Comment by altacc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by altacc | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The site lists "Approved" companies that have not been enshittified by private equity. What springs to mind for me are scissor manufacturers Ernest Wright and Whiteley. They maintained quality, relied on expert workers and aim to keep high quality staff for their career and hire people to learn manual skills.

The result of this is high prices and waitlists for many of their products, which is the exact opposite of what private equity and conglomerates want.

Another interesting example from the UK is Howies. They were bought by Timberland, which then in succession got bought by VF, a big US conglomerate. The Howies brand was small and insignificant globally so the management of Howies were allowed to buy the company back and it continues as a niche

Private equity companies exist in a range of sizes, some buying big multinational brands and others buying small local brands. It's a omnivorous predator and it's down to the owners of companies to resist the temptation of money.

It's difficult to keep track over time, however. Brands will build up a reputation as being the one that's actually good for a particular product, and then for one reason or another reduce in quality while relying on their brand history. And it can take a long time for that word of mouth reputation to die off. The effect is bolstered by people who own older generations of the product citing longevity.

An example that comes to mind is Speed Queen for laundry machines. People in the know now look for *used* Speed Queen machines, but casual searches will still turn up the old reputation.

> An example that comes to mind is Speed Queen for laundry machines.

I should have figured when I noticed my local appliance store starting selling them. That was my plan for when the Samsung garbage that came with my house breaks. What's the quality machine now?

I'm not aware of one. And I suspect that Speed Queen is still better than the usual suspects. But they've shifted to some plastic parts, more electronics, that sort of thing.

Why would private equity not want high prices and a wait list? That's guaranteed future sales at high margin. Sounds pretty good to me...

That’s the downside of requiring infinite (in the sense of “never-ending”) growth, and not being content “just” with profit.

I'm moderately sure that there's a part of private equity that would be content with a steady profit (at the right price). It's just not the part that you usually hear about.

The path to "get rich quick" is selling a lot of cheap junk for a high price. In order to make this work you need to constantly be on the lookout for a new scheme though as the money will run out on the old one fast.

The get rich not quick as quick (and perhaps not quite as rich) it make a good quality product with consistent margins as you earn a reputation.

Private equity is often mining a company for money for a few years before discarding it or rolling it up with something. Quick results, not long term stability & growth. Profitable income from the company is not always a goal, often the money is to be made in asset stripping, financial engineering, management fees, etc... then reducing with layoffs, underinvestment, vendor abuse, etc... until nothing is left but a husk that is profitable enough on paper that it can be sold on.

>The result of this is high prices and waitlists for many of their products, which is the exact opposite of what private equity and conglomerates want.

Sounds like the opposite of what buyers want.

Buyers are diverse. PE are not.

Yeah it's quite interesting how most of the decline of great brands came as a result of ownership changes, not complacency on part of the owner/founder.

I've actually found AI a great resource for finding brands that offer great value for money by buying from obscure factories/brands with the same quality attributes as major brands, but without all the marketing spend and brand margin to subsidize.

This is actually a terrible use for AI, since it's going to regurgitate the marketing astroturfing on Reddit without showing you the source so you can see it's all bots.

It's not if you use it correctly. If you say "Find me good brands for X", then yes you'll get bad stuff.

I said something like:

"Identify [category]-making cluster regions in Europe (where I am), research the manufacturers/companies you find and see if they have online stores."

Once I had that list and found stuff I liked, I sent what I liked back to the AI and asked it to find me items of comparable build quality from better-known brands."

I did this latest step so that I could have a benchmark and to see if I was actually getting a better deal or if I could just buy from the big brand.

The trick was to specify the exact process I'd like to have run, but wouldn't take the time to do.

I ended up buying stuff directly from an obscure manufacturer's Shopify store for 1/3 the price I would've paid at a big brand. I think this could work in any product category where quality markers are somewhat objective and standardized.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com