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You could say that same about Soylent as it's simply a Pediasure/Ensure marketed towards hipster 20-somethings. People love drawing the conclusion that superio

by _jtrig 9y ago

You could say that same about Soylent as it's simply a Pediasure/Ensure marketed towards hipster 20-somethings. People love drawing the conclusion that superior marketing/design equates to better products. Often times, if you can make a consumer happy with the experience, they don't care if they're overpaying for a terrible product. The problem with Juicero is that their user experience laid bare how futile and ridiculous their product was by having consumers manufacture the product themselves. If the Juicero simply made those juices in a bottle (EVEN IF the nutritional value was lost during bottling) I can see them succeeding based purely on their marketing and people suspending disbelief to support their idea they were being healthy while looking cool.

Laforet 9y ago
>The problem with Juicero is that their user experience laid bare how futile and ridiculous their product was by having consumers manufacture the product themselves. Blue Apron and every other meal kit delivery business sits on the other end of the same road, yet they seem to be doing okay and without the same level of ridicule. I wonder whether Juicero could have avoided this outcome had they mailed their customers whole fruits and asked them to peel and fill their own juice bags, that way people will not be able to put two and two together to realise that it is just another beverage maker with DRM. P.S. I remember Juicero being rather well received by the resturant industry as it is fully automated and requires minimal cleanup, so perhaps they marketed to the wrong crowd after all.
- _jtrig 9y ago
  I agree Blue Apron is equally ridiculous and I totally agree that Juicero marketed to the wrong crowd. Juicero was too visible in high-standard markets and thus became an easy target. Whereas Blue Apron flew under the critic radar (mostly in Facebook mom feeds) before gaining enough market share for consumers to shrug off ridicule
  - sseveran 9y ago
    As a former blue apron customer I don't think it was ridiculous. I churned when my wife was out of the country. There are still recipes that they sent that I still cook. Now as a business I don't think they will be able to compete with a hybrid solution that amazon/Whole Foods will be able to devise. But I see Juicero as completely different.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  A bunch of fresh ingredient shut downs just this year: https://www.google.com/search?num=20&q=fresh+food+delivery+shut+down https://www.google.com/search?num=20&q=fresh+food+delivery+s...
- twblalock 9y ago
  I expect a lot of failures and consolidation in the meal kit business soon, especially if Amazon starts delivering Whole Foods products.
chrischen 9y ago
Pediasure/Ensure show that the market that Soylent enters actually exists.
- ericd 9y ago
  Odwalla/Naked Juice?
  - ra1n85 9y ago
    For Odwalla/Naked juice: Do you pay 8 dollars per bottle, need to wait for it to arrive in the mail, pay $400 for the juice press to make it, and get locked into a single product for all of your "fruit juice needs"? The last 3 words make this all the more stupid.
    - ericd 9y ago
      You don't need to convince me that juicero was stupid and unnecessary, just saying there's an analogue to gp's example in that there are already fairly expensive ($4/bottle) juices out there showing that there's a market for juice. There are also much more ridiculously priced juices, including, yes, $8 juices. I'm not the target market for those, but they exist at cafes and some other grab and go type places and have for a bit, so there must be at least a small market for overpriced juice.
      - chrischen 9y ago
        I'm not sure it's analogous though. It'd be analogous if juicero were selling just another juice bottle ready to drink but maybe mailed to you instead of sold in stores. What juicero did was sell you an expensive machine to essentially squeeze odwalla bottles for you into a cup... something ludicrous like that. There may be a market for juice bottles, but juicero wasn't selling juice bottles.

by _jtrig 9y ago

Laforet 9y ago

>The problem with Juicero is that their user experience laid bare how futile and ridiculous their product was by having consumers manufacture the product themselves. Blue Apron and every other meal kit delivery business sits on the other end of the same road, yet they seem to be doing okay and without the same level of ridicule. I wonder whether Juicero could have avoided this outcome had they mailed their customers whole fruits and asked them to peel and fill their own juice bags, that way people will not be able to put two and two together to realise that it is just another beverage maker with DRM. P.S. I remember Juicero being rather well received by the resturant industry as it is fully automated and requires minimal cleanup, so perhaps they marketed to the wrong crowd after all.

_jtrig 9y ago
I agree Blue Apron is equally ridiculous and I totally agree that Juicero marketed to the wrong crowd. Juicero was too visible in high-standard markets and thus became an easy target. Whereas Blue Apron flew under the critic radar (mostly in Facebook mom feeds) before gaining enough market share for consumers to shrug off ridicule
- sseveran 9y ago
  As a former blue apron customer I don't think it was ridiculous. I churned when my wife was out of the country. There are still recipes that they sent that I still cook. Now as a business I don't think they will be able to compete with a hybrid solution that amazon/Whole Foods will be able to devise. But I see Juicero as completely different.
maxerickson 9y ago
A bunch of fresh ingredient shut downs just this year: https://www.google.com/search?num=20&q=fresh+food+delivery+shut+down https://www.google.com/search?num=20&q=fresh+food+delivery+s...
twblalock 9y ago
I expect a lot of failures and consolidation in the meal kit business soon, especially if Amazon starts delivering Whole Foods products.

chrischen 9y ago

Pediasure/Ensure show that the market that Soylent enters actually exists.

ericd 9y ago
Odwalla/Naked Juice?
- ra1n85 9y ago
  For Odwalla/Naked juice: Do you pay 8 dollars per bottle, need to wait for it to arrive in the mail, pay $400 for the juice press to make it, and get locked into a single product for all of your "fruit juice needs"? The last 3 words make this all the more stupid.
  - ericd 9y ago
    You don't need to convince me that juicero was stupid and unnecessary, just saying there's an analogue to gp's example in that there are already fairly expensive ($4/bottle) juices out there showing that there's a market for juice. There are also much more ridiculously priced juices, including, yes, $8 juices. I'm not the target market for those, but they exist at cafes and some other grab and go type places and have for a bit, so there must be at least a small market for overpriced juice.
    - chrischen 9y ago
      I'm not sure it's analogous though. It'd be analogous if juicero were selling just another juice bottle ready to drink but maybe mailed to you instead of sold in stores. What juicero did was sell you an expensive machine to essentially squeeze odwalla bottles for you into a cup... something ludicrous like that. There may be a market for juice bottles, but juicero wasn't selling juice bottles.