Ooo stats!!! I’m honestly surprised YYF is even that large. Thought it was just a handful of people and some sponsored players.
Truthfully, I find it bizarre that people think that these companies—even ones as prominent as YYF—are anything other than small businesses at best. The yoyo market is ridiculously bespoke and artisanal, and pretty much everyone I’ve heard speak about it had said how thin the margins are for most if not all of these companies. I think the fact that we have such easy access to people like YYF Ben and other head honchos is a testament of that.
I’m really curious how large Duncan is. Obvs Flambeau is a full-fledged corporation but I would imagine Duncan to be a rather small brand within the company. They do have much more B2B and supply chain needs though.
I’d argue YYF helped establish the current state where you can expect every yo-yo to be good. The bigger companies had to catch up to the quality of YYFs metals when metals became the standard, and smaller companies had to catch up with quality control and output. YYF also did a lot of varying designs that helped establish what made for a technically better yo-yo.
Absolutely. Duncan is a small operation within a large corporation. But the number of cheap Imperials/Butterflies they sell in groceries/drug stores is waaaaay larger than anything we could expect to see from the brands we consider “successful” within the community. I just think YYF gets lumped in with Duncan as being this great corporate battleship when it’s really just a successful independent boutique operation.
YoYoFactory actually has 413,152 employees. Their Headquarters is 187,000 square feet.
They have an in house restaurant that serves meals 23.9 hours a day.(the 1200 person crew takes a 6 minute break per day).
Every employee has a cell phone. And Hans covers all of them on his Verizon account.
All 17,000 Team members get one of every model yoyo in every color.
Hans and Ben generate 1 billion dollars is sales per week. But they only pay themselves 4 dollars per week take home pay… Because they feel kinda guilty about taking any money for doing something so fun.
…I just figured if somebody wants to post up inaccurate Company information; then we might as well go overboard.
Ah, every time people start talking about the shutter…
I just want to go to the shelf and start throwing mine. But then I have to choose between the wide angle and the shutter… ARGH the choices dangit.
Then I throw them both. The shutter got me to throw a yoyo again, and I am greatful for it. I admire the fact that Gentry throws the shutter almost exclusively and is very content. It does everything he asks it to do. I’ll be totally honest, I was a photographer and love the hobby still. The fact that it was a shutter with an aperture design, was the deciding factor. I’m glad I got it and would make the same decision over and over again.
Hahaha! I picked the Shutter as my first metal unresponsive because I loved the shape and look and I still do. I go it the day before I left for a 3 week trip to Scotland. I wanted to have something fun to entertain me while I trekked around. I kept it in my camera bag with my spare lenses – That fun coincidence always amused me…
If I had a signature model designed for me and it came out exactly as I wanted I’d never want to buy another yo-yo.
Edit: Also if I were to buy a Shutter at this point could I safely assume that it’s the most recent iteration and not old stock of prior versions? Are there any visual cues or color ways that would confirm it’s the newest model?
There are some differences in the original, I don’t remember off the top of my head. However if you buy one today I’m sure it would be the latest. They have been around for a while now. Of course you now have 3ish versions for sale. There are others, 66%, titanium, shu-ta, etc.
Tbh if each of their 5 or so online retailers likely sell 20+ yoyos a day each to the thousands of people that frequent each site. YYF also has a presence in physical retailers as well so a chunk of their sales probably also come from that.
Revenue also includes stuff like renting out equipment, ad revenue, event revenue (even tho they probably pay a lot more sponsoring it). I don’t know what they do with scrap yoyos (like below b grade) but if they sell the scrap metals, those all counts a revenue. Do they own any intellectual properties? and if so there may be some royalty from others using it. I know nothing about yoyo business, but for some businesses raw sales figures may not even be a majority part of total revenue.
They’re selling them at wholesale prices though, likely not making more than $50 a yoyo.
Under my assumed profit margins (which could be wrong > or <) they’d have to sell 80,000 yoyos to hit that. There’s no way they’re selling 80k yoyos a year.
The yoyo industry is no way at profitable. I’m not saying YYF is breaking even, but they do this for the love of the hobby.
If YYF sold 100 yoyos every single day for a year straight, even assuming an unrealistic profit margin of $70 per yoyo, they’d only be bringing in 2.5 million.
No way in helllllll they make 4 million a year.
Edit: after thinking about it a little more, there’s likely no way they’re even profiting $50 per yoyo. It’s probably closer to $30 or even lower.
