5 ms·

I just hope Cosmo and Henry land on their feet. https://www.essential.com/about#team https://www.essential.com/about#team

LeifCarrotson 7y ago
That's an interesting team page. They have, by my count, 20 engineers total, and 45 other employees in categories like administration, business, sales, finance, leadership, marketing, operations, management, and other positions that don't actually build the phone. Plus Cosmo and Henry...if only there were more employees like those two.
- jonas21 7y ago
  They were building a phone, not a web app. Negotiating with suppliers, making sure your contract manufacturer is doing things right, getting people excited about your product, and not running out of money are all really important.
  - notyourday 7y ago
    It seems that they failed at product, finance and execution.
  - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
    Revenue comes from shipping a product, right? If you have no product, you're guaranteed to run out of money.
- VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
  do you think that it only takes engineers to build a phone. that it only takes engineers to keep a company running
  - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
    No, I don't think it takes only engineers to run a good phone company. I dispute, however, that it takes mostly administration. And my concern seems to be validated by the outcome - they failed to build and ship the phone. They have a really shiny website, nice renderings and concepts, good market awareness...but no product. It seems self-evident to me that it's impossible for a company to function on only administration and no product. You have to have engineers to actually ship a product, if you have none and ship nothing, the company is guaranteed to fail. However, if you have only engineering and no administration, yeah, things will be a mess, marketing will be basic word-of-mouth, and the design will be fragmented, but if the product works, exists, and is able to be purchased the company can hobble along and fix the rest later.
- stingrae 7y ago
  The team was much larger. Engineers have more options when things go poorly.
zeveb 7y ago
I find it rather amusing that their page fails to work without JavaScript enabled. They couldn't even build a web page capable of displaying words and pictures without requiring viewers to use a fully-general-purpose virtual machine and sandboxed environment. One wonders if their phones were as poorly-designed as their web presence. I don't actually think so (in fact, I was fairly excited to get one in the future), but still it does leave a bad taste in one's mouth.
- devmunchies 7y ago
  its usually not the same person doing the product and the marketing site.
- striking 7y ago
  Maybe you're not their target customer.
tempsy 7y ago
Oh man, I just saw one of the product exec's LinkedIn and he spent 3 years at Juicero before spending 3 years at Essential. That's gotta hurt. If you're a reasonably talented product & engineering person don't work for a hardware startup. Startups are lottos already as is but hardware is so unforgiving. I think Ring's acquisition by Amazon was the last one I can think that was a true success.
- p1necone 7y ago
  I don't see how a "reasonably talented product and engineering person" could have worked at Juicero without realizing it was going to fail miserably (also if they had any scruples they should have felt pretty guilty working for the company trying to wrap DRM around fruit).
  - jennyyang 7y ago
    This is a shitty comment. It wasn't DRM on fruit. It was an expiration date so that juice bars couldn't sell expired product to end customers. And it's really smart of you to try to judge someone so quickly. I would looove to see your LinkedIn profile and see what great flawless decisions you've made or will make in your lifetime.
    - tempsy 7y ago
      If that’s true, expiration dates are hardly exact. A bag could go bad well before or it could be completely fine well after the date. Unless there was some sensor to detect whether something had gone bad I don’t see how preventing use of something you’ve already paid for is a good idea or even legal
      - p1necone 7y ago
        Not to mention that I've never been to a juice bar where I couldn't see the fruit they were putting into the juicer beforehand - it's pretty obvious when it's spoiled both visually and from the taste. Even if this rationalization was true Juicero was only solving a problem they created by enforcing the use of these prepackaged bags in the first place.
reggieband 7y ago
Not sure if this is accurate - but they seem to have an overly-large number of CXX, VP, Director and "Head of XXX" positions on that page compared to rank-and-file employees.

LeifCarrotson 7y ago

That's an interesting team page. They have, by my count, 20 engineers total, and 45 other employees in categories like administration, business, sales, finance, leadership, marketing, operations, management, and other positions that don't actually build the phone. Plus Cosmo and Henry...if only there were more employees like those two.

jonas21 7y ago
They were building a phone, not a web app. Negotiating with suppliers, making sure your contract manufacturer is doing things right, getting people excited about your product, and not running out of money are all really important.
- notyourday 7y ago
  It seems that they failed at product, finance and execution.
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  Revenue comes from shipping a product, right? If you have no product, you're guaranteed to run out of money.
VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
do you think that it only takes engineers to build a phone. that it only takes engineers to keep a company running
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  No, I don't think it takes only engineers to run a good phone company. I dispute, however, that it takes mostly administration. And my concern seems to be validated by the outcome - they failed to build and ship the phone. They have a really shiny website, nice renderings and concepts, good market awareness...but no product. It seems self-evident to me that it's impossible for a company to function on only administration and no product. You have to have engineers to actually ship a product, if you have none and ship nothing, the company is guaranteed to fail. However, if you have only engineering and no administration, yeah, things will be a mess, marketing will be basic word-of-mouth, and the design will be fragmented, but if the product works, exists, and is able to be purchased the company can hobble along and fix the rest later.
stingrae 7y ago
The team was much larger. Engineers have more options when things go poorly.

zeveb 7y ago

I find it rather amusing that their page fails to work without JavaScript enabled. They couldn't even build a web page capable of displaying words and pictures without requiring viewers to use a fully-general-purpose virtual machine and sandboxed environment. One wonders if their phones were as poorly-designed as their web presence. I don't actually think so (in fact, I was fairly excited to get one in the future), but still it does leave a bad taste in one's mouth.

devmunchies 7y ago
its usually not the same person doing the product and the marketing site.
striking 7y ago
Maybe you're not their target customer.

tempsy 7y ago

Oh man, I just saw one of the product exec's LinkedIn and he spent 3 years at Juicero before spending 3 years at Essential. That's gotta hurt. If you're a reasonably talented product & engineering person don't work for a hardware startup. Startups are lottos already as is but hardware is so unforgiving. I think Ring's acquisition by Amazon was the last one I can think that was a true success.

p1necone 7y ago
I don't see how a "reasonably talented product and engineering person" could have worked at Juicero without realizing it was going to fail miserably (also if they had any scruples they should have felt pretty guilty working for the company trying to wrap DRM around fruit).
- jennyyang 7y ago
  This is a shitty comment. It wasn't DRM on fruit. It was an expiration date so that juice bars couldn't sell expired product to end customers. And it's really smart of you to try to judge someone so quickly. I would looove to see your LinkedIn profile and see what great flawless decisions you've made or will make in your lifetime.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    If that’s true, expiration dates are hardly exact. A bag could go bad well before or it could be completely fine well after the date. Unless there was some sensor to detect whether something had gone bad I don’t see how preventing use of something you’ve already paid for is a good idea or even legal
    - p1necone 7y ago
      Not to mention that I've never been to a juice bar where I couldn't see the fruit they were putting into the juicer beforehand - it's pretty obvious when it's spoiled both visually and from the taste. Even if this rationalization was true Juicero was only solving a problem they created by enforcing the use of these prepackaged bags in the first place.

reggieband 7y ago

Not sure if this is accurate - but they seem to have an overly-large number of CXX, VP, Director and "Head of XXX" positions on that page compared to rank-and-file employees.