These look awesome, but I cannot imagine spending $1,400 on a clock...
If he priced them much lower and ended up with either extreme (one or two orders vs a hundred), it wouldn't be great for him.
Basically, is it worth it TO YOU? I understand the logic behind trying to put together a BoM in your head, but also consider R&D time, tools (and the wear on them), time spent sourcing, finishing, final assembly, shipping, building an eCommerce site to sell these, advertising...there's a ton of cost outside of just the BoM, as many Kickstarter projects which never ship can attest to. Makers who have done any kind of mass production tend to understand this sort of thing, as do those who were able to hand-assemble a dozen of a thing, then had to scale it to a few thousand (read about electronic conference badges, for example). https://medium.com/@Haje/how-a-half-million-dollar-kickstart... is another account of this.
Finally, it's art. Many luxury products have huge mark-ups of hundreds or thousands of percent (look up Luxottica for example...they make most of the plastic sunglasses that sell for >$100). Could YOU make a single one that is similar for less money? Probably, but that's not what you're paying for here. Most artists are not crazy greedy capitalists, but the ones who think through it enough to turn it into a longer-term successful venture tend to price things according to how much they need to make it worth their time to bother to produce them.
/rant on behalf of all my artist friends who wish they could do art full-time but can't because it would never come close to paying the bills
That's a sign that the artist's valuation of their time might be overpriced, plain and simple. Maybe people disagree with paying a $60/making-hour time value for a clock that they could build themselves or buy at a fraction of the listed price.
It is then up to the seller to make their case for why they think the product warrants a $60/making-hour price.
I started at AS220 as an "engineer" teaching "artists" how to use tools to make their art. Overtime, I realized I was also an "artist" making art. Much of this realization came when people that I considered real artists in my community started calling my work art. It was a GREAT feeling. I'd love to have others experience that too!
And yes, I do value my time. I have 2 young kids, a spouse and a dog. Plus other family and hobbies. So if I'm going to produce art for sale (and most of my art isn't for sale), it needs to be worth my time. I've even considered if my pricing is too LOW given the value of things I could spend my time on. I'll aways be making art for myself and as gifts. Selling it to other is something I'm trying out for now.
I think the audience on HN is unique in that many of them may have the ability to think about BOMs, have access to some CNCs and program a microcontroller. But they are not my target audience. I'm not trying to build a mass market product. I'm trying to sell my art. And, yes, if I want to sell my art, I need to afford to sell it. :)
Just covering design time, workshop equipment and consumables, business costs, etc. requires a lot of markup to even break even in low volumes - and that’s before considering that yor’re paying a premium for art and design...