Don’t Spread your Money Around

When I say that I want to support those artisans / soap makers whose products I like I don't mean that I view them as a charity deserving of my money.  They still have to offer the product at the quality and value point that I consider it a product I want to buy.  They have to run their businesses in a business like manner and remain solvent and hopefully profitable.  I have no problem buying product from people like Will at Barrister and Mann  - if he's doing OK money wise thats good on him.  He deserves every cent and he earned every scent (see how I did that?)  He built B&M out of his creativity, imagination and hard work.  People like what he's doing and want to buy his products.  That sounds like the American dream to me.  Have an idea, work hard to build a dream into a business.  Make people happy while making money and creating jobs for other people.  Marry your high school sweetheart and become President.  Its all possible man with an idea and hard work.  I'm prepared to reward that with my business.

To those artisans who are struggling or have had to close their doors - ask yourself what you're doing wrong because poor sales aren't your customers' fault they're your fault.  It might be the product, it might be the business plan or the business model you're using isn't working.  There's people out there buying soap every day and if they're not buying your soap you've got to look at what you're doing and figure out how to change that.

What's the Canadian dream?

I use loyalty as a tie-breaker (mostly). I like to try new products - specially new soap bases. But if a new product doesn't really improve my shaves/experience by a noticeable amount, I try to steer my money towards artisans that I am already familiar with. If I buy a product from a new maker 'A', and after using it I don't find it noticeably better than what I already have (better in terms of quality, scent,novelty etc.) I won't purchase from 'A' again. Even if 'A' comes up with a new formula shortly saying 'we have fixed issues in our previous release'. I mean they should have fixed the issues before taking my money.

But in all honesty, I have purchased more than 100 soaps in last two years - that statement alone should indicate that my soap purchasing habit isn't totally rational. So I am sure I break my own rule more often than not .

When I say that I want to support those artisans / soap makers whose products I like I don't mean that I view them as a charity deserving of my money.  They still have to offer the product at the quality and value point that I consider it a product I want to buy.  They have to run their businesses in a business like manner and remain solvent and hopefully profitable.  I have no problem buying product from people like Will at Barrister and Mann  - if he's doing OK money wise thats good on him.  He deserves every cent and he earned every scent (see how I did that?)  He built B&M out of his creativity, imagination and hard work.  People like what he's doing and want to buy his products.  That sounds like the American dream to me.  Have an idea, work hard to build a dream into a business.  Make people happy while making money and creating jobs for other people.  Marry your high school sweetheart and become President.  Its all possible man with an idea and hard work.  I'm prepared to reward that with my business.

To those artisans who are struggling or have had to close their doors - ask yourself what you're doing wrong because poor sales aren't your customers' fault they're your fault.  It might be the product, it might be the business plan or the business model you're using isn't working.  There's people out there buying soap every day and if they're not buying your soap you've got to look at what you're doing and figure out how to change that.

What's the Canadian dream?

I thought I'd use the country likely more relevant to most users Now the Canadian dream should be very similar in my opinion but we have a significant number of contrary minded people who seem to feel differently but I''ll stay away from expanding on that because this isn't a political forum.

I use loyalty as a tie-breaker (mostly). I like to try new products - specially new soap bases. But if a new product doesn't really improve my shaves/experience by a noticeable amount, I try to steer my money towards artisans that I am already familiar with.  If I buy a product from a new maker 'A', and after using it I don't find it noticeably better than what I already have (better in terms of quality, scent,novelty etc.) I won't purchase from 'A' again. Even if 'A' comes up with a new formula shortly saying 'we have fixed issues in our previous release'. I mean they should have fixed the issues before taking my money.

But in all honesty, I have purchased more than 100 soaps in last two years - that statement alone should indicate that my soap purchasing habit isn't totally rational. So I am sure I break my own rule more often than not .

The use of the word "fixing" is interesting, I don't think anyone releases a soap that is broken

I use loyalty as a tie-breaker (mostly). I like to try new products - specially new soap bases. But if a new product doesn't really improve my shaves/experience by a noticeable amount, I try to steer my money towards artisans that I am already familiar with.  If I buy a product from a new maker 'A', and after using it I don't find it noticeably better than what I already have (better in terms of quality, scent,novelty etc.) I won't purchase from 'A' again. Even if 'A' comes up with a new formula shortly saying 'we have fixed issues in our previous release'. I mean they should have fixed the issues before taking my money.

But in all honesty, I have purchased more than 100 soaps in last two years - that statement alone should indicate that my soap purchasing habit isn't totally rational. So I am sure I break my own rule more often than not .

The use of the word "fixing" is interesting, I don't think anyone releases a soap that is broken

Fixing issues != fixing something that was broken.

And yes, I have received products that had serious issues - which makers later fixed, and it definitely shows their lack of effort in testing. If I spend my money on a newcomer and I receive a faulty product (I received a soap in a container with visible rust on top, received soaps with ungodly rotten smell), I will be less inclined to spend money with them.

Also, I have seen artisans releasing a new product saying 'it addresses lack of slickness in our previous release'.

I use loyalty as a tie-breaker (mostly). I like to try new products - specially new soap bases. But if a new product doesn't really improve my shaves/experience by a noticeable amount, I try to steer my money towards artisans that I am already familiar with.  If I buy a product from a new maker 'A', and after using it I don't find it noticeably better than what I already have (better in terms of quality, scent,novelty etc.) I won't purchase from 'A' again. Even if 'A' comes up with a new formula shortly saying 'we have fixed issues in our previous release'. I mean they should have fixed the issues before taking my money.

But in all honesty, I have purchased more than 100 soaps in last two years - that statement alone should indicate that my soap purchasing habit isn't totally rational. So I am sure I break my own rule more often than not .

The use of the word "fixing" is interesting, I don't think anyone releases a soap that is broken

Fixing issues != fixing something that was broken.

And yes, I have received products that had serious issues - which makers later fixed, and it definitely shows their lack of effort in testing. If I spend my money on a newcomer and I receive a faulty product (I received a soap in a container with visible rust on top, received soaps with ungodly rotten smell), I will be less inclined to spend money with them.

Also, I have seen artisans releasing a new product saying 'it addresses lack of slickness in our previous release'.

Everyone makes mistakes. I would never shy from saying I have made mistakes. I have made and sold a soap that smelled vile, I have offered replacement or refunds. There is a huge learning process in making products and selling them. Sometimes errors are not caught before a product ships.

You're in software development, so was I. You can't kill all bugs, you can't have test coverage for every feature you make. Even Intel has issues with bugs in chips!

I can think of more than one top established artisans that have released soaps, and then came back a couple of years later and released revised formulas. There is nothing wrong with that. I think soap formulae should be a work in progress. Artisans are not born with knowledge and business acumen. I'm still discovering new ideas and new ingredients.

Some people learn from making mistakes and evolve, some don't.

Slickness is interesting. I've seen artisans "improve" slickness, as in the last version was slick but this one is slicker because we did a bunch of experimenting and found a way to make a good soap better. If they were releasing soap that wasn't slick and now it is thats a different story. They shouldn't sell soap that isn't slick, at least not shaving soap.

The use of the word "fixing" is interesting, I don't think anyone releases a soap that is broken

Fixing issues != fixing something that was broken.

And yes, I have received products that had serious issues - which makers later fixed, and it definitely shows their lack of effort in testing. If I spend my money on a newcomer and I receive a faulty product (I received a soap in a container with visible rust on top, received soaps with ungodly rotten smell), I will be less inclined to spend money with them.

Also, I have seen artisans releasing a new product saying 'it addresses lack of slickness in our previous release'.

Everyone makes mistakes. I would never shy from saying I have made mistakes. I have made and sold a soap that smelled vile, I have offered replacement or refunds. There is a huge learning process in making products and selling them. Sometimes errors are not caught before a product ships.

You're in software development, so was I was. You can't kill all bugs, you can't have test coverage for every feature you make. Even Intel has issues with bugs in chips!  

I can think of more than one top established artisans that have released soaps, and then came back a couple a year later and released revised formulas. There is nothing wrong with that. I think soap formulae should be a work in progress. Artisans are not born with knowledge and business acumen. I'm still discovering new ideas and new ingredients.

Some people learn from making mistakes and evolve, some don't.

and mistakes have consequences as well.

The software I build is used regularly by the company you mentioned. One of their teams rejected our software because of a bug we created! They used our competitors product. Our mistake was reflected in our bonus/increment.

And more importantly, another company (bigger than the one you mentioned) found that bug just 15 days later, and they were annoyed that why didn't we make a public announcement to all possible sufferers. That mistake was reflected on some people's bonus , I am sure.

About artisans releasing new improved versions, I do understand that. But I get to decide how much I want to pay for them to evolve and what rate. My money will provide part of their testing, but not most. I am not willing to pay to use their test batches. Whether I perceive their release as a test batch or a truly good product (which can obviously be improved over time) depends on my experience, frequency of product upgrades among other things.

Slickness is interesting. I've seen artisans "improve" slickness, as in the last version was slick but this one is slicker because we did a bunch of experimenting and found a way to make a good soap better. If they were releasing soap that wasn't slick and now it is thats a different story. They shouldn't sell soap that isn't slick, at least not shaving soap.

More slickerer.

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Will's point on the dabblers is a fair stab at "businesses" that don't need to pass any form of solvency test to remain in business.  How do you compete with somebody who doesn't care if they make any money or not and doesn't have to make a payroll or pay utilities or business taxes?  What other industry has that?  I don't see anybody in the oil and gas business doing it for fun and giving their barrels away because they just like doing it.  It is what it is I guess.  

This exact thing happened to recently to my sister. She opened a bakery in a smaller town that gets a lot of summer time traffic and they were in business for several years. But the state they're in has cottage industry laws that don't require health inspections or business licenses or anything like that. People would complain to her that her prices were a higher than a high school kid that was baking cakes in their parent's kitchen. She ended up closing up shop. But that type of thing literally killed her business.

Now that she closed her main shop she gets lots of calls to do special events and people asking her to make breads and baked goods that they can't get anywhere else. Often from the same folks that used to complain about prices.