Danny News: May 9th, 2018 Email Update

I got this email update from the Facebook, Smart Doll Lovers. Danny had asked the main moderator to copy and paste the email as a lot of people are not signed up to receive email updates. Long read, but worth it!

 

*****

 

Hello Everyone!

 

It's that time again - Time Sale for the next 24 hours. Items up to 50% off including Kizuna at 10% off.

 

I've put a link under "New Stuff" in the menu where the system will now automatically activate sales for items based on algorithms that calculate sale velocity and inventory counts. For the past few years I've been trying to practice keeping lean but the amount of items we develop and have in stock keeps increasing meaning that we are...not so lean.

When I started the business, I thought that I could sell the same thing forever. Then the realities of running a business sank in.

 

Continuing to make and sell every single item since I started the business 4 years ago is not a sustainable business - and to be honest it’s not fun either.

We want to be able to continue to be creative by designing new and challenging stuff - all that is built on experience of making our previous products. But doing repeat runs of the same product takes away from our creativity regardless of whether a repeat run makes money or not. I would rather have less income and get to work on new and exciting stuff instead.

 

As you know, money is not a driving factor for us - if it was then I would make our products outside of Japan for a third of the cost. I’m not saying that there is anything bad about making stuff elsewhere, I just prefer to make all our stuff in Japan and be able to control the quality first hand myself.

 

I’ve decided that our business strategy needs to change. For a start, I’m going to reduce the amount of color variations we make for apparel. I’m also going to move our development model to be seasonal just like the human fashion scene which will enable us to plan better instead of the current workflow which does not quite work.

 

I love our Smart Doll girls and boys but the collection is way too big right now - again, keeping all of them in stock forever was just not working so the dolls were the first to start getting streamlined. Folks say that I could do runs once a year but its not that simple.

 

For example, getting the paint shades, paintwork and wig just right for a new doll can take up to 6 months. Once the production run has stopped, folks who work on the paintwork and wigs gradually loose their ability to come up with the level of quality that they achieved before. This is because the brain had no need for those skills for a while and does something called pruning while we sleep to remove the aforementioned skills or store them in a glacier which takes time to thaw when those skills are needed again.

 

What excites and motivates me is being able to constantly work on multiple new stuff all the time. I’m really excited about…

Trinity and Serenity in particular.

The new Smart Doll bag Mirai Carry

Mirai Plus

And Cortex - this project alone has taken a few years.

No eta for the above but I am constantly working on them

 

Repeating production runs and keeping all Smart Dolls in stock is no trivial matter - quality matters - the more stuff we have in stock - the more resources we need to maintain the quality (not only QC but temperature control, cleanliness of surrounding areas, sampling etc etc). In once sentence - maintaining previous inventory levels and continuing to make the same stuff again and again takes away resources, energy and creativity from making new stuff.

 

But anyway that was the long winded way of saying if you want anything then get it while it’s around - and if its not around anymore then you will know why it got the chop. Did you know that "chop chop" in English means "hurry up" ?

 

Anyway that’s it for now. Did it sound like I was ranting? It probably because it was from the constant "why are you not making blah anymore"

 

Ah, nearly forgot to mention that I will be in Germany next week for Dokomi.

https://www.dokomi.de/en

If you want to buy a doll and arrange for it to be picked up at the event then just reply to this mail and it will go to me and my support team - can’t promise to bring a million dolls but will try.

support@smartdoll.jp

 

Danny

I think that it's a good decision business-wise and I appreciate that Danny has now stated his intentions publically.

 

It's hard to keep everthing in stock forever. At the rate that Smart Doll was pumping out new dolls and clothes, it was simply impossible to keep it up.

 

My only complaint is that I kinda wish that he had realized/announced this sooner. Let's be honest: There is a reason companies keep limited stock and the reasons he stated are exactly why most companies do limited runs.

I'm sure a lot of people assumed that Twilight would come back due to his "she is a seasonal girl" comment but he confirmed on Twitter yesterday that she and Kurenai are discontinued for good now. That's a bummer for anyone wanting one.

 

It would've been nice if he repeated the same info about some of the girls posted on Twitter: Cherry will be discontinued once stock sells out and Kizuna is getting a revamp so if you like her current look, now is the time to get her.

I find this kind of frustrating... part of the appeal of Smart Doll for me was that it wasn't super-limited like most of Volks' products, but now he's moving to almost everything being limited. I really liked the Milk Twilight they had available for a while, but now I'll never be able to get her, I guess. I'm especially worried about the boy dolls, because Danny doesn't seem as interested in them. They're some of the more unique products Smart Doll offers. Same with the color varieties.

 

He talks a lot about how much work it is to design each doll in terms of face-up and wig and everything, but I honestly think he focuses too much on styling individual "characters" with the dolls. Part of the appeal of the hobby is the ability to customize them, after all. Why not at least re-release some of them as blank heads?

I find this kind of frustrating... part of the appeal of Smart Doll for me was that it wasn't super-limited like most of Volks' products, but now he's moving to almost everything being limited.

 

He talks a lot about how much work it is to design each doll in terms of face-up and wig and everything, but I honestly think he focuses too much on styling individual "characters" with the dolls. Part of the appeal of the hobby is the ability to customize them, after all. Why not at least re-release some of them as blank heads?

 

Yeah, all the dolls are hand painted and with the level of demand that there is for these dolls, that model isn't sustainable. Alternatively, Danny should keep his word when he says that something is going to be Seasonal and if he doesn't, he really needs to make a post about changing his mind! Danny is a great creator and business man, but he sets unmanageable goals for himself. We were supposed to get a Cortex price quote and April and now he's saying that we won't be getting anything about it for awhile. It's really frustrating when trying to plan for something. Especially for people on limited budgets...

I find this kind of frustrating... part of the appeal of Smart Doll for me was that it wasn't super-limited like most of Volks' products, but now he's moving to almost everything being limited.

 

He talks a lot about how much work it is to design each doll in terms of face-up and wig and everything, but I honestly think he focuses too much on styling individual "characters" with the dolls. Part of the appeal of the hobby is the ability to customize them, after all. Why not at least re-release some of them as blank heads?

 

Yeah, all the dolls are hand painted and with the level of demand that there is for these dolls, that model isn't sustainable. Alternatively, Danny should keep his word when he says that something is going to be Seasonal and if he doesn't, he really needs to make a post about changing his mind! Danny is a great creator and business man, but he sets unmanageable goals for himself. We were supposed to get a Cortex price quote and April and now he's saying that we won't be getting anything about it for awhile. It's really frustrating when trying to plan for something. Especially for people on limited budgets...

They're not hand painted in the same way resin dolls are though. His face-up artists make a sort of stencil-mask for each style of face-up, that was the reason why freckles were a bit of a problem and were delayed in getting introduced - they had troubles making a stencil-mask for freckles. So basically all face-ups are just airbrushed through stencils. Of course making the masks are a chore themselves, but he could just release ONE face-up option for each -actual- new doll he produces, instead of making a million masks per head and call it a different character.

 

The most annoying thing is that Summer was getting released almost a year ago at this point If he had released her on time, I'd have money to get her and even probably delay enough to get her on "birthday discount" if she didn't sell out till August this year. Now she's going to be limited (because all his dolls are limited as I get it?), I don't have the money and gee, good luck with that

Edited May 14, 2018 by Guest

I can deal with limited. What concerns me about about it is how Danny Choo has handled releases and time sales and "last-calls" up until this point. Let's be honest, his scheduling is a mess. He is constantly altering time tables, I would be fine with him saying something is coming out in January but makes a correction and actually releases it in March, but 4, 6, or 12 months after the original release date was supposed to be? No.

He also releases things almost randomly, they may not actually be random but I cannot find any correlation.

This makes me nervous about him confirming almost everything (or everything) he does is limited.

 

I would rather have planned, 'quarterly' releases so I can better prepare my wallet. I also think it would benefit everyone for him to slow down a bit. I get that he gets excited about new faces he creates, but it just causes more stress for him and us to release new face-ups every couple of months (especially if we only have a limited time to get dolls we want).

 

I saw someone mentioned Twilight, I am one of the people upset about the face being discontinued. I planned to get her this summer, guess not anymore. . . .

..

 

I saw someone mentioned Twilight, I am one of the people upset about the face being discontinued. I planned to get her this summer, guess not anymore. . . .

 

Just wanted to say that the reason Twilight is being discontinued so suddenly is because the mold actually broke. So it's not because he just decided he didn't like her anymore or anything like that.

the reason Twilight is being discontinued so suddenly is because the mold actually broke.

 

But the sculpt is still available - after all, it's digital and not broken - and could be 3d-printed again.

So imho there aren't any technical reasons not to make a new mold.

The only problems are the cost, the time and the will to do so...