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E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

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Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#171

Post by thenickevans »

Someone1234 wrote: post #20
davidweatherall wrote: post #5

It seems they "only" had $150,000 in funding, but as they were basically white labelling the Segway ES2[1] I'm surprised they didn't just hold onto their sales revenue to purchase the product... Interestingly enough, about 2 clicks around their site and you realise they didn't even put the effort into setting up their Shopify site correctly... - https://unicornrides.com/collections/all [1] - https://unicornrides.com/…

Playing devil's advocate here but the Shopify issue is because they removed the only products they sold on Shopify (that's why it 404s at /products/unicorn-scooter-product), that results in the collection being empty and that page showing up. So their Shopify was likely fine until the business went under. Then they quite correctly stopped letting people make additional orders.

This is correct

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#172

Post by thenickevans »

cletus wrote: post #108

Here's my take: the company needed to raise $X to deliver their $700 scooters. They had raised $Y where $Y Since the only way for Unicorn to raise money is by preselling scooters They had to sell more scooters. Word of mouth wasn't doing it so they tried advertising for customer acquisition. Nothing unusual here. So when they say the as we expensive what they realty mean is customer acquisition was really expensive.…

This is accurate.

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#173

Post by johnfactorial »

jberm123 wrote: post #157
djshelleyshell wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I’m a sucker for ordering a product promised to be in stock.

I don't think you are either. But it's a risk you're taking buying a product from a fledgling internet-based startup. Shall we make it easier to start an internet-based business over a brick and mortar shop with laws that benefit the former with the latter's inherent advantage?

> But it's a risk you're taking buying a product from a fledgling internet-based startup.

This is my problem. It is not reasonable to expect a purchase of a product online to be a gamble, a risk that you will get nothing in exchange for your money. No matter whether they're internet based, no matter how old they are, if a company offers a product for sale, it should not be "risky" to purchase it.

The comment I replied to said we shouldn't burden the courts with taking the people behind such companies to task. But if we don't, there's nothing stopping them from doing it again and again.

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#174

Post by johnfactorial »

jberm123 wrote: post #47
johnfactorial wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you gave $700 to a company who promised to deliver you a scooter a few years down the line if all of the dominoes fell exactly as planned... I would argue that you got what you paid for even if it amounts to nothing tangible in the long run. Is that what happened with this company? That's the model of kickstarters and the like, but this story sounds like it was a real company offering a product for sale. If a co…

>what's to stop the same employees and founders from following that method ad infinitum? Informed consumers

Informing all consumers in the market is not a legitimately accomplishable solution to the problem. As long as there are 350 consumers unaware that these people have done this before, and they never have a day in court over it, this story can repeat itself forever.

Maybe informed lenders is a solution, though.

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#175

Post by habosa »

thenickevans wrote: post #170
habosa wrote: post #127

They sold 350 scooters at $700 each. So just under $250k in sales. They decided, right before Christmas, that they would tell all those people their $700 has been thrown right in the trash. The founder of this company is the founder of Tile, a VC-backed company worth $XXX million that has raised $104M+. If this person had any morals he would cash out $250k of his shares in Tile and pay back the people who ordered his…

How do I sleep at night? For the last three weeks I've been waking up at about 2AM every night with anxiety running through my body. My life absolutely sucks right now and it will for a while. I absolutely would pay people back personally if I could. I'm working on a way to get refunds back to people. Things were not going in the right direction and we started moving forward with a more graceful exit that would have…

Thank you for sharing your side of the story. I was wrong to attack you so personally on a public forum and I apologize for that. It's too easy sometimes to forget I'm insulting a real person when I'm critical online.

I hope your work pays off and you find a solution.

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#176

Post by jascii »

braindeath wrote: post #155
jascii wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prototypes? This company was essentially selling a rebranded Segway ES2. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/06/25/segway-n...

How is that link related to this company? Do you have some information they were even the same supplier? Regardless, doesn't change my basic point, which is that "real company" is a nebulous concept and not prudent for a consumer. My neighbor's venture without even a business certificate may be a more "real company" because if he fucks me over he has at least has to see me everyday for years.

Your right, I copied the wrong link.. This article touches on the subject: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/20/18691357/unicorn-electric...

I agree with you and didn't mean to dispute your point, just add to it.

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#177

Post by sjs18 »

SubuSS wrote: post #166
wp381640 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who is scraping together their life on one hand and buying $800 gifts? Having grown up poor I know it's not uncommon for parents to save during the year for that one big annual gift. This customer of Unicorn is one example: > “I am upset he basically robbed everyone of his customers and is closing without delivering any scooters,” Rebecca Buchholtz wrote in an email to The Verge. “This was my daughters Christmas gi…

I was 50-50 on the victim blaming comment to show up since this was HN and not reddit, lost that bet :) As much as blaming is wrong, I do believe in personal responsibility as well. I do not agree with the broad brush that's being used widely around victim blaming being 100% bad. I think it is a spectrum and in this case it definitely tilts towards the buyer. And no - pre-order from this site is not the same as PS4 p…

When I ordered in September, it was not being advertised as a pre order. I fully expected my scooters to be shipped immediately.

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#178

Post by sjs18 »

foolfoolz wrote: post #80
shaneprrlt wrote: post #66

I feel horrible for the people who had to scrape together the $700 for a Christmas present for their kids, who won't be getting their scooter (like the person in the article). For most middle class people, that's a lot of money. I second the comments about successful chargebacks, because this will probably be ruining some kids Christmases out there otherwise. :(

this is a fabricated scenario. you could have bought a xiaomi scooter on amazon for $300 - $400 anytime this year. who would ever buy into some maybe-scooter kickstarter if they were low on cash? and who low on cash is buying $700 christmas presents?

Pal, it wasn’t a Kickstarter. And I liked what was being offered. Stop victim blaming.

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#179

Post by sjs18 »

detaro wrote: post #140
megablast wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who had to scrape together the $700 for a Christmas present for their kids Maybe people who scrape money together should not be on kickstarter? Is that not obvious?

Why do people keep talking about kickstarter here?! This company did not run a kickstarter.

THANK YOU. It wasn’t even a pre order when I placed my order.

Re: E-scooter company goes bust after spending big on Facebook ads

#180

Post by sjs18 »

glofish wrote: post #43

I just don't understand people that shell out 700 for a non-existing product. What's the rush? What would they be possibly missing out? it is one thing to jumpstart a novel product for $25 but a scooter ... really?

There was no indication of this not existing when I ordered.
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