I think the thousands of dollars really just sped up the timeline. The domain definitely helps, but I don't think it's required. There's others that could have been used for a good business, it's only integral to this specific story. The $10k loss in boxes to me seems like he got ahead of himself and took a risk to save on shipping supplies, and got bitten for it. A slightly more conservative approach might have put that off and paid more for shipping for a while until some smaller amount of boxes could be tested from that supplier.
The good thing about a business like this is that it's much less likely someone is going to swoop in and steal your idea and customers because you took a little longer to work out the kinks.
True. You could to some extent. I think part of the story is the opportunity though. The domain name, the boxes and the time are all things that grant him the opportunity to do it. He probably could have sold them in plastic bags on eBay (someone probably already does), but it wouldn't be same thing.
We all seem to agree like things like this is a good thing, but then we undermine people's ability to do it by favoring things like real estate, domains and "middle man businesses" instead.
He could have sold them on ebay in plastic bags - but then he would learn a different expensive lessons: onions need to breath, don't ship in plastic. Actually it is more complex, if you ship fast enough in plastic you might be okay, and some types of plastic are better than others, thus this is a lesson that he might or might not have learned the hard way depending on if he was lucky enough.
Real business is hard because of all the not obvious things you need to account for.
In Shenzhen you might make hundred boards, go down to the market and buy a hundred boxes and leave them with the shipper. Boards don't work? Re-work them or make another hundred. Box doesn't work? Buy another box. You don't like your box supplier? There is a hundred others on Taobao.
In NYC it might take you weeks to do the same thing while you are bleeding rent (and everything else) so you need the thousand boards and boxes to make it work (or you are selling very few in your spare time). And if something goes wrong you are probably fucked.
There are many things that can be done, especially online. The question is if you can do it in a way that make sense. I am sure there are many people from New York on tindie. It is just hard to make it into a full time small business if you have a high cost of living and a limited supply chain.
> He probably could have sold them in plastic bags on eBay
Well, there's a massive middle ground between plastic bags on eBay and placing a $10,000 order for boxes. I didn't mean to imply they couldn't eventually place a $10k order, but often you can order in smaller (but still large) quantities to check the quality. Or just use Uline for a while until you've gotten samples from enough locations to confirm a provider can service your needs.
We don't have the details of this part, so a lot of things could have gone into the decision to place a bit order which made it what appeared to be the correct choice at the time. I just thought it sounded a bit risky given the little information we have.
The good thing about a business like this is that it's much less likely someone is going to swoop in and steal your idea and customers because you took a little longer to work out the kinks.