It seems that you first bought (and/or built) the torch table and then tried to market it. And again you first buy/build a 3D-printer and think about marketing it afterwards.

Would it not be better to try and find out what the market needs (and how much people are ready to pay for that) and then think about how to produce that item or service below the market price?

To me it seems that you like your gadgets more than market success ;-) I can totally understand that. I like my gadgets too :-) But this is a choice that YOU have made and which should not lead you to complain about the market...The market is always right.

I don't know much about the Philippines. But I have heard that most house holds cannot afford a washing machine and either do it by hand or go to commercial laundrettes. That seems an interesting market. If you can produce a simple but working washing machine that people can afford you are in business.

Regarding washing machines. They are available at the local supermarket for $100 USD. Even at that price people here I would say at least >75% have the belief that hand washing is better. To the point where families will hire a full time employee to wash clothes by hand. Never mind the fact that the local hand wash method wastes water and causes massive pollution (wash water is thrown out in the street)

People here will think nothing of spending $500 dollars on a purse but will balk at a washing machine. You see even dirt poor women here who do not have a flush toilet proudly display their genuine Gucci purse or LaCoste blouse, or latest iPhone. Western values about the value of work, human life, quality of goods purchased etc are greatly different in the East.

This is why when I rode a jeepney 2 weeks ago, the driver lit up a joint, took a swig from a bottle of gin in view of the passengers, I was the only one to exit the vehicle in protest.

I'm not saying that everybody here is like that. Far from it. The locals grade clients into multiple economic classes. A,B,C,D
By western standards, that would be calld racist or classist or some other ism. Not here. I have been privellaged to meet and interact with some very smart people here.

However it is very hard to actually hire someone like that. They either emigrate or they go into business for themselves and go with vertical integration. Vertical integration business models do not buy services.


It is a cultural thing here. Far smarter people with greater resources than I, have tried to change things here without success. You can only put it in front of someone and they have the free will to choose.

Marketing to the lower C and D classes a high quality product is a waste of time unless it is fashionable luxury good or one uses the ever prevelant 'celebrity endorser' (their words not mine) The local C and D class clients have a bias against better products. This is why you can buy gasoline powered blow torches and charcoal powered clothes irons at the wet market.

For example, the inkjet banner printer that became so common in the west back in the late 1990's was not widely adopted until 2008 here. Never mind that the inkjet was cheaper and better, they would still go to the guy hand painting signs with no attention to detail.

If anything early adopters are punished in the local market. (unless it is a luxury good)

So for the 3d printer my target market is the upper end makers and builders locally and the export market.