The thing that never changes is that time is more valuable than money. There are people who don't want to mess with this stuff, no matter how DIY it may be. Those are our clients. They will always be around. The quantity of this work of course is driven by the vibrance of the economy - better economy, more money to spend on toys.

BTW, you could make a decent list of "DIY" stuff that is still not DIY for many of our clients. It is only DIY for certain types of people. Some of the things I install most frequently may be DIY in your book. Doesn't matter - it is a bona fide solution and makes people happy when you make it work for them.

Our job is to keep our ear to the ground and make sure we have reliable products and not stuff that may or may not work. Then you make sure it's installed right and installed neat. Last, you make sure that your service is good after the sale, keeping everything working. That gets us referrals and keeps the wheels turning.

Nailed it, Tom.

Exactly. Its like nobody has been in front of a Doctor, Lawyer, Professor, Plumber and tried to explain a basic AV or networking concept.

I can screw 2 pipes together and have water come out the other end, but do you think I want to deal with that shit?

I find a guy that does good work and doesn't jack me around, and I call him as needed. He sends invoice, I pay it.

For anyone wondering about the size of the pockets of the company that owns Snap and now C4 the following is from their website. Hellman & Friedman. https://hf.com/ Read the last sentence.

Hellman & Friedman was founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman. Warren and Tully met during their respective careers at Lehman Brothers and Salomon Brothers and believed there was an opportunity to create an investment and advisory firm west of the Mississippi. Tully left in 1997 to form FFL, a successful middle-market private equity firm. Warren remained with the company until his death in 2011, and the firm we are today is a direct reflection of their leadership. Over our investing history, we have raised over $50 billion of committed capital and have invested in over 90 companies.

$50 billion in funds raised, no telling what that has gone up to now. There is also this from Wikipedia

H&F invests through a series of private equity funds (structured as limited partnerships) and its investors include a variety of pension funds, endowments and other institutional investors:
•1984 — Hellman & Friedman I
•1991 — Hellman & Friedman II ($826 million)
•1995 — Hellman & Friedman III ($1.5 billion)
•2000 — Hellman & Friedman IV ($2.2 billion)
•2004 — Hellman & Friedman V ($3.5 billion)
•2007 — Hellman & Friedman VI ($8.4 billion)[24]
•2011 — Hellman & Friedman VII ($8.8 billion)[25]
•2014 — Hellman & Friedman VIII ($10.9 billion)[26]

That is not including this from Oct 2018 about the funding of Hellman & Frideman IX.

Hellman & Friedman’s latest flagship has closed on $16 billion, according to an SEC filing. Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners IX LP is the second largest buyout fund raised by the PE firm, the Wall Street Journal said. The $16 billion includes capital raised through parallel funds and a general-partner commitment, the WSJ said.

That means they have 16B that they need to put to work. If they need more they will just issue another fund. What they spent on C4 is nothing to them. Take a look at the website, they have a list of the companies they own and more importantly the bios of the people working there. These aren’t dumb people. They have a plan for Snap/C4 and the money to make it happen. It will be good for them, probably not so good for the CI industry.

And now Snap exclusively distributes Klipsch?

Huh? I just went to their site to search for Klipsch and it found nothing.

Never mind-

[Link: cepro.com]

HF has a hugely diverse portfolio.

If anyone wanted more proof about my prediction about this being a DTC endgamel I think it is right there. I didnt know they acquired Simpli Safe last year.

THIS might even make ADT and the like shake a little bit.

C4/Snap/Endless pockets can over turn our industry and the security industry on its head overnight. You are right, they basically acquired control4 for pennys. to wallstreet and the like it looks like they overpaid, but those are not dumb people running Snap.