
Growing a company that sells miniature construction supplies to $17k a month - patwalls
https://www.starterstory.com/mini-materials
======
bpicolo
This sort of thing is just killer in the hobbyist market - think people out
there making miniature train towns, very-high-setting-realism RPG campaigns,
etc. It's not a billion dollar business, and it doesn't have to be.

There's endless potential for lifestyle businesses in the hobby world. There
are people out there doing 6 figures selling artisanal mechanical keyboard
keycaps.

~~~
kirykl
There's a whole industry selling real $2 bills for more than face value

[https://smile.amazon.com/Two-Dollar-Bill-Pack-
Bills/dp/B01N2...](https://smile.amazon.com/Two-Dollar-Bill-Pack-
Bills/dp/B01N2ABL3Q/)

~~~
LeifCarrotson
That looks like nothing but thinly-disguised money laundering. Hack an Amazon
account, buy some cash, repeat. Why else would someone buy $20 for $32?

~~~
Cthulhu_
Because $2 dollar bills are rare to find and get in bulk; iirc if you buy
rolls of change at a bank (for change, e.g. if you need it for your shop) you
also pay a bit more than the face value of the currency.

~~~
mod
I "buy" rolls of change at the bank constantly. I also turn in unrolled
change, which they count for me. (I own machines that take quarters)

I've never paid a penny extra for the rolls, and my bank does the coin-
counting for free as well.

I have never in my life heard of paying extra for rolled coins. In fact,
there's a whole subreddit devoted to people who buy rolls of coins and then
hunt through them looking for old (silver) coins. They turn the coins back in
later, at a different bank/location. This would likely not be a viable hobby
if there was any upcharge.

~~~
wink
In my local bank (Germany) I get up to 2 rolls of any denomination for free,
per day. I can also cash in loose coins (to my account) at an automatic
counting machine (but not many branches have them). For people who don't have
an account at this bank, iirc there's some kind of fee for getting rolled
coins, might be in the ballpark of 50ct per roll or something.

------
caio1982
"I sent out an email to our first set of customers that had the low-quality
cinder blocks, asking to replace them. I ended up having to completely revamp
my process, and learn how cement creation really works."

That's how you do it, folks.

Awesome tips and sound business logic in the interview, that made my day
already :-)

~~~
sampl
1\. Just get something out there—without obsessing over getting it exactly
right the first time

2\. When something does go sideways: own up to it, make it right with
customers, and learn how to fix your mistake for the future

Seems like a lot of founders get one of these right, but not both. Either
they’re comfortable charging ahead into the unknown, but struggle to be
reliable—or they get caught up on small details and launch far too late.

~~~
nerdponx
#1 is OK if and only if your customers are made aware of what they are getting
into. They should know that what they are buying is a "beta" product.
Otherwise you are being disingenuous.

~~~
jagger27
Either that or do the Minecraft model and sell the alpha for less than the
final product.

~~~
nerdponx
I almost forgot that they did this. Unfortunately this doesn't work with these
kinds of "artisan" projects because the material/startup costs tend to be
high, and actually come _down_ as the product gets more popular due to
economies of scale. That's why you have group buys, and companies like
Kickstarter. You need the money up-front, and you need some early adopters who
are willing to go in deep on it.

AFAICT it tends to be the opposite for software as long as you can ship an MVP
really early: there's no need to chase bugs and run tech support if you're
writing code that only 10 people will depend on. It's a big time sink, but
these kinds of things tend to be labors of love in the first place.

------
apo
_" I didn't think I'd ever want to buy a pallet of mini cinder blocks, but now
that I see it, I really need it."_

The weird thing about this is that I now suddenly want a miniature palette of
miniature cinder blocks, but have no idea why. I'm almost afraid to watch the
videos that were referenced in the article.

~~~
tompetry
Grew up a huge lego fan. I sent this link around my office, wondering if
anybody else would think it was as interesting as I did. Everybody is now
buzzing with cinder block mania, with no prior cinder block / brick laying
experience :)

~~~
capsulecorp
The skeptic in me struggles to believe an office full of adults is excited
about mini cinderblocks...

~~~
rkangel
A few years ago, a week before Christmas, one of the guys disappeared over
lunch time and came buck with the full Lego pirate ship. All work in the
office ceased for a couple of hours as we fought over who got to build bits of
it.

It isn't a huge surprise that engineers enjoy building things.

~~~
capsulecorp
Eh, thats a terrible example. Most people would rather get paid to build a
lego ship than do actual work. Has nothing to do with being an engineer.

------
ta2384428
It still blows me away that people put their email address in forms, and that
email marketing affects sales. I guess while they keep working, people will
keep creating popups.

~~~
Nagyman
I have a hypothesis that a lot of less-than-savvy internet users think filling
out those pop-ups is just akin to a login form. "Oh, I have to fill out my
email to see this, sure!" That doesn't explain the efficacy of increased sales
though :)

The experience _can_ be ok, if it's easy enough to dismiss. The pattern that
drives me a little nuts is the "intent to close tab" event trigger. I just
wanted to switch tabs, calm down, I'm not leaving your site.

~~~
softawre
ctrl+tab switches tabs, most sites use mouse movement to show you the popups.
Switch to keyboard shortcuts :)

~~~
Nagyman
Thanks. I use multiple ways to change tabs. CMD+<number> (most often used),
CMD+OPT+<left|right arrow>, mouse, or trackpad; depends where my hands are at
the time.

ctrl+tab actually feels a bit awkward on my MBP and only shows 5 tabs on FF
Nightly; seems to be sourced from the most recently used ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

------
LordHeini
That brings back some memory. As a kid i had a bunch of these Anker stones:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_Stone_Blocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_Stone_Blocks)
Those where awesome. Kind of like Legos but made of some stone like material
Somewhat of a different use case i suppose.

~~~
rnabel
Same here! Sadly they don't seem to be made any more...

~~~
a2tech
According to the wiki page they're still manufactured and are widely available
in Germany.

~~~
Cenk
[https://www.amazon.de/Anker-2041735-ANKER-58812-Steinbaukast...](https://www.amazon.de/Anker-2041735-ANKER-58812-Steinbaukasten/dp/B0042EUDOS/)

------
mathofma
Mat from Mini Materials here - I'd love to answer any questions yall have!

~~~
V2hLe0ThslzRaV2
Have you experienced copycats, and if so, what do you believe is the number
one barrier to them competing against you?

~~~
mathofma
There are a couple of people copying it. The main barrier to entry is that you
need to do volume to make money, and to get to that point you need to do
everything yourself or you'll be spending too much out of pocket. My partner
and I can create products, design, build sites, market and advertise, run
warehouses, do our own accounting, etc... We haven't hired outside help for
any of it.

------
qubex
Having just read Greg Egan’s _The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine_ (also
posted to Hacker News today, a short story about how Silicon Valley would keep
supplying people with enough income to continue selling them services once
they had obsoleted them all), I must admit this sent a chill down my spine.

------
zappo2938
My friend's mother did custom upholstery for the mega yacht industry. She had
some metal button covers left over so she sold them on ebay. They went so fast
she decided to go into the button cover business. They were selling $700 -
$1000 a day worth of cover buttons out of their house. I did the orders for a
couple weeks while they were on vacation. It took me 2 hours a day to get all
the orders out. The manufacturer died and the family was going to close the
business since nobody wanted to buy it. My friend's mom and the whole family
decided they would either have to give up their business or buy all the
equipment and do it themselves which is what they did.

~~~
copper_think
What are metal button covers? I can't picture it

~~~
jaclaz
>What are metal button covers? I can't picture it

Basically once upon a time "luxury" buttons were either of precious materials
(like solid, real gold) or sporting a precious stone or an enameled
surface/design and those owning dresses with these buttons could afford to
have them removed (and later re-sawn) when washing the dress was needed, as
there was the possibility that they became damaged.

Using more common metals (like brass or similar) poses another possible risks
during washing, the fabric could result stained by some reaction of the
soap/chemicals involved with the metal.

Metal button covers are thin covers that you can put over a normal (usually
plastic) button to give them a particular "look", and they can simply be
removed when washing is needed.

An example:

[https://img.etsystatic.com/il/94fdb4/756126385/il_570xN.7561...](https://img.etsystatic.com/il/94fdb4/756126385/il_570xN.756126385_ofmf.jpg)

------
wafflesraccoon
I wonder if the author is worried that now that they have had success getting
their story on Hacker News and Reddit they will face much steeper competition.
The product is cool but expensive, I suspect there is a lot of room to
undercut their prices.

~~~
lostapathy
There seems to be a goldilocks zone in smaller markets like this - where you
can make a product at a decent profit that looks easy to undercut, and the
market is big enough to support a very healthy business ... but the market
isn't so big that a competitor can come in on razor-thin margins and "make it
up in volume" and displace the genuine article.

Add in the fact that hobby purchases are very discretionary and a lot of
people are willing to pay a little more for quality/genuine articles and this
business is probably safer from simple undercutting than one would initially
think.

~~~
mathofma
You've hit the nail on the head. There's a LOT that goes into something like
this. It's hard to replicate, and even if you did, the margins aren't there to
undercut much.

------
bringtheaction
After reading the article and going to the site and then to the DIY category
and seeing the sample kit [0], my first though was “these would be cool for a
fingerboard video”.

I go back to the main site and what do I see further down on the page as I
scroll down? “LIKE TO FINGERBOARD? Our real concrete jersey barriers are heavy
duty and the perfect obstacle for fingerboarding! Combine with some cinder
blocks to create cool ramps and ledges!”

These people have got it figured out! No wonder they are doing well :)

[0]:
[https://www.minimaterials.com/collections/kits](https://www.minimaterials.com/collections/kits)

------
alex_hitchins
These look like they are of exceptional quality and I can see these being
_incredibly_ popular. I'd certainly love a desk full of different bits to help
me think along in the day.

~~~
CrowderSoup
This is exactly why I keep a rotating supply of lego's on my desk at work.
These bricks would certainly be a welcome addition to that rotation.

~~~
alex_hitchins
If I had lego on my desk I'm fairly sure my daughter was assimilate it into
her pile, which I'd have no problem with!

I really wanted this mini-quadro style kit[0] when I was a kid, more than the
larger actual climbing frames they sold.

I'm now making a mental note to re-assess Knnex or whatever it's called. I
have thought of getting a big lego kit for us to build together, like one of
the Technics cranes.

[0] [https://quadroplay.co.uk/product/duo-mobil-mini-
quadro/](https://quadroplay.co.uk/product/duo-mobil-mini-quadro/)

------
zachruss92
I really enjoyed this article. It shows that you can innovate in almost any
market if you're creative enough, find the right nice, and/or create demand. I
love the bootstrapped mindset and iteration for improving the product and
process.

------
JohnJamesRambo
I found the email pop-up he mentions in the story as being important extremely
annoying and exited the page when it popped up. I guess it is different
strokes for different folks.

~~~
maxyme
Also found it annoying you couldn't click the rest of the screen to dismiss it
on desktop

------
Steeeve
Stories like this are inspirational on one hand and on the other completely
irrational. Making $17K a month isn't as easy as finding a niche and working
an email list.

Anyone who has built a business that has achieved a modicum of success could
write a book about all of the challenges they faced, how they addressed them,
and how they would have addressed them if only they had the benefit of better
experience in the beginning.

There's no secret to success. The key is understanding what success actually
means to you, and working smarter or harder (or both) than the next guy to
achieve it.

Selling 800+ pallettes of cinderblocks to a niche market once is an
achievement. Selling that many every month? That takes knowing more than just
how to make them.

~~~
blunte
In an internet full of advice that's provided by people with no experience, I
find it very difficult to trust a source of information.

Since you seem to know about this, perhaps you can suggest where to learn
about building and utilizing email lists to build niche businesses. TIA.

~~~
brett40324
Search for Start Small, Stay Small. This book is full of truth and wisdom, and
has excellent insight on building and using a mailing list.

------
V2hLe0ThslzRaV2
@patwalls: Curious, how're you finding founders to interview? Anything you've
learned building out StarterStory.com that you didn't expect, and if so, what
did you learn?

(patwalls is Pat Walls, the founder of StarterStory.com)

~~~
caio1982
I would like to see either a Show HN or a Tell HN about that!

~~~
patwalls
I think I'll do a Show HN soon!

------
NKCSS
How many sites like indyhacker and this are there?

~~~
patwalls
There's a bunch. This site (which is mine) interviews e-commerce businesses
and businesses that sell physical goods. There's also
[https://www.failory.com](https://www.failory.com) (interviews failed
businesses) and [https://www.blogprofits.co](https://www.blogprofits.co)
(interviews blogs).

~~~
atupis
Is there any site for freelancers?

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
May as well send Matt some love :-)

Freelancetransformation.com

~~~
wmeredith
[https://freelancetransformation.com](https://freelancetransformation.com)

For the lazy

------
anfractuosity
Slightly similar, when I was younger I had one of these Teifoc building sets
which were cool -
[http://www.eitechtoys.com/teifoc/](http://www.eitechtoys.com/teifoc/)

------
imajes
Depending on how you feel about such things, a "build a wall" campaign could
be pretty ingenious with your product. :)

------
viggity
if the owner is reading here, you should throw in the phrase "k rail" for your
jersey barriers for SEO purposes. I've never heard them called a jersey
barrier until now

~~~
dsnuh
Like you, I had always heard "k rail". I'm a California native. Apparently, "k
rail" is more common in the west because it is the name of spec for concrete
barriers used by the CA Dept of Transportation. You learn something new
everyday!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_barrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_barrier)

------
mncharity
I wonder if those molds are food safe. So many possibilities. Blocks and
buildings made of frozen beer and low-proof liquor for construction
conferences. :)

~~~
brett40324
Youre talking about an entirely different product and potential market. The
manufacturing process, distribution, materials, along with red tape (food
safety containers and preparation) are going to have a much higher investment
and time to market than OP's niche. This is what makes serving a small niche,
and the process involved with executing a business plan around such a niche,
not as easy as it initially appears. I love your idea, but it has nothing to
do with 'bricks', and has everything to do with 'fun custom confectionaries'.

~~~
mncharity
Agreed. I was definitely rifting on the mini-block molded shape and its
appeal, rather than on the existing business. While there might be a small
market for a food-safe block mold, it would lack the competitive barrier of
the concrete mix, and of the community context. Though... if it turned out to
be easy to make the existing mold product food-safe, I imagine that community
might find it fun? Though perhaps a distraction from a "focused excellence"
vibe.

~~~
dsnuh
The term you want is "riffing". :)

------
mivanchev
I just love this huge bluish background with the text "You need to enable
JavaScript to run this app.". I guess in 2018 I need scripting even to display
some text and images.

~~~
dpark
Why is it that people disable JavaScript and then act surprised that random
sites break? Whether or not this site should _need_ JavaScript, the presence
of JavaScript support in modern browsers is almost universally assumed at this
point.

If you want to browse with Netscape Navigator 1.0, go for it. But stop
feigning surprise that random things don’t work.

~~~
mivanchev
Random things like displaying text you mean? I don't think this has changed
that much since the Netscape days. It would be OK if the site needs scripting
for some legitimate task to compute a nicer layout, play some animation,
interact with social networks, process payments etc. Detect NoScript, dump the
text of the article, show "You are viewing a reduced version, because of your
script blocker", done.

~~~
brazzledazzle
You're not wrong but I think this exchange might have gone differently if the
tone wasn't so incredulous from the start. Perhaps something like this:

"I know JavaScript is assumed to be universal these days but since this is
really just text it would be great if it just displayed the raw text as a
fallback for when JavaScript wasn't available."

I know it's kind of silly but how we present something can dramatically change
the response. But in fairness sometimes a direct and plain explanation for why
something is bullshit is the only way to get things noticed or done too.

~~~
mivanchev
I have no other option, but to agree with you fully. Thanks for giving me a
perspective :) Have a nice day!!!

------
icantdrive55
"I played around with a ton of different filler materials for the cinder
blocks, but pure cement just broke so easily. I finally settled on a secret
formula using cement and a few other materials that look and feels identical
to real cement."

1\. Those that make these, what the secret formula?

I checked MSDS and couldn't find any info on the product, or I maybe need to
search again?

2\. I don't feel bad got asking. Why--he got a lot of exposure here.

Edit: here's the recipe.

[https://m.imgur.com/a/0CzMG](https://m.imgur.com/a/0CzMG)

