I actually understand what John tried to say. Unfortunately some costs here in the USA are really outrageous. Add to this the "corporation" thing (having to make shareholders happy). The result is what we've seen happening for decades: quality being replaced by "profit", so meticulously calculated that we end up seeing stupid things like washers that last 50% less because or a simple bearing that would have costed 25 cents more. Plus planned obsolescence, etc, etc, etc.
Add to that the culture of making people believe something is really absurdly expensive because of a silly feature, like "Look, this model costs 3x more but it has an interior light and the power plug has out logo on it.
For a small family company(now not so small thanks to COVID), we dont need to make shareholders happy, so we have a bit more freedom.
Luckily at this point, the CEO really trusts me and gives me the green light to use all my knowledge and expertise. I was also able to educate him about many things, for example bells and whistles may make some younger customers happy and the market is full of models with tons of bells and whistles. But the market has a giant deficit of "No-nonsense" models focused on performance and durability.
It's a shame that the Golden era of the American engineering was completely forgotten by AMERICAN corporations and an immigrant is the only one trying to bring it back.
Our company survived and thrived with cheaper models. If you pay attention to our product timeline, there was a huge improvement starting in 2016, when I joined the company. We'll never stop.making those low cost products because they're part of our DNA. We may not add some features to keep them affordable, but we will never "save 5 cents on a part", sacrificing quality to protect profit.
And now, we're slowly starting to add more products and parallel to that develop medium and high end models.
Some products I am authorized to openly talk about because they're going to be released very soon are:
1)round washer inspired on a maytag wringer (mentioned above). It won't be a washer that people here will say "Wow, it's fantastic, it's wonderful, it's the best thing since sliced bread", but it will do a decent job and will last average 10-12 years under normal household use. And costing under $100. Again, you get what you paid for, but at least we tried to do our best to make it reliable. Our competitor is those Chinese craps sold on eBay that comes with a 30-day warranty and a 6-month expected life.
2) We're bringing back the "Scirocco" washer from the 1980s. Now much improved, more reliable, more functional, automatic and it will have the drying.
Small capacity, the drying isn't the very best thing in the world, but it works. If you have a spin dryer, that washer can be a lifesaver if you live in an RV.
Competitor is an expensive front load all in one unit. Of course it will be better than our little scirocco, but its not portable, its not super compact, and its not affordable, specially for people that live on fixed income and struggle using laundromats.
3) The niagara spin off. Everything in it was calculated considering the worst case scenario of a family living off-grid. It MUST work using a crappy walmart amazon portable solar panel because those customers can't afford a better solar system. It has to be functional, it has to be inexpensive, but it can not leave quality behind. Our competitor, in this case is a washboard in an RV bathtub.
We will definitely make A LOT of noise on the next few months.
