An Update
Hey All!
Its been a couple of months since this site has gone live and in that time I have done a lot of thinking and tinkering on what I want it to be and how I want to approach building this as a business and a brand. I think there are a few things that is preventing me from promoting this further than those of you that stumble on some of this stuff organically (I see the traffic. I know you are there. Hello!)
A couple of things that I feel are my biggest hurdles
Money - It takes money to build a business. Just to get to this point it is surprisingly expensive. I believe there is a market opportunity, I want to chase it, but how fast I can chase and how big we can go depends on how much investment we can funnel into this.
Marketing - I have done literally no marketing to date. People don’t know Clutsh exists, and that is on purpose for right now, but this will be a huge thing for Clutsh when I am ready. In general, I find that businesses that tell people they exist have more success than those that dont do that.
Time - I still work full time. The reason why is I like eating and paying bills. Even though I have a great reason to be working full time outside of Clutsh, it does mean that I am finding a balance between the opportunity that exists with Clutsh and the commitments I have made to my current role.
When I launched this site and started working on this project I told you all that I would be open, and transparent. Part of that at this stage is just sharing where I am and what is happening as Clutsh continues to evolve and grow. I hope to have more material things to share in the coming months!
Outside of Clutsh and my full time job, I have a life to live! This week we took a few days off and headed up to the Tail of the Dragon for some twisties! It was a fun trip! We took the Focus RS and the Subaru STi and both handled the road awesome! I remain steadfast in my belief that the RS is a better car for those roads, but the STi was driven right behind me down the dragon and it kept up really well. The STi is capable, just a larger car and more of a handful to maintain a quick pace.
There were a couple of things that we encountered on this trip, because of course no trip can go perfectly.
When we were driving to the mountains, I could smell some sort of burning plastic or rubber smell coming from the RS. Sometimes is was really strong, sometimes it was faint, sometimes it went away entirely. We were trying to pinpoint what it could be with ideas being maybe its a clutch-pack in the AWD system slipping, or maybe its an undertray getting hot .. or maybe its wiring melting. The strange thing is the more I drove, the less I smelled it. I never had a dash light or any mechanical symptom that accompanied it. All the functions worked in the car, etc. When I got back from the Dragon, I took it right to a Ford dealership for repair (below) and inspenction and it came away from that with a clean bill of health. Its a mystery, and I think it will remain a mystery.
Puncture! When we pulled over for a stop along the skyway and to get some photos, I noticed something metallic sticking out of the RS front-right tire. It looked small, maybe even small enough to not be a full puncture so we removed it and sprayed the hole with some soapy water .. sure enough, it was a puncture. Turned out the metallic item was an earing. The leak was so small, we just checked it every once in a while and topped off the tire, and then when we got back that is when I took it to the dealership for repair. The other thing it needed was a state inspection so it was a good opportunity to get both done before it is parked in the garage for a bit.
All in all, it is hard to complain about the small things. We had a blast in some of the most capable cars on the road, and got away from the city for a couple of days. It was nice. Below are some photos from our trip!
I will keep you all updated on Clutsh. As far as I am concerned, we are in this together. Buying a car sucks, and it will take effort and time to reverse course. Have a great day y’all!
