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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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(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday April 22 2017, @05:44PM (5 children)
In all, the company raised some $120 million."
WTF?! For a $400 juicer that isn't even capable of juicing actual fruit? When a real juicer [amazon.com] costs a fraction of that?
The juice comes in bags (produced who knows how). The machine empties the bags into your glass. This isn't a juicer, it's drink dispenser. But it's IoT, and probably has an app, so some sucker will buy it. The theory was, apparently, that owning the product would make you buy the bags. Sort of like printer ink, but you normally expect printer ink to come in proprietary cartridges. Juice, on the other hand, normally comes in public domain containers. [wikimedia.org]
Are venture capitalists so desperate to lose their money? Why would anyone with a brain invest in a product like this?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday April 22 2017, @06:31PM (4 children)
I would have wanted to buy one at first glance. $400 isn't all that much for a professional juicer. Those Ninja blenders cost huge bucks, but *nobody* confuses those things with Walmart/Amazon crap you get for under $50. You can make hot soup with a Ninja, and excellent smoothies. It's the difference between a Hummer driving on the road and an actual military Humvee that can take on difficult terrain the Hummer won't go.
This is a cold press juicer that is supposed to deliver around 4 tons of pressure. Those CapriSun 2.0 bags Juicero sells have partially mulched veggies in it that need to be run through the cold press in the juicing unit. It's not completely and wholly stupid since it does actually get more juice out than you could on your own from the veggies and fruit. There are different levels of quality in juicers, and I understand that you can get slightly better nutrition not to mention more juice with a higher quality juicer. Also, there is a different type that is more like a cork screw that can mash up stuff that a normal juicer cannot.
The value of the Juicero, as implied by the cost, is a superior cold press mechanism that indeed would be better than the other juicers on the market. All of that being said, this a IoT device for people that can't fucking cut a veggie or fruit in half and feed it into a juicer. Whatever superior cold press technology there is in Juicero is destroyed by that fucking subscription bullshit. I wanted to use my own veggies and fruit in it, not forever be subject to their prices to get my fruits and veggies. That's fucking bullshit.
It's a Keurig for veggies and fruit, and not really a cold press juicer at all. If it was a superior cold press juicer, than $300-$400 is the high end of that market from what I can tell.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Saturday April 22 2017, @06:47PM (2 children)
That's fair enough: $400 for a really top-quality juicer. The point, of course, is that this isn't a juicer. You cannot put a carrot into it, or an apple, or indeed anything but a pre-processed bag. In other words, the juicer is in a factory somewhere, and the end-user has no control over the quality or source of material that went into that bag.
Four tons of pressure - whoopie. High pressure is not actually what you want. For a well-known example, consider olive oil: the really good stuff is "extra virgin", which is released with the least pressure.
Also, as you say, the subscription system is the gimmick. The bags expire in under a week, you apparently have to order at least 5 of each type, and the machine will refuse to press expired packs. So you cannot, for example, buy a supply, and put some in the freezer for later.
Really, it's printer ink scam, but worse.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 22 2017, @07:18PM
To be fair, the bags expire in one week because they're using fresh fruit that's the part of this that I have the least amount of trouble with. They're processing the produce and not adding preservatives which is going to result in a lessened shelf-life once the consumer gets it. That's probably a part of why they need the bar code as this type of juicing makes it really easy to get food poisoning if anything along the way went wrong.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday April 22 2017, @11:12PM
Exactly. We don't control the input.
That almost seems nonsensical. How do you release the olive oil if you only ever exert a light amount of force? Perhaps you could explain that more.
That is extra shitty, I agree. However, the cold press part of it is valuable. The mechanics of it are solid, the problem is input. What if you hacked a bag and reused it? :)
You could then use your own produce and end up having a decent cold press system in your kitchen. Although, I'm not spending $400 to find out.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday April 22 2017, @10:23PM
Whatever superior cold press technology there is in Juicero is destroyed by that fucking subscription bullshit.
The Bloomberg article explains that a subscription model is what investors want:
Evans’s subscription model had hit on a sweet spot for venture capitalists, said Brian Frank, who invests in food-tech companies through his FTW Ventures fund. The successes of Nespresso and Dollar Shave Club have made VCs eager to chase such deals, he said.