Thinking of starting a Knife company

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Many of us here remember companies that claimed factories in places there were none and steel that was misidentified. It's well known you can have any country or steel type stamped on knives you have made at a PRC factory. Before asking a retailer to pay $40,000 for an order of your knives you need to expect to have to prove more than that you're a likeable guy. I will pay for a knife but under no circumstances will I buy a PRC made knife. I don't mind buying Taiwan made high end products but I'm going to want to know you are actually using American or Japanese made steels and not mislabeled steel coming from a PRC foundry going to your shop. That is just me though. Others feel different. Be aware what the market demands. It's not just knives that check off 1) Titanium, 2) Carbon fiber, 3) CPM steel. I want to know who is making my knife and where I will be sending it for warranty. That needs to be a US address so I'm not having the added issue of customs and international shipping. In fact I'd need to know why I'm not putting in my order to a custom maker at those prices. :)

Joe
 
Hackenslash said:
Are there historical Thai knife styles that you could epitomize with a modern take?
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reading this and I had to comment. That’s a great idea. “Made in Thailand” with some “Thailand native knife inspired” modern take would make the country of origin a feature. It could give you something that sets you apart and makes the product’s origin feel authentic.
 
I would not have a problem buying a quality knife made in Thailand.
If you research the general market on anything.........everyone wants to produce high end, high priced products.
Now if you make a quality product at affordable prices. You will get people's attention. You can still have a higher end line knives
Thailand is not a country with high labor cost and people know this.....
I do hope that you will pay and treat the people that work for you fair.

When I was in business my goal was to have my customers feel they paid a good price for a great product.

Well that's my two cents.....
 
Welcome to the forums and I wish you well in your endeavor.

Personally, I've never paid more then $140ish for a knife, so I won't be a buyer. I'm quite content with a knife found under my "self imposed limit".

I agree with many of the others in this post. I don't think Thailand made will be a problem although there will be initial hesitation due to a new company.

Another big question .... warranty. Have you given any thoughts to warranties and/or warranty work? I think most folks would agree, we live in a disposable world. If something breaks, buy a new one. At $400+, people will want some protection and peace of mind and sending something back to Thailand might be a turn off.

Make sure you are up to date on social media. Instagram, Snapchat, etc are a great way to advertise your wares and/or do business.

Good luck!
 
Thailand is known for gold, sapphires and carved jade. My wife took me to the cleaners when we visited. Lots of skilled artisan craftsman/women making exceptional stuff.

Good luck, Thailand is just as bad as China with patents. No respect!
 
This will probably be a bit repetitive, but you a definitely limiting your market at that price point. Is it easier to sell one 400 dollar folder or five 80 dollar folders? I'm guessing the latter purely based on market size, but don't know the answer.

With respect to purchasing Thai products, I have no problem with that, and I am probably one of the more aggressively anti-Chinese knife folks here. So far as I know the Thais aren't using slave labor or actively attempting to undermine my country while building up their military which is exactly what the Chinese communists are doing.
 
Zodiac Bladeworks said:
My background is in Aerospace where I have been involved in the design and manufacturing of components across over 20 countries, including a recent stint making interiors for Gulfstream Jets. Prior to that I worked in Automotive design. My partner is one of the top Manufacturing Engineers in aerospace with over 30 years experience including many patents. We believe we can manufacture knives at levels comparable to the best in the industry and want to fully commit to this. I am an Aussie and he is English.
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But, do you have any background in running a business? I used to advise people going into the boat building business. They were great boatbuilders but didn't have a clue about running a business. I am sure you both are terrific at design and manufacturing (my field is engineering and operations management) , but business management is a separate field unto itself. Have you developed a business plan? How do you plan to raise the funds for startup and to keep yourself in business until you break even, which can be years or even never. Last, but certainly not least, is marketing and sales? What is your marketing plan? How do you plan to differentiate your product from all the others on the market, other than price? BTW, I have never paid that much even for a custom knife. It's simply out of my price range. Anyway, this is something you need to consider. Maybe you need to take on a third person who will be the business manager.
 
I think you'd be better selling knives in the $80 to $100 range. It should be possible if they are made in Thailand, to keep the costs down. There are more buyers at those price ranges and the quality needs to be very good, even then. Some of the Chinese stuff at those price levels are very good. At $400 you might sell one or two knives. At $80 you would sell many more.
 
I think you should connect with NathCustom (on Instagram) - he is a very well known Thai maker/modder.
Nath has no shortage of orders (multi year waitlist) for his custom mods and pure custom designs in the price points you are thinking of.

I'm sure he can give you a better local insight as a Thai working in the international knife market, and possibly even get a working collaboration together. I'm fairly sure he uses CNC and EDM.

I guess you have to make some decisions about passion projects vs money making. You might find it far less stressful and far more profitable investing in the stock market and real estate and buying knives for fun. I have toyed with similar ideas as you, but decided I want MORE fun and LESS stress in my pre-retirement / retirement years.
 
EngrSorenson said:
I certainly wish you the best of luck as you hammer out the details (perhaps I should say route out? 😁 ).

At least from an American perspective, the "Made in ______" usually carries a lot of weight (too much, IMHO).
I see evidence that, whether or not it's justifiable to care about country of origin, it always seems to be a factor.
Unfortunately anything produced in Asia is always going to have to prove itself before it's accepted; quite the opposite for things "Made in America" where distrust is accumulated through failure.

Also, I have no insight into the 400-1200 dollar market and who could be buying these knives with any kind of frequency, but I know there's plenty of products already out there in these price ranges.
I personally can't afford knives in those ranges, but if I did decide to get one I'd prefer some personal touches rather than a purely CNC'd knife.

My own personal feeling is that this puts you at a disadvantage, but as I said- I wish you the best of luck!
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Thanks for the comments

Your feelings are why I asked the qustion as I am certain that place of manufacture is important to many.

I should clarify that these would be hand finished knives with the CNC used only to create critical interfaces such as pivot/lock geometry. These would be done by us the makers and not farmed out to low cost labor. The top end would basically be custom knives with customer requests and exotic materials to get near that pricing. We both are living in Thailand hence the thread but if there is a limited market based on the perception, then I will wait until returning to the US to setup

cheers
 
GIRLYmann said:
in this day and age of remote working
stranger things have taken place.
bottomline, never mind where its made in.
its all about the looks of the end product.

information regarding your respective professional backgrounds is perhaps
something to push in the marketing
just so eveyone knows you guys are farangs living out your dreams in siam :)
best of luck over there!
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Thanks, this is where we were going at. This is not just setting up a factory and farming out the work, but working as Knife makers ourselves, just located somewhere sunny with good cheap food
 
SpaceGhost88 said:
My only words of advice...

1. Captured pivots. No free spinning pivots.
2. Captured bearings.

Those are always my 2 biggest issues with some knives. Otherwise good luck!
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Yeah, I refuse to buy a knife with a free spinning pivot, just bad engineering to me

For the bearings, watch this space, we have a bearing system not seen by any other knife makers I have been able to find.
 
Daniel L said:
I think you should connect with NathCustom (on Instagram) - he is a very well known Thai maker/modder.
Nath has no shortage of orders (multi year waitlist) for his custom mods and pure custom designs in the price points you are thinking of.

I'm sure he can give you a better local insight as a Thai working in the international knife market, and possibly even get a working collaboration together. I'm fairly sure he uses CNC and EDM.

I guess you have to make some decisions about passion projects vs money making. You might find it far less stressful and far more profitable investing in the stock market and real estate and buying knives for fun. I have toyed with similar ideas as you, but decided I want MORE fun and LESS stress in my pre-retirement / retirement years.
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Thanks, was not aware of him. We are working with another maker who makes low cost swords (logistics) but was unable to find anyone setup for anything more than cheap stamped production items
 
You might want to learn as much as possible about Olamic knives, they are able to execute a model similar to what you are proposing, but who knows what hurdles they overcame to get there.
 
For the prices you are thinking of asking, I feel you are in for an uphill battle.

As others have said the fact that the knives will have “made in Thailand” on the blades is a big obstacle to overcome in the American market. I’m not sure how much knowledge you have regarding the knife industry but American knife makers that fully hand make or at least hand grind their blades are usually around the $1200 mark. A fully CNC made knife even with “luxury” additions made in Asia is going to be a tough sell. Some of the most high end WE knives made in China are topping out around $600 and are milled titanium integral handled knives with damasteel blades on bearings. These are both expensive materials and production processes. There’s not much more knife you could make and then ask double that price unless you plan on adding 18k gold accents or inlaid precious stones.
 
Daniel L said:
I think you should connect with NathCustom (on Instagram) - he is a very well known Thai maker/modder.
Nath has no shortage of orders (multi year waitlist) for his custom mods and pure custom designs in the price points you are thinking of.

I'm sure he can give you a better local insight as a Thai working in the international knife market, and possibly even get a working collaboration together. I'm fairly sure he uses CNC and EDM.

I guess you have to make some decisions about passion projects vs money making. You might find it far less stressful and far more profitable investing in the stock market and real estate and buying knives for fun. I have toyed with similar ideas as you, but decided I want MORE fun and LESS stress in my pre-retirement / retirement years.
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Agreed with this.

Only few percentage of knife people in Thailand who has capability to spend $500-1000 on a folder even less for a fixed blade... And speaking for the real potential customer, when they spend that kind of money it will mostly be something "made in USA" like Strider, CRK, Hinderer etc. This is very common market behavior of Thai's collectors. In the past 10 years there are only two Thai's folder makers that I known who really succeed in the game, Nath and Yuna. And both are making handmade product.
 
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