Should i sell my job as a Power Supply company owner?

[cupoftea]

Hi,
Do you agree that I must sell off my Power Supply company? I make several switch mode power supplies which I sell to into the Horti-LED market.

Obviously, like pretty much all Switch Mode Power Supplies out there, there is no “secret IP” tied up in them. As you know, virtually all Switch Mode Power Supplies are no secret and their design details are all over the web, and anyone could start making them, since its just general electronics. As such, I have no “Intelligent product” which is of any value…anyone could start making my stuff and put me out of business. They wouldn’t even need to reverse engineer the power supplies that I make…I mean, they wouldn’t bother, they would just design and make their own.
I mean, a general SMPS (as virtually all of them out there are) is no "Radar signal processor."
It wouldnt be worth anybody copying someone else's switch mode power supply...because, to copy a switch mode power supply,
you need the full design capability of it...and if you have that, then why copy?..just make your own fresh power supply
for the spec

It’s the unfortunate thing about the Switch Mode Power Supply world that there really are no secrets out there. (well, maybe for things like Vicor Module internals, (but precious few power supply companys make that kind of thing). SMPS are, the mechanical equivalent of “Spanners and screwdrivers”….everybody can find out about them, and anyone can start making them to whatever spec.
I once had a student working for me who put my Schems on the web..people were surprised when i let him.....why not?...this stuff is all out there anyway.
Imagine trying to keep your socket set a secret so your competitors couldnt find out about them. Thats "effectively" the same thing.
Most UK power supply companys today anyway, are simply just token "entities", behind which sits the real money earner, the
"behind the scenes Chinese Power Supply import department". The UK switch mode power supply industry is virtually
entirely owned by China.

As such, I have been approached by a Chinese consortium, who have offered me a very large sum for the company. Do you think I should take the money? Has anyone been in this place and “not sold out”, and regretted it?

 

[BradtheRad]

* Try to align yourself with the future of whatever field you're in. Is the technology shifting to something else? Is consumer demand shifting the market somewhere else?

* What and how much did you invest in your business? I get the impression you're emotionally attached to electronics engineering. And capable. One recommendation for us all is 'Follow your dream.'

* Real life gets in everyone's way of their goal. Making a living is a tough goal we can't avoid. Civil rulers in Europe are mouthing more and more edicts that prevent ordinary people from performing ordinary work. Do you see moves toward outlawing private business? Or moves outlawing your line of work? Or outlawing people from using your goods or services?

* Someone said the best line of work we can do is where we'd be hardest to replace.

* Businesses tend to transition through stages. Each phase flourishes under a certain skillset in its CEO. As CEO you may find you have skills to succeed in one phase but not in the following phase.

* Does the offer contain a clause stating you yourself must not stay in the type of work you do? Does a certain length of time prohibit you from working at a similar job in town?

* My own outlook: With numerous increasing reports of fake IC's or components (or 'nil stock' in your posts more than once), it seems like an engineer must create workarounds. Maybe he must use older techniques or components that are not state-of-the-art. They may be more bulky. They may be assemblies of simpler components which are easily tested as being fake or genuine. If hardware is difficult to obtain, then expertise may need to focus on writing expert code to yield versatility from obtainable hardware.

 

[dick_freebird]

Ask your present and potential customers whether
they'd rather buy from you or China. Some are about
price and some are about stability. What thet say ought
to illuminate the road ahead.

Of course the picture changes with the number of
digits (left of decimal) in the offer. $100K and retire
in a caravan, $10M and retire in the Caribbean, what
you want is for you to decide.