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Parable of the Sofa

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Re: Parable of the Sofa

#161

Post by intended »

JimDabell wrote: post #109
bunnie wrote: post #42

The bit about "lifestyle business" always being uttered in contempt resonated with me. I always assumed it was just me being overly sensitive to folks expressing concern over my life choices, urging me to snap out of my "mid-life crisis" and do something "useful" like raise money and scale up, or "apply myself" at famous institutions with "real impact".

I think lifestyle businesses are great, but if you are building a lifestyle business and meeting with VC firms then you are wasting their time. They can’t invest in you. Their business model is designed to take a large number of risky bets to try to catch a unicorn. If you have a less risky business that isn’t going to take off like a rocket, it might be a great idea and a massive success for you, but it isn’t compat…

That said - VCs / PE are effectively in the business of outcompeting Lifestyle businesses.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#162

Post by FridgeSeal »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #86
solidasparagus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That leaves a market gap and then a better company can fill it, unlike centralized economies. Is that happening? I would say yes, at least in some cases. High-quality, direct-to-consumer brands are great. I rely on purchasing guides for many of my buys and those point me to brands whose primary attribute is quality (or cost effectiveness) instead of marketing or historic adoption. That's great for me and great for th…

> That leaves a market gap and then a better company can fill it, unlike centralized economies. Is that happening? Not really, as the gradient points towards those companies cheapening out or folding. After all, under information asymmetry, companies that sell low-quality crap for mid-level price and lie about their product quality outcompete those selling mid-quality goods for mid-level price honestly. > I rely on p…

> companies that sell low-quality crap for mid-level price and lie about their product quality outcompete those…

100%, and to make matters worse - the consequences don’t even matter to them. They don’t care if people find out, because all they have to do is outlast that medium price/quality point business and they’ve won, and once they’ve won, it’s game over, that middle section isn’t coming back anytime soon.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#163

Post by blfr »

> This kind of transaction is exactly what modern capitalism is trying to stamp out.

Yet again modern capitalism is blamed for its users' lack of taste: people genuinely prefer new, crappier stuff to classier, old items. This is the same with Tik Tok algos, tailors being unpopular compared to fast fashion and even overpriced luxury brands, fast food vs cooking, etc.

Virtually every time a consumer is confronted with a lousier but easily available option and a vastly superior one but requiring some mental, or occasionally physical, effort, they choose the former.

Capitalism merely holds up a mirror to our preferences. As it turns out, we really don't like it.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#164

Post by amarant »

card_zero wrote: post #129
jogjayr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ikea sofas can be underrated. My wife bought a Grönlid loveseat at a consignment store (read: it wasn't even new) for $100 and we enjoyed it for almost 9 years. No sagging or falling apart, it remained comfortable until the day we sold it or gave it away - I don't recall now.

Hmm, grön lid is Swedish for "green suffer!", message unclear.

Lid has more meanings though. It can also mean "inclination" or "hillside" (roughly) which makes more sense in the context. Grönlid would then be a green hillside or green slope or similar. Which sounds like a nice place to lay down and relax for a bit.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#165

Post by monero-xmr »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #157
monero-xmr wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating new brands all time time is poor for creating consumer loyalty, which is the entire point of a brand. You are missing the whole point!

Nobody cares about customer loyalty anymore, that's the entire point! Customers still loyal to brands are just marks about to be exploited.

I think you yourself are loyal to more brands than you would admit! I can’t imagine you never eat from the same restaurant twice, buy from the same e-commerce website twice, or use the same brand of toilet paper twice.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#166

Post by card_zero »

nakedneuron wrote: post #160
fire_lake wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some animals pretend to be more dangerous than they are by mimicking colors etc.

I asked ChatGPT and it came up with these cases of deception strategies in nature (I wasn't excluding mankind, it thinks man, and probably itself doesn't belong there): Mimicry/false signaling/bluffing (look more dangerous, look inpalatable, distract attention, attract prey), camouflage (avoid being preyed), brood paratism (cokoos get parenting for free). None of them involve deceiving partners into pretending higher…

If you don't mind another Wikipedia page, there's the (biology) theory of honest and dishonest signals in general:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#167

Post by card_zero »

amarant wrote: post #164
card_zero wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, grön lid is Swedish for "green suffer!", message unclear.

Lid has more meanings though. It can also mean "inclination" or "hillside" (roughly) which makes more sense in the context. Grönlid would then be a green hillside or green slope or similar. Which sounds like a nice place to lay down and relax for a bit.

Yes, I may possibly have noticed that before commenting, cannot confirm or deny.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#168

Post by gcanyon »

PaulHoule wrote: post #143
bunnie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe it's the case that the VC's biggest competition for top talent and good ideas are from the innovators that they hope to invest in. If they encourage a thousand lifestyle business bloom, one might turn into a boot-strapped "unicorn" that didn't take their money, so it's in their own interest to make lifestyle businesses seem like a terrible idea. The more talented people are convinced the only way to sta…

Lately I’ve been a bit depressed by startups I respect going down, most of all post.news which was a refined product developed in one and a half years by a moderate-sized team and funded by Scott Galloway and Andreessen Horowitz. The official statement was that it was not growing fast enough to make it as a consumer product: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/19/post-news-the-a16z-funded-... Though I think there could be…

Ha -- I would be a good candidate customer for post.news, and you've known about it (checks the post above) a week longer than I have :-)

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#169

Post by portaouflop »

db48x wrote: post #65
portaouflop wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why that should be the case. As someone who rarely/never buys furniture I have no idea what good craftsmanship looks like in the finished product.

You can recognize particleboard, can’t you? That’s low quality. Cardboard covered with wood veneer is another trick, but you can recognize that by its unnatural lightness. Low quality again. Then look at the joints between pieces. If the wood is shaped so that the pieces fit into each other, then that is high quality. If they are joined by screws, metal plates, or glue, then that is low quality (or medium, in some ca…

Fair enough.

I do know that heavy furniture is probably higher quality.

But that’s about it.

Not sure if I would spot particleboard, since it’s hidden under paint or as you said veneer.

My only realistic quality criteria are: - does it look old? - is it very heavy?

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#170

Post by rcxdude »

verisimi wrote: post #52
bunnie wrote: post #42

The bit about "lifestyle business" always being uttered in contempt resonated with me. I always assumed it was just me being overly sensitive to folks expressing concern over my life choices, urging me to snap out of my "mid-life crisis" and do something "useful" like raise money and scale up, or "apply myself" at famous institutions with "real impact".

> In conversation with venture capitalists, you hear the phrase “lifestyle business”, meaning one that is doing nicely and rewarding the people who run it and which isn’t planning for unbounded growth. The words “lifestyle business” are always, of course, uttered in a voice dripping with contempt. This makes me wonder what other type of business is there? How do VCs describe their business, what is their aim? Is it t…

The goal is to make a return on investment. A successful lifestyle business doesn't generally make money for investors, or at least they expect to make more money from moonshot massive growth companies. So VCs will absolutely kill a potential or existing small, sustainable company for a chance at a billion-dollar company, even if the odds are tiny. For the founders, a lifestyle business is generally a better option, a) because it's their effort on the line, and b) because they don't get to make as many bets as the VCs do.
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