It's interesting to compare the start up costs and manufacturing philosophy that are behind the milaana as compared to, say, the grasshopper.
The gh, as evidenced in the videos posted, requires lots of steps to manufacture, special metals, unique battery, hi cost machines (that they're really proud of), lots of precision steps (that are easy to mess up and hard to get right) and many, many modifications to the manufacturing process along the way just so they can get out a product that is fairly trouble free. Six sigma is likely going to be in their future to maintain quality.
The milaana on the other hand is a chunk of unfinished wood with some holes drilled in it. Then some off-the-shelf parts are jammed in it. A piece of wood is glued on the bottom. Done ... and out of that simplicity falls a pretty damn good vaporizer.
Now, some people might be buying high tech purposely, sucked into the hype, but really just wanting a good vaporizer. When I compare the performance of the milaana as compared to the gh, milaana wins in almost every category. There is a specific use case where the gh fills the niche better, but the milaana ends up in my hand much more frequently than the gh (which does end up in my hand, but normally just because it's nice to fondle, but a bit of a pain to use frequently).
So for high tech feel in the hand, the gh comes into play. For just pure vaporization and ease of use, the milaana pushes the gh aside and rather quickly and completely.
Anyway, I wonder who's made the better business decisions here? I mean, due to their heavy investment in the process and in manufacturing machines to support a very lengthy, specific and precision manufacturing process, GHL is now weighed down and going to be stuck doing exactly what they're doing right now for a long time (if possible). Just having put this all in place (heavy and now fixed investment) means they're sort of stymied in that they can't move fast and need also to recover that large investment. I think they're more or less in a corner.
The business behind milaana on the other hand, clearly has very limited investment, and the returns on that can let them easily move in any direction.
As a business positioned for the future, ghl seems hobbled. But they've done an excellent job on marketing, I mean except for some here and on reddit, who's ever heard of a milaana? On the other hand, who hasn't been exposed to ghl's marketing?
RBT has done an excellent job of providing a basic, flexible and powerful portable vape, without the costly high tech and without any difficult design or manufacturing. But no one is going to just look at it and say "Wow, that's high tech!". Well, not until they take a hit or two anyway. I'd call it "smart tech".
There is beauty in simplicity, and cost in 'high tech' that doesn't always result in high performance. RBT really stands to profit if their marketing strategy can take off, which they're apparently going to do via distributors.
It's too bad I was hoping to have an extra.
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