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The Instant Pot Failed Because It Was a Good Product
- tim_sw 3y agohttps://archive.ph/bj54P https://archive.ph/bj54P
- WithinReason 3y agohttps://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clean https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clea...
- glinkot 3y agoThat's a great find, thanks for the link!
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y agoBe very careful what you install in your browser, especially things which auto-update.
- sclarisse 3y agoSounds like the instant pot succeeded; it’s the company who owned the brand that failed, in no small part because of its overreach. Play capitalism games with borrowed money, win capitalism prizes.
- jacknews 3y agoModern financialized capitalism, at least, perhaps any capitalism, demands growth (return on investment), so you can't entirely blame the company.
- guerrilla 3y agoI think you can blame everyone not doing their best to create a better alternative, including the company.
- sclarisse 3y agoThe thing that demands growth is private equity investors. They demand that growth because they borrowed a ton of money and have to pay it back. No one demanded they borrow the money. No one demanded the bank lend them the money. They could have used half the leverage (and made half the profits per dollar invested if it succeeded.) No one demanded they enter this line of business at all. It’s a risk game. It’s optional. If they had won, they’d be welcome to the cash; they didn’t, so, the banks that own the loan are welcome to ownership of the company. The real problem here is that if the bank had failed badly enough, the taxpayers might end up on the hook, which is why bailouts are bad, but that’s another matter, because the current wave of failures is more about interest rates on Treasuries than anything else. Maybe that will change. But with interest rates normalizing after 15 years, we’re liable to see less of this nonsense, not more.
- jacknews 3y agoPE is just the most egregious example of capitalism, where they can extract all the future value of a company immediately by swapping in debt. But almost by definition, capitalism requires growth, else why would anyone place capital in a business.
- Malowne 3y agoDividends
- sclarisse 3y agoIf this were true “by definition”, no bank would issue loans, no pension fund would buy bonds, and the only place you’d find landlords renting out homes are in cities with massive price appreciation. There would be absolutely no business occurring in Japan and “value investing” strategies would never have been imagined. Growth is lucrative, but capitalism can put a price on finitude just fine.
- enkid 3y agoMy prediction: the name will be bought by a competitor. The quality will nose dive in the next 5 years. The brand will be shut down following a fall in sales 5-10 years after that.
- horsawlarway 3y agoHonestly - having owned 2 of them, I think that process has already been happening for the last few years. I think the name may be sold off, since it's well known - but there are already hundreds of non-instantpot electric pressure cookers. It's going to be a really tight commodity market. Basically - go search amazon for "Electric pressure cooker" and you get a LOT of valid hits. Ex: Brands already relatively well known, like - Cuisinart - Ninja - Emeril - Yeti - Masterchef You also get all the normal "Fake brands" that chinese resellers set up on amazon.
- cptaj 3y agoExactly. This thing will be successfully manufactured by chinese factories for decades, no problem. Capitalism works. You just need to be realistic. Its a cooking pot, not the next google.
- buu709 3y ago[flagged]
- wiedelphine 3y agoMy understanding is that the main cause for failure was being brought up by private equity, loaded up with debt, and then being hit by huge interest rate rises.
- loudambiance 3y agoIsn't this essentially the same thing that killed Toys-R-Us?
- SQueeeeeL 3y agoYeah. It's bizarre that leveraged buyouts are even legal given how destabilizing it is to local economies; but also Bain Capital (the company which did the buyout of Toys R Us) was cofounded by Senator Mitt Romney, so you can start to understand why the FTC and Congress aren't really inclined stop the madness and regulate themselves more
- red-iron-pine 3y agoChanges to retail (e.g. online, e.g. Amazon) killed Toys-R-Us, PE just pimped it out until they could sell it for parts
- manishsharan 3y agoAnd Sears.
- deelly 3y agoTLDR: product is so good that it saturates market so much that there no room to 'grow'. Company tried different line of products with little no success, and... become bankrupt. Moral of the story: why the fuck every company should grow forever?
- constantcrying 3y ago>why the fuck every company should grow forever? Debt, specifically interest on that debt. Either you need significant profitability or you need growth to manage that debt.
- Zak 3y agoI've been seeing this theme a lot lately. Making something people want, charging them money for it, and earning a steady profit for a long time should be seen as a successful business. It seems increasingly rare for that to be the goal; instead, it's some form of demonstrating the potential for endless growth to pump up the stock price and enrich the current shareholders. We used to call the latter a Ponzi scheme and put people in prison for it.
- constantcrying 3y ago>Making something people want, charging them money for it, and earning a steady profit for a long time should be seen as a successful business. Yes. But it can only be counted as a success if your profits allow you to reduce your debt. Manufacturing goods can be quite capital intensive, which is why companies often have to take on debt to make things. >pump up the stock price and enrich the current shareholders. The problem here is that doing anything else as a publicly traded company is illegal. But also consider that shareholders loose everything they invested if the stock price goes to zero. >We used to call the latter a Ponzi scheme and put people in prison for it. That is not a Ponzi scheme.
- jwestbury 3y ago> The problem here is that doing anything else as a publicly traded company is illegal. Sort of? It's more complicated than "get highest share price possible as quickly as possible." Plenty of companies out there are focussed on long-term, stable growth.
- throwaway22032 3y agoSituation A: Person makes $100K a year for 40 years. Situation B: Person makes $4M in year 1. Assuming 0% inflation etc, how is situation B a failure?
- mynegation 3y ago> Assuming 0% inflation This is very unrealistic assumption. Also, even in zero inflation, time value of money is non-zero.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Goronmon 3y agoSituation B is a failure because private equity buys your company and expects $4m a year for 40 years.
- jfengel 3y agoConsidered in terms of the overall economy, it's a "failure" in that a smooth economy is better than one that progresses in fits and starts. A company that provides jobs over many years (even with employees changing over time) is more helpful in keeping people employed and productive than one that comes in, makes a bunch of cash, and departs. It's also better as a way to smoothly expand the economy. An existing company can do research and development more easily than a brand new one. The overhead of starting a new company is a net drain on the economy. Not every company is going to be like that. Some really will do best by doing one thing and disappearing. Even if it does, it's not a "failure" from all perspectives. But there are ways to look at it where there were better outcomes, and it "fails" relative to that.
- bambax 3y agoThe article is fine but the title is misleading; the Instant Pot is indeed a fantastic product, but the reason why it "failed" (note: it didn't as a product; only its parent company did) is because some private-equity firm raided it and tried to milk it for more than it was worth. Private equity is very much like cancer: they grow and grow onto sane products until they kill the host. Meanwhile, I absolutely can't do without my Instant Pot.
- robertlagrant 3y agoPE can be good or bad. People are involved, so sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad.
- dymk 3y agoHow insightful
- dmix 3y agoCompanies rarely ever get PE because the people running it were doing a good job, it’s usually a bad option among bad options, so it’s not surprising PE is associated with vultures looking to “ruin” a good thing. Most people aren’t privy to how shitty the finances are at some companies, that could put it in such a position. Usually employees are oblivious to it because the executives hide it then all of a sudden a new owner is chopping it up for parts. That said apparently the track record for companies that succeed after getting PE is higher than the straight up losses where it gets sold for assets. At least that’s what I remember reading in some pop business/finance book I read long ago. Maybe someone could correct me here.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoYeah, exactly, the PE vultures come in to a bad company, carve it up (sell and refinance their assets, debt-raise to pay themselves, cut staff), extract a bunch of money and then sell and leave them for dead with no accountability.
- 3y ago
- 2-718-281-828 3y agowouldn't say it failed. lots of people are using pressure cookers. it's just a bit too complex for most people. i got one for pasteurizing. afterwards i occasionally used it for cooking but even i found it often a bit difficult to estimate how long you have to cook something at a given pressure setting. with normal pot you just lift the lid and take bite or poke around with a fork to find out.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoWe mostly use it to hard boil eggs: it's incredibly consistent on outputting eggs with easy to remove shells :)
- weberer 3y agoWhat setting do you use for that?
- mensetmanusman 3y agoPlace 1.5 cups COLD water into an 8-quart Instant pot. Add in up to 16 eggs on the steam rack. Place lid on the pressure cooker and set for cook time for 5 minutes on high pressure. Once cook time has elapsed, let the pressure release for 5 minutes. Then do a quick release and carefully remove eggs from Instant Pot and place in ice/cold water bath for 5 min. Remove eggs from the water bath. Store in the fridge for up to 7 days unpeeled or peel and use within 3 days.
- leetrout 3y agoThats a lot of time. What consistency are the yolks? Seems they would be very dry and powdery and very close to turning green/gray
- mensetmanusman 3y agoYou can reduce the time to get exactly what you want with whatever consistency. The reproducibility is what makes it nice.
- leetrout 3y agoNot op but i do: 1 cup water Eggs in egg holder above water 6 mins pressure cook on high Wait about 30sec then release pressure Straight into ice bath and peel while luke warm to warm.
- leetrout 3y agoAmen. The best.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- JCM9 3y agoTitle is misleading. The company failed because it was bought by private equity firm with leaders that loaded the company with debt and then ran it into the ground. A fate unfortunately too common for companies that dance with PE.
- iambateman 3y agoInstant Pot PSA…if you haven’t already, cook rice with it. We have a rice cooker so we never used the instant pot until recently. Turns out, the instant pot rice is significantly better than the rice cooker rice.
- rwmj 3y agoI'm quite surprised by this. What brand is your rice cooker? I can't believe the IP would beat a good Japanese or Chinese rice cooker.
- samwillis 3y agoKitchen gadgets are an interesting market, it's massively influenced by fashion and media. Get your new gadget on a morning TV magazine show during a cooking segment, sell it for between $100 and $300, and you have a hit. The limiting factor for a business, not the idea, is that you will eventually end up competing against cheep copies of your product. There is a shelf like of something like max 5 years before your dominant, first mover, market position is completely destroyed. On top of that, most people have limited space in their kitchens, and these gadgets tent to be all roughly the same size. That limits the market, how may of these things can someone get in their cupboards without throwing out the least used one they purchased. In relatively short succession we have had an explosion of "instant pots", air fryers, sous vide, "George Forman grills", toasted sandwich makers, bread makers, ice cream makers, slow cookers, pressure cookers. People have run out of room for them all, I suspect that has had a massive impact on the market. Just casually looking back, instant pot and air fryers are circa 2010, Anova sous vide circa 2013, George Forman grills are circa 1994, and I remember ice cream and bread makers getting popular in the early 00's. So effectively we get a "new thing" every 5-10 years, I wander what the next one is?
- nyjah 3y agoIt's a little different than a kitchen gadget that sits on the countertop, but even Ycombinator got into the game, sort of. In 2013 Ycombinator invested 120k into Pantelligent[0]. It was a smart pan that would track temps as you cook. I remember when they got shut down due to patent infringement and being very disappointed. I think they tried to change the app to get around the copyright stuff, but in the end they couldn't get around the infringement. https://tracxn.com/d/companies/pantelligent/__v3MfJ_9W6rQ9nRb2XC5oqLKsgWldAVPYjR2iH2DSkW0 https://tracxn.com/d/companies/pantelligent/__v3MfJ_9W6rQ9nR...
- Ekaros 3y agoSteam Ovens are a thing... But I think they are outside that range and too big appliances. But still a type of trend I could see being next thing at least in some circles.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
- grishka 3y agoIt failed? In my part of the world these multi-cookers sell reasonably well, except those are cheap knockoffs. No one, including me, even heard about this Instant brand around here.
- constantcrying 3y agoThe Instant Pot, which is a specific product from a specific brand, failed, as the conpany has gone bankrupt.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- osigurdson 3y agoPersonally, I don't like it. It is fast but the boiled meat taste is not a worthwhile tradeoff.
- rwmj 3y agoTimely. Last weekend I took my IP apart to replace the thermal fuse which had failed while I was making dinner. My impression is (apart from the thermal fuse not being the "reset" type), it's a very well constructed piece of kit. Everything inside was clearly safe, put together properly, plenty of insulation where needed, wiring to spec, metal parts earthed correctly, cleanly laid out PCB. And it cost me only £100.
- danieljamar 3y ago[flagged]
- cykros 3y agoThey should have looked into packaging Instant Pot-ready meals, a la Blue Apron, but with a more conventional delivery method (ie, store shelves). Heck, go to a successful food producer with a licensing deal to slap the Instant Pot brand on it. It's all well and good to sell razors, but if you want to keep doing business and growing, it helps to be the one selling the blades.