A 25-Year-Old Turning a Profit Selling Pencils | Hacker News Reader

A 25-Year-Old Turning a Profit Selling Pencils

bloomberg.com

117 pointsca98am7946 comments

Not saying I am going to go and open a shop that sells hats now but I found this somewhat refreshing. Everytime I think of a potential business idea, I quickly think 'naah that'll never work. Amazon, or "ACME-Corp" has probably done it already or they'll do it better'

Seems like it is a matter of finding that passion and niche. She clearly found both.

To be fair, she had passion, niche, and a huge conglomerate of people with loads of disposable income (aka NYC) at her disposal. The same shop in a smaller city would likely not survive.

That's the beauty of cities: they made the long tail possible well before the Internet.

On a tangent, the internet has ended up damaging the long tail and in many fields we now have a situation far more polarised than before. Sad times.

What would be an example of that?

The mid-list publishing industry has taken an enormous beating. There used to be a lot more people who made a living writing; now, the split between best seller or writing around a day job is much more pronounced.

Almost any sector of retail?

And press coverage. She has been covered by the WSJ, for example:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/putting-a-fine-point-on-pencils-...

This helps find the audience that's willing to pay.

“Mechanical pencils, they don't smell like anything. The lead is so small you can get no line variation out of it," says Weaver.

I heard this countless times in art and architecture classes in college, but I disagree. My favorite pencil to draw with is the Alvin Draf-Tec Retrac, http://www.alvinco.com/Shop/Products.aspx?IID=29525, which they offer for 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7-mm graphite sizes. Both the 0.5 and 0.7 are good all-around but the 0.3's are great for fine details. I love the way the weight and balance of the pencil allows very responsive feel so I can easily shift from light to dark shading or thick to thin line weight intuitively. I've never found that it's harder to get a full light-to-dark shading gradient from that mechanical pencil. I also like to exploit the point the tip develops to have different edges to use for different strokes. As the tip develops, it's more predictable, where a wood enclosed pencil requires constant tip maintenance.

those are fantastic pencils, I own a few, they are quite fragile though and the plastic casing tends to crack making the whole thing useless. when I'm drawing I really enjoy the pentel 1000, especially at 0.9 mm

Great recommendation, I'll look to try one of those out soon. I'm hoping to wrap up my current project in the next couple of months and after that should be the perfect time for experimenting with new tools.

The final quote has a lot of relevance for any person building a product or service: "I didn’t start this because I want to be a business lady. I started it because I really wanted to sell people pencils.”

"I didn't start this because I wanted to make rent. I started it because I really wanted to dropkick loud children in movie theaters."

Find your passion.

There are times where if there was an Uber style app for that I'd probably consider it.

Just have someone turn up at the theatre and dropkick the kids two rows forwards, it would be tempting.

Fortunately the cinema near me now does late showings (through to 1am or later) and I'm naturally a night owl.

It is so much better!

The irrational man is responsible for change in the world, once again.

It's really a neat little store, and some of the pencils are super cool. It has the feeling of a record store or maybe comic book store, full of treasures that may or may not speak to you on a given day. I'd encourage dropping in if you're in the area, plenty of good nerdy fun to be had.

I got a box of pencils that you sharpen on both ends, one end is red pencil and the other is the "normal" black/graphite color. Great for drawing little UI mockups and such.

Here's her website, for anyone that's curious. http://cwpencils.com/

If you care enough about pencils to buy from a specialized pencil shop, then perhaps you will also be interested in having your pencils hand sharpened by an artisanal pencil sharpener: http://www.artisanalpencilsharpening.com

Personally, I use a mechanical pencil--the Uni-ball Kuru Toga. This has a simple, clever ratcheting mechanism in the head that slightly rotates the lead every time you press it down on the paper and also when you pick it back up, so it wears evenly on all sides into a conical point instead of developing a flat spot. Here's a video showing how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80k7Jl1o8Lc

I struggle to think of the occupation for which a $500 pencil sharpening is a good value, but if you just want to give loads of money to someone interesting, hey, why not?

It used to be $50, but now he's somewhat famous, so I guess if people still pay it...

The guy who runs it is a humorist, so there's that.

Oddly enough, it's the same guy who used to write the brilliant "Get Your War On" comic (and the more surreal "My New Fighting/Filing Technique"), for anyone who remembers those.

It's worth noting that the person behind it is a humorist and cartoonist, and while I expect that he'll actually sharpen a pencil if you pay him, it is almost certainly not meant to be taken as a serious method of pencil sharpening. I expect the significant increases in price after the service's inception—over an order of magnitude—reflect this.

The service is connected with a book that a New Yorker review suggests is classified as humor by its publisher out of a lack of "avant-garde reference" sections in bookstores.

Here's some videos of the guy:

http://youtu.be/VkSmaFAuaH4

http://youtu.be/spMaP-_Cq_8

http://youtu.be/KabOfnbS4TQ

He puts on a good act.

I can see your point there. I remember my friend suggested some mechanical pencils to me a while ago (don't remember which brand) but I bought them because he said they were sturdy and the lead was stronger on normal paper so it wouldn't break as often. Yeah my 6th grade self bought into it and they felt like any other cheaper alternative brand

She was also featured in this Freakonomics podcast about "I Pencil" (worth the listen): http://freakonomics.com/podcast/i-pencil/

She has 4 employees even if part time + $1,900 rent, it seems she has to markup the pencils more than 100%

She invested $80,000 to start the enterprise. Wow. That's quite the upfront cost.

She went to school for fine arts and traveled the world afterwards. It's reasonable to assume that her family has a lot of money and this started as a vanity business.

At 25, its certainly hard to imagine how those funds were raised any other way.

Why do you describe it as a vanity business? She collected pencils and then decided to create a business selling them. How is this any different than someone deciding to open a shop that sells Teddy bears? Or someone who decides to make an app that does some niche thing? Isn't the entire point of the HN community to take your passion or interest and turn it into a business? Describing her business, where she has 3 employees and is making a profit, as a vanity business is awfully dismissive.

It was a harsh way to put it. I just think it's dangerous to talk about businesses like this without mentioning that it's likely she's never planning to recoup her investment.

I don't want to disparage her shop but people read these articles and think they can move to NYC and make artisan hot sauce. People doing that aren't making enough to pay for their rent or lifestyle. They just have money from another source.

That's a pretty standard markup for non-tech products.

Welcome to retail, 100% is nothing for small items, I'd be surprised if the markup wasn't 10x.

"Weaver typically charges twice her wholesale cost." If that's true, she is a selling a lot of pencils.

I think I'm more intrigued by the restaurant downstairs that specialises in Champaign and chicken. That's a pretty strange neighbourhood.

Champagne? Or did you go to UIUC as well? ;-)

---Alex

Yes, strange but pretty typical of LES. There a shop that sells $5 ice cream sandwiches. And another that sells Cheetos flavored macaroons.

I'm really glad quirky and specialized places like this exist, even though I would never spend $80 a year for one pencil a month.

I write in my journal almost everyday, I've tried pencils in the past, but a simple pen is much more practical.

So good to see people doing what they like and making a living of it. Gives hope for the rest of us. :)

Headline writers just aren't trying anymore.

The headline is a reference to a 1958 essay with the same name.

Really? Thanks, I haven' ever heard of it. You don't have a link do you? I can't find anything on Google.

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