March 12, 2026 · 2 min read

Why 9 stones, not 200

By Anatolii Utkin

When we started sketching Tablestones, we had a list of 47 gemstones we loved.

The team joke was that the real question was not "which 47" but "which 3." The serious answer ended up at 9.

The arithmetic of too many

If the catalog has 200 stones, here's what happens:

The customer opens the homepage, sees a 12-column grid of tiny images, and starts scrolling
They don't know what most of the stones mean
They scroll until something catches their eye, mostly based on color
The decision is made by a subconscious pattern-match in the first 7 seconds

That is a completely valid way to make a decision. It is not the kind of decision we want someone making when they are choosing the physical object that's going to carry a message to a specific person.

The arithmetic of 9

At 9 stones (arranged in a 3 × 3 grid on the homepage), here's what happens:

The customer sees every stone in one glance
They read the one-line traditional meaning next to each
They slow down
One of them — usually within 30 seconds — matches something specific they want to say

9 is not arbitrary. It's big enough to have range (a warm one, a cool one, a bold one, a quiet one) and small enough to fit on one screen with room for every stone to breathe.

What we left out

A short list, because it matters to say:

Diamond. Too loaded. A diamond means one specific thing in Western gift culture (engagement), and we didn't want every Tablestone purchase to carry that weight.
Sapphire, emerald, ruby. Premium pricing would push the stone-plus-subscription total past $100. The whole point was "meaningful gift at an accessible price."
Opal. Beautiful, genuinely unpredictable under a laser, and too fragile for the 20-year durability we aim for.
Lab-grown anything. For this particular product, the story of a stone that was in the ground for millions of years matters to the giver and the receiver both. This is a subjective call; I recognize others would disagree.
Healing stones as a category framing. We use "traditionally associated with" deliberately. We are not in the healing business. Customers who want a stone to heal something should speak to a doctor.

The ones we kept

The 9 we settled on are, for the most part, stones people already know. Amethyst. Rose quartz. Onyx. Jade. Hematite. Sodalite. Tiger's eye. Citrine. Moonstone. (Your catalog at launch may be named differently — we're still working on final product names.)

Each has a centuries-old traditional meaning in at least one culture. Each holds a clean laser engraving. Each is durable enough for a pocket, a palm, a drawer, a grandchild's future hand.

The future

We might add a tenth stone someday, if we find one we can't stop thinking about.

We will not add a two-hundredth.

The catalog is part of the product. Making it bigger would make the product worse.

The arithmetic of too many

If the catalog has 200 stones, here's what happens:

The customer opens the homepage, sees a 12-column grid of tiny images, and starts scrolling

They don't know what most of the stones mean

They scroll until something catches their eye, mostly based on color

The decision is made by a subconscious pattern-match in the first 7 seconds

The arithmetic of 9

At 9 stones (arranged in a 3 × 3 grid on the homepage), here's what happens:

The customer sees every stone in one glance

They read the one-line traditional meaning next to each

They slow down

One of them — usually within 30 seconds — matches something specific they want to say

9 is not arbitrary. It's big enough to have range (a warm one, a cool one, a bold one, a quiet one) and small enough to fit on one screen with room for every stone to breathe.

What we left out

A short list, because it matters to say:

Diamond. Too loaded. A diamond means one specific thing in Western gift culture (engagement), and we didn't want every Tablestone purchase to carry that weight.

Sapphire, emerald, ruby. Premium pricing would push the stone-plus-subscription total past $100. The whole point was "meaningful gift at an accessible price."

Opal. Beautiful, genuinely unpredictable under a laser, and too fragile for the 20-year durability we aim for.

Lab-grown anything. For this particular product, the story of a stone that was in the ground for millions of years matters to the giver and the receiver both. This is a subjective call; I recognize others would disagree.

Healing stones as a category framing. We use "traditionally associated with" deliberately. We are not in the healing business. Customers who want a stone to heal something should speak to a doctor.

The ones we kept

Each has a centuries-old traditional meaning in at least one culture. Each holds a clean laser engraving. Each is durable enough for a pocket, a palm, a drawer, a grandchild's future hand.