Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “We talked to the New CaseLabs”.
Oh, why don’t we do our? Let’S do our new segment yeah, this segment is called Original sauce. This is cool yeah. I like this and basically it’s just going to be um, finding something. That’S a development in the tech world, like we have people reach out to us all the time going, uh, here’s something that’s happening or hear someone. We think you might like to talk to you.
Do you want to have this person on the podcast? Do you want to make a video about this, and you know what the answer is? Usually no, because they have the personality of um untoasted, toast bread or it’s not really interesting enough for like a full video channel release, because we can’t just upload BS anymore. The way that we apparently used to so original sauce is going to be how we’re going to tackle this stuff, where we kind of go okay, yeah. We can definitely set aside the time to have an off-the-air phone call figure out if this is worth talking about and then compile some notes and let the community know about it. So, every once in a blue moon, it’s enough that we end up making a dedicated video, but probably not, but probably not so we’re going to the original sauce. And in this case, what we’re going to be talking about is case Labs coming back from the dead. So this was all compiled by the new Wan show writer, who interviewed the new owner of case Labs Emil, Ritter’s dead, anywho uh, the new owner of the case Labs IP so case. Labs was first founded in 1971 and shut down in 2018, citing High U.S tariffs on the import of aluminum, a primary component of their builds, which had gone up in price by like 80, or something like that. So they said their prices were just not going to be realistic.
They weren’t going to be able to compete. Um Emil is a long time. Pc and gaming.
Enthusiast who’s been building his own PCS for over 20 years and until 2021 he was the owner and founder of a consulting company that assisted Swedish researchers in collecting data in 2017. Emil bought a case Labs case for one of his builds a case he loved. So much that when the company collapsed in 2018, he reached out to Jim Keating the former CEO to discuss, acquiring it a process that was delayed by legal wrangling and the pandemic sounds about right.
So this is according to Emil. His approach to Reviving The Brand is cautiously optimistic, heavy on the caution uh, based on the finances of the former case Labs. He believes that the company was on a consistent upward trajectory with strong fundamentals, but the basic combination of high overhead and an excessively niche market meant that it could not survive the macroeconomic conditions that it faced in 2018.
So his hope is they’ll be able to restart case Labs as a boutique custom case producer, but also expand into more General broad appeal products to give them a foundation of Revenue while maintaining quality. The team is currently small and I would say that this is now me talking. I would say this is going to be a big challenge, because case Labs is Advantage, was um expertise when it came to small run metal fabrication.
It’S unclear to me exactly what expertise, Emil and his team are bringing uh, but it might not have started with that. Given Emil’s previous employment, but okay, I mean and because they’re not they’re, not doing the fabrication yeah. So the team is currently small, and this was one thing that I had actually asked the writer to to check in about, because I had to have a case Labs case that I like very much and was sad to discover that I can no longer get replacement Parts for and apparently that’s their plan to start with is to focus on Replacements and parts, ideally by the end of this financial quarter. That seems aggressive, they’re, going to start with high demand items and then expand once consistent. Sales are established, launch a survey in order to collect more data. So if you’re a case Labs case owner now might be a good time to get in touch and say hey, I could really use more Drive, sleds or something along those lines.
They eventually wish to create and design cases and bring fabrication in-house, and the current plan is to partner with an existing manufacturer in Sweden so as to keep overhead low. Oh that’s questionable! I don’t know that low overhead in Sweden necessarily go together very well. Well, I think in this case, because it’s local, I guess so um, but they also want to maintain a close eye on quality testing. I admire the I admire the the will. You know I admire the spirit here. I think that you know resurrecting a beloved brand like case labs for those not familiar uh.
They made highly customizable very Enthusiast friendly enclosures. I I think that trying to resurrect a brand like that is really cool um, but I do question a little bit the um. I do think it’s going to be extremely challenging. I mean there’s apparently still enough demand for these the style of case that mountain mods still exists.
This is this is surprising to me. Uh super cool folks over here from what I can remember. It’S been a long time and who knows? Maybe you know Ben’s, not there anymore, but um. You know who knows maybe maybe they are, but these guys make kind of a a similar style of cube case.
I don’t know who was the original in this style, but man, one of my one of my favorite builds I ever did – was in the h2go. This is it was it I think it was matx yeah yeah, yeah yeah. It can do full ATX, but I did an matx build so that I’d have more room for like a cool Reservoir beside it or something like that yeah These Guys these guys did some cool stuff back in the day, but I just don’t know you know unless Case labs sort of reinvents themselves and looks at different form factors or different styles of cases. I don’t know that they are going to be able to achieve the kind of volume that would give them the growth that they might need to jump start this budding company.
I hope they have a lot of run away and if they don’t um or rather and if they do diversify, then I do wonder if they’re going to be left with what made them case Labs like if they’re going to be left with an identity um. Hopefully it works out. I liked case lives. I thought they were super cool.
It’S it’s intriguing that they’re back, but I don’t know if any of the original people are there at all. No, it doesn’t sound like it yeah. So, in that case, it’s a brand name with some IP and not the people and case Labs was a very people-driven company, because you have to be when you’re small, yeah and doing Boutique things. So it’s a tough situation. Hopefully it goes well.
Yeah cyborg cats asks uh the silver and float plane chat. I wonder if lmg would or has ever considered designing their own cases or even pre-builds um cases yeah sure we’ve talked about it. I remember I basically designed what would turn into a pretty common small form factor form fact of small, a small form factor case layout later with um my bud Nate at uh, who was at Cooler Master at the time.
I kind of sat there and looked at one of their designs and I was like yeah, but it would be better if it was like this and this and this and then it could be like almost the size of a PlayStation 4. and then we ended up Seeing a bunch of cases that were like that and then one of the other things I was really passionate about was the idea of building gaming cases that are designed for rack mount and then um, oh crap. What’S the company that does a really really good job of those uh? Now I don’t remember, but you worked with them for a bit, didn’t you uh they sent over a sliger, uh, wait! Yes, yes, liger sliger exists and they seem to be doing a great job of those style of case. So for me, I would have to find something that nobody else is doing, that I feel like the market needs, and it’s just never really happened at least not at the right time with us having the right resources in order to bring something like that to life.
As for pre-builts, I mean I raised all of my concerns about the pre-built PC business when we reviewed the star forage system that we did a little while back I’ll, Never Say Never. .