Made Too Well
Added 2023-06-26 12:46:31 +0000 UTCStriving to make the best possible product has unforeseen consequences.
Comments
Hi Fran, thank you for bringing this up! Have you ever heard of Crucial Audio? Their pedals are excellent! Dick Dale used one! C/O these guys.
Ken Smithson
2023-07-01 15:20:10 +0000 UTCHow to get a million dollars - start with 2 million dollars and go into manufacturing, when you've burnt through the first million, give up.
David Peaker
2023-06-26 19:34:17 +0000 UTCThe InstaPot story is one of many similar boom-bust stories that have always happened throughout history. This is nothing new. What may be new is the aggressiveness of the most recent pandemic-fueled boom-bust cycle, which seems to be the case here. In a very real sense, all markets for "durable goods" can be viewed as having a finite size with modest growth, though it may appear to be very different when a new product changes the market or creates a new market. Failure to plan for market saturation is a typical management mistake when faced with an exceptionally popular product. The illogical expectation for ongoing sales growth expansion can push even good managers into making irrational moves, such as building larger factories or accumulating vast component inventories. The market for laundry and installed kitchen equipment, where products can be expected to last for decades, represents a market that has certainly reached overall saturation, and now must exist on innovation, price and quality/reputation. There has been much consolidation in this industry, to the point where roughly half of the popular US brands are made by just a single company under a variety of labels. Such markets are considered to be "stable" markets, where sales rely primarily on the rate of new residential construction, eventual product replacement and the rate of overall economic growth. It is clear that InstaPot did not plan for its market to become a stable market and is now burdened with the results of a failed "everlasting growth" strategy. Their Chapter 11 bankruptcy will allow them to rid themselves of this burden, and I fully expect InstaPots will be available for decades to come.
BobC
2023-06-26 17:01:13 +0000 UTCI realise you have considered this, but have you tried quietly building new instances of your classic pedals and then scuffing them up an cashing in on the lucrative second-hand market? You get the entire sale price!
God of Ramblers
2023-06-26 14:50:24 +0000 UTCTwo things come to mind. One is that on, for example, The Gear Page, when someone asks a question along the lines of "What pedal should I get to do this?" there's a stream of one and two-off answers for small manufacturer solutions. The answers rarely converge on one or two options--it's basically just a list of fifty fuzz tones or whatever. The other is a report I saw that the number of microbreweries keeps increasing while the amount of beer per capita in the US is going down. So, more manufacturers competing for a shrinking market. While money was cheap (i.e. interest rates), there were a TON of people who'd always dreamed of making their own effects pedals/brewing their own beer and could find $50k to give it a go. Most of these would fold in the first 18 months, like all small businesses, but there was a seemingly unending number of fuzz pedals and oddly-named IPA's to be hyped. Every time I'd go to my local hop shop, which boasted "1000 beers", the chance I'd be able to find another six pack of what I bought the previous visit was near zero if it was a small-manufacturer. There just wasn't enough room on the shelves. The pedal situation at my local guitar store was a little better, except I don't need to buy another of the same pedal each month, because the old one still works. But every time I'd visit, the store was hyping some new fuzz/delay/boost pedal that was largely indistinguishable from the other fifty examples already on the shelf.
Travis Hartnett
2023-06-26 14:29:24 +0000 UTCThe missing part of the article is right in the title: it should have been "Capitalism Discourages Quality; Encourages High Waste and Cost" ...
Jason Olshefsky
2023-06-26 13:34:48 +0000 UTC
