7 ms·

Fewer, Better Things

87 points by craigcannon 10y ago

akeck 10y ago
My current approach to buying and stuff: Never "buy", only "invest". That is, always consider return (happiness, time, money, etc.). Invest in experiences in the exploratory manner of an Angel investor. Invest in things in the more conservative manner of a Series A investor [1]. [1] See "7. Fundraising gets harder" in http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/06/how-not-to-fail/ http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/06/how-not-to-fail/
- tacos 10y ago
  I'd love to see your medicine cabinet and sock/underwear drawer.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    Personally, I have a full-to-overflowing underwear drawer because I have invested in long periods between doing laundry.
  - somethingsimple 10y ago
    Why the medicine cabinet?
    - tacos 10y ago
      I had visions of toothpaste and hemorrhoid cream in mind when I composed the riff. Sensible brands, of course.
- nextos 10y ago
  Second time I moved countries, I realised I had too many useless items. And I was pretty minimal already. I decided I'd try to buy very few things. Stuff that is good and that I really need. At the end of the day, Pareto principle plays in my favour. We usually spend most of the time doing a tiny fraction of things. I buy items for those, optimising them ruthlessly. I get rid of everything else. I've ended up with a closed list of less than 60 belongings. Stuff is really good, and the total cost is only a fraction of what a regular apartment contains.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    I travel lots and have been paring down with each trip to try to achieve the minimal set of things for my life. It'd be great to see a post to learn more about your experience.
  - devonkim 10y ago
    I've been trying to do this for a number of years because I move roughly every year and have been keeping notes of items I use and don't use similar to a cache hierarchy. Upon inspection of my outer layers, I've come to realize that many experiences and crafts are very "stuff-oriented" like working with power tools or supporting a beloved pet or child. Furthermore, evicting cache so often only to need the data again is extremely expensive. The cost must be compared, just like in a computer, of time to possibly regenerate it or if your collective life experience dataset can live without it. I say this as someone that just lost a pet of 10+ years struggling to find a specific photo that I didn't realize would be of so much emotional value until later. Like stuff, data we painstakingly generate that isn't manageable is data that is lost, and when it comes to management, consistency is more important than purity or even validity. But really, it's surprising how some of the smallest, seemingly insignificant of things we have can become something grossly important. This is fundamentally part of how hoarding happens I know, but with modern tools it's amazing how much we can collect and manage without occupying physical space in our daily lives and achieve a balance of remberance and daily function.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  Related: Buy It For Life (BIFL) - https://www.reddit.com/r/buyitforlife https://www.reddit.com/r/buyitforlife While the community will point out regularly that not all things can be bought for life, many can if you're willing to spend more upfront for higher quality. For example, spending $20 on a pair of socks with a lifetime warranty vs. $2 for a pair that'll last a year. I also see Jansport backpacks and Craftsman tools mentioned similarly.
  - teddyh 10y ago
    A.k.a “The Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice”: “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.” http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economic_Injustice http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economi...
    - icebraining 10y ago
      Hence the usefulness of credit, as long as one uses it wisely.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    I like that approach, but getting the very expensive stuff keeps me too worried about it. The $20 socks may last a lifetime on my feet, but they burn just as well as the $2 socks. Likewise, I'm not confident enough to try to fix a broken device worth $2k, but if it's worth $400 I'll give it a go, and often end up saving money on the repair.
roymurdock 10y ago
I thought this headline might have been referring to a new YC strategy to invest in fewer startups. Funny that a curation-focused startup is making its way through the VC/incubator world, which runs on high-volume, high-risk bets ;)
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  Is it a curation startup? Womens' clothes seem to be mostly sold on image and social proof. Tangible quality and durability don't seem nearly as important. So it's not so much about curation as narrative and brand creation. If you can sell a bag that probably costs a couple of dollars to make for $175 you're obviously not just selling the use value. Not that tech is immune to this, in its own way. As for VCs and incubators - not a few recent startups seem to be variations on luxury retail and/or concierge/lifestyle services with a web front end.
- white-flame 10y ago
  Exactly. I was just about to post: "Fewer, Better Things" is kind of antithetical to startup culture in general. Stop expecting me and others to constantly buy new products or services, for every little money-making whim some kid cooks up.
mkagenius 10y ago
Side note: some of the urls are served over http, for example: http://www.cuyana.com/j2tajaxcheckout/index/cart/ http://www.cuyana.com/j2tajaxcheckout/index/cart/
jacquesm 10y ago
I really can't stand the whole 'Marie Kondo' bs. Ask your grandparents about quality and you can skip the nonsense. Buy what you need, save before you spend, buy quality and repair your stuff rather than throwing it away. It's just common sense. This stuff only works on people that are easily pushed by marketing and advertising to fulfill needs they didn't have in the first place and end up with houses full of things they can easily get rid of. Fortunately for Miss Kondo the same people are also easily sold a book that they didn't really need. Who thought an 'organizing consultant' was something we would one day take serious.
- manachar 10y ago
  Common sense is not universal, common, or necessarily sensical. I did not grow up with parents who raised me this way and had little to no contact with grandparents. My parents were also often cash strapped. You and I know that saving up for quality products is a better approach. I learned it by watching my parents buying a cheap stand mixer every two years (max) growing up. Then I worked at a kitchen store and learned that there were some KitchenAids still working after 75 years. I saved up my paycheck and may have been one of the only 17 year olds to ever buy a KitchenAid. I'm still using it over 15 years later. Thing is... I didn't have three kids, a mortgage, and other more pressing uses for my money. Once you get into a debt spiral you rarely have the cash needed to purchase the stuff of the quality you need to make it last. Instead you buy crappy stuff at the dollar store to make until the next paycheck. Of course, they do still purchase more things than I do as they haven't learned the other part of this lesson -- if you can't afford the quality version you should probably make do without it. Also note, the equipment, space, and know-how for repairing things is not available to many (probably most).
  - JimmyAustin 10y ago
    “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.” ― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play
torgoguys 10y ago
I get what they are saying, I think, but do not trust them to be the messengers. Perhaps if their website didn't have new collections of items each season, and had a more stable catalog, I might believe them more that they are creating more timeless items (that you should only buy a few if) than just items that are fashionable at the moment.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  ^ this A related startup is Cladwell. They kept the vision of building a set of basics, but instead of making clothes built a recommendation engine to understand your preferences for clothes that you can already buy. They actually just got into 500's Batch 17. https://angel.co/cladwell https://angel.co/cladwell
- bambax 10y ago
  This is just a slogan; they are selling high end fashion accessories.
paulsutter 10y ago
Everything in the article is a nonsense storyline. If they can build a sales ramp they will succeed. If they can't, they won't. The only measure is traction. Later they can explain it with this nonsense, and people will even believe it. But lacking traction, this is solely nonsense.
grecy 10y ago
I have spent a lot of my life pondering these questions, and have figured out a way to spend a lot less money than the majority of my peers. So much so I quit my job and drove Alaska->Argentina for 2 years, then after working for a few more I've quit again and am spending 2 years driving around Africa. My thoughts on how to do it here: http://theroadchoseme.com/work-less-to-live-your-dreams http://theroadchoseme.com/work-less-to-live-your-dreams

87 points by craigcannon 10y ago

akeck 10y ago

My current approach to buying and stuff: Never "buy", only "invest". That is, always consider return (happiness, time, money, etc.). Invest in experiences in the exploratory manner of an Angel investor. Invest in things in the more conservative manner of a Series A investor [1]. [1] See "7. Fundraising gets harder" in http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/06/how-not-to-fail/ http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/06/how-not-to-fail/

tacos 10y ago
I'd love to see your medicine cabinet and sock/underwear drawer.
- Kalium 10y ago
  Personally, I have a full-to-overflowing underwear drawer because I have invested in long periods between doing laundry.
- somethingsimple 10y ago
  Why the medicine cabinet?
  - tacos 10y ago
    I had visions of toothpaste and hemorrhoid cream in mind when I composed the riff. Sensible brands, of course.
nextos 10y ago
Second time I moved countries, I realised I had too many useless items. And I was pretty minimal already. I decided I'd try to buy very few things. Stuff that is good and that I really need. At the end of the day, Pareto principle plays in my favour. We usually spend most of the time doing a tiny fraction of things. I buy items for those, optimising them ruthlessly. I get rid of everything else. I've ended up with a closed list of less than 60 belongings. Stuff is really good, and the total cost is only a fraction of what a regular apartment contains.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  I travel lots and have been paring down with each trip to try to achieve the minimal set of things for my life. It'd be great to see a post to learn more about your experience.
- devonkim 10y ago
  I've been trying to do this for a number of years because I move roughly every year and have been keeping notes of items I use and don't use similar to a cache hierarchy. Upon inspection of my outer layers, I've come to realize that many experiences and crafts are very "stuff-oriented" like working with power tools or supporting a beloved pet or child. Furthermore, evicting cache so often only to need the data again is extremely expensive. The cost must be compared, just like in a computer, of time to possibly regenerate it or if your collective life experience dataset can live without it. I say this as someone that just lost a pet of 10+ years struggling to find a specific photo that I didn't realize would be of so much emotional value until later. Like stuff, data we painstakingly generate that isn't manageable is data that is lost, and when it comes to management, consistency is more important than purity or even validity. But really, it's surprising how some of the smallest, seemingly insignificant of things we have can become something grossly important. This is fundamentally part of how hoarding happens I know, but with modern tools it's amazing how much we can collect and manage without occupying physical space in our daily lives and achieve a balance of remberance and daily function.
tedmiston 10y ago
Related: Buy It For Life (BIFL) - https://www.reddit.com/r/buyitforlife https://www.reddit.com/r/buyitforlife While the community will point out regularly that not all things can be bought for life, many can if you're willing to spend more upfront for higher quality. For example, spending $20 on a pair of socks with a lifetime warranty vs. $2 for a pair that'll last a year. I also see Jansport backpacks and Craftsman tools mentioned similarly.
- teddyh 10y ago
  A.k.a “The Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice”: “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.” http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economic_Injustice http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economi...
  - icebraining 10y ago
    Hence the usefulness of credit, as long as one uses it wisely.
- icebraining 10y ago
  I like that approach, but getting the very expensive stuff keeps me too worried about it. The $20 socks may last a lifetime on my feet, but they burn just as well as the $2 socks. Likewise, I'm not confident enough to try to fix a broken device worth $2k, but if it's worth $400 I'll give it a go, and often end up saving money on the repair.

roymurdock 10y ago

I thought this headline might have been referring to a new YC strategy to invest in fewer startups. Funny that a curation-focused startup is making its way through the VC/incubator world, which runs on high-volume, high-risk bets ;)

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
Is it a curation startup? Womens' clothes seem to be mostly sold on image and social proof. Tangible quality and durability don't seem nearly as important. So it's not so much about curation as narrative and brand creation. If you can sell a bag that probably costs a couple of dollars to make for $175 you're obviously not just selling the use value. Not that tech is immune to this, in its own way. As for VCs and incubators - not a few recent startups seem to be variations on luxury retail and/or concierge/lifestyle services with a web front end.
white-flame 10y ago
Exactly. I was just about to post: "Fewer, Better Things" is kind of antithetical to startup culture in general. Stop expecting me and others to constantly buy new products or services, for every little money-making whim some kid cooks up.

mkagenius 10y ago

Side note: some of the urls are served over http, for example: http://www.cuyana.com/j2tajaxcheckout/index/cart/ http://www.cuyana.com/j2tajaxcheckout/index/cart/

jacquesm 10y ago

I really can't stand the whole 'Marie Kondo' bs. Ask your grandparents about quality and you can skip the nonsense. Buy what you need, save before you spend, buy quality and repair your stuff rather than throwing it away. It's just common sense. This stuff only works on people that are easily pushed by marketing and advertising to fulfill needs they didn't have in the first place and end up with houses full of things they can easily get rid of. Fortunately for Miss Kondo the same people are also easily sold a book that they didn't really need. Who thought an 'organizing consultant' was something we would one day take serious.

manachar 10y ago
Common sense is not universal, common, or necessarily sensical. I did not grow up with parents who raised me this way and had little to no contact with grandparents. My parents were also often cash strapped. You and I know that saving up for quality products is a better approach. I learned it by watching my parents buying a cheap stand mixer every two years (max) growing up. Then I worked at a kitchen store and learned that there were some KitchenAids still working after 75 years. I saved up my paycheck and may have been one of the only 17 year olds to ever buy a KitchenAid. I'm still using it over 15 years later. Thing is... I didn't have three kids, a mortgage, and other more pressing uses for my money. Once you get into a debt spiral you rarely have the cash needed to purchase the stuff of the quality you need to make it last. Instead you buy crappy stuff at the dollar store to make until the next paycheck. Of course, they do still purchase more things than I do as they haven't learned the other part of this lesson -- if you can't afford the quality version you should probably make do without it. Also note, the equipment, space, and know-how for repairing things is not available to many (probably most).
- JimmyAustin 10y ago
  “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.” ― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play

torgoguys 10y ago

I get what they are saying, I think, but do not trust them to be the messengers. Perhaps if their website didn't have new collections of items each season, and had a more stable catalog, I might believe them more that they are creating more timeless items (that you should only buy a few if) than just items that are fashionable at the moment.

tedmiston 10y ago
^ this A related startup is Cladwell. They kept the vision of building a set of basics, but instead of making clothes built a recommendation engine to understand your preferences for clothes that you can already buy. They actually just got into 500's Batch 17. https://angel.co/cladwell https://angel.co/cladwell
bambax 10y ago
This is just a slogan; they are selling high end fashion accessories.

paulsutter 10y ago

Everything in the article is a nonsense storyline. If they can build a sales ramp they will succeed. If they can't, they won't. The only measure is traction. Later they can explain it with this nonsense, and people will even believe it. But lacking traction, this is solely nonsense.

grecy 10y ago

I have spent a lot of my life pondering these questions, and have figured out a way to spend a lot less money than the majority of my peers. So much so I quit my job and drove Alaska->Argentina for 2 years, then after working for a few more I've quit again and am spending 2 years driving around Africa. My thoughts on how to do it here: http://theroadchoseme.com/work-less-to-live-your-dreams http://theroadchoseme.com/work-less-to-live-your-dreams