Live data from Hacker News

Juicero Is Shutting Down

fortune.com

141–150 of 413 posts

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#141
post #63
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is another teardown with a similar conclusion https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so-expensi...

I love how Bolt.io tore down a pair of Beats headphones and came to the opposite conclusion -- that they were a ripoff and that the components inside in no way justified the pricetag. But, take a look at the quality of the internals of Juicero vs. Beats headphones and realize that one of the companies is worth $1.5B while the other is shutting down.

That "Beats" teardown was with a counterfeit pair of headphones.

Even so, I don't think a large difference between the BOM and the price the consumer pays is necessarily a ripoff. There's more to a product than simply how much it costs to manufacture.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#142
post #45

I'll pick one up in the liquidation sale.

Like for what?

There are amateurs successfully manufacturing ancient Kodak photographic processes; given that, "insert apples into bag" sounds pretty easy in comparison. The problem is my real juicer juices better than I can likely make this machine juice with homemade bags, and to keep my carb load low, I generally eat pieces of fruit not juices so I'd not use it personally, although its an interesting challenge.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#144
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the fundamental (and well documented) problem with Juicero is that they over-engineered themselves into a product that was far beyond what a consumer would ever pay for a kitchen appliance. Kinda like exactly what the article says.

Consumers will (and do, all the time) spebd $700 or more for kitchen appliances, provided the use of the appliance is expected to provide adequate value to warrant that. The fact that it's a juicer, and that you are locked-in to Juicero packs, is what limits the market, not the fact that it is a “kitchen appliance”.

> The fact that it's a juicer

The biggest problem is Juicero isn't a juicer. Juicero's market was limited because the average customer doesn't want to pay a premium for juice press theater. Shoving juice into packs that are hard for the consumer to access is simply a worse experience than the status quo containers of juice.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#146

Magnificent engineering to solve a stupid non-problem. Sigh.

Given how overenginered it was, was it really magnificent? I don't think it's hard to make a quality Mechanism if you're willing to spend 400% of what's necessary for 108% of the benefit.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#148
post #124

120 million USD in funding and such a spectacular failure because of one article. This whole episode goes on to show the power journalists have. I know the sales number were bad but with so much money the founder could have bought the market or pivoted but with no coming back from the PR disaster the investors most likely just wanted their money back.

Shoot the messenger?

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> restaurant quality meals, for cheap, large selection, with zero effort If this were ever to happen - and what I know of food chemistry makes me strongly skeptical - you would definitely see it in actual restaurants way before you get it at home. Because for a restaurant, if you can effectively replace a human costing >$40k/yr with a change in supply chain and a fancy machine, you can easily afford to pay $40k for t…

>As for the "reducing food waste" concept - no store actually wants to achieve this. Think about it - actively trying to get people to buy less of what you sell is pretty bad for business. Which is why it's ripe for disruption. The consumer could be better off, a company that isn't in the space already could be better off, they're the people who need to make it happen.

There's the other half of the chain as well - the suppliers. If they know selling to NewFancyStoreWithLessFoodWaste leads to an end-game where there is less demand for their products, why should they bother?
Post reply on HN