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Juicero, a startup that sells a pricey juice press, found that out firsthand. The company's Wi-Fi-enabled machine produces cold-pressed juice out of packets sold exclusively to owners via subscription.
Received as both Silicon Valley cautionary tale and commentary on conspicuous consumption, Juicero's story was chronicled this week in a Bloomberg News piece.
[...] In all, the company raised some $120 million.
But Bloomberg says investors' confidence waned once it emerged that people didn't actually need the press to get juice from the packets but could simply squeeze it out by hand.
A Silicon Valley startup slain before it could blossom into a unicorn.
[Ed. Note: Also at ExtremeTech with a bonus link to Juicero's very silly marketing video.]
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Juicero Squeezed by Press and Internet
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There's no such thing as an original sin.
-- Elvis Costello
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday April 22 2017, @05:08PM (2 children)
As far as I can tell, most VC firms don't have those kinds of roles. Which seems incredibly dumb: If I'm a vulture capitalist, then I'd make a lot more money if I had people on staff who could hear the presentations and give them a rating of how realistic or crackpot their idea is.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @05:17PM
It seems you fail to understand how VC's make money, profitable companies is not the method, ripping off investors is, so if you take the company public you win, it does not matter what the company does or even if it does anything, so long as it sounds like it does something, or alternatively if you can't get a bank on your side to spin your IPO you rip off pensioners and people with a substantial nest egg in boiler room type scams, if the company actually makes money that's great but it's a side effect not an objective, silicon valley is mostly grifting
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday April 22 2017, @05:55PM
It's depressing, but: it's marketing all the way down. VCs probably don't care about your product. They care whether or not you can make a charismatic sales pitch. If you are someone who can sell ice to eskimos [wiktionary.org] (I'm sure that's not PC anymore, tough), then you get funded.
Really, it seem to be the standard Silicon Valley strategy: Get something, anything up as a product. Spend on marketing, build hype, sell at the peak, and get out before reality hits. The sociopath's way of doing business, which contributes nothing useful to society.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.