I am not sure we could have done that a few decades ago.
Thanks to the reach that we have built, we were able to find the players who wanted one instrument with that diversity. In 2017, we will celebrate the 10th anniversary for our Hybrid Special and over that decade it has been one of our top sellers. When we first introduced it, we expected it to be a nice little product. However, one product category that really benefited from our approach was what we call the Hybrid: a solid body model with both traditional magnetic pickups and an acoustic pickup in the bridge.
Acoustic basses and mandolins continue to be key products for us and we continue to surprise our dealers when they see how big the potential really is for these categories. Tracy Hoeft: Over time, we have expanded our product line and continued to use the reach of digital marketing to allow us to explore more specialized products. Would you talk about the growth of your product line since the initial mandolin and acoustic bass offerings? Staying true to its founding strategy, the company continues to thrive by catering to niche market segments, using a suite of sophisticated digital marketing tools to identify and connect with customers. Nearly two decades later, Michael Kelly Guitars has expanded its product line to include a variety of specialized electric and acoustic guitars, basses, and mandolins.
Starting out with mandolins and acoustic basses, Hoeft and his team quickly found that the demand for niche products was far greater than they had anticipated. At the same time, the Internet boom of the late ‘90s was opening up new means of targeting and connecting with a broader base of consumers, allowing for more efficient and effective marketing to these specific segments. This, he realized, left a number of potentially profitable niche consumers and product areas underserved. Before launching his own company, Hoeft had noticed that the major guitar brands were focused almost exclusively on the most popular market segments. Tracy Hoeft founded Michael Kelly Guitars in 1999 after seven years of working for Gibson and Dean Guitars.
Dean guitar history tracy hoeft password#
We have opened a discussion thread in the Pub section discussing this. We will include a very detailed password checklist.A guitar manufacturer finds success targeting a niche market. We want to highly recommend that members turn on and use TGP's two-factor authentication option. We highly recommend every member reading this change their passwords as a precaution. We have forced email revalidation for all members that have not signed on for a while. None of the accounts compromised were using two-factor authentication. Talking to one member as I am working through getting his account back in order, he informed me that his Apple password manager had been compromised and made available on the dark web. In today's world, that is false confidence you can no longer afford.Įvery account that I've restored so far to the original owner was using compromised passwords. It is heartbreaking to see that the lure of saving some money will still fool people into using those methods to save a few dollars. Unfortunately, we cannot control how members do deals. However, the best way to prevent this is for members to exercise proper password hygiene (which I'll detail below), turn on two-factor authentication, and - I implore every single person here - only use payment methods that have buyer protection. We've made security changes that I don't want to detail here to stop them. They have scammed members in the Emporiums by creating ads with stolen photos and requesting Paypal F&F or Venmo exclusively for payment. Some fraudsters have compromised TGP accounts have in the past few days.