Best Marquetry We’ve Seen?! (Abacus Tiles DONE!) S8E22 

And if they offered a kick-back for the Craftspeople where they got to see a % of the profits/sales from their signature run, that would help them out a lot for sure during this pandemic.

It's like they are for "not poor people."

I can understand why the signature series would go for a premium price. Between the artwork and the limited number of tiles I can understand that there would be a minimal supply and a substantial demand. It's the random abacus tile having an extra premium price that baffles me.

Yeah I don't get how Jason is the bad guy for being a reasonable ceo lol

Just like Apple’s $700 wheels for a desktop computer. It’s just not for me.

Exactly. The only Wyrmwood stuff I own is the limited edition stuff they sold during the covid lockdown. I bought it knowing 1. its limited and only a few items will have that logo, and 2. it helped keep wyrmwood afloat to continue to make great products.

I don't think they were saying they would offer the cheapest wood they have, but rather find the price point of the cheapest wood they are offering in that run. Even if they only did it in exotics there would still be a "cheapest wood".

Yes, all of these things. You already laid out all of my thoughts, plus a few more good ones.

Respectfully disagree. Cost is just the bottom line of a pricing structure. Jason has the right idea, what will the market bare? Your method sells the organisation short and frankly it cheapens the brand.

@@Frankenstein786 well it's also hard to call the abacus tile a premium or highly sought item. It's definitely cool, but it's a far cry from expert craftsmanship. Look at the master series wyrmwood does on most Kickstarters. Premium components on an existing item and it's to the 9's on aesthetics. High price tag on that is fine because it's truly a luxury item. This is not premium materials and it's arguably a base piece with a unique design. They also only did 100 because they didn't think doing both the abacus and the tracker tile was a good plan and Bobby wanted to do a limited run. All of the r&d was already done and they scrapped the idea. Recovering r&d on the abacus tiles isn't a good business and claiming "we're premium" isn't a good look. I agree that if they can't keep up with prophesy it's time to up the price and so on and so forth for luxury items. Disagree that this cheapens the brand.

50% of bare materials cost and labour costs is not a buisness model. What about rent, wear and tear on machines, most.companies that resell things are charging about 100-200% of supply cost Wyrmwood is not just the seller they are also the manufacturer. Its a.complicated problem but the hours of r and d divided down to 100 tiles is going to add two or three villable hours to each tile at around 15 dollars an hour plus material costs.

I remember them making the joke, but werent they talking about the price for that one being higher? They reduced it to that as a joke and to drive sales? Or they raised in which case nevermind lol But I do agree that 500 is to high, especially when you consider the way Bennet puts it.

That was actually too cheap for an ebony set with silver. This is stuff that will stick around longer than the people who buy it. Long lasting, high end products like this are worth a lot more than these guys are selling them at, and that's the point Jason is trying to make. They sell themselves short.

Nonsense is worth whatever people will pay for it. Wyrmwood has enough -suckers- "Not Poor People" that will pay to have something to brag about.

Yeah confused by the abacus pricing. All the marquetry stuff is priceless. The new adventure party stuff is amazing. The abacus tile is CNC'd with 3 bars of beads glued in. Gluing those bars in is no harder than installing the magnets, beads, or cork. No way it compares with their other $250+ offerings in craftsmanship or quality.

@@theshockzone its not about the ease of production. These are professionals creating useable art. This is a limited run. The wyrmwood name alone has value on it. There is no chance they wont sell 100 priced at $500 or more. From a business standpoint it only makes sense to capitalize on it.

We still never saw what happened to all the plant seeds they threw all together in the mud field! So many others lol.

Like what happened when crazy Ed (I think) was driving Doug's tesla. It looked like he crashed into a mailbox and I wasn't to see the damage

Like that other lawsuit from the Tolkien Estate from a few seasons ago?

The way I see it is that if there's 100 people willing to pay $500 for a run limited to 100 tiles, then that price is fair. If there's more than 100 people, then you should charge more. If there's less than 100 people, make it cheaper. Basic economics. As long as the demand, supply, and price are in sync, you're doing a good business.

@@B3RyL this completely ignores the fact that they completely control the supply....

@@laysdong Actually this is precisely the reason why what I said works out. Wyrmwood controls the supply and price. The only thing they don't control is the demand. So since they already set their supply to 100 units, what they are trying to do now is set the price at a level that satisfies the demand and nets them the highest profit possible. And the price depends on how many people will be willing to pay how much for one of those 100 tiles. If they can find 100 people who will pay $1000000 for a single tile then they should price it as such. But if even $500 is too much to meet the 100 tiles sold goal, then they need to lower the price. There's just two things they can't do: lower the price when the demand dries out part way through the promotion, or release more tiles to satisfy increasing demand. That's because the folks who paid X amount of money for an item limited to X units produced will essentially get screwed. But I wouldn't worry to much. Wyrmwood has some experience by now so whatever price they set it'll feel like a limited run and no one will feel screwed over.

@@B3RyL I think you should learn t difference between elastic and inelastic demand. Your post really doesn't make any sense from an economics 101 standpoint

@@B3RyL and when you artificially lower the supply of an item, the basic tenants of economics don't really apply anymore. Making one pencil and calling it rare and charging millions of dollars for it is nonsense. Same thing applies here. They're trying to determine what their costs are going to be, bringing up the scarcity of that item afterward is completely irrelevant

I just posted that too!!! Definitely agree

The episode came out a half hour ago, I bet someone on the media team is out there looking at it right now

They did say in the last episode or the one before that that they had sprouted and he is watering them.

Yep, he mentioned a few vids ago that he's sprouted peas. Would love to see 'em, too haha

They can't do a raffle with paid entry. That would be illegal.

@@syntaxlost9239 Why? Places do it all the time.

@@timberwolf2468 it's technically gambling is why, most places require you to be registered to be allowed to do stuff like that. Places do it all the time because they're either breaking the law and nobody cares or because they jumped through all the relevant hoops.

@@timberwolf2468 "Other people did it," doesn't make it legal. It's very possible what other people did was also illegal (and just not reported). While the laws vary state by state, generally speaking a private company cannot offer a sweepstakes with consideration (paid tickets or purchased product gain entry), offering prizes with a monetary value and assigned purely by chance.

Yeah, it basically just prices some people out of the market. Which is fine, that's their prerogative, they're a business and they want to make money, wyrmlife is a commercial and the product ain't cheap. It just means different people will be buying this limited item. If it was cheaper, there'd be more people wanting them, now there will be less. But they're going to sell either way so from a money perspective you may as well charge as much as you can and still have them sell. That's tough to get a lot of people excited about though, like a bunch of us know we're not gonna pay that much for 1 tile, so I think it hurts the promotional angle a bit, at least for the widest audience. Signiture series sounds like a great idea, and a higher price point is expected.

This is more or less where I'm at. Making the abacus tile "Limited Edition" as a selling point doesn't do anything for me, even with an assortment of wood options. I mean, that's random, anyway. At $250, someone's going to feel like they were ripped off if they land one of the lower-tier woods. If you want Limited Edition to mean something, that's literally what the start of the video was for. The Signature Series hits and exceeds that mark. The abacus tile does not. The abacus tile may be the most expensive tile from a production standpoint, but does that make it Limited Edition? I don't think so. It's a kitschy, cool product that isn't so kitschy or so cool that it demands a Limited Edition price point. Make your money, 100%, but don't make this out to be something it's not.

@@PinchHitHero Yeah, if I recall it was something Jason thought was cool, but I'm not sure it merits all the attention. Like it's neat, and their customer base is big enough they will sell 100 of them at a high price, but that doesn't make it a good value for the consumer. At that point it's just that they have a lot of fans who want to suppourt them, but I'd argue $250 or $500 would be more wisely spent on one of their other products. Like getting 1/100 of a thing that's kind of lackluster, or even just kinda cool, doesn't make that thing amazing. The thing in question has to be cool enough to warrant being exclusive in the first place (Like the boss print Bobby mentioned, or the signature pieces they were showing at the beginning like you said.) This is a tile with an abacus in it, it's neat, but it's not blowing anyone's socks off.

Personally if I sat down next to someone who paid $500 for one of these tiles, I wouldn't look at them with respect - I'd just laugh to myself and see them as a very loyal customer who got played. **shrug** That's just me.

Maybe M&T started getting calls from Wyrmlings?

Is WW making it themselves or were they having the people next door do it?

Cool. Go away then lol. This is the right call for their business and their brand. Dont buy the limited edition crazy expensive stuff if you dont like it or find the price unreasonable. 500 was a huge number. But Jason's right, you're only making 100 of them. Which means they need to be priced at a point that makes up for craftsmans time and the development of the tiles. And with only 100 tiles, each one of them has to be pretty pricey. It's just the way it HAS to be.

Cherry is the Milhouse of woods. 😎

THIS

yeah i didnt know the word but my gut reaction was cephalopod was the wrong term

Yeah I instantly did a brow-furrow and said out loud "They're mollusks, but not cephalopods."

About tree 50

I like this idea because only the "learned" person will get it.

By the same logic, if someone is willing to pay $50 chances are high they'll pay $100. Yes, someone with 250 has a lot more than someone with 50, but a 100% increase is negligible for almost nobody.

@@drekfletch while that's true this was an example, but the counter point you made is also missing my point that, there are thresholds for consumers, once you pass such line(I don't know this line i'm not a statistician or economist) that spending habits become different, drastically so. And I also think they won't find a shortage of people wanting a limited 100 run of a master craft item at most price points as they already have a following of people with deep pockets, and are willing to spend it.

It's a shame he said it whilst refering to a gastropod though.

Who are you OSHA?

Bro. That’s not being a capitalist though! You gotta milk every cent from a customer!! /s

They aren't in the position to expand that part of production right now, they've gone through constant expansion for the last few years, and the "expansion first" mindset is probably partly why Jason is CEO now.

Expansion is good, but if you expand too much too quickly then when the market goes through its inevitable slow period, you lose more money than you would if you kept the growth modest. This is when layoffs happen in typical companies to offset that loss. It's why they're always carefully disgussing the cost of their next machine. Humongous companies can get away with it because they have massive monetary cushions and pass off most of the risk to local owners. (Business chains).

Honestly I would $500 for the tavern tile long before I would ever pay $50 (yes that's fifty) for the abacus tile.

I enjoyed Jason laying the smack down about S&D. He is right boys, $250 is a great starting point.

@@Visceralreality how much demand will there be for an abacus tile?

@@njatgu Honestly even at $250 I would have no doubt they'd sell, in fact I'd bet on it. The fact is they have so many people now interested in their products that even if only 5000 people bought tiles I would almost gaurantee there's 100 out there who would buy the abacus.

The problem with this is there's a larger range of customers than you think, I personally cannot afford stuff like 500 dollar tiles but buy stuff for function like you said, but wyrmwood has customers that spend 5 figures on a table, not every one is a blue collar worker, if you can't possibly imagine that someone would pay 500 for a limited edition piece from their favorite company then you don't wanna know what kind of absurd shit rich people spend money on.

Agreed but plucking numbers out of the air is just not good business. How long did they take to make, how much effort was involved and what level of craftsperson created it?

Tried and True!

@@michellewetherbee9767 what would be your recommendation for finishing a maple table top?

@@chrisr9595 When I did custom cabinetry I would use MinWax fast drying polyurethane in Semi-Gloss. One coat on the underside, two to three on the top with a scuff between each coat. It's self spreading so as long as you don't touch it while tacky and mind the drips as they happen, you should get an excellent finish that brings out the gold tones in maple.

By valuing your work, it also educates the public on how things really cost instead of expecting craftsman work for Walmart prices.