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Quirky has filed for bankruptcy
- finnn 11y agoCan't actually read their site without 3rd party javascript. Just sits there with their little & symbol animation.
- mrbill 11y agoSounds like my results with the Quirky Wink Hub and Blink hub....
- Others 11y agoI'm sorry, but can someone explain exactly Quirky does (did)?
- male_salmon 11y agoThis New York Magazine article might help: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/they-were-quirky.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/they-were-quirk...
- technotony 11y agoThanks for posting, feels to me like the core concept was good but that they failed to fully market test the products. Feels like they could have avoided many of the duds by taking a leaf from Kickstarter's book and booking pre-order revenue prior to actual production. I wonder why they didn't try that?
- nemild 11y agoAlso, the NYTimes article is good: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/technology/quirky-tests-the-crowd-based-creative-process.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/technology/quirky-tests-th... And for a more recent update: http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/24/8488531/quirky-invention-powered-by-quirky http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/24/8488531/quirky-invention-p... tl;dr An online community for inventors to brainstorm and pitch ideas they have. The entire community helps refine the idea (name, marketing slogan, features) - and then Quirky picks a few at a time to bring to market (manufacturing, distribution).
- soggypenny 11y ago"Quirky brought more than 400 products to market in just six years." - from the New York Magazine article. That number is absolutely staggering. I would love to see what their internal product development was like.
- tdicola 11y agoGo back and watch their weekly review sessions. They were all publically streamed and had inventors pitching ideas to a panel of Quirky folks like their CEO.
- Spooky23 11y agoThey bolted a wifi radio to a window air conditioner, making an IoT AC. Also a power strip. They were also very effective at separating the Schenectady NY economic development agency from a lot of money!
- jplahn 11y agoI'm sad. I used to love this site back when I was an engineering mechanics student (pre-CS). It gave me the ability to converse with people that were similarly interested in inventing and opened my eyes up to a whole host of interesting solutions to large and small problems alike. I think what I'll miss most about it was scrolling through the list of inventions and marveling at the incredible amount of variance between seemingly good ideas, and the heaping mass of ridiculous ideas. Even though I loved picking apart ideas that I thought were completely implausible, the very fact that people were putting the time into designing and fighting for their inventions was something I loved. I honestly didn't follow the company during the last few years, and I can't say I'm completely surprised that they reached this point, but it will always have a special place in my heart for enabling the creative side of many people.
- ClintEhrlich 11y agoMy mom loves the concept of Quirky, so I always find one or two products from Quirky in my stocking. I have never found any of them remotely useful. Perhaps that speaks to my mom's taste in gifts. But I suspect that the real problem is that Quirky offered expensive products for solving trivial problems. None of the items I received solved any pressing needs in my life. For something like Quirky to succeed, it probably needs to use crowd-sourcing to identify a few A+ ideas for products and then manufacture them at a scale sufficient to make prices competitive. Instead, it seemed to offer a ton of different cute, kinda useful items. That doesn't seem like a business model destined to take over the world.
- snake117 11y agoCan you give an example or two of what you got? I'm just curious to see some examples of what Quirky made, especially the more trivial items, like you described.
- evan_ 11y agoOne example is the "egg minder", a battery-powered, zigbee-enabled egg carton. http://www.amazon.com/Quirky-Egg-Minder-Enabled-Smart/dp/B00GN92KQ4 http://www.amazon.com/Quirky-Egg-Minder-Enabled-Smart/dp/B00...
- ClintEhrlich 11y agoI'm actually struggling to remember the specific examples, precisely because I used the items so infrequently. One product was a spray cap mounted on a spike, which you were supposed to insert into citrus fruits so that you could spritz things with them. Another was a silicone cap for placing over citrus after you slice it in half so that the remaining fruit would stay fresher. There was a square block that you could insert the top of a wine bottle into, so the bottle would not roll when stored on its side. The only product I actually use is an octopus-like hybrid between an extension chord and a power strip, which works well for providing quick access to electrical outlets all along the couch in my den.
- mattress 11y ago
- node-bayarea 11y agoThey were great but I think they failed because they mostly made as-seen-on-tv type products and try to sell it for $50-$60. They were also giving very little like < 5% to the actual winning inventor.
- girvo 11y agoYou think they failed because they didn't give _enough_ of the money they received away to the inventor?
- cowsandmilk 11y agoGreat, experienced inventors go to places where they're well compensated. Low compensation = attracting inexperienced inventors.
- rezistik 11y agoIf it caused the number of inventors to grow too slowly or of a poor quality, then yeah.
- teej 11y agoQuirky could have solved this with key partnerships with a larger inventor cut, though. This is pretty common, most marketplaces do some form of this.
- notahacker 11y agoBetter than their original model of offering slightly more but charging $99 for submissions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1609917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1609917 (back when it was new)
- mikikian 11y agoHere's the voluntary petition ( https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5k5SQee7k5pamZfRHBXZ2EtNFk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5k5SQee7k5pamZfRHBXZ2EtNFk... ) and a link to the docket for those interested ( https://www.inforuptcy.com/filings/nysbke_261303-1-15-bk-12596-quirky-inc-bankruptcy https://www.inforuptcy.com/filings/nysbke_261303-1-15-bk-125... )
- mjklin 11y agoAfter reading Peter Diamandis' write-up of Quirky in his book Bold I figured it was God's gift to inventors. Guess their strategy wasn't quite on.
- rmena123 11y agoI loved the concept of it, but when you read how much they gave the inventor... it was crazy...if you have a great idea keep pushing for the right things to come together, not a rip off deal of your ideas! And that is why it is where it is.
- teej 11y agoQuirky did ALL the hard, expensive, risky parts (go-to-market, marketing, etc). How is the inventor cut not sufficient? Ultimately Quirky failed BECAUSE they took on all the risk and shipped too many duds and not enough hits.
- rmena123 11y agoYea exactly they did everything and left out the inventor, what that does is create a one tracked mind team behind them all and not only that it didn't attract real inventors to get great product ideas. If they gave the inventor more you would have better products. Products take a variety of people and different options, a product can't be streamlined by the same people each time.
- baus 11y agoI bought their original iPad case, which was highly hyped, but it turned out to be way too heavy and over-engineered. It pointed toward the flaws of community design. I ended up with Apple's much simpler solution.
- jtth 11y agoWho? What did they do? I can't tell from the first page.
- tinalumfoil 11y agoBecause what they do is buried in the "Invent" drop down menu, in an entry titled "How it works". Then, instead of giving a short concise response to "How it works", everything above the fold has been reduced to a minute long video which seems to say they connect people with ideas with people able to accomplish those ideas with large companies willing to fund the ideas, although the details are vague. Below the fold is 5 vague testimonials split into 5 overlapping categories with stock photography next to them. On the positive side, the site is fully responsive and loads fast.
- Dramatize 11y agoThreadless for physical objects
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoOr for older readers, crowdsourcing Sharper Image. (Innovations Catalogue in the UK.)
- twic 11y agoOh man, I had not thought about the Innovations Catalogue in basically forever. I used to read it religiously every weekend. For those who were tragically born too late, a taste: http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/majestically-useless-items-from-the-innovations-catalogue http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/majestically-useless-items...
- dmritard96 11y agoIts interesting. Back before I graduated a friend said I don't think ideas are worth much compared to executions, which turns out is a common quote thrown around with respect to ideas/startups/etc. Quirky's whole concept (or my interpretation/critique) was that there was that idea generation needed to be scaled. But in practice, ideas were easy, particular by those industrial designers and wannabe designers, especially for cord management solutions... The truth is, they were crowdsourcing the easiest part - the idea - and taking on all the risk themselves by bringing a bunch of 'inventions' to market, few of which were particularly revolutionary.
- DigitalSea 11y agoCorrection, this is chapter 11 bankruptcy. This isn't the same as standard bankruptcy. This is the same kind of bankruptcy that 50 Cent is going through. It doesn't mean you have no money, it allows you to reasses your finances and protects you.
- usertaken 11y agoCorrection from what? They say they filed chapter 11. Standard bankruptcy for companies is chapter 11 in most people's minds...most companies that go through bankruptcy file chapter 11.
- itafroma 11y ago> Correction, this is chapter 11 bankruptcy. This isn't the same as standard bankruptcy. This is the same kind of bankruptcy that 50 Cent is going through. It doesn't mean you have no money, it allows you to reasses your finances and protects you. While it's relatively common for people to associate the word "bankruptcy" with the "we ran out of money so we need to liquidate any assets we have left and walk away from our debts" (Chapter 7) or "we can't pay our debts on time so we need a payment plan" (Chapter 13) types of bankruptcy, and it is true that 50 Cent also filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it's a bit disingenuous to say that it doesn't mean they don't have any money. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a tool to protect a debtor's assets and give it time to come up with a plan to pay back its creditors: in this case, the plan proposed by Quirky is to sell off all of those assets at auction so that it can raise enough money to pay off its debt. The Chapter 11 filing is being used as a way to say to potential buyers "don't worry, these assets won't be taken from the company before the sale can close." They are otherwise very much broke and are counting on the sale to raise the money to pay off their debts. If they can't sell quickly enough, it'll likely convert into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Here's a good overview of what's going in: http://www.frostbrowntodd.com/resources-1562.html http://www.frostbrowntodd.com/resources-1562.html
- neerajdotname2 11y agoIf anyone wants to know what actually chapter 11 bankruptcy is then this podcast from NPR Planet money team has lots of information. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/09/05/437628996/episode-647-the-benefits-of-bankruptcy http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/09/05/437628996/episo...
- HomebrewCC 11y agoThanks. Just listened to it. Very interesting! :-)
- ryandamm 11y agoCall me crazy, but I always thought Quirky was solving the wrong thing. The limit on a hardware company usually isn't the idea, it's the execution. And crowd sourcing significant portions of the design process to an amorphous community doesn't seem like a huge advantage: hardware design and manufacturing is really the province of specialists, oftentimes with very deep domain knowledge. If I'm going to build a camera, I'm going to get someone who's built cameras before, not cars. I just think the wisdom of the crowd can't replace that deep domain knowledge, but I might have been biased against Quirky from the beginning: I met the team at TED years ago, before they were Quirky -- I think they were called 'Kluster' at the time. They were trying to transition from being a hardware startup that made ipod/iphone accessories to a 'crowd-sourced idea marketplace' or something. But their most impressive employee was leaving, because they couldn't find a role for him through the transition, and clearly weren't doing anything to retain him (ironically, he was a hardware guy... would've been helpful in the transition to Quirky). So I guess I see this as a morality tale about recognizing and retaining talent more than anything.
- tudorw 11y agohttp://fuckedcompany.com/ http://fuckedcompany.com/ ah, how I miss the musings...
- binoyxj 11y agoQuirky filing for bankruptcy and Kickstarter switching gears to a Benefit Corporation on the same day. Interesting times.