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Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
241–250 of 464 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#242all your skills are moot if you don't know how to sell. Don't make the common mistake of "iterating in the basement" and when you need to goto market you flop around, spend too much time on a website and kinda expect things to "just happen". I would not start ANYTHING before you figure out if you like this part of it, otherwise its just a "expensive hobby". To figure this out, find something on Alibaba that costs a n…
10,000.
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#243Just here to give a ref to The Toaster Project[0] and its accompanied TED talk[1] from Designer Thomas Thwaites[2].
[0]: http://www.thetoasterproject.org/
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#244All I can say is my biggest bugbear with toaster is the crumbs just all fall out despite having a way to catch/release them. So that is a good problem to solve.
Also make the slots wider. For things like Turkish bread.
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#245Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#246I 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.
When was this time?
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#247i'm sure this has been posted in thread before (if so i didn't see it) but here is a review of an insane toaster presented by the lovely sarah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ-KZzVUV7U
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#248Earlier 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…
> I wish we could go back to a time when everyone takes their own risks and has to do their own research Apart from all of the other obvious things people have mentioned, what this hyperlibertarian perspective fails to take into account is externalities. I might have done my own toaster research, but did my neighbor? What happens when my neighbor doesn’t do his own toaster research properly and ends up burning down b…
I guess hyperlibertarian don't see the use of insurance either so this is a moot point. And they wouldn't live close to any neighbor (or rather, nobody would want to live close to them).
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does the toaster on Amazon have these? If not they are extra.
Yes, they do. You can see the "UL" mark on the product label
Are you sure it's the original label and not a fake?
Just recently a German tech channel reviewed a "gaming PC" sold on Amazon. The power supply had a fake CE label (aka it's illegal to sell in the EU) and the graphics card was a used Chinese crypto mining card that caught fire before they were done testing.
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#250I 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…
What part of UL testing and certification do you think constitutes false peace of mind?
If I sell you a toaster that I built in my own little workshop (USA! USA!), then: Wouldn't you prefer that there be at least some third-party testing to ensure that it is safe enough to not burn your house down? And if you don't care about your own safety (because you know how to Do Your Own Research), then: Wouldn't your kids and neighbors prefer this testing?
Maybe if you trust me (because you like the cut of my jib or something) then you'll believe me when I say that I had my engineering-type buddy go over the design and he said it was OK.
But caveat emptor: You should not trust me. I, the seller in a hypothetical truly-free market, am here to give you as little as I can get away with for as many dollars as I can take you for.
That's what UL helps with, in this context: They're an impartial private company that tests products to ensure that they meet safety standards (most of which they designed themselves, but that's just a positive example of free enterprise at work). They do charge [plenty of] money for this service, but they've got expenses to cover (and profit to make!) just as you or I do.
But there is no federal law or national regulation requiring US consumers to use only UL-listed toasters. That's not a thing, and it has never been a thing. Such a requirement may be a thing in some more-local jurisdictions, and/or also an important part of some insurance policies, but the overarching regulatory environment that you seem to be railing against in the context of toasters simply does not exist.