Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 456 posts

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#261

Post by johannes1234321 »

codedokode wrote: post #250
fxtentacle wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, this really shows that marketing is now the most crucial skill. It has become easy and affordable to design products, the process is now almost fully commodified with all those OEM and production services. The only thing that now stands between your idea and financial success is your ability to reach the target market, i.e. marketing. Also, such a slick KickStarter campaign typically costs $10k plus ad spend i…

Marketing is only important if your product is equal to existing or worse. For example, if you find a way to make some product two times cheaper (like Uber), you won't need much marketing.

Uber's initial rates were way below a sustainable rate. Pure marketing combined with lots of media work to make them known.

Low prices don't help, if nobody knows the product exists.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#262

Post by konschubert »

jot wrote: post #254
konschubert wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best ideas come when you make something that you really want for yourself. In 2020, I really wanted an eink calendar to hang on my wall. Still, many people built one for themselves and never turned it into a commercial product. It’s a lot of work and some of it is boring. And you have to pay for certification and worry about all that paperwork that comes with a business. It took me 3 years: https://shop.i…

I am so happy to have discovered this here. I've wanted this product for years. I just placed an order for the coworking space I run in Brighton, UK. Super excited about all the potential applications of this. The simplicity of the developer experience [1] is exactly what I want. Seems like it will also work wonderfully with the screenshot api [2] I'm currently working at. [1]: https://www.invisible-computers.com/inv…

Holy crap, now I am impressed!

If I am seeing this right, I could use your screenshot API to implement a website rendering feature for the display, super easily!

I was toying with running headless chromium, but if I can get that as a service, it's an absolute winner! But I would need to see if I can afford the pricing.

Providing this service to my users for an average device lifetime of 10 years free of charge is a lot of screenshots... I won't be able to fold that into the price of the smart screen. I might need to look into a subscription.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#263

Post by robertlagrant »

konschubert wrote: post #221
fxtentacle wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, this really shows that marketing is now the most crucial skill. It has become easy and affordable to design products, the process is now almost fully commodified with all those OEM and production services. The only thing that now stands between your idea and financial success is your ability to reach the target market, i.e. marketing. Also, such a slick KickStarter campaign typically costs $10k plus ad spend i…

Making a product, certifying it and making sure it’s safe is also hard. But marketing is extremely important and it’s just a very different skill than tech. I make these epaper calendar displays. https://shop.invisible-computers.com I have invested thousands of hours into making them as good as possible. You couldn’t tell from my website :D I would probably profit much more if I just stopped improving them and focuse…

That's great! Some small things about your website:

- "Contact" page says "Kontact" in en-GB locale

- Do you need a shopping cart for one product? Just have the "buy it now" and leave the cart out?

- Do you need a search? There are only a couple of pages.

- The Contact page might want to highlight to the user that there is a chat feature in the bottom right, if they prefer that to email.

Other than those little bits, the site looks pretty good to me! Payments seem slick. Have you done things like ProductHunt?

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#264

Post by konschubert »

robertlagrant wrote: post #263
konschubert wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making a product, certifying it and making sure it’s safe is also hard. But marketing is extremely important and it’s just a very different skill than tech. I make these epaper calendar displays. https://shop.invisible-computers.com I have invested thousands of hours into making them as good as possible. You couldn’t tell from my website :D I would probably profit much more if I just stopped improving them and focuse…

That's great! Some small things about your website: - "Contact" page says "Kontact" in en-GB locale - Do you need a shopping cart for one product? Just have the "buy it now" and leave the cart out? - Do you need a search? There are only a couple of pages. - The Contact page might want to highlight to the user that there is a chat feature in the bottom right, if they prefer that to email. Other than those little bits,…

Oh, wow, thanks for the feedback!

No I haven't done ProductHunt.

I am not sure if I can disable the cart on shopify?

I think I need better pictures, and I need a better shopify theme.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#265

Post by dagw »

corethree wrote: post #14
russellbeattie wrote: post #6

Sadly, the design is most likely going to be copied, mass produced and available on Temu/Amazon/Alibaba within the next several weeks. Kick Starter is basically free R&D for Chinese manufacturers.

The entire US of A is free R&D for Chinese manufacturers. In fact the entirety of China is free R&D for itself as companies in China copy each other. China is the apex of the open source philosophy taken to the maximum extent.

The entire US of A is free R&D for Chinese manufacturers.

And in return the entire US of A gets to buy these of $2 instead of $20.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#266

Post by withinboredom »

dendrite9 wrote: post #243
fxtentacle wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, 3D printers are still cheaper. I once needed to make a few customized gears out of food safe plastic. I asked several online services for quotes and I called several on-location shops in northern Germany. The quotes I got were all around $1800 per unique gear shape. Since I needed 4 different shapes (i.e. $7k for outsourcing), it was much cheaper to buy a 3D printer, watch some tutorials and spend two working…

Would you consider the parts you made foodsafe? Or would you have to use the parts to make a mold, then produce foodsafe parts? The nooks and crannies in 3d printed plastic, plus the less controlled melting/cooling has concerned me for making something which is food safe. Mostly the concern about places for bacteria to hide on the parts.

It also depends on what you are doing. If they are single-use, they can be made food-safe pretty easily, even with the nooks and crannies. With 3d printing, it can be pretty cheap to do single-use stuff. You can also electro-plate them with silver and have a pretty sanitary part.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#267

Post by withinboredom »

yard2010 wrote: post #257
blkhawk wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly - I would call this the "forgetting the entertainment value" fallacy :) Also you can't turn your time into money as fungible as spending money is. So Tme is more "liquid" than cash. That said I got a 3d printer in mid-2016 and basically printed daily getting to know it until the start of 2019 - I had sooo much fan turning the wooden printer i started out with into something reliable. Nowadays i mainly print s…

Time is not money. When you spend money - you lose money. When you don't spend time - you lose time!

If you sell your time for a living, then time (during certain parts of the day), does have a value. If you aren't selling your time and are doing something else, you are losing money.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#268

Post by withinboredom »

nitwit005 wrote: post #128
gpt5 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot patent a foldable coat hanger. The only thing she could patent is the specific mechanism she used to enable folding, but I doubt the copycats would use exactly the same design.

Technically, they could patent every variant that was in her bin, which would at least present some challenge to a knock off.

You can't do that IIRC, because it is based on prior art in the public domain. Just like you can't patent a chair with 5 legs.

There's also no reason to patent that many things for the same thing. You only need to be sufficiently vague to how it folds.

IANAL, but I've gotten a few patents rejected.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#269

Post by forinti »

konschubert wrote: post #223
jackdoe wrote: post #181

I just love the maker's mind. > I want something that does not exist, I will make it. Making things has never been so accessible, if you don't know how to start, join a community and ask, if they are hostile, just ask chatgpt and start from there. 3d printers are 200$, esp32 is the same cost as arduino nano. Want to make AI things? Make them. Want to make coat hangers? Make them. Want to make a book stand? Make it. I…

I think the best ideas come when you make something that you really want for yourself. In 2020, I really wanted an eink calendar to hang on my wall. Still, many people built one for themselves and never turned it into a commercial product. It’s a lot of work and some of it is boring. And you have to pay for certification and worry about all that paperwork that comes with a business. It took me 3 years: https://shop.i…

I made a picture frame that I can send photos to with Telegram. I've been using it for years and have made a couple for family members too.

But, I soon realised that it wasn't cheap enough or reliable enough to be a product. That would require a lot more work and investment.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#270

Post by sesm »

If the author of the video wanted to solve just her particular case, she would make a diagonal cutouts on her dresser beam and hang the clothes at an angle using standard hangers. She has enough room for that, plus it would look stylish. Over time I came to appreciate solutions like that, you don't want to always solve a general problem.
Post reply on HN