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Meet the makers of modular – TechCrunch
When Dieter Döpfer, the founder of music instrument manufacturer Doepfer, decided to launch a brand new modular synthesiser system in 1995, no one could have predicted what would follow. Today, his “Eurorack” format supports an ecosystem of hundreds of manufacturers that have collectively produced thousands of compatible modules used by famous musicians, such as Radiohead, Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin, and hobbyists alike.
Fuelled by passion not venture capital, most companies in the Eurorack space are neither startups nor established OEMs. Instead – and quite remarkably – the industry remains a long tail of boutique manufacturers, with some of the best-sellers still operating as one-person shops. Inspired by technology that is almost half a century old, and intentionally designed not to scale, these businesses might well be considered the anti-Crunch.
“My happiness is based on developing, not on the amount of sales,” one Eurorack maker told me, after I promised not to name his company for fear of generating too many new orders. “Of course I really appreciate if someone decides to purchase some modules, then I know my work makes sense, but the current sales amount ensures I have enough time for developing”.
He said that increased sales would lead to less time spent working on new designs and more time assembling modules and answering emails explaining why a particular item is currently out of stock. One solution would be to take on an employee or two but the associated bureaucracy would also be an unwelcome distraction.
“That’s not what I like [doing],” he said, comparing it to a friend who owned a single coffee shop and was happy making great coffee and fine desserts, but had subsequently expanded to three coffee shops and is now unhappy. “He’s thinking about selling two of his coffee shops to get his happiness back. More money does not ensure more happiness,” said the Eurorack maker.
It’s the kind of an existential crisis many founders find themselves facing after a company grows to a certain size, but for the makers of modular the reason for existing is often clear from the start. This is certainly true of Döpfer’s own story.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01 2019, @12:11PM (4 children)
Does it, though? I know of a number of operations similar to this, and virtually none of them are self-sustaining, financially. They almost always are a product of "daddy's money" being used to fund a lifestyle that doesn't generate as much income as its expenses.
I'm not saying the enterprises are losing money. I'm saying that, for the most part, they generate less net income than their "one man" employee/owners spend on their lifestyle - you know: a roof over one's head, food to eat, the occasional travel, etc.
Typical performance, these days, seems to be in the range of $20-70K annual gross sales, with ~40-50% going into cost of goods sold (neglecting any payment for labor), for a home based business somewhere that costs quite a bit more than $25K per year to live. If you're sitting on a $500K nest egg, drawing down another $20-30K per year in income from that capital, then, sure, it's a workable modest lifestyle - not to mention the security of 10 years' living expenses in the bank incase income stops altogether. Of course, there's a spread, with some little shops making over $100K/yr profit, and many more making less than $10K.
Make sure to locate yourself in a country with social medicine, free university education for the offspring, etc. The U.S. demands that you not pursue such a lazy lifestyle and expand beyond three coffee shops if you are so bold as to want to own your own business and afford to put your kids through university with decent healthcare.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 01 2019, @12:47PM (2 children)
Even if the are covering only part of the life style, I suppose there's less shit to eat for the rest.
Besides, there are segments that can go crazy; one that i stumbled some time ago: one of a kind dolls [ebay.com] (triggered sorta WTF? reaction when I first saw them). Based on it, I can't actually dismiss that some "operations" may actually cover a full living cost on very narrow niches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 01 2019, @01:26PM (1 child)
Absolutely, and there are big lottery winners every day, too...
Knew a guy whose wife ran an embroidery fonts business, selling font files to old ladies who bought these huge expensive computer controlled embroidery machines. They'd charge something like $30 per font (fonts are not copyrightable, only the font names, and the old ladies don't care if it's called Comic Sans or Funny Face, as long as it looks the same and works on their machine.) The real crux of the business was talking the old ladies through how to install the fonts on their ~$20K machines, and the old ladies were more than grateful to pay $30 for a font file that they might have gotten for free elsewhere, but when they pay here they know it's going to be in their machine and running in no-time. He said the wife was clearing about $70K per year doing that... at that time (2004)... until competition springs up... I believe the wife bought her own $20K machine as a hobby and figured out this market opportunity.
~1998 I bought a $1500 niche car ECU replacement computer, and developed some RS232 datalogging software for it, sold like hotcakes to the other purchasers of that particular ECU replacement computer for $65 per copy, there were about 150 of us worldwide and I sold about 70 copies within a year, if it had been a bigger niche - I probably would have had more competition.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Tuesday October 01 2019, @01:49PM
It is the same with quilting patterns and automated quilters. People will pay insane amounts of money. I know this because two of my sisters are into quilts (one's quilt was once featured on the cover of Quilting magazine) and one of them owns an automated quilter. It takes up a whole room. Woodworking has nothing on sewing when it comes to expensive automated machinery that takes a lot of space.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday October 01 2019, @03:53PM
What are you doing? You can't go around telling people that only the wealthy might not have to be wage slaves. You'll wake them from the American Dream.