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Why Quirky Failed

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Re: Why Quirky Failed

#81

Post by function_seven »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #65
larkinrichards wrote: post #27

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.…

The obvious solution is to start building fridges with power outlets inside the cooling area.

You're not thinking future-proof enough! Each shelf needs to have NFC coils embedded throughout. With just outlets, you'll run out as soon as you have an Eggminder, a Milkminder, and a Sixpackminder

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#82

Post by zyxley »

jakejake wrote: post #78
mbesto wrote: post #16

> 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…

If everything the author says is true, then there should be 50-per-year valid startups that can spin off from Quirky. He mentions an air conditioner, for example, that could have been excellent after a few iterations.

And "flexible power strips with variations to fit every environment" could easily be an entire successful company by itself.

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#83

Post by [deleted] »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #65
larkinrichards wrote: post #27

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.…

The obvious solution is to start building fridges with power outlets inside the cooling area.

[deleted]

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#84

Post by dcosson »

georgemcbay wrote: post #3
S_A_P wrote: post #2

I think the sad thing is I never even knew Quirky existed. I'm not hard core into the invention/maker scene but I've been on this site for almost 6 years as a participant and never heard of it. I think the article raised some excellent points though. I think that the ideas that stuck should have been spun off as their own company to iterate and improve things.

Same situation here. Quirky is "right up my alley" and somehow I never heard of it until it was shutting down. Don't know if this is a regional issue (I'm in San Diego) or what.

I had heard of them, but I still have a similar reaction to you. It's right up my alley, e.g. I've bought all kinds of random hardware on kickstarter, but I've never bought anything from Quirky even though I would have loved to.

One example I remember distinctly, at the beginning of last summer Uber did a promotion where they delivered Quirky smart AC's with installation for a few hundred bucks. Fast forward a year to when I needed an AC I actually looked around for a Quirky one since I remember being intrigued, I figured by now they might even have a newer version and have worked out some kinks. But there was basically nothing to be found, it had just been a one-time thing on the part of both Uber and Quirky.

It all makes sense now reading the other comments here. Turns out that was just their business model, to only ever release one-offs instead of building quality product lines and iterating on them.

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#85

Post by Arnt »

matt_morgan wrote: post #76
Arnt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exceptional engineers? There's a Quirky cable guide on the desk in front of me, and if the engineers who worked on that were exceptional, then I posit that they didn't get enough time to work on the product. It's a fine concept, no question. But a few more iterations would have helped it. I get an impression that Quirky wanted to push out things quickly, not spend a lot of company hours obsessing over the precise wid…

I don't know if you read the article, but you just made his point in 5% of the verbiage. Granted, he included evidence/argument, which has a lot of value.

Of course I read it... and do you to have the impression that his core points were diluted in words until one might miss them?

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#86

Post by TeMPOraL »

halcyondaze wrote: post #45
larkinrichards wrote: post #27

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.…

While the battery oversight was bad, who actually cares about how many eggs they have left and needs to be notified? It's a non-problem first and a hardware oversight second.

Apparently GP cared since he paid for the product. The thing about optimizing day-to-day life is, everyone has different needs and priorities, and everyone has different personal shortcomings they want to correct with technology.

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#87

Post by perlgeek »

> It usually reads something like “venture backed company burns through mountain of cash without real business” or some other such garbage.

...

> The 6 year journey of the company was a balancing act between an extraordinarily bold vision and a fundamentally broken business model.

Wait, didn't you say earlier that "without real business" was garbage?

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#88

Post by s73v3r »

on_ wrote: post #8

Why quirky failed, kickstarter. It was an awesome idea, but kickstarter handles the long tail, shards and distributes the workload, and is universal. That is why Quirky failed.

Actually, given how many problems some Kickstarters have with manufacturing, having a company like Quirky that could come in, having experience with manufacturing, design, shipping, etc, could make many of those a much better experience.

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#89

Post by Stratoscope »

andyjsong wrote: post #53
Stratoscope wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have one of those power strips. It's really great! I usually keep it in a simple tight circle. Right now it has a couple of MacBook Pro AC adapters, another AC adapter for a network switch, and a few regular AC plugs. It's super easy to arrange it to fit all kinds of power plugs without them getting in the way of each other.

That's awesome that you're enjoying it! I'm just saying, they spent a ton of time/money on vetting ideas, R&D, and manufacturing, just to have it knocked off for $5 to $15 [1]. Why did they make such risks by manufacturing before gauging demand? A simple pre-order or crowdfunding campaign where fix batches were pre-sold and repeated until steady orders came in would make sense. [1] http://www.alibaba.com/product-deta…

Oh, not disagreeing with anything you are saying - you make some excellent points. I just like the power strip. :-)

Re: Why Quirky Failed

#90

Post by matt_morgan »

Arnt wrote: post #85
matt_morgan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you read the article, but you just made his point in 5% of the verbiage. Granted, he included evidence/argument, which has a lot of value.

Of course I read it... and do you to have the impression that his core points were diluted in words until one might miss them?

No, no, I was just plugging that in because in reading the other comments it was clear that lots of other people had NOT read the article, and were missing the point, and I wanted to call attention to your summary.
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