The last 2 months have been… insane…

Well, I never thought I’d be this busy… From registering ATD as a LTD company and dealing with the formalities of being a Director, Finance Director, Head of Purchasing, Head of Retail, IT Support, Website Admin, Sales admin, Warehouse Director and everything else in between… it’s been fantastic to see the hard work paying off. We must have shifted the MOST Xshot PP’s out of any retailer here in the UK. Demand is so high I’ve had to pull in a few forecasting favours with my supplier to get more. Again, thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered or purchased an Xshot PP. Revenue generated from this goes into other purchases as at this early stage I’m not paying myself at all. It sounds cliche and cringe but my payment is seeing the business grow. I did NOT think it would happen this quickly!

I just about managed to get all of the First Wave of PP’s out to shipping literally hours before I was due to be at Heathrow to go to LA/Hawaii. Instead of just packing suitcases my wife was draughted in to get all orders out on time. I’ve been reminded of this several times… Whilst away the store continued to take orders and I wanted to thank everyone who waited patiently for me to get back. No sooner had I landed and unpacked I was back at it again processing 2 weeks worth of orders and finalising Wave 2 of the PP preorder. This was a mental marathon with plenty of caffeine as 25 hours of waiting and flights prior meant it took a little longer than I wanted… My feet didn’t touch the ground..!

We’ve taken restocks of Worker Darts with Full Length Darts due in soon. The Spectre SuperCore is imminent so I’m preparing for that too. Then there’s planning for the HC Vespa and the Worker Hardware/Blaster Restock… It never ends. But this is good. It would be boring if it were easy! Thank you to my overseas supplier for being such a legend. Apparently neither of us sleep regardless of time zone..!

On top of this ATD has secured supply deals with Overlander and Sky RC for Batteries, Chargers and accessories. This is a full circle moment for me as I worked in an RC Specialist as a teenager and it’s strange seeing the same names on emails from the same suppliers I dealt with 15-20 years ago. Thank you to Ian for the experience and opportunity so early on in my career (you know who you are).

So, what’s next?

More chaos..! HC Vespa, New product launches, more games (Karhazi: Aftermath on the 25th October), attending more games and connecting with more suppliers. We’ve had to halt the 3D print venture for now while we iron out some capacity challenges but this isn’t far off. Thankfully I’ve got plenty to be getting on with!

Thanks again to all of our customers and supporters. Here’s to Q4 2025..!