What was the moment like when you realized the Ego was going to be everything you hoped for ?
I wish I could pinpoint it down to one single moment where we thought we had ‘ done it ’ but there just wasn ’ t . We took a huge risk developing and launching the EGO platform and even when we launched it we still didn ’ t know if it was going to tick the boxes of the players , dealers , media , etc . We knew what we wanted from the EGO but that doesn ’ t always coincide with what the players want . Have we got the price right ? Will the dealers take a risk stocking it ? Will it work as well as we hope it will in different environments around the world ? Is the styling good ? Are the colors nice ? Is it too long , too short , too wide , etc , etc …
If the EGO project failed , Planet Eclipse could very well have closed down . We probably had less than 10 staff at that time , so the pressure wasn ’ t great - you are always worried that something is going to go wrong . Pretty much all of our eggs were in the EGO basket . You start advertising in all of the print paintball magazines around the world because you have to get your adverts in months before the mags hit the shelf and you still don ’ t know if you will get any sales . At this point you ’ re so deep into the hole that it doesn ’ t become a champagne-popping moment at launch , it becomes a huge relief when you see that what you have created does in fact tick the boxes . That sort of feeling is still with us today . Every launch has the same roller coaster of emotions . We haven ’ t always gotten it right but thankfully we have gotten it right more often than wrong .
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