Eight products instead of ninety

How this started

In 2021, one of us spent an evening trying to buy a first vibrator and gave up. Forty tabs, three brands of the same rebranded toy, "body-safe" printed on everything including a $9 item made of TPE, and no decibel figure anywhere. The purchase eventually happened at a store, in person, out of mild embarrassment.

The gap wasn't products. It was information. Everything on the shelf was already fine; nothing on the shelf told you which of the fine things fit you. So we started with a spreadsheet of specs, then a short list, then a very short list — and finally eight items we'd stand behind.

We're a two-person operation plus a fulfillment contractor in Wilmington, Delaware. There's no warehouse tour, no investor deck, and no plan to become a marketplace. The plan is: fewer products, better specs, plain boxes.

What we believe, in operational terms

• Fewer, better. If we can't explain why a product exists in two sentences, it doesn't get listed. Eight is not a marketing angle, it's the honest number.
• Publish the boring numbers. Noise in dB at a stated distance, insertable length, runtime on high as well as low. The bad numbers sit next to the good ones.
• Materials before features. Medical-grade silicone everywhere skin touches. No TPE in the lineup, even where it would cut the price.
• Discretion is a product feature. Plain box, neutral sender name, matching statement descriptor, no logo on the tape.
• No medical claims. We say "many people find" instead of "clinically proven" unless a clinician actually told us.
• Keep the three-star reviews. They're the only ones that tell you anything.

How we test

Every product is used by at least three people with different preferences before listing, for a minimum of three weeks. Motors are run to failure to get a real runtime figure. Noise is measured with a calibrated meter at one meter, on both low and high, in a room with a hard floor — the least flattering setup.

We buy the first batch of everything ourselves. If a supplier changes a motor or a silicone grade, the listing gets re-tested or the product gets dropped.