By Ponderer June 18, 2023 6:54 am Category: Business (0.0 from 0 votes) Rules of the Post Write A New Article How To Post Here Rate this article (5=best, 0=poor)

Announcing the launch of a new company and product...!

The Hummy Wand Hat Clip Hummingbird Feeder!

Just got up on Etsy yesterday. There's a link to it below. It's a little thing I've been working on for awhile now. It took some time to work all the bugs out and get production squared away. Production which takes place entirely on our dining table/my workshop using polymer clay, aluminum wire, and other stuff. Got a business license and company bank account. I have a domain name and website, but damn if I can figure out how to use the DIY thing to get it set up. (I may want to have a long talk with you about websites, Curt). I've got four dozen packaged and ready to ship. It was enough to help me get the design and production nailed down, but I don't want to make any more until orders start rolling in. Ha ha.

We have a little deck here in our second floor apartment and we get tons of hummingbirds at our feeders. I sit out there a lot and they are like friends to me now. They've been my spirit animal here in Tucson. I'm currently also working on a sculpture thing with twelve feeding stations and a solar powered birdbath/fountain. It's been as much as I can do with all my back problems. At least on days that I can do anything.

But I gotta do something! I've been making things my whole life. It feels like I had most of my limbs cut off not having a fully outfitted workshop at my disposal anymore. And whatever extra money it can generate will be massively welcome.

If these things sell... great! I figure I'm up to making a couple dozen a week. And selling the ones I already have in stock should more than make up for all the expense in getting this going.

If they don't sell... if I get shut out even... Oh well. It was something to do to still feel useful and creative. And you can guess what everyone I know is going to get from me for Christmas.


Anyway, FEEL THE RAPTUROUS JOY OF THE WIND FROM HUMMINGBIRD WINGS ON YOUR FACE for only $24.95 + tax. Shipping in the continental US included.

Cited and related links:

1. etsy.com

Comments Start Below

by Donna on June 18, 2023 8:05 am They really are cute. Sheri's worked really hard on them. And they work! It's kinda like fishing; you wait and wait and eventually you get a nibble, or in this case a sip. I hope they sell. by Ponderer on June 18, 2023 8:09 am I've sat out on the deck and had one come come within a couple minutes. Once you get to where you know their behaviors a bit, it's not hard to get them to try it out. I even had two come up and take turns drinking while I was standing at the deck railing once. by Curt_Anderson on June 18, 2023 8:45 am No, I don’t mind at all. Good luck with your venture. I didn’t know until recently that hummingbirds live only in the American continents. My wife has turned our yard into a flower garden. We saw our first hummingbirds this year only yesterday. by Curt_Anderson on June 18, 2023 8:54 am By the way, a hummingbird hat seems to me to be the sort of impulse item a person might not think to look for online. If Tucson has some sort of arts and crafts market or street fair market, I’m sure they would be a big hit. by Ponderer on June 18, 2023 10:17 am If you go onto Etsy and do a search for hummingbird feeders, it's supposed to come up in the result somewhere. But there are several dozen pages under "hummingbird feeders". I went through over 50 pages and didn't see it. I don't know yet how their positioning is set up. There are a few really popular art fairs here, but they aren't easy to get into. I'm tempted to throw a bunch of my inventory into a backpack and just wander around one of these fairs wearing a cap with two or three of them clipped on with fake hummingbirds flittering around them on spring wire. Maybe I'd sell a few before I got security sicced on me. I'm thinking that for selling in person, $20.00 is the perfect price since I don't have to bother with shipping. Easy to make change too. I got my website through Squarespace. It came highly recommended, but with their DIY website builder I have managed to build nothing but a lot of frustration. I nearly tore hair out after spending most of yesterday on it. I really need to get this website up. My niece was a former network TV publicity tech or something. She says she can get my website seen just about anywhere by millions once I have it up and running. But therein lies the rub. Did you check out the link, Curt? by Ponderer on June 18, 2023 10:20 am By the way, if you do check out the link, there's a short video of me with a hummy coming in for a drink or two. by Indy! on June 18, 2023 10:41 am The product looks very professional, Pondy - good work! If I may add a word of advice - it sounds like you're selling them too cheap. You have to be spending $4-5 shipping judging by my experience (maybe more if you're buying boxes, etc... Then materials - then your time. Don't forget things like income tax, etc... JMHO. 🙂 by Curt_Anderson on June 18, 2023 11:27 am I agree with Indy, it’s very professionally done! Like the video too. I hope you don’t mind if I adapt your idea for my own product: Curt’s corncob cap, crow feeder by Ponderer on June 18, 2023 11:29 am Thanks, Indy!. I really worked hard on getting the design to where it's nice and resilient and will work well consistently and requires as little work as possible. I've been doing things in production my entire working life. There are some other hat clip hummingbird feeders on sale even just in Etsy. But I think my design is superior to the rest of them, and I'm priced right in line with them. I even saw a video a year ago of some couple on Shark Tank or the like who were trying to get someone to invest in their hummingbird feeder. They take one of those full-face shields that flip up with all the straps and such akin to a hard hat. They drilled two holes in the face shield and stick something like test tubes with flowers stuck on the end through them. It's a ridiculous, bulky, and unwieldy contraption they expect to sell for seventy bucks a pop. And wouldn't you know they got one of the investors to accept them as partners gave them $70,000. I saw that and my mind was made up to go into production and sell these things. Yeah, the shipping is like $5 or $6 shipped USPS. I've sent a few to my "Beta testers". And then Etsy takes 6% of each sale and sales tax where applicable. My thinking is that if I clear around $15 bucks on each one, I'll be doing fine. That works out, after the time study I did on production, to be around $30 an hour conservatively. And I'm sure production will speed up even more after I've done a few batches twelve at a time. The actual materials I use to make one cost me a buck fifty five with the included nectar storage bottle I can get in cheap bulk. It's kinda all about the labor. And I'm just sitting here in pain most of the time not doing much of anything else anyways. Something to do. by Ponderer on June 18, 2023 11:31 am "Curt’s corncob cap, crow feeder" _Curt HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Have at it, Curt. Be my guest! Sounds like a wiener! by Curt_Anderson on June 18, 2023 11:39 am Is it legal to walk around downtown Tucson or wherever wearing a hat and hummingbird feeder clip and the T-shirt advertising they are for sale for $20? Even without being at an arts and crafts market. My wife gets a kick out of watching parrot videos on YouTube. Maybe you can do a longer hummingbird video. by Ponderer on June 18, 2023 11:56 am "Is it legal to walk around downtown Tucson or wherever wearing a hat and hummingbird feeder clip and the T-shirt advertising they are for sale for $20?" -Curt A question that in recent days has been much on my mind. I'[ve seen people selling t-shirts and stuff right on sidewalks downtown. I have a business license but I might need to get a street vendor's permit or something. You should see all the food trucks and taco trailers that seem to set up in any vacant unused parking lot or field along any major street here. They must have some sort of permits. They're even listed on Google Maps as regular restaurants and every one I've tried has been outstanding. MY GOD there's some fantastic eating here. by Indy! on June 18, 2023 3:08 pm Okay, but remember it’s not just production. You have to package them, deal with vendors for supplies, take them to the mailbox, etc… Income tax is at least another 15% and remember those wonderful Ds passed the law that now you have to report your side gig cash even if it’s only a measly $600. per year. Thanks Nancy - always looking out for the little guy! 🙄 by Ponderer on June 18, 2023 3:30 pm I'm aware of those other things. Again, the way I look at it, I ain't got nothing better to do. My "suppliers" are Amazon and a 99-cent store up the street where I get the clips six for a buck. So what if I gotta take a trip to the post office once a week or so? It's a reason to get out of the house. The boxes they ship in are $.22 each. I already have a couple dozen in a closet. And I had to buy the ziplock bags in a thousand quantity minimum so I won't be worrying about them for awhile and they ain't even a penny apiece. There just aren't that many elements to all this. The licensing and incorporating and all that is already done. All the expensive stuff is already done and paid for months ago. And as I said before, that $30 an hour is conservative. $25 an hour is even still good money for what I actually do. And I don't hate it. by Indy! on June 18, 2023 6:20 pm Okay. I see where your problem lies - you're thinking of it as selling time. That's what an employee does. You're not an employee - you're a business owner producing a product. But it's your gig not mine - just offering up a suggestion. 🙂 by Ponderer on June 19, 2023 6:39 am My "problem"? Well thanks for the encouragement anyways, Indy!. 🙄 by Ponderer on June 19, 2023 7:15 am "I see where your problem lies - you're thinking of it as selling time. That's what an employee does. You're not an employee - you're a business owner producing a product." -Indy! So what? I'm doing everything. If I can look at the entire picture of what I have to do and figure that I am making enough at the end of it, what did I lose? How much extra should I charge for "being a business owner" anyways? Another 20%? 50%? Double the price? How much more should I tack on to the price over and above what I think they will sell for? by Donna on June 19, 2023 8:03 am IMO $24.95 is a good price to start at. We haven't even sold 1 yet, so it'd be counterintuitive to raise the price already. The problem is that there are a gazillion hummingbird feeders already on Etsy. We need something to make the Hummy Wand get noticed. by Ponderer on June 19, 2023 8:36 am "I've already posted that I unfollowed one anti-TQ LGB activist on Twitter because the hate was too virulent for me even to read for the sake of understanding, theoretically, the movement's extremes." -Hate Thank you, Bill. Thanks for allowing me, by virtue of your sage example, to judge your entire political party by your party's extremes. (Dang. I wish I could get that picture of the leader of the Proud Boys to work...) Those extremes of virulent hate, which just about gave you the vapors, are the anti-trans movement, Bill. No matter how you try to sugar coat it. And they represent only a minuscule percentage of the American public. Their growth will be far from logarithmic I can assure you. It will never be mainstream to be anti-trans, Bill. No matter how demonic these anti-trans fuckheads try to slander us out to be. America is supposed to be far better than that. Even as you root it on to sink to its worst. by Ponderer on June 19, 2023 8:37 am Meant for another thread obviously. by Curt_Anderson on June 19, 2023 9:29 am A business owner would look at their costs, the competition’s product and the competition’s prices and see if there’s room in the marketplace for their product. A good business owner would figure out a way of building a better and/or different product more cost-effectively and efficiently than the other guy. That’s what Ponderer seems to have done. Now her challenge is to be noticed in that marketplace. by Indy! on June 19, 2023 10:43 am Oh now I'm the bad guy again for complimenting the product and suggesting it might be worth more money? How could this board have gone around the bend even FURTHER since I've been gone? In my defense - I will offer a few facts and then drop it... "There are some other hat clip hummingbird feeders on sale even just in Etsy. But I think my design is superior to the rest of them, and I'm priced right in line with them. I even saw a video a year ago of some couple on Shark Tank or the like who were trying to get someone to invest in their hummingbird feeder. They take one of those full-face shields that flip up with all the straps and such akin to a hard hat. They drilled two holes in the face shield and stick something like test tubes with flowers stuck on the end through them. It's a ridiculous, bulky, and unwieldy contraption they expect to sell for seventy bucks a pop. And wouldn't you know they got one of the investors to accept them as partners gave them $70,000. I saw that and my mind was made up to go into production and sell these things. by Ponderer on June 19, 2023 11:05 am You know, maybe my real problem is just that I am a lousy Capitalist. If I can go on with this project and take in more money that I have to spend as I go along, I'm gonna be happy. If I don't, all I've lost is the money investment I've already spent on this project. Which is maybe around $500 over the course of the last year. And I can even still be happy with that. Because all along it was more about the project itself and accomplishing it than making stacks. Even if it doesn't go any farther than this. Just having something to focus on and work on and figure out and build and engineer has been accomplishment enough right there for me. I feel like an artist who just finished a piece and I like it so much that I don't even care if it eventually sells. And if it does, all the better. Since I've already made my "profit" out of it. Indy!, if you go to the Etsy site and grok all the various hummingbird feeders available and look at the prices they are getting for them, you'll see that raising my price would only make my product look like less of a "bargain". My product is so simple looking that it just doesn't scream "exceptionally engineered" or "superior" when viewed alongside the rest of the assortment available. I believe that I made every consideration that I needed to when arriving on the price. Which is actually ten bucks higher than I originally considered early on before I had a lot of the blanks filled in. Curt, thanks. You nailed it. by Ponderer on June 19, 2023 11:06 am I appreciate the compliment, Indy!. I didn't mean to disparage it if that's all it was. by Indy! on June 19, 2023 11:14 am No problem, Pondy. by Ponderer on June 28, 2023 7:20 pm ***UPDATE*** I sold the first one yesterday! Sent it off at the post office this morning. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.....! by Ponderer on June 28, 2023 7:21 pm Hummy Wand Avoids the Shut Out!!! by Curt_Anderson on June 28, 2023 7:31 pm That's great! Btw, do you include some sort of disclaimer about wearing safety glasses to avoid eye injuries, et cetera? by Ponderer on June 29, 2023 6:51 am Nope! I do say that they aren't suitable for very young children. Mainly because they'd tear it apart. by Indy! on June 30, 2023 12:18 am Congrats on the sale, Pondy. 🙂 Go To Top

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