Love it, I've considered doing toasters. I run a space startup in Australia making hardware for satellites. Would love to chat. I've been a long time lurker but made an account for this ha ha.
Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
281–290 of 464 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I disagree. The high end of the market is a proven niche and the target high-end buyer has demonstrated a willingness to spend freely on premium grade products. Are you saying there is a proven market for luxury toasters? While in general this is true I think "premium" grade home appliances generally top out around twice the cost of mid-range (I'm thinking vacuums, ovens, refrigerators etc where you compare similar…
Vitamix blenders are 8-10x the cost of a normal blender and have a cult like following. With the right branding home appliances can also double as a status symbol in American kitchens.
> Vitamix blenders are 8-10x the cost of a normal blender
"Normal" isn't a particularly useful label here, and Vitamix aren't 8-10x when you compare like-for-like (in terms of capacity and other features).
The Wirecutter recommendations[1] (which is a pretty decent way of seeing what the market is like) are:
Our Pick: Vitamix 5200, $397
Runner Up ("A more-affordable but less-durable blender"): Oster Versa Pro Series Blender, $280
Also Great: Cleanblend Blender, $165
Budget pick: KitchenAid K150 3 Speed Ice Crushing Blender, $100
This is the typical market dynamic. The high end (Vitamix) is a bit more than twice the mid-range option, and then there is a long tail going way way down.
I agree a $1300 blender (ie, 8 * $165) is a luxury play. But Vitamix seems more just a normal high-end quality play rather than luxury. Their most expensive blender is $729 list price[2] but comes with a bunch of extra features (wireless jug detection?!) to justify the cost. Luxury brands don't try to justify costs: the cost is the feature.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-blender/
[2] https://www.vitamix.com/us/en_us/shop/smart-system-blenders
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The high end of the market is a proven niche and the target high-end buyer has demonstrated a willingness to spend freely on premium grade products. The is a reason why LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) is one of the most successful and valuable companies in the world. I'm not saying it's easy. Any business endeavor, regardless of product market fit, still requires execution. Easier said than done, but m…
> Americans are known for their willingness to take business risk and fail then pick themselves up and try again. Makes life exciting and worth living. Having the world's largest pool of investment capital and one of the most liberal bankruptcy systems in the world also helps. If there's anything Americans are more willing to do than risk losing their own money, it's to risk losing other people's money :) > The is a…
> It very much isn't because they sell premium quality products. They sell luxury products. Luxury branding has very little to do with product quality or performance.
This!! 100% true.
For luxury products the cost is the feature.
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love that regulations kill people through both excessive mental distress and false peace of mind. That’s wonderful.
Regulations are anti-competitive as they prevent people from successfully bootstrapping their startups and becoming entrepreneurs. It forces ambitious people without capital to be wage slaves which causes substantial mental distress. False peace of mind harms people because it makes people assume that all products on the shelves are safe by default which isn't always the case and drives harmful behaviors on a massive…
Today having quality standards means that people have some amount of faith in the products sold on shelves. The alternative doesn't mean that the bad products go away, or that everyone would just "be careful" somehow and find ways to guess at how safe things are. We know we can't trust everything sold to us, and we really have no ability to tell what's killing us or our family. If we could all just always look out for ourselves we'd never have kids dying because of heavy metals in their applesauce.
It's a weird thing when people are convinced that the solution to snake oil salesmen and serial murderers are making those very things commonplace and perfectly legal.
There are times when corporations abuse regulations to add excessive burdens on their would-be competitors, but making sure your toasters don't electrocute you or burn your house down isn't one of those situations.
There are also times when our government and their regulations don't protect people as well as they should. That's a sign that we need more regulations and better enforcement/accountability, not an indication that we should give up trying to hold anyone to any kind of standards in the first place.
Honestly, we want the responsibility to be on government agencies because when they fail to protect our interests we at least have the option to vote them out and replace them with people who will do their job. You don't get to vote out the CEO or shareholders who decide to become serial killers so that they can make a little extra money on top of the millions/billions they already make in profits. Why would you want to limit your own power so that others can exploit you more easily? Companies have shown time and time again that they will knowingly poison you, kill you even, if they think it will make them more money. They'll spend tons of time and money trying to cover it up too. You'd rather trust them than your own elected representatives? Maybe you've been voting for the wrong people...
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#285OK now I'm starting to think we live in the matrix - I've spend the last 24 hours (unemployed currently, you see) looking at toasters and designs, with the same idea. And because my toaster just broke. The state of toasters seems quite dire. Most are basically the same mechanism internally with different style covers. Some quick learnings/thoughts: - why are they open at the top? Some expensive Japanese toasters are…
As a user, I'v noticed these: > - Two slot toasters always power both slots even when toasting one slice. > - crumb trays don't work for many toasters, they're too narrow compared with all the places crumbs fall. Always thinking what a waste of energy when only toasting a single slice. > - Many toasters don't allow you to change the timer mid-toast. I mean you can change it, but it doesn't do anything until next cycl…
As others have commented, toasters are already highly cost-optimized, and 'perfected', in terms of economics, marketability, etc.
Even the cheapest toaster works well enough, and most of the more advanced features either don't really work consistently or are not compelling. So to command a higher price, it's really a veblen good, some kind of status symbol etc, and any extra features need be 'backup' for that; "oh no, we didn't buy it just to status-signal, it has this feature ...".
I think there are a couple of features that could be attractive though. Faster toasting. And if the reviews etc are to be believed, steam-toasting like the Japanese toasters. More efficient could be a thing - only power the slots necessary, and enclose them to stop the heat escaping. These features seem mutually supporting.
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [...] and consumers who say they want reliable, well-made goods will balk and buy cheap stuff en masse when it comes down to the wire. And I've never really had much of a problem with cheap toasters being unreliable in the first place. But I guess there are people who do?
Best toaster I've ever owned is a no-name I bought for about $20 at Lowes when they had them in stock for Christmas season. It makes perfect toast, and does a great job on bagles also.
Yeah I bought a cheap ~$10 hamilton beach 2 toast unit i've been using for at least 15 years. It's fine, toasts evenly, works with bagels. What else could you want?
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why I think you need a compelling story about it. How the poor inventor struggled against the odds to fix the scourge of bad toast, to bring you an exquisite product that makes you feel good to own for the story more than any tangible reason. It needs to be a personal story to set him apart from the other brands.
You could go that one gun coffee brand and make it a camo pattern. Or go the other way and give it a rainbow pattern? Hell, put one on each side so you can flip it depending on which relatives are coming over.
I think that kind of messaging is largely inherently incompatible with aiming for the high-margin/high-end market whether or not your buyers agree with you. E.g. I'm perfectly fine with a variety of political symbols, but I'd think a toaster emblazoned with them looked like a cheap gimmick, and would expect it to be priced as one.
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#288Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#289I don't really get these "Made in " slogans. For livestock/plants/food/cuisine, or well known existing domestic brands, sure. But new businesses just using nationalism as a selling point is strange. That foreign land may have better standards for safety/manufacturing as your own. Fair profit lands with your local government regardless where stuff came from. Materials travelling around the world: what ensures your loc…
> That foreign land may have better standards for safety/manufacturing as your own.
That is very hard to believe (at least if you live in Europe or US).
Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?
#290I love this idea and the competition is fierce from Chinese companies. Check out Robam’s combi ovens, like this one: https://robamliving.com/collections/steam-oven/products/roba... This thing can toast, steam, bake, and air fry. It is objectively good at all of those functions, and it is used every day. The only thing it doesn’t have is the ability to add custom programs, but most of the built in functions can be use…
How reliable are these things? Seems like it packs a lot heat into quite a small package.