April 18, 2025
$100,000 for a loaf of bread?
I posted my comic “How much for a like button?” on LinkedIn.
(The rest of this post will make more sense if you read the comic first.)
Basically, the comic describes a value conversation between buyer and seller, albeit in a funny way.
A software developer posted the following rebuttal:
Customer: “How much for this bread?”
Baker: “$100,000”
Customer: “What, that’s outrageous, I’m not paying that for a bread!”
Baker: “You need food to live, you don’t want to live? You’re a billionaire, and I can keep you alive for only $100,000.”
Customer: “Yeah, but the baker around the corner can do that too for only $2. You’re ripping me off and you’ve lost my business... Jackass...”
That’s a more likely scenario in my opinion. Charging $100,000 for an hour’s work won’t make you any friends, even if it will double their revenue.
This comment raises many interesting points.
Here are five:
- There is a fundamental difference between selling products (e.g., a loaf of bread) and selling services (e.g., software development)
- The value of a brand can have a significant impact on price (i.e., some people are happy to spend thousands of dollars on a wristwatch even though they could get one for $5)
- Inequity aversion
- Being meaningfully different from your competitors (e.g., not all “bread” is the same; this can be brand-related, but not always)
- The availability of alternatives - e.g., A loaf of bread isn’t the only product that solves the “dying of malnutrition” problem.
Big picture, the comic is meant to be funny while illustrating the idea of uncovering value in a sales interview by pushing past the client’s initial ask.
If you take it literally, then yeah... it’s unlikely that this exact scenario would lead to a sale.
But that would be missing the point.
Yours,
—J