Two businesses that I am a big fan of have made some big changes...

and I'd like to see if anyone here wants to discuss them. They're as disparate as they are fascinating to me in terms of what they do. But they've both made huge decisions regarding their business and I'm curious as to how it affects their sales (of course), the community that's built around them, their brand and-ultimately-their business.

#1 Meh.com - I'm not sure anyone here has ever heard of them but me. Some dude that used to sell electronics in Houston or DFW got the bright idea to sell one product per day at closeout, rock-bottom prices online. One day it'd be a Memory Foam Mattress. The next day its a Sansa .mp3 media player. The next day it was a Ginsu knife. The next day it was an Onkyo receiver for home theater setups.

He started a website where he could sell one product per day, and when it sold out, that was it. He called it Woot. The social community that grew up around it and the ridiculously humorous product descriptions that appeared every night build a hugely loyal brand.

He eventually sold out to Amazon for about $180 million, had a bizarre breakfast with Jeff Bezos and signed a non-compete. When it was up, he started meh.com.

Same deal-a-day premise, but he's recently made changes to when the products go on sale, they will now "pause," deals, provide select stock to folks who have their "VMP," membership so that they are in some ways guaranteed stock. To me, this is destroying the deal-a-day model and blasphemous to the community they were allegedly trying to develop once again using meh.com.

I don't understand changing a model that-while it took almost a decade to build up-became wildly successful with consistency and time.

Has anyone followed that and what do they think about the Rutledge CEO/Brainchild and his recent changes?

#2 Saddleback Leather - I'm sure a lot of folks here are big aficionados of Dave's products. I only own two wallets. My wife bought me a bag and it was so expensive I returned it on general principle. I just can't see us justifying the expense of their products.

But geezus do I covet said products. Looking at what they do, how they do it and the products that emerge from Saddleback, if I were just one tax bracket above where I am, I'd own many of their products.

Yet yesterday, he comes out and announces an across-the-board price increase, citing finally hiring money folks to review his business who showed him how much money he was losing, how wasteful he was, how underpriced he was, and how much more he could do as a business owner for his employees, his customers and his life by increasing the price point. Significantly.

I was-honestly-shocked at why he'd announce something like that so suddenly. Now, on the one hand, he did announce that the increase would occur one month prior to right now. So perhaps he's really trying to clear out old stock or leftover stuff from Christmas. Then again, he may be paying for his obsessive attention to detail and quality finally.

Or maybe he's just a bad business person. I don't know.

Just curious as to sudden business pivots from folks who either have A - Incredibly successful brands or B - Innovators who literally created a retail segment that is now copied and imitated the world over.

Any biz guys in here seen it or done it or have an opinion? Or should I switch to decaf and stop staying up so late at night and getting up so early in the morning?