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A lot of people are pointing to weaknesses in the product, but it's a highly convenient little product that applies to a lot of small problems. It was never goi
by cjlars 8y ago
A lot of people are pointing to weaknesses in the product, but it's a highly convenient little product that applies to a lot of small problems. It was never going to be a huge business, just like 2 part repair epoxy is never going to be a huge business. But that doesn't preclude it from being a successful small company -- Sugru has plenty of benefits over 2 part mixtures. One can sell in Walgreens and the other in Home Depot.
I would propose a different mistake: they simply got too ambitious. If they had raised a little money and grown organically, they could have eventually been a tidy little $5-10M a year business, netting the founder a healthy 6 or 7 figure income. Nothing says you need to follow the start-up venture funded playbook, in fact, most consumer packaged goods businesses do not.
- userbinator 8y agojust like 2 part repair epoxy is never going to be a huge business I disagree, just look at companies like 3M or DuPont.
- biswaroop 8y agoI'm pretty sure 3M and DuPont sell more than 2 part repair epoxy.
- NegativeLatency 8y agoAnd their core business isn’t a specific type of glue. They’re chemical companies.
- mmjaa 8y agoWhat part about Sugru, Inc., isn't a chemical company?
- tinus_hn 8y agoAt least the article doesn’t say how much the founder made. It may well be just the investors that got shafted.
- cjlars 8y agoWow, you're right! According to the listing on CrowdCube [1], they only sold 4.6% of the company in the offering. Scratch what I said before, the founders made off like bandits and the investors took almost all of the hit. Sadly not much recourse for them. [1] https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/sugru/pitches/bgNOBZ https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/sugru/pitches/bgNOBZ