5 ms·

Congrats on the success. Thanks for sharing the business story too. Disclaimer: this is not a paid endorsement. I don't know Chris. But I happen to be a custom

by qwrusz 10y ago

Congrats on the success. Thanks for sharing the business story too. Disclaimer: this is not a paid endorsement. I don't know Chris. But I happen to be a customer - having bought a painting as a gift. It is framed on the wall at this moment. My only feedback. Your prices felt too inexpensive. Knowing something was handmade I would have paid more than I did. I'm sure you have researched the market and margins and all that, just letting you know my experience. Also the artist being from China aspect that other comments are mentioning, almost everything we own is made in China, and the location or nationality of an artist shouldn't be any different than other types of work. Also there are some darn good artists in China, check Youtube for examples. Congrats again.

jfoutz 10y ago
Reminds me of one of my favorite "jokes" about scale. If you're a one in a million, there are 1357 of you in china.
- caf 10y ago
  Also similar to a line from the song Up Against The Wall by The Whitlams: She was one in a million, yeah So there's five more, just in New South Wales
  - cloudjacker 10y ago
    In NYC former Mayor Bloomberg used to say that about all the entrepreneurs trying to make it with original ideas and gusto "there's eight of you here"
- mseebach 10y ago
  In a similar vein, I really like this line from "Try this at home" by Frank Turner: "If you’re oh so fucking different then who cares what you have to say?" The entire song, while nominally about making music, is pretty fun and inspiring and I feel applies very well to other kinds of entrepreneurialism as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66knvY3vxsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66knvY3vxsA
gist 10y ago
> Your prices felt too inexpensive. Knowing something was handmade I would have paid more than I did. Interesting if you read my comment elsewhere here that is a point that I made as well in a different way. That said perhaps there is a way to tweak the pricing so that they have different perceptions of quality for the price paid. Don't lose the low end market but give an option for those that want to pay more.
- qwrusz 10y ago
  I read your comment and agree. I also agree it's difficult to properly articulate those benefits/interests some people have for handmade things vs machine-made things. Still just things though. Who knows when robots take over every job, maybe all that will be left is jobs where there is some demand preferences for handmade over machine made. Art, "home-style cooking" etc... Of course there are multiple ways to tweak pricing to add more discrimination and differential pricing. Interestingly art sales happen to be one of the few examples where a business can reach ~perfect price discrimination, don't see that too often outside of econ textbooks. I'm not going to suggest it to a business owner or anything, looks like he knows what he is doing, just wanted to share my experience.
  - gist 10y ago
    > when robots take over every job My wife tries to make me dinner most nights. Honestly I feel better most times if I make it myself. I find it relaxing. I also enjoy driving a 7 speed manual transmission in my car (a 911). Most of them sold are PDK's. To me that makes it to easy, even if (as they argue) the performance is better. Most times I enjoy driving, not all of the time but I wouldn't consider it a benefit to have a self driving car except in certain situations it would be helpful.
    - qwrusz 10y ago
      I'm with you. I often write longhand with a fountain pen ($20 pen nothing fancy). And not just thank you notes, long research papers that I will eventually type up, I write it out first when I have time. Writing slows things down and alters the thought process vs. typing. One downside is fountain pen ink seems to end up on your fingers no matter how careful. Funny you mention a 911. I'm not really a car guy but I sit next one at work who claims the only legit Porsches are manual and just bought some special Porsche that only comes in manual, so I have been hearing a lot about this. I'd love to test drive it but haven't driven manual in years and am nervous to do so in someone else's brand new car. Any suggestions on how one can practice driving manual without ruining someone else's clutch? Btw Jay Leno is another manual > PDK guy "I bought the clutch and the car just happened to come with it" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0t2xia8xxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0t2xia8xxs
chrischen 10y ago
Hi! Thanks for the comment! All I can say is that the reason I don't charge more is it'd just be lining my pockets since the artists set their prices at a pretty consistent rate. I don't get lower rates from the artists than my competitors, so I just undercut them in final retail price instead.
- qwrusz 10y ago
  > the reason I don't charge more is it'd just be lining my pockets What's wrong with lining your pockets? This is a business no?
  - rhizome 10y ago
    I read it to mean that it would be excessively exploitative. "The artists set their prices at a pretty consistent rate" says to me that the artists generally hold to a price point, so OP milking the margins by raising prices on the retail end would benefit only OP and not the artist.
  - b2600 10y ago
    That's not how business works. Unless you want transitory success.
    - qwrusz 10y ago
      That is how business works. It's the definition of business. He is not running a charity. It is a for profit business. Also, the intent of my question wasn't greedy-capitalism-gouge-the-customer...I meant if a business can charge more for their service and have better margins without pricing out would-be customers or losing them to lower priced competition (neither were his reasons) then why not charge more? That extra money can be reinvested in this business or another business or used to retire early or go on vacation. The guy runs a business, make a profit when you can. Every success is transitory here.
      - totalZero 10y ago
adventured 10y ago
I was surprised at how relatively cheap the prices are. A 48"x72" oil painting for $279 base is at least half of what I would have expected. Pushes me to want to make a purchase before the prices inevitably have to climb as demand overtakes the scarcity on the production side.
- gwern 10y ago
  > before the prices inevitably have to climb as demand overtakes the scarcity on the production side. This definitely seems like an area where you might expect Baumol's cost disease to operate. China labor costs are increasing steadily and there's no obvious labor pool to replace them, and as far as hand painted paintings go, there's also no obvious productivity improvements which could keep costs constant - they already seem to be painted about as fast as possible. (So Instapainting's dabbling in robot painting can't fix Baumol's cost disease because the paintings will no longer be 'handmade'.)
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
If the price was higher I would A) Probably not do it B) seek out artists myself As it is I will be ordering two for Christmas presents now

by qwrusz 10y ago

jfoutz 10y ago

Reminds me of one of my favorite "jokes" about scale. If you're a one in a million, there are 1357 of you in china.

caf 10y ago
Also similar to a line from the song Up Against The Wall by The Whitlams: She was one in a million, yeah So there's five more, just in New South Wales
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  In NYC former Mayor Bloomberg used to say that about all the entrepreneurs trying to make it with original ideas and gusto "there's eight of you here"
mseebach 10y ago
In a similar vein, I really like this line from "Try this at home" by Frank Turner: "If you’re oh so fucking different then who cares what you have to say?" The entire song, while nominally about making music, is pretty fun and inspiring and I feel applies very well to other kinds of entrepreneurialism as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66knvY3vxsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66knvY3vxsA

gist 10y ago

> Your prices felt too inexpensive. Knowing something was handmade I would have paid more than I did. Interesting if you read my comment elsewhere here that is a point that I made as well in a different way. That said perhaps there is a way to tweak the pricing so that they have different perceptions of quality for the price paid. Don't lose the low end market but give an option for those that want to pay more.

qwrusz 10y ago
I read your comment and agree. I also agree it's difficult to properly articulate those benefits/interests some people have for handmade things vs machine-made things. Still just things though. Who knows when robots take over every job, maybe all that will be left is jobs where there is some demand preferences for handmade over machine made. Art, "home-style cooking" etc... Of course there are multiple ways to tweak pricing to add more discrimination and differential pricing. Interestingly art sales happen to be one of the few examples where a business can reach ~perfect price discrimination, don't see that too often outside of econ textbooks. I'm not going to suggest it to a business owner or anything, looks like he knows what he is doing, just wanted to share my experience.
- gist 10y ago
  > when robots take over every job My wife tries to make me dinner most nights. Honestly I feel better most times if I make it myself. I find it relaxing. I also enjoy driving a 7 speed manual transmission in my car (a 911). Most of them sold are PDK's. To me that makes it to easy, even if (as they argue) the performance is better. Most times I enjoy driving, not all of the time but I wouldn't consider it a benefit to have a self driving car except in certain situations it would be helpful.
  - qwrusz 10y ago
    I'm with you. I often write longhand with a fountain pen ($20 pen nothing fancy). And not just thank you notes, long research papers that I will eventually type up, I write it out first when I have time. Writing slows things down and alters the thought process vs. typing. One downside is fountain pen ink seems to end up on your fingers no matter how careful. Funny you mention a 911. I'm not really a car guy but I sit next one at work who claims the only legit Porsches are manual and just bought some special Porsche that only comes in manual, so I have been hearing a lot about this. I'd love to test drive it but haven't driven manual in years and am nervous to do so in someone else's brand new car. Any suggestions on how one can practice driving manual without ruining someone else's clutch? Btw Jay Leno is another manual > PDK guy "I bought the clutch and the car just happened to come with it" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0t2xia8xxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0t2xia8xxs

chrischen 10y ago

Hi! Thanks for the comment! All I can say is that the reason I don't charge more is it'd just be lining my pockets since the artists set their prices at a pretty consistent rate. I don't get lower rates from the artists than my competitors, so I just undercut them in final retail price instead.

qwrusz 10y ago
> the reason I don't charge more is it'd just be lining my pockets What's wrong with lining your pockets? This is a business no?
- rhizome 10y ago
  I read it to mean that it would be excessively exploitative. "The artists set their prices at a pretty consistent rate" says to me that the artists generally hold to a price point, so OP milking the margins by raising prices on the retail end would benefit only OP and not the artist.
- b2600 10y ago
  That's not how business works. Unless you want transitory success.
  - qwrusz 10y ago
    That is how business works. It's the definition of business. He is not running a charity. It is a for profit business. Also, the intent of my question wasn't greedy-capitalism-gouge-the-customer...I meant if a business can charge more for their service and have better margins without pricing out would-be customers or losing them to lower priced competition (neither were his reasons) then why not charge more? That extra money can be reinvested in this business or another business or used to retire early or go on vacation. The guy runs a business, make a profit when you can. Every success is transitory here.
    - totalZero 10y ago

adventured 10y ago

I was surprised at how relatively cheap the prices are. A 48"x72" oil painting for $279 base is at least half of what I would have expected. Pushes me to want to make a purchase before the prices inevitably have to climb as demand overtakes the scarcity on the production side.

gwern 10y ago
> before the prices inevitably have to climb as demand overtakes the scarcity on the production side. This definitely seems like an area where you might expect Baumol's cost disease to operate. China labor costs are increasing steadily and there's no obvious labor pool to replace them, and as far as hand painted paintings go, there's also no obvious productivity improvements which could keep costs constant - they already seem to be painted about as fast as possible. (So Instapainting's dabbling in robot painting can't fix Baumol's cost disease because the paintings will no longer be 'handmade'.)

Normal_gaussian 10y ago

If the price was higher I would A) Probably not do it B) seek out artists myself As it is I will be ordering two for Christmas presents now