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These responses contain a lot of condemnation (based mainly on price) of a product that these people have never used. Building a premium first product to fund f
by jamestimmins 9y ago
These responses contain a lot of condemnation (based mainly on price) of a product that these people have never used. Building a premium first product to fund further development is a common approach (think Tesla), as is creating a premium niche in an otherwise commoditized market (Apple).
While it does sound like costs/scope got out of control, please remember that price is oftentimes determined fairly far down the development path, and that the ending price may not reflect the initial plans. They may have just pushed scope too far and then backed themselves into a corner. Once the money is spent on R&D it's not like you can get the money back just by developing a simpler product.
Startups are hard. Hardware is hard. Products are hard. Security is hard. This is a site for people who want to build things. Please stop pissing on the grave of a failed attempt to build something new, especially when your information is limited to a Medium post by the CEO who just had to fire all of his employees days before Christmas. That hardly counts as an objective or substantial source of information.
- _aarti 9y agoThank you so much for saying this. The engineering team was literally in tears because they could not ship. We all wanted to ship the product so bad. It hurt.
- peoplewindow 9y agoYes, but ... surely questions should have been asked at the point where they raised $45 million? It's a lock. Has there been any ordinary door lock in history that cost even a fraction of that to develop? I don't think this can just be blown off by saying "hardware is hard". People have been making locks for millenia. It is objectively not hard. Hotels and offices routinely have cryptographic unlock keycard systems that are managed remotely and they do not cost $700. There just seems to be a disconnect from the rest of the world in this business plan.
- _aarti 9y agoThey chose to do it their way and not make incremental improvements. It's America - Land of dreams - right?
- zero_intp 9y agoPeople are less pissing on the grave of the failed attempt than pissing on the feet of a seemingly delusional or irresponsible founder. The medium post fails at any semblance of self-awareness.