Hey guys - Ryan from nud here. Thanks CSquare43 for the mention; thought I'd pop in to clarify a couple of things.
It has come up a couple of times in the reddit thread as well, but the frame is not sourced from any of the direct-to-consumer manufacturers.
You're right that it would've taken me less time to call up Dengfu - it took me over a year to set this up because I wanted to do it right. That meant checking out more than one manufacturer and ordering not just more than one frame model, but also more than one sample of each model for lab and ride testing.
I agree with the sentiment that there is no point selling at a markup something that is already available - the point was to bring to market something that's better. That's why I didn't bother with any of the direct-to-consumer manufacturers like dengfu/hongfu; as a business we have access to manufacturers that deal exclusively with bike brands, so we chose to partner with a Taiwanese OEM with over three decades of experience in composite sporting goods - almost a decade of that in bike frames. I have flown over to tour the manufacturing facility in person, and I have every confidence in them.
To be honest, it is a bigger challenge than I was expecting to distinguish the scout from an FM0XX. Based on who's making the scout, it has more in common with carbon frames being raced right now in Paris-Nice -- and has the BB stiffness data to match -- than some groupbuy special.
Nud is obviously not the only company that's selling carbon frames this way, and we're entering a crowded market that's seeing carbon frames increasingly becoming commodities. But I started it anyway because I felt there was so much room for improvement in terms of being open and transparent, informing with clear pictures and data rather than claims and hyperbole, and providing responsive customer service.
Hope that goes some way in addressing the criticism, and thanks for taking the time to voice it - it helps me figure out what to work on!
