My Uncle's Alders

In My Uncle's Alders, the seller makes alder rocking chairs from the notes and property of his passed uncle after his friend's interest in buying his uncle's old rocking chair. The seller sold the chair to his friend at about $500 with a 10% friends and family discount making it $450. Then, upon the friends' cabin neighborhood seeing the seller's friend's new rocking chair, the demand increased and so too did the price to $600. The neighborhood was given a 5% bulk discount for a massive order lowering the price to $570. The seller wasn't sure he wanted to devote all that time and it would take an unreasonably long time to build so much. He responded by hiring 2 part-timers and streamlining the process with an assembly line. He had to give a realistic date for having the bulk order completed which was in a few months. He saw that there was a market and decided to sell at the local furniture store at full price. Once he was selling way more than he could make so he upped the price to ~$800. Then he was running out of wood, he needed to upgrade to buying land, make a warehouse to sell to other department stores, and hire full-time employees. At this point, the company was worth a few million and he could sell as an exit strategy.

In my mind, $800 or even $450 sounded like so much money for a chair and I thought I would never pay that much. I gained a sense of understanding for the price point when the calculations came out that he was only making $30,000 per year doing it full time with all of the costs involved with hiring someone, the time in labor, etc. It takes a lot to make enough to live and the cost product has to reflect the investment.

I also learned that his success was sort of a cascade of events. He didn't start out buying anything big, instead his upgrades were all in response to him seeing a need and responding accordingly. As the market demand grew, so did his price. As he ran out of easily obtainable recourses, he had to invest in a bigger property. As the demand grew, the need for hiring full-time workers and further industrial streamlining grew

I learned good discount approximations for friends and family of %10 as well as the bulk discount of %5. Especially in the early phases, it is not smart to give away free items to friends and family no matter how tempting.

I learned the importance of making a brand off of what makes your product unique, but not so specific that it is limiting. Uncle Alder's handcrafted furniture conveyed the rustic aesthetic and that the chairs are made of alder wood while not limiting the brand to only chairs. This allowed the company to expand to a matching table top.

I learned it is very important to make the right friends and network with people in your target audience. If the seller didn't know his friend who is the exact target audience, the friend wouldn't have bought the first chair and put it on his porch advertising to all of his neighbors who are also in the same target audience. Without knowing and talking to the target audience and the right people, it would have been significantly harder for the seller to realize and define his target market as well as get his start with initial investments.

I saw how an ordinary person was able to grow a business, change their life, as well as adapt and grow as a person with the everyday tools afforded to him.