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Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#191

Post by azinman2 »

dylan604 wrote: post #54
starky wrote: post #40

I think you are greatly over-estimating how many people would be willing to pay the cost of a North American made toaster. This would require an absolute ton of capital to do it on anything above a craft scale. The challenges of design, testing, certification (very important for a device that could burn your house down), manufacturing, supply chain, and support that are all specialized careers in themselves. I've got…

> I think you are greatly over-estimating how many people would be willing to pay the cost of a North American made toaster. Who wants a $75+ toaster just because it was "Made In USA"? Is it going to make toast better than a $15 toaster "Hecho In Mexico" or whatever other country? Even making the infrastructure to make a toaster would not do much in the way of increasing the manufacturing abilities in the US. What co…

I much rather buy something American generally, and certainly from the perspective of a higher quality product designed to last.

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#192

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

tcmart14 wrote: post #176
jongjong wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is regulated these days and it usually costs a fortune and helps nobody except incumbents. Makes everything feel rigged and makes me not want to participate in the economy. I wish we could go back to a time when everyone takes their own risks and has to do their own research. Manufacturers could optionally pay some standards company to add some safety label to it to help boost customer confidence but it sh…

Its not there to help incumbents. New companies come up all the time to make these kinds of products. Its a barrier to entry to keep Joe dipshit who learned how to solder together two wires last night thinking he can has an overnight get rich quick scheme shoddily throwing some random components together without knowing or acknowledging what they are really doing and selling that product to some unsuspecting person t…

I believe you, but arent you suspicious of the Big Toasta superconglomerate.

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#194

Post by greenyoda »

jongjong wrote: post #164
iancmceachern wrote: post #83

I do this for a living. Setting up a small operation and doing the physical actions of designing, manufacturing and selling the toasters is the easy, fun and obvious part. I figure what your looking for, advice wise, is what's not obvious. A few things you'll need: -Product liability insurance, this isn't isn't easy or inexpensive to get. You need to have a lot of the below in place to get it. - UL certification (or…

Everything is regulated these days and it usually costs a fortune and helps nobody except incumbents. Makes everything feel rigged and makes me not want to participate in the economy. I wish we could go back to a time when everyone takes their own risks and has to do their own research. Manufacturers could optionally pay some standards company to add some safety label to it to help boost customer confidence but it sh…

> I wish we could go back to a time when everyone takes their own risks and has to do their own research.

Your risks can impact other people. If your toaster catches fire, it could kill people in the apartment next to yours. If the brakes on your car fail, you could kill anyone who is in your path. These other people didn't choose to take on these risks.

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#196

Post by nox101 »

I'm curious what is a good quality toaster in your mind?

Also, why does it need to be "made in the USA"? There seems to be lots of expensive "high-end" toasters. Is your only setting point "made in the USA"? Does the population of people who care about "made in the USA" overlap with people who are likely to pay for this toaster vs the $19 toaster from target?

https://www.target.com/p/kitchensmith-by-bella-4-slice-toast...

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#197

Post by Glawen »

chubot wrote: post #180
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re also known to use a ton of water, be extremely inefficient, and destroy your clothing much faster than a modern washer. Fetishizing “the good old simple times” isn’t going to get us to better products.

citation? I never heard of Speed Queen, or even seen one, but someone recommended them on here a few weeks ago

I'm in Europe so we don't have these, but I got interested in what are speed queen. Turns out they are laundromat machines that are also sold for residential use.

This article does say it is not an efficient machine. they tweaked the normal cycle to pass the DoE efficiency test (but your clothes are not washed), and left alone the inefficient cycles which are not checked by DoE: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/speed-queen-revie...

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#198

Post by throwup238 »

floren wrote: post #190
frozenport wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the toaster on Amazon have these? If not they are extra.

When too many OOOOLOOO brand toasters start fires, they just close their Amazon profile and create a new one selling FOLGARP brand toasters. You can't have quite that level of untouchability as a US manufacturer, so you have to do it right.

FOLGARP is the best. Three out of four of the couples I gifted those toasters are now deceased and will never demand a gift from me ever again. The fire investigators just call it an “act of god.”

Unfortunately the fourth only burned their house down and now we have to tolerate an insufferable GoFundMe campaign because their CA fire insurance only covers gender reveal parties. Bezos ruins everything.

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#200

Post by jacknews »

throwup238 wrote: post #184
jacknews wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $200 toaster is already elitist, especially given that they don't seem to actually toast any better than the cheapest models. So why test with 'poor people's bread'? lol. Seriously though, I have a bread machine, maybe the cheapest model (lidl equivalent) which I love because of how easy it is to repair, and I make my own bread with little effort for maybe 1/2 the price of supermarket bread, and a world of differen…

I'm actually serious about what counts as bread and what is just processed wheat product. Bread machines don't qualify, unless you're just using them to proof the dough.

oh ok sorry, I thought it was sarcasm.

Well I agree, and also disagree. Bread-machine bread is fine, esp. if you change the program, to proof overnight instead of over an hour or whatever. Maybe not as good as hand-made sourdough with a carefully curated cultivated starter, etc, etc, but for the low effort involved it's a massive improvement over chorleywood supermarket bread.

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