I sure want to. Or at least see them come back & make a new Aluminium throw.
A great many of us would love that!
SPYYâs owner, Steve Buffel, has a lot on his plate right now, and I would think that SPYY is a pretty low priority. From what I understand, heâs always well pleased to find out about the many fans his company still has, though.
What do you think of a SPYY X Onedrop collaboration?
So�.. So you hijacking your own thread?
Do you want SPYY to come back or you want a SPYY/One Drop colab?
Either would be cool, but maybe a little towards a SPYY comeback.
Underappreciated and under-hyped.
The community/market allowed SPYY to evaporate and did nothing to encourage it with the release of the TYY-01 (despite a ton of apparent excitement for it). Nobody disagrees that SPYY was one of the most consistent companies out there, but glamour (and sometimes drama) will outsell consistency every time.
Essentially what Ed said is very accurate with one caveat.
I Love SPYY Yoyos. But I truly believe that Steve would have had a more successful re-entry if he would have arrived with a New SPYY yoyo at a price point closer to around half of the $315 Ti price.
Although that $ amount is not unusual for a Ti yoyo; I just donât feel the timing was right.
Especially considering that a good number of players had started throwing Yoyos âafterâ SPYY had hung up production.
So possibly a number of players werenât willing or able to just spend 300+ on a Company âNewâ to themâŚdunno?
I have 2 of them. But then, I donât have any real budgetary constraintsđ¤
It is really a very nice yoyo.
And itâs not the only 300 dollar yoyo that didnât sell out yet.
I bought a Revenger off BST, what a fun throw. Definitely saving my pennies for a TYY-01.
I think itâs easy for people to say they want SPYY to return, but it just wouldnât matter that much, unless they put their money where their mouth is. And, in order for people to spend their money, there has to be some great marketing behind a great product to compete. You can make a great product, but a lot of other people do too. You have to ask yourself what separates one great product from another great product? I think the answer is how you present the company and the product, and whether itâs done in a way to get people excited.
The company that has a great team to present their products in the best light, that has great colorways on yo-yos, and who have grown their business and following through efforts to reach players directly via traveling, teaching, sponsoring events, keeping up with social media, maybe keeping prices within reach, and the list goes on, might have a much better chance at sticking around awhile. Having a great product to start, is just the beginning and not enough to sustain a business long term.
We have seen CLYW make some great adjustments recently, and that shows how well it can be done. A company willing to pull itself out of a financial bind can do it, if they are willing to put in the work and get the right team together to make it happen. The owner of the company has to want that for the business though, because it involves âchange,â not keeping things the same, but being willing to make much needed changes for survival of the business.
Honestly, as a pretty frequent yo-yo buyer, I caught onto SPYY a bit late. The reasons why, have nothing to do with the quality of the product. It has a lot to do with how the products were presented to me as the consumer. All the hype of people talking is one thing, but that alone cannot be a marketing plan for releases. There were people on this board commenting favorably about SPYY products, but those kinds of comments are all over the board on behalf of a lot of other companies. I felt like I needed more convincing from the company itself to buy their stuff instead of whatever some other business was pushing that week. Companies have to keep up with the times, interact on social media, create some quality promo videos, get a great team behind them, keep prices in check, and make the product look good. As a yo-yo buyer, that adds to my excitement about a new release.
I believe most yo-yos are good now, so buyers are looking for direction beyond a great product. As for the TYY-01 release, I never really perceived that as a real re-entry, but rather a limited short term project, with no actual announcement of an official SPYY return. I agree with 'doc, that if SPYY was asking people to show support for a potential return, by buying their latest release, pricing it within reach of most people would have been the way to go. So, it appears that was not the goal.
I think SPYY made a great impact, and I have several of their yo-yos in my collection, including the TYY, so itâs all good.
The few SPYY throws I have tried were great.
If any manufacturer wants to make a âcomebackâ; I would think that they would need to bring something new and exciting to the table. Otherwise, they would just be re-energizing whatever previous-impressions people already have about the company.
To shed that âold, out-of-dateâ impression would need more than just hype and marketing. Being a âsolid-performerâ would not be enough. The bar would be that much higher.
I would think anything less than a Bi-Metal would be met with a yawn.
The SPYY Pure was my first SPYY. It was just so amazing looking. I scored a blue and a PURE GOLD at YoYoNation when they were released. Never found a VSOP, still want one so badly. I collected nearly every SPYY after that, they were and are one of my fav companies. My Solaris/Pro/SpeedFreak, heck, Spyder, see more play than most new designs.
That being said I did not buy a TYY-01. I love SPYY, and while I am a professional and financially stable I simply felt I could not justify the price point with the needs of my family/etcâŚsometimes real life catches up with us when our joys/hobbies/sports involve $300+ yoyosâŚitâs an amazing player Iâm sure, I love SPYY and I hope to one day get one, but a re-entry at that price point is tricky to be sure.
Sadly, so true.
Maybe some new crazy design, or a multi ringed bimetal?
My thoughts exactly, Doc.
A yoyo half the price would have been better I think. Perhaps even a SPYY yoyo closer to budget prices of today, maybe around $60 - $80 (if possible) would have satisfied long standing fans and encouraged people who havenât tried SPYY before to give them a go.
The SPYY titanium does look great though.
For a Ti yoyo, half the price just would not have been possible for what Steve was doing, unless he had them machined overseas, then people wouldâve probably complained about that.
Even a âbudgetâ model he wouldâve had to go overseas for that as well.
Iâd be willing to bet even CLYWâs margins have dropped since returning the machining of their yoyos to Canada. Machining costs in Canada, in my experience, are quite a bit more than the US. So to make what he wanted, it was going to cost some money. I remember talking to Steve before the release, while he was machining. I asked what he thought the price would be. He then asked me, what I thought the price should be. I told him in my experience, being machined in Canada, titanium, small run, etc. I thought $350-400USD on the low side. He said something like thatâs what he was thinking also. Then he comes out with them even less than that.
I think what Steve did was perfect, itâs SPYY. He didnât go out with some over the top campaign and super hype (like 9 out of 10 companies do today). He designed a really great yoyo, posted some photos and info on social media, and released it. Too many people want to buy hype and colors these days, not a really good yoyo.
I should add that I think that a lot of the people who were singing SPYYâs biggest praises, and patting them on the back for not doing what other companies were doing to stay in business, were not spending enough money on SPYY product either. Thatâs the harsh reality.
Itâs like trying to find enough people who can come in here with a SPYY collection, one that they didnât get for free, and didnât buy second hand. I think that itâs odd to hear so many people say they want SPYY back, but a lot of those same people wouldnât even support enough to keep it afloat. :-\
I liked SPYY when I got to know it, but whatâs up with the die hard SPYY fans who didnât represent? They seemed to have a core group of fans, but what happened? I mean, if I found out YoyoFactory was going under, Iâd have to start working double shifts. Thatâs when yo-yo gets serious.
Having said that, do you think things would have turned out differently, if SPYY announced a year ahead that if things did not turn around, they were closing up shop? Was it the fact that a lot of people didnât see it coming? Maybe feedback was necessary a lot sooner.
I should have have said that i didnât mean he should have made a titanium for half the price. I know thatâs not possible.
From my understanding SPYY closing up shop didnât have to do with money, it had to do with being burned out and needing a break. Imagine how things would be at YYF if it was just Ben and Hans, they did all their machining in the US, then did all the packaging, all the leg work themselves. Iâd imagine theyâd get burned out also, no matter how many were backing them.
It was both. They are connected. Running a yo-yo company is a tremendous amount of work - I think everybody can appreciate that. When you work SO hard on something and itâs met with only moderate success (ESPECIALLY given universal praise), it becomes a huge bummer and tough to keep slogging away. 4-5 years ago, SPYY really was up there with the best yo-yoâs available. They were unbelievably consistent, many models were unique and highly ambitious, and we had a cool team (even WITH me on it). But ticking all those boxes doesnât guarantee that your brand will catch fire. Watching other companies explode while Steve did all he knew to do yet succeeding JUST ENOUGH to keep at it was a GRIND.
But honestly, I donât care about what could have been or should have been. I donât care about if SPYY ever releases another yo-yo. Steve is a GREAT person and a GREAT dad, and right now he is in the fight of his life, enduring a rougher run than most of us can fathom. I just want him to be healthy and for him to get to live a long, full life of riding bikes with his boys, sewing jeans, designing engines, eating Tubby Dog and drinking ales with Suzanne, and maybe picking up a yo-yo sometimes and thinking âyou know what? I made this, and itâs %$#&*@ AWESOME.â⌠I donât need to see SPYY return. I just want to see my friend wreck cancerâs face.
Tell me this isnât one of the coolest yoyos youâve ever seen ;D
http://www.yoyo-canada.com/v/vspfiles/photos/spyy%20el-2.jpg