The thought of starting a brass instrument mouthpiece company never really crossed my mind, it just happened. That doesn’t seem possible, but only in hindsight does it look like a logical progression.
When I started making trumpet buttons in 2003 on a manual lathe in my garage, it really wasn’t intended to be ‘big business’ or any business for that matter. I like to create things, bringing something to life that didn’t exist before. Something that serves a purpose whether for the art, for basic mechanical function, or for an organization that accomplishes something.
In economics, we hear about supply and demand on a regular basis. When consumers want something “the demand goes up and prices go up”. Subsequently, somebody else decides to start making that thing (the supply then increases) and at a certain point the supply and demand are balanced and all are happy. When the supply begins to get too high (somebody makes too much of something), the consumer gets enough, and so demand goes down (and prices go down as people don’t want it anymore).
This balancing act of supply and demand is what drives business success. Produce too much of something, the price drops, and as a result, the profit goes away. Produce too little, prices skyrocket and consumer sentiment can take a nosedive.
When I was making trumpet buttons in my garage, there was no sense of “demand.” Nobody wants or needs replacement trumpet buttons right? However, I was proven wrong, just one customer at a time in the first several years. One person would see the simple, brass buttons on my trumpet and ask me to make a set for them. At this point, the supply was very low and the demand was brand new for me. As I produced more sets of buttons, the supply increased and met the demand. However, the demand slowly leveled off and therefore I made fewer and fewer sets of buttons and ultimately demand declined.
