What's a $4000 Suit Worth?

I don't read pg, because a lot of his comments come across as babysitting HN, which is necessary for him to do, but not something I want to spend my time on.

I believe that what you put before your eyes, becomes what is in your brain, and you can only think about what you've seen before. What you think about is what gets written on your heart, and our actions are based on our heart. So, I value what I put before my eyes pretty heavily and that's why patio11, tptacek, and SatvikBeri are good reads. Danso is really interesting.

patio11 -- Important because he reminds us (me!) about what we're really worth as programmers and beyond that if we want to increase our worth moving bits better isn't the most efficient way to do that.

tptacek -- I don't always agree with him, but I think his world view is probably the most accurate of anyone on HN. The reason why this matters to me, is If I'm being honest with my self, hugely reliant on mental models. I use tptacek as a source of mental models about the world.

danso -- He has some pretty interesting comments, and I find when he does weigh in, it's usually from personal experience. Photography, Journalism, and data are his big topics of interest.

SatvikBeri -- I've never met the guy, but if you can get past his telling of how he saved his employer $2MM in a single year (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4419277) over and over again, which I find very easy, he's worth reading. He doesn't post as much as the others, so I usually check in once a week or so. In a lot ways though, I think the $2MM story, is worth reading over and over again. It holds a lot of wisdom in how to approach business for the nerd-sphere.

I read HN on cell phone about 95% of the time, and have 127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com in my host file, so I just have these guys bookmarked on my cell phone and check in with the top two daily, danso every couple days, and SatvikBeri about once a week.

I also read yummyfajitas and mechanical_fish as well, but far less regularly. Usually, when I see a comment they make, I'll click on their username and read through their comments if I have time.

I agree he would need to be careful. But in this case because there are so many trivial ways in which he can differentiate the products in ways that will sufficiently justify price differences:

* Use more expensive materials. And mark it up heavily. * Provide a luxury service: Visit the client for measurements with a couple of pretty assistants instead of having them come to you, and make the service look more upscale. Send someone over with samples and pictures to get feedback a couple more times than usual. * Make things take longer to give the impression of more effort. There's a shoemaker in London that takes 6 months to produce your pair of shoes. They can optionally provide additional pairs to the same measurements, for a measly additional sum of 500 pounds per pair - the price for their first pair is not listed. I'm sure there are more - that's just one I stumbled over. But this one presents the long time it takes as a mark of quality and status: Most people just go to a store and buy shoes, but you, your shoes take 6 months to be ready. Of course it costs. * Add on lots of stuff that indicate higher quality but that the client has no idea of the real cost/effort for: Finer stiching; more complicated patterns; more detailing inside. etc.

As you point out, he could also charge extra for faster delivery (on top of making his new "premium" service take longer by default, even), or flat out state that due to the demand, there is a waiting list, but a limited number of "rush" order will be processed if you pay a substantial premium.

This is very different from most technology products - suits, or fashion in general, is a very visible status symbol, and beyond a certain quality level, a higher price will often make the product more desirable even when there are no quality differences other than minor visible visual cues that lets those in the know realize that you've paid twice as much.

I know an African woman who used to go to the living room of some lady that charged her 20 pounds for work that she could easily charge 50 for - African hair can take a lot of work. This lady never raises her prices.

But she gets booked full 3 months in advance, and everyone who goes there raves about here and thinks she is ridiculously cheap.

Now, granted, a lot of those clients would disappear if she charged 30 or 40 or even 50. But she could afford to lose a lot of them, and even at 50 she'd still be cheaper than most similar quality competition in the area.

Simple solution to testing the prices? Hold back some time slots and offer a "rush" service to those willing to pay extra. Use a sob story about how this is family time she is giving up for you. Worst case she books slightly fewer slots for a while, and gives up on it.

But she is too scared to even try because she is terrified of customers going elsewhere... Despite the fact that people are willing to schedule 3 months in advance to get their hair done in her living room instead of walking into their local salon the same day.