41–50 of 92 posts
Ha, this mirrors a comment from an original HN discussion of Quirky:
> It reminds me of those catalogs in the seat-backs of airplanes that I end up reading when I get bored. Lots of stuff -- but nothing really struck me as being all that valuable or novel. Kitsch.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the Kickstarter model also massively de-risked the process by introducing a pre-order model that gave you a sense of the potential revenue ahead of time before you went an invested $100k on tooling.
Quirky also derisked the process and took preorders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you European? The reason I ask is because the US and the EU take opposite approaches to the issue of egg safety. In the EU eggs are not allowed to be washed before sale, that means the eggs retain their natural anti-bacterial coating from when they are laid, so they are naturally microbe resistant and that's why European eggs are not refrigerated in the store. In the US they mandate that eggs must be washed befor…
I'm a 'Merkin, actually, and I've never had problems leaving eggs out for a week, then eating them hard-boiled, scrambled, or over-easy. Then again, I sometimes find it hard to understand the Purell Nation in which I live.
For people with working immune system basically any food is safe-ish. So we are overdoing it. But there are people for which (AIDS, immunosuppressors, cancer) a very low bacterial load could be deadly.
This is one of those stories where I initially go "wait, quirky failed?" and then I think of the Quirky Eggminder that I purchased and realize, "yea, that product really did make me a sad and angry customer." For those who don't know, the eggminder was a wifi enabled egg carton paired with a smartphone app that tells you how many eggs you currently have, how old each egg is, and notifies you when you need more eggs.…
> Visionary founder with the perfect background... > Disrupting the incredibly horrible experience of inventing a physical product... > Top-tier investors... > Board of directors stacked... > Crazy high community engagement... > ...an exceptional team of engineers, designers, marketers... > So if everything was so good, how did the company spend $180M of investors’ money, sell very little product, replace the founder…
I had a Quirky Wink Spotter and it was just shy of usable. How they failed (for over a year!) to issue a software update that fixed the problem of getting hundreds of push notifications every time the thing moved, I will never understand. Coalescing was not in their vocabulary. This was not an exceptional team of engineers, by any stretch. It was apathetic people who knew how to cobble stuff together, but didn't give a shit about doing the last finishing touches to make the stuff usable.
The writer then goes on to say that they have no real business, they are just cranking out half baked products that are never improved.
There is nothing special about quirky shutting down, it happens to many businesses. If they are bad, or poorly executed they run out of cash and shut down.
The main take away from this is do one thing, and do it well, you can't make up for mediocrity by bundling it together with other mediocre products.
> Visionary founder with the perfect background... > Disrupting the incredibly horrible experience of inventing a physical product... > Top-tier investors... > Board of directors stacked... > Crazy high community engagement... > ...an exceptional team of engineers, designers, marketers... > So if everything was so good, how did the company spend $180M of investors’ money, sell very little product, replace the founder…
Shitty products. I had a Quirky Wink Spotter and it was just shy of usable. How they failed (for over a year!) to issue a software update that fixed the problem of getting hundreds of push notifications every time the thing moved, I will never understand. Coalescing was not in their vocabulary. This was not an exceptional team of engineers, by any stretch. It was apathetic people who knew how to cobble stuff together…
Edit: the fact that their forth bestseller was a silicone yolk separator doesn't really set the barrier to entry high. A plastic water bottle can do the same.[2]
They were flying too close to the mirror, not the Sun.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/simple-successful-inventions-... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AirVOuTN_M
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can this have been a thing? First, eggs don't need to be refrigerated; they keep at least a week at room temperature. Second, they can be bought in lots of 6, 12, 18, and 36 in most supermarkets; choose based on your rate of consumption. Third, they're dirt cheap, typically less than 25 cents apiece. We're talking Vessyl levels of pointlessness here.
Are you European? The reason I ask is because the US and the EU take opposite approaches to the issue of egg safety. In the EU eggs are not allowed to be washed before sale, that means the eggs retain their natural anti-bacterial coating from when they are laid, so they are naturally microbe resistant and that's why European eggs are not refrigerated in the store. In the US they mandate that eggs must be washed befor…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a 'Merkin, actually, and I've never had problems leaving eggs out for a week, then eating them hard-boiled, scrambled, or over-easy. Then again, I sometimes find it hard to understand the Purell Nation in which I live.
You have 1/20000 chance of having an salmonella egg in a batch that can be inactivated with proper cooking. For people with working immune system basically any food is safe-ish. So we are overdoing it. But there are people for which (AIDS, immunosuppressors, cancer) a very low bacterial load could be deadly.
At least that's what I like to tell myself when I buy the fancy eggs at twice the price.