VFE Pedals Takes Off - Chapter Two

Officially launched in January 2010, "VonRutter Family Effects" began while I was still teaching full-time. My brother had lost his job and was helping build my pedal designs, which helped grow sales before I took the leap that summer.

ABOVE: This is the first photo I posted when I launched VFE's Facebook page.

When I began VFE Pedals, all I had was a website and some listings on eBay. I don't have pictures of the original website anymore - but I remember building it using Apple's iWeb software. I was new to everything in the business world, but I was about to get educated.

My last paycheck from my teaching job was set for September 2010. After that, VFE would have to pay the bills. I got my first hard lesson that summer about the seasonal nature of pedal sales. I barely sold anything - so I put together a bunch of custom dual-pedals and posted them on eBay to get more sales. Things were threatening to go under in the first few months. But in September, sales spiked up and continued upward for the next 2-3 years.

The VFE Custom Shop is born

I designed all my pedals around the same drill template. This allowed me to quickly build custom pedals and design new ones. A man named Razvan contacted me through Facebook from Romania. He wanted to help build a true custom shop store, where customers could select from myriad options to make a one-of-a-kind creation.

Razvan spent many unpaid hours building out the database and user interface to let VFE customers design their own pedals. I sent him some pedals for his work, as I could not afford to pay him any other way.

When it was finished, I was able to load dozens of effects, custom paint colors, knobs, LED colors, graphics, switching systems, and more. Customers could even load their own graphics into the editor, which I would then print using a flatbed UV inkjet printer. I still get questions like "Is this a VFE Pedal?" from customers on the used market who stumble upon one of these custom creations - and nearly every time, it is a custom shop pedal.

ABOVE: The VFE Custom Shop Wizard allowed customers to design their own pedal from the ground up.

Growth isn't always a friend

My fatal flaw as an entrepreneur was a drive to innovate my pedal ideas while spending little time to develop a plan to turn a healthy profit. I had kept prices low because I didn't know that I needed to plan for growth - I had to pay our personal bills, but I also had to grow sales to make VFE Pedals successful in the long-run. There wasn't enough margin to do both well, so VFE began to rack up debt to grow inventory & manufacturing capacity.

By 2012, VFE was selling about 1000 pedals a year. If sales had simply remained flat from that moment on, I may still be designing & building pedals as my full-time job.

ABOVE: Peter at NAMM 2013, showcasing 16 pedals less than one year after starting wholesale distribution.

Over the first quarter of 2013, I had a couple employees AND I was working a part-time job as a math teacher. VFE Pedals was sharing warehouse space with a friend of mine, and sales were continuing nicely - but I was beginning to lose money because of how much capital this phase of growth required. I was working more than ever, and was making less profit because of it.

My biggest mistake

In April 2013, I made the decision to suspend wholesale distribution while I stripped down production, re-worked every pedal design and built healthier pricing margins. When I resumed wholesale distribution near the end of the year, the blow had been dealt - dealers & distributors were hesitant to add VFE Pedals after such an abrupt change.

If I could go back in time and give my 33-year-old self some advice, it would be this - tell your dealers that you won't be able to keep up with demand for a season, and that you are working on ways to improve manufacturing efficiency. The people in this industry understand these problems, and none of them will be mad if you can't keep up with sales (because that's a good problem to have).