Oversaturation in the Yoyo Market
I started making yoyos around 2013. I believed that the yoyo market was lacking then, in terms of homebrew material. Fastforward to 2017, December. There is an oversaturation of yoyo "companies." What is a company?
noun, plural companies:
a number of persons united or incorporated for joint action, especially for business:
It is easy to start a company by this definition. However, let's look closer at what separates a homebrew company from a "garage band" yoyo brand.
Let's compare these two:
SF yoyos.
Following after a RiHara esque design, they created an aesthetically pleasing yoyo that was also very easy to use. Their brand, because of their great leadership, marketing, and management, became successful. They sponsor a plethora of great players. Design is done in house.
XXXXXXXXXX
Following after a delusional concept, they created a yoyo based off of another yoyo someone else had made, paid someone to make the design, has no real vision or goal. Promotion is done with trick circles, videos don't make any sense.
Which product are you more likely to buy?
Historically, only the rich had the means to communicate, but now with the mass spread of the internet, anyone can open forms of communication. Fortunately for us, this means that we hear more of the mass.
Unfortunately, this leads to the delusional feeding off on other delusional groups. Take for example, the Wakefield paper. The Wakefield paper was a paper describing how autism is caused by vaccines. Despite the immediate withdrawal of the paper, parents stopped vaccinating their kids. This was during 1998. However, in the mind of the delusional, this idea lives on, and is spread on the internet.
Other examples of this are the flat earth theorists. Despite there being photographic evidence of Earth being round, they refuse to believe it. The moon landing being faked is a popular conspiracy theory as well, despite it being harder to fake both financially and technologically during that time.
Why am I writing about these types of delusions? Because people are able to feed on these types of delusions, there is a community that encourages this to go on. The delusional feed upon the delusional.
Let's bring this back to yoyo. It was easy to start something, as there wasn't as large of a vision spectrum even back 4 years ago. I started making yoyos around then, and back then, I was doing one off's in the basement of my university. I never thought I would make more than 10 yoyos at once. Now I'm doing runs of 400.
People are starting off with an unrealistic mindset, of attempting to sell out 100 immediately. They sponsor contests, and sink thousands of dollars onto the project. Once they go to the contest, they find out that all the people that had been supporting them online, didn't actually back up their claim. They were doing it to be supportive of the delusion. This brand sold zero at the contest, despite putting in 200 USD for the sponsor table.
I've been blessed to work with some of the best minds in the game. I've worked with world champions, national champions, store owners, and have done countless amounts of freelance work. Throughout all of this, I have picked up how easy it is to find someone who is delusional. Picture this:
I'm doing work, like usual, and then I receive a message. The message says: I've been planning this for a while, and have over 10 years worth of notes for what I want to do. How can I make this happen? As for the yoyo, I know exactly what I want." (Paraphrased, but a true story.)
Now you get this message:
"Hey, so I want to start a yoyo company. As for the yoyo can you help me? I know you charge x, but can you charge me less? And if I use you again I'll ask you to do it again for even cheaper. I kinda want a hybrid between x and y yoyo. Oh, that reminds me, here's a drawing I did on scratch paper."
Which do you think has a clear vision in their mind? If what you want is something that even yourself can not understand, how can anyone understand it at all?
If you want to make yoyos for fun, and sell them, that's great. I'm extremely happy that people are out doing that, and I highly encourage it. If you want to make yoyos for the sake of profit, I urge you to reconsider. I was never in it for the money, and as soon as it becomes about the money, you lose a clear sense of mind, and you become delusional. Less people will buy your product than you think.