this product called a sidewinder and it does
[1631.42] Toby Osmond: like 100 miles an hour but I find by the time I see anything it's too late you know so um yeah I
[1637.82] Toby Osmond: much prefer those the smaller wings that you know made out of EPP and and I can sort of
[1643.42] Toby Osmond: you know chance my hand is going going closer to things or flying through things I just find that
[1647.66] AndyRC: more fun oh under flute has donated 10 pounds on the super chat thank you under flute um we've got
[1656.3] AndyRC: a question here from droning on so this is ash um he runs a um review youtube channel like me and
[1664.7] AndyRC: he's asked the question um he doesn't seem to get approached oh here we go it says I'm approached
[1671.42] AndyRC: by other retailers all the time to work on reviewing items except for hobby king it says
[1678.86] AndyRC: does hobby king want to work with creators more is the question yeah absolutely um yeah we've
[1687.26] Toby Osmond: we've kind of dropped the ball a little bit in that regard maybe 2012 we were very lucky that
[1693.98] Toby Osmond: we didn't have a great deal of competition in the market and most people would sort of contact us
[1699.26] Toby Osmond: and ask us whether or not we wanted them to review a product that dynamics change now with
[1705.9] Toby Osmond: so much competition in our industry we find that good reviewers and youtube channels are bombarded
[1712.7] Toby Osmond: with options now with really aggressive companies chasing them down almost shoving their products
[1717.98] Toby Osmond: in their hands um hobby king's never really been good at that push like trying to trying to push
[1726.54] Toby Osmond: it into people's hands they've kind of more relied on the pull from customers or from reviewers
[1731.58] Toby Osmond: asking to review it but um yeah look if if if you run a successful youtube channel out there
[1738.14] Toby Osmond: and you want to review some of our product just email us uh marketing at hobbyking.com and you'll
[1743.26] AndyRC: definitely get a reply from someone there you go ash that's what you gotta do get emailing
[1750.98] Jack: what's uh what about the green patches off toby about the rag the nuts off over losing it over
[1758.02] Jack: the sting or whatever that wing was called it went flutter or some shit i had a good laugh
[1765.78] Curry: does anyone know what he's on about yeah he's on about i don't know if toby know about it
[1770.02] Curry: this is matthew oddborn that runs the rag the nuts off channel who buys a lot of wings
[1775.54] Curry: and he got the stinger um and it's it's one of these like 100 mile an hour plus i think it's
[1781.62] Curry: about like a one meter wing or something and he was saying like full throttle if you increase the
[1787.7] Curry: prop size the wing gets flutter and i think he ended up returning it or something um but that's
[1793.06] Toby Osmond: all i know yeah so i think that product was um i think it was put to market with a prop that was
[1800.9] Toby Osmond: inappropriate um so before the product went on sale the the right size propeller was provided
[1807.14] Toby Osmond: to everyone and uh with using the the supplied propeller the product had no dramas it was still
[1813.78] Toby Osmond: ridiculously fast um but when you when you increase the prop uh pitch i believe it was
[1820.58] Toby Osmond: the product went faster and the then the wing just wasn't designed to handle that speed
[1824.66] Toby Osmond: so i suppose when you when when guys are changing things and modifying things and then the product
[1832.34] Toby Osmond: doesn't act as anticipated and then they go and they rip it to shreds and on their channel it's
[1837.94] Toby Osmond: not really fair you know it's it's not fair to the product and it's not fair to the company
[1842.98] Toby Osmond: and you could probably argue that going after a product so publicly um after you've modified it
[1851.22] Toby Osmond: um is more about like a sensationalist uh attempt to try get views a little bit like a like a gossip
[1860.1] Toby Osmond: magazine photoshopping a celebrities photo they're really just doing it for traffic yeah that never
[1866.02] Curry: happens on youtube and they never create titles that might manipulate their audience
[1871.94] Toby Osmond: yeah but you know if it works for him um you know good luck to him i think most most viewers are
[1878.18] Toby Osmond: probably smart enough to to say well he wasn't using the factory supplied prop um any experience
[1884.18] Curry: issues too bad so sad cool so one of the things because um again we mentioned when we chatted to
[1892.4] Curry: you at hobby king like um about the sort of new competition with the big box shifters like banggood
[1898.64] Curry: and gearbest and you made the point that what hobby king does that's different is develop
[1903.2] Curry: products as well so is this through um because i know some of the some of the sort of companies
[1908.96] Curry: you own or brands you own like dura fly and turner g and orange rx is is this sort of all
[1914.16] Curry: your development things that come into all the new planes coming through these uh these companies
[1918.88] Toby Osmond: yeah yeah so there is um there's two types of development that we do so we do stuff um
[1924.72] Toby Osmond: completely internally we've got a team of about 20 engineers and they are predominantly focused
[1932.16] Toby Osmond: on radio and charger stuff and flight controllers um so we i mean we kept on iterating the kk2 board
[1939.52] Toby Osmond: for many years until the open source community um came up with better alternatives but then uh
[1946.08] Toby Osmond: we turned our hand to speed controllers and radio gear and uh telemetry and and that sort of thing
[1951.36] Toby Osmond: so we do try innovate in in that space the other kind of design that we do is working with factories
[1958.24] Toby Osmond: so um we'll have um our one of our uh category managers coming up with concepts and ideas and
[1967.28] Toby Osmond: and normally that stuff's all feedback from the community that they've seen online and they'll
[1972.8] Toby Osmond: feed that back to a factory and then start going through the process of um getting prototypes and
[1978.4] Toby Osmond: and that sort of thing doing their best to try bring it to market um innovation for us that
[1983.44] Toby Osmond: it's it's really really really important and we're going to be pouring more and more and more money
[1988.24] Toby Osmond: into it mainly because of the amount of um competition that we're seeing from um chinese
[1994.72] Toby Osmond: vendors and uh and and we feel that because yeah because we're a hobby focused company
[2001.44] Toby Osmond: particularly when we're working against companies like banggood and those sort of guys
[2004.8] Toby Osmond: they don't necessarily innovate and and and the good thing for us is if we do bring a product to
[2009.84] Toby Osmond: market that is truly different they take at least six months to copy it right which by then hopefully
[2016.96] Toby Osmond: we've sold enough volume out there to have justified the initial um designs and we've
[2022.08] Toby Osmond: we've moved on to the next iteration so hopefully they're always one step behind
[2025.44] Jack: cool where are we frank do you want to have a go at talking because you posted some uh
[2036.82] Frank: just try you posted some questions okay you'll you'll have to let me know whether or not you
[2041.54] Frank: can actually hear me or whether it's just bleepy bloopy noises all right cool just talk slowly
[2048.26] Jack: and i will oh
[2053.38] Frank: okay um so green patches in the chat earlier said the ef extra is awesome and i just wanted
[2060.66] Frank: to put that in there as well because that is awesome it's good fun um and the the
[2068.74] Frank: the graphines as well i mean that kicked everything up so kind of wanted to
[2073.7] Frank: add those in there um one of the things kind of wanted to add on from what uh curry was
[2080.1] Frank: saying about the the wings little racing wings earlier um with the focus kind of coming off of
[2087.22] Frank: the the drones um is there any other areas that um all sort of trends that you kind of see
[2094.82] Frank: coming up that you think you might want to focus on or will you just kind of keep it
[2098.82] Toby Osmond: spread across rc generally yeah um we're we're i don't see necessarily any major trends that are
[2109.86] Toby Osmond: just exploding because i mean drones were a bit of an anomaly um they were led initially by the
[2116.1] Toby Osmond: innovations that were coming through in mobile phone technology so um mobile phones had the
[2121.06] Toby Osmond: accelerometers that um just kept on getting smaller and smaller and smaller um the community
[2127.46] Toby Osmond: realized those accelerometers could be used to manipulate speed controllers and before you knew
[2132.5] Toby Osmond: it you had your first sort of flight controllers and and things sort of progressed from there and
[2136.74] Toby Osmond: the accelerometers were the same ones used in the multi-we boards and that's sort of how you you
[2140.66] Toby Osmond: came along with the um multi-we speed controllers uh sorry flight controllers so that was a major
[2146.5] Toby Osmond: innovation driven by something outside of the industry which was the mobile phone industry
[2152.26] Toby Osmond: getting smaller and smaller we don't see anything bringing such new radical technologies along
[2160.66] Toby Osmond: in a lot of our other categories right now so um i mean the drone boom allowed us to focus on
[2169.22] Toby Osmond: drones and now we've got this great range of drone products i think we've got something like
[2173.38] Toby Osmond: 15 000 drone products and we're going to keep adding to that because that that consumer base
[2178.26] Toby Osmond: for drones is still there the community is still there but hobby kings probably well not probably
[2184.9] Toby Osmond: definitely um refocusing back to our original strengths and our core strengths one of the
[2189.7] Toby Osmond: reasons that made us very very big in the beginning was uh fixed wing so um you know i've seen it
[2196.02] Toby Osmond: myself my passions lie in fixed wing um when i first joined the company there was just
[2202.98] Toby Osmond: you know choice for days and it blew my mind that that the company could cater to so many
[2208.58] Toby Osmond: different aspects of fixed wing flying um you know as of a couple of months ago i was browsing our
[2213.7] Toby Osmond: site for for fixed wing stuff and there's still plenty in there but we haven't really added to it
[2218.5] Toby Osmond: much in the last three to four years and i was talking to ourselves the marketing team and our
[2222.02] Toby Osmond: category management team and engineers and they were saying it's because we poured a lot of our
[2226.66] Toby Osmond: resources into drones so we're going to refocus a lot of those guys back into fixed wing and planes
[2233.94] Toby Osmond: and um i mean i was looking at our um development pipeline uh yesterday and the day before um we
[2242.66] Toby Osmond: normally only brought to market of our own design planes maybe five or six of our own design planes
[2248.66] Toby Osmond: a year um currently for the next 12 months we've got over 50 slated for um for release so
[2257.54] Toby Osmond: we're not going to be chasing any new trend that we think is going to drive growth but we are going
[2262.74] Toby Osmond: to be refocusing back to our original customer base which was fixed wing planes and that's really
[2268.58] Toby Osmond: exciting for me because being a plane enthusiast looking at some of the the examples of products
[2274.42] Toby Osmond: that they're working on right now some of that stuff is super super super cool and are these
[2279.78] Curry: planes across everything so like gliders and sort of fast edfs and sort of fpv things yeah yeah yeah
[2288.02] Toby Osmond: so we've got um we've got a it's not like a hard and fast rule but we've we've segmented planes
[2295.54] Toby Osmond: into um i think there's five major disciplines i don't have in front of me right now um but you've
[2301.7] Toby Osmond: got your sports scale um beginner uh jet or or people who want to go fast so something like the
[2308.74] Toby Osmond: efx would would appeal to someone who's interrupted fans and into sports scale and a few other sort
[2314.5] Toby Osmond: of segments like scale and that sort of jazz and occasionally a product comes along that ticks a lot
[2318.74] Toby Osmond: of boxes so um we had a product that can fly slowly but it can also um do some mild aerobatics
[2327.3] Toby Osmond: and it was scaled so it falls into a couple of those categories we try when we're developing
[2332.1] Toby Osmond: a new product to not have too much grouped in any one of those quadrants so we don't want to bring
[2339.46] Toby Osmond: to market 16 gliders you know um and to the expense of doing no ducted fans and we don't
[2346.1] Toby Osmond: want to bring to market 16 ducted fans without doing any high wing stuff um but yeah this i think
[2351.94] Toby Osmond: the 50 or 55 models that i saw the other day there's a really good spread across the spectrum
[2357.06] Toby Osmond: there's there's some really fast stuff there's some unusual stuff um there's some sports scale
[2361.86] Toby Osmond: stuff um and these are not they're like genuinely new models like we've brought out a lot of rehashes
[2368.66] Toby Osmond: recently with new color schemes but these these new models are actually like properly you know
[2374.18] Toby Osmond: from scratch 3d renderings just totally different and do you get to uh do you get to uh try those
[2380.66] Toby Osmond: out you actually get yeah absolutely absolutely i try to be respectful of um of the designers and
[2387.54] Toby Osmond: that sort of thing because those guys are the ones who want to test flight and um if i if i'm
[2393.86] Toby Osmond: luckier if i have time i'll go along with them when they're testing a prototype that's at cnc stage
[2399.14] Toby Osmond: um and they'll give me a quick quick fly but um yeah we try to give them a lot of autonomy and
[2404.26] Toby Osmond: and the decisions completely up to them like i you know i don't i think it would be a pretty
[2408.98] Toby Osmond: dick move if they'd done all this work to get a product ready for market and i just swoop in and
[2414.18] Toby Osmond: i'm like all right guys i'm going to take it from here you know so um but yeah they're pretty kind
[2418.58] Toby Osmond: to me they let me fly stuff from time to time which is pretty good and and the way our company works
[2423.3] Toby Osmond: um yeah there's probably 10 airplane enthusiasts around the company and we're a really flat
[2429.94] Toby Osmond: organization so it's not uncommon to have a sample shifted from office to office or from person to
[2437.06] Toby Osmond: to just say hey what do you think you know um like we've got this guy in the uk he uh he's he's 70
[2444.5] Toby Osmond: years old wonderful pilot um and he's just been sent the first production sample of a plane called
[2452.26] Toby Osmond: the albatross which is like a flying boat a twin engine flying boat and that same model has done
[2457.54] Toby Osmond: the rounds in our hong kong office our sydney office me and perth um over in the netherlands
[2463.3] Toby Osmond: and now it's um with him in the uk and all of us consolidate our notes um and then our notes are
[2469.22] Toby Osmond: fed back to whoever's designing it and then that person works with the factory to make sure that
[2474.26] Toby Osmond: whatever comes to market reflects um any feedback that we've that we've put into it what's what's
[2480.42] Curry: the typical sort of drawing board to production model that's available on the store then sounds
[2485.3] Curry: like quite a quite an iterative process that takes a while then yeah absolutely um look if
[2491.78] Toby Osmond: everything goes absolutely perfectly it takes us around six months to bring a market a product up
[2498.26] Toby Osmond: from from the first concept meeting to the first sale um but nothing ever seems to go perfectly
[2504.66] Toby Osmond: so um so you're for us i think the longest i've seen a product take to get to market is about two
[2510.74] Toby Osmond: years um our average would have to be around 12 months um and that's you know um the six-month
[2520.5] Toby Osmond: thing is really if if the person designing it had nothing else on their on their to-do list
[2525.94] Toby Osmond: you know if they were only working that one model and everything just went swimmingly and there were
[2530.34] Toby Osmond: no major um things that needed to be changed so i don't know if you guys actually know the workflow
[2536.66] Toby Osmond: of of doing a model but what would happen is um someone in the office would say hey i've got this
[2543.7] Toby Osmond: great idea um we'd put it to a chat with a few of the other airplane guys to see whether or not
[2549.86] Toby Osmond: they thought it had legs if no one else thought it had legs i mean there's a right of appeal so
[2554.66] Toby Osmond: they would they would go to someone and say look i'm convinced that this is going to be the best
[2558.82] Toby Osmond: and and and it might get pushed through anyway otherwise we might push it through as a group
[2564.18] Toby Osmond: that would go to one of the aeronautical engineers who would do a 3d design and that would normally
[2569.38] Toby Osmond: work its way through solid works to make sure that the design made sense um that would get uh
[2574.98] Toby Osmond: put into a huge cnc machine which would do a cnc out of a solid block of foam which is
[2581.22] Toby Osmond: a super expensive thing to do for a model actually um and then some someone would go through and
[2587.14] Toby Osmond: custom install all of the servos into the cnc we do a test live that product bearing in mind that
[2592.82] Toby Osmond: cnc is always a little bit heavier than your final production or final mold of the plane and
[2599.62] Toby Osmond: and then they never seem to be as strong if we like the cnc and we didn't want to make any changes
[2605.22] Toby Osmond: then we might um do a first mold and and a mold is it's almost like a one meter cubed block of
[2614.34] Toby Osmond: steel that has been cnc'd from the inside right in in two halves and that is what we use to inject
[2622.98] Toby Osmond: mold our foam now those molds they're incredibly expensive they're they can they can be up to 30
[2629.54] Toby Osmond: 40 50 000 us dollars just to have the mold made um so you so when you when you go to mold you've
[2636.66] Toby Osmond: got to be damn sure that you're pretty close to that product being perfect um and we've normally
[2643.3] Toby Osmond: got about three or four changes that we make on a mold um after after we've commissioned it
[2648.98] Toby Osmond: and then uh and then like you said it turns into that iterative process of producing five or six
[2654.98] Toby Osmond: um prototypes and each prototype will go through different changes um like different flaps
[2663.14] Toby Osmond: different servos different motor combinations until we're happy with it and that can take a
[2666.9] Jack: couple of months in itself um can i propose a uh flying potato and i'll entertain you
[2676.82] Jack: it's something me and Frank put on and uh yeah i think you might be very interested it's like uh
[2683.14] Jack: especially seeing as you guys try to sell those snap together things it's kind of like that but
[2688.82] Jack: you just jam in a potato and then you fly the very popular island yeah maybe who knows speaking of
[2695.86] Jack: which though um andrew i think is trying to relate to you i think he's drinking fosters you drinking
[2700.82] Jack: fosters i am drinking fosters oh look at that trying to trying to make you feel at home
[2707.54] Toby Osmond: there you go and and i'm rocking a cup of tea so back at you
[2713.14] Jack: oh you two bonding together um yeah sorry guys yeah we haven't got the noise the
[2722.02] Jack: frank's drinking cans of thunderbird cider
[2724.42] Jack: yeah the show pushes it to them what's that what is it vb the green beer stuff that you
[2731.38] Toby Osmond: ozzy's like yeah yeah vb just caused a huge stir in australia you've got um all these like craft
[2737.22] Toby Osmond: beer snobs and uh they had a recent um a recent i don't know craft beer competition and vb um
[2745.14] Toby Osmond: secretly went and entered one of their beers into or not one of their beers their main beer vb into
[2751.38] Toby Osmond: this craft beer competition and won the competition um because it was done through blind testing so um
[2756.98] Toby Osmond: yeah they're causing a bit of a stir down here because of course all the craft beer
[2761.14] Toby Osmond: nerds were up in arms that uh a commercial beer manufacturer had won their craft beer competition
[2766.9] Jack: just with a bog standard lager oh oh dear only in australia are you are you might you come on
[2774.82] Jack: mighty uh mighty car mod fan uh yeah those guys are amazing that um that um
[2783.38] Toby Osmond: what is it the man the the fury road guy i've forgotten the name it's like a famous australian
[2793.38] Curry: movie fury bro oh shit curry kitten final sailing movies mad max thank you yeah sorry
[2804.1] Toby Osmond: thank you for that the um the 200 sx that they did up in a mad max scheme um with that crazy v8
[2809.78] Toby Osmond: hanging out the front i mean that thing was amazing and i actually got to see that thing live and it
[2814.18] Toby Osmond: was just ridiculously loud made my ears bleed it was fantastic it looks mental that thing like all
[2820.26] Jack: it does like kick up dirt and they busted the rear the rear window didn't they and whilst making it
[2826.02] Toby Osmond: it was horrendous yeah yeah we actually provided them uh with some batteries a couple of years
[2832.66] Toby Osmond: back when they were doing an ev vehicle and they did like an ev conversion for something so that
[2838.1] Toby Osmond: was really fun those guys are awesome and they're really really down to earth uh which which was
[2842.42] AndyRC: awesome for us you um you worked with peter as well didn't you on on his uh well hubby king did
[2848.58] AndyRC: right with the with his flying foam plane perhaps not aware of peter peter stripple yeah yeah i'm
[2857.06] Toby Osmond: sorry is that how became supplied yeah yeah yeah yeah um look pete's a crazy guy he's he's
[2863.94] Toby Osmond: he's such a crazy awesome inventor um i got to meet pete in one of the air shows in in the states
[2870.74] Toby Osmond: when he just done this plane he was like one of the first people who could do something that
[2874.02] Toby Osmond: could genuinely transition from vertical flight to um to like horizontal flight um and he didn't
[2880.74] Toby Osmond: even do it with a flight controller or anything it was just it was quite quite a simple design
[2884.18] Toby Osmond: but yeah he was he was that was before he joined flight test he's a really really cool guy and um
[2889.3] Toby Osmond: some of the ideas that he comes up with in the planes he does are just awesome i really enjoy
[2892.9] Curry: watching his videos were you worried as well that he was going to live stream his own death
[2897.3] Curry: i i really like his channel and the guy but i was so worried about him going up in that plane
[2901.3] Curry: like it's the reason people watch isn't it i literally believe that his parents bought
[2907.46] Jack: that puppy to try and ease the loss of their son i can't believe i tried to i i've had a few
[2915.94] Jack: emails with him about coming on the show and then he just got too busy and i've never been
[2920.42] Jack: able to like catch up with him since but yeah i've emailed him a few times but um his channel's
[2926.58] AndyRC: gone crazy i mean this is talking like get more views than flight test just on his own isn't he
[2933.86] Toby Osmond: yeah and flight tests really exploded when he came on the scene um so i think they really miss him
[2939.62] Curry: yeah definitely for me he felt a little bit stilted on flight tests since he's gone to his
[2944.66] Curry: own channel he's gone really he's got full peter i would call it yeah totally i'd agree with that
[2949.94] Jack: for sure pony's just on holiday pony will be back i've like literally the last thing in chat
[2960.9] AndyRC: you know one thing we one thing we haven't asked toby is how how did he get started in arceum
[2967.22] AndyRC: he's talked a lot about planes was it through arcy planes yourself that's your passion uh
[2972.82] Toby Osmond: yeah well um my so my my mum remarried when i was really young um i think i was uh six and the new
[2984.66] Toby Osmond: the new guy who later became my stepfather he was i guess trying to relate to me or
[2990.18] Toby Osmond: trying to get to know me a little bit and um and he took me to a local hobby shop
[2994.98] Toby Osmond: and he he said you know let's let's try something let's let's let's buy one of these products and
[3001.06] Toby Osmond: as a six-year-old you're like yes absolutely let's buy everything um and he said look you
[3006.5] Toby Osmond: know you can choose you can you can you can have a remote control car or you can have a remote
[3011.3] Toby Osmond: control plane and and this is in the 80s um so i mean helicopters were just they were just way out
[3017.7] Toby Osmond: of the the price range right so it was really just planes or or cars that i had the choice over
[3022.58] Toby Osmond: so i bounded over to the car section and i grabbed the car off the shelf and i and i
[3027.14] Toby Osmond: put it on the uh on the counter and i was like yeah i'd love this and the guy of the car
[3032.9] Toby Osmond: at the checkout he said well you know cars are great but they can go forward left and right
[3038.34] Toby Osmond: and a little bit of backwards but planes i mean think of all the things you can do with the plane
[3041.7] Toby Osmond: right like and he started talking about aerobatics and he started doing you know talking about all
[3046.58] Toby Osmond: this great stuff that was more dynamic than a car and he talked me into buying a plane and that's
[3051.46] Toby Osmond: that's how we got started so so i started off with um a cox 049 pt19 which is a line controlled plane
[3059.62] Toby Osmond: that just goes in circles around you yeah and um we had no joy with that because it had this 049
[3065.94] Toby Osmond: motor that we could never get to run and then um eventually graduated to a to a 40 size trainer
[3073.38] Toby Osmond: and yeah from there that you know the rest is history so i've been flying planes since i was
[3078.02] Toby Osmond: about six um i was very lucky that i had a really awesome airplane uh club just down the road for me
[3085.06] Toby Osmond: uh because we lived on a on a farm and um yeah i just i haven't looked back and and and i've
[3090.58] Toby Osmond: kind of gone in and out of the hobby since then like a lot since then so in my teens i kind of
[3095.7] Toby Osmond: gave it away because you know as a teenager i just kind of found more interesting things yeah
[3103.86] Toby Osmond: and then i uh and then i came back to it for a bit and then um
[3112.26] Toby Osmond: you know then i left it again like uh when i joined hobby king um i got right into it but then
[3118.74] Toby Osmond: making your hobby your work you kind of like lose the passion i guess um but i've been with
[3124.34] Toby Osmond: hobby king now for about seven or eight years and i've come back into to planes and actually
[3128.9] Toby Osmond: i'm probably like right into it right now because my office isn't in the same um office as the
[3137.3] Toby Osmond: research and design guys which means i don't get to see the stuff every day um my new role is more
[3142.9] Toby Osmond: like just looking at numbers on the screen which is awesome for me because it means i'm like kind
[3146.34] Toby Osmond: of removed from from the products on a day-to-day basis which means that when i play with them on
[3151.94] Toby Osmond: the weekends or at night when i'm working on them it's like it's a real novelty right so um so
[3158.5] Toby Osmond: actually i've i've started building bolster models again uh just from kits and um installing
[3164.5] Toby Osmond: nitro and petrol motors and that's really cool i haven't done that in such a long time
[3168.34] Toby Osmond: we've been so focused on foamy's for the last five years getting to play with that other stuff which
[3172.58] Toby Osmond: is much more intricate um yeah it's just been a real godsend for me yeah that's a that's a
[3179.22] AndyRC: great story i i i have a similar sort of you know um thing flying since i was about eight years old
[3187.54] AndyRC: and yeah come come in and out of it never made it ceo well actually actually i was going to
[3193.86] AndyRC: announce the other day on facebook that uh i was going to announce myself as the ceo of andirc
[3199.54] AndyRC: so there you go that's a pretty cool story thanks you can be ceo of let's join out if you want
[3210.1] AndyRC: i'll think about it jack
[3211.86] Curry: so is it uh is it uh the sort of scale bolster things you're into at the moment or do you like
[3222.34] Jack: to do fpv are you wearing socks and sandals that's what he's asking show us your face
[3228.82] Toby Osmond: um no i wouldn't say like i do like scale um but yeah i'm more sort of into sport models
[3235.3] Toby Osmond: and um at the moment i've got this um this weird fetish with like these 80s sports models so you
[3240.58] Toby Osmond: guys used to have this company called precedent in in the uk and they did this paper the fun flights
[3245.22] AndyRC: i had the precedent fun flight that was my yeah yeah so that's what i'm building at the moment
[3250.34] Toby Osmond: just because they're they're super cool and they're really versatile and you can just throw them in
[3253.62] Toby Osmond: the car and go and they're still going kind of like futuristic look to them what's that are they
[3258.82] AndyRC: still going precedent no i know i i got i got some plans of uh this is the fun fly the one with the
[3266.42] AndyRC: flaps i had i had that one yeah no not the one i'm building and mine's just got oversized
[3273.78] Toby Osmond: ailerons but yeah it's it's good it's really and that smell of the blue and you know it just brings
[3279.54] Jack: like so much so many memories yeah can i ask you about one of your products that i've always wanted
[3286.66] Jack: to know do you purposely make this smell nice or and is it wrong to drink it
[3296.42] Jack: this smells so nice and fruity the kick out smells nice doesn't it yeah
[3302.9] Jack: is it is it bad i don't know why they do that um so good yeah oh man i agree with you it does
[3312.74] Jack: smell really good though like sitting here and sniffing it it's weird very weird as your pupils
[3320.26] AndyRC: die late from the some of these some of these late night phone calls i got off jack are starting to
[3326.02] Jack: make sense now yeah that's it jack you're the kicker again i go to hobby king i'm like
[3332.34] Jack: i've ordered a load of kicker i'm like why aren't any of these cold
[3339.14] Toby Osmond: oh my god come over to my house and get on the kicker
[3343.14] Jack: yes definitely yeah i know get on get on the odd kicker uh doby it was amazing to have you on i
[3349.94] Jack: would have spoke more but the guys just love talking to you it's been an absolute pleasure
[3354.66] Jack: if you do move time zones give us a shout you got our email and we'll have you back on
[3360.26] Jack: um but we love to you know we've gone to our slot and we'd love to get you to go sleep and
[3366.9] Toby Osmond: have some rest yeah thanks guys look um thanks for inviting me on because um one thing that
[3374.1] Toby Osmond: was glaringly obvious to me when i first took this role was that hobby king is too much of
[3380.02] Toby Osmond: a close shop so um the the we're not transparent enough with how we deal with the public and that
[3387.06] Toby Osmond: was really hit home to me when i when i was chatting to you guys at the uk event and i
[3391.54] Toby Osmond: won't say who but one of you guys was really really enthusiastic about me coming on board
[3396.5] Toby Osmond: and you spoke about all the the pros and um and i really got the sense that there's this kind of
[3402.34] Toby Osmond: like um there's this willingness that the community wants us to succeed you know i think
[3408.58] Toby Osmond: a strong hobby king is good for the hobby because you know we were one of the first companies to
[3412.74] Toby Osmond: really lower prices to the point where it kind of democratized the hobby it took it out of that like
[3416.9] Toby Osmond: expensive elitist category um where the every man could get in and we use the term every man at
[3422.98] Toby Osmond: work a lot um because that that's like our ideal customer right it's just every person so um yeah
[3430.74] Toby Osmond: thanks for having us on um i'm gonna try get the message out there more i'd love to come on more
[3435.38] Toby Osmond: if people do have any specific questions for me uh we've got a forum on our own site uh and there's
[3441.14] Toby Osmond: a little section there called talk to toby um you're more than welcome to pop a question in there
[3445.14] Jack: and i'll reply as quickly as i can if you after this you can post the link in the uh description
[3452.34] Jack: and chat if you want on on once this video goes up so that'll be quite a good thing to do and um
[3458.98] Jack: i remember the first interview with flight test how like you know hobby king's not we're the king
[3463.22] Jack: of hobbies it's we make you the king of your hobby yeah yeah i remember that and it it allowed me
[3470.74] Jack: in scrubs like andy rc here except you banned him um you know to get into the hobby by the way
[3478.02] AndyRC: yeah we wouldn't shall i explain what happens before we go it's like it's like oh look at you
[3484.82] Jack: give you sell shovels on hobby king
[3488.18] AndyRC: you know dig out though carry on andy i just i just had one bad experience and it was in 2012
[3497.38] AndyRC: so that was so it's gone but before quads existed i bought um it was a helicopter uh like one of the
[3506.66] AndyRC: first mini ones with the fly barless and stuff like that and it it never turned up just never
[3514.1] AndyRC: came for and i it must have just gotten lost and me being me and it being my very first purchase
[3521.22] AndyRC: overseas actually um yeah i i think i raised the paypal dispute and they and uh they they closed
[3529.46] AndyRC: my account until i would reopen the pay close the paypal dispute anyways i got i did get my
[3536.1] AndyRC: money back but um yeah it was just that it was just a bought from hobby king since and and that
[3542.18] Toby Osmond: was i'm not i'm not bad there's been some appalling um policies that have gone through
[3549.54] Toby Osmond: our customer service channel like particularly five or six years ago there were some really
[3555.78] Toby Osmond: appalling ones so there was this one where um i mean mistakes happen like we're shipping tens
[3561.06] Toby Osmond: of thousands of products uh tens of thousands of orders every day so mistakes are going to happen
[3566.1] Toby Osmond: right and um occasionally uh someone would would get a box and something wasn't inside it
[3573.7] Toby Osmond: so they'd complain to customer service and our customer service team would say
[3577.38] Toby Osmond: hey can you send us a photo of the missing part yeah i yes which is just like it just makes your
[3586.34] Toby Osmond: mind boggle anyway so um so that was like a random policy that was that that originated from
[3592.98] Toby Osmond: just this employee who obviously just wasn't thinking about it and to give you to put in
[3597.46] Toby Osmond: perspective we've got over 200 people just in customer service so um yeah it was difficult
[3603.38] Toby Osmond: to find out who came up with this policy and how it managed to find its way into our
[3607.78] Toby Osmond: customer service manual but once we did it got weeded out and uh and it's no longer the case
[3614.1] Toby Osmond: but um that was a really good example of some really shithouse service um and yeah we're
[3621.46] Toby Osmond: definitely taking steps to to not do that again that's good because that's that's kind of my
[3626.26] Curry: example i got all upset i got a big uh plane it was the buffalo fx 79 great big two meter wing and
[3634.5] Curry: it had this one capacitive nut that goes in the wing joint and missing and so i said this is
[3641.14] Curry: missing can you can you get me one and i said no send the plane back and we'll send you a replacement
[3647.46] Curry: and i was like this is this box is this big and i just and the cost of sending it back would just
[3652.26] Curry: be extraordinary yeah i was like can you not open a box and send me the nut from that box
[3657.06] Curry: and yeah and i mean ironically i just i took one email to zeta science who made it and they sent me
[3662.98] Curry: it uh which kind of upset me at the time but it's good to hear things are changing and you've
[3669.38] Toby Osmond: weeded out the bad ideas i mean stuff like that i can i can almost i can almost isolate why it
[3675.62] Toby Osmond: happened um so we used to have this massive customer service team in the philippines which
[3682.42] Toby Osmond: i mean those guys worked really really hard but none of them were modelers so when someone would
[3686.9] Toby Osmond: ring up and say i'm missing a four by ten uh hex head screw they go oh well i'll have to send them
[3694.9] Toby Osmond: a whole new model so i'll need the old model back um and then i mean that's just it just doesn't
[3701.3] Toby Osmond: make any sense right so um one of the first things that i did when i took over customer service in
[3706.58] Toby Osmond: 2013 was i started a new york customer service team and and they're all modelers so there's
[3713.3] Toby Osmond: about 20 or 30 guys in that office and all of these guys have like years and years and years
[3718.82] Toby Osmond: of experience so when you contact them and you say i'm missing a screw or i'm missing this nut
[3723.38] Toby Osmond: they'll just send you the screw or they'll just send you the nut they're not going to
[3726.66] Toby Osmond: ask you to return the entire box um but yeah that was that was a big deal for us because some
[3731.94] Toby Osmond: of the customer service claims coming through it was some of the some of the experiences i was
[3735.46] Toby Osmond: reading online of people's customer service experiences were just terrible and and frankly
[3740.9] AndyRC: embarrassing well that's great that that has been addressed and uh yeah it's a work in progress i
[3748.1] Toby Osmond: wouldn't say we're perfect yet we've still got a long way to go i think great no that's great
[3753.62] AndyRC: thanks for answering those questions so are we are we ready to wrap up guys yep no worries
[3759.14] Jack: we will be on patreon with uh our bonus pod after this so if you guys like to go to the patreon
[3768.02] Jack: the links in the chat and we will be chatting for another hour after that to to say thank you
[3774.98] Jack: for all the lovely patreons that help support and keep this show alive um tonight we have
[3781.14] Jack: been joined by andrew slash frank goodbye uh the not so hated by hobby king anymore
[3789.7] Jack: andy rc good evening everyone you're still northern no so there's nothing we can do about that
[3795.38] Jack: uh we've been joined by toby see you guys thank you very much and stay in touch we're here if
[3801.62] Jack: you need us um also feel free to look up andy rc's address and send him hold who from hobby king
[3808.82] Jack: as a sort of you know that's what you get there's your paper i would like to apologize
[3819.3] Jack: on the behalf of me and wane for stealing your hobby king uh vehicle she doesn't know anything
[3825.62] Jack: about it he does he does gar from uh galaxy hobby he's probably grasped on us uh have you not seen
[3834.18] Curry: that video no no he looks confused you're just dreaming this now don't worry about it
[3842.26] Jack: did you guys steal the range rover yeah sorry
[3847.7] Jack: it's not stealing if you bring it back again afterwards yeah it's tonking taking without asking
[3854.18] Jack: um uh curry kitten goodbye and i've been jack bright until i fly thank you very much guys
[3861.54] Jack: have a good evening remember we are on patreon three dollars or more you can watch the bonus show
[3866.82] Jack: good night telemetry last hey guys it's jack here big massive shout out to our patreons
[3876.98] Jack: so these guys are the guys who donate for the editing and they really do make a huge difference
[3885.7] Jack: keep the show alive uh we've been sponsored by art falconer ferdy evas mike dread and under fluke
[3893.94] Jack: these guys are absolute legends thank you so much and see you next show