Wonders what this could mean for the Artisan Keycap Community? http://www.tomshardware.com/news/inside-artisan-keycap-market-keyboards,35391.html It seems like when a mainstream publication picks up on something as niche and unique as Artisan keycaps... Wonder if this will cause it to explode... with a bit of knowledge and few bucks will try to cash in on lucrative business model. Special when you think about it! make 100 caps... that look nice!... put up raffle! ((cause raffle)) sell caps for 50 dollars a piece... thats 5,000 dollars Gross Profit! assuming you spend $1500 on materials supplies etc.... thats still a pretty reasonable return on investment... I mean look at the Those cool space man caps ((yea don't know the name!! sorry but want one...)) they sell for insane amounts!... I seen them listed for as much as 900 dollars on Reddit! and thing was sold if I am not mistaken.... so yep... wonders if we will see a huge influx of art caps in the near future.
Seeing as Poisoned Summer is on track to make over $90k, I'd say that the market is there. Lots of new artisans are popping up looking to find their space in this growing market. The biggest problem is making caps that look nice, though some people don't seem to care much about quality. I'm surprised when I see something that looks like it was sculpted by a child selling for $40 each. Makes me feel like I have a shot to get in the door, too.
We will soon have a saturated market (since making artisan caps is a simple process), so it will be up to artisans to keep innovating (GiD, thermo, new materials, etc) to keep people interested in their brand.
Bottom line is that people will swoop in and try to make money off the community. We're already seeing it on Reddit where a guy with a manufacturing background is trying to sell keyboard cases without knowing anything about assembling keyboards, and he's ripping off ideas to try and cash in quick off us.
