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Well, We Failed – Wattage is shutting down
- fl0wenol 11y agoShould have focused on a specific sub-market at first, used it to proof-out internal tools and design->front door delivery processes, show the potential. Something boutique-ish but simple, maybe a few internal configurables, that could use customization. Like headphone amplifiers (since headphones are becoming like fashion accessories). Or e-ink pens.
- wodenokoto 11y agoThat seemed to be what they did. Only a pod cast radio instead of a headphone amp.
- fl0wenol 11y agoBut that's not how they marketed themselves from the get go. It was more about enabling the end user to come up with stuff (I remember reading they were basically targeting other software developers who had a hardware itch they wanted scratched). I think that was _specifically_ the leap too many.
- wasd 11y agoIt's really easy to say this is why someone failed and this is what they should have done instead but take a moment to walk in their shoes. Do you really think it never occurred to them? Every decision has incredible amount of weight to it and only they had to the bear the consequences of the those decisions.
- joslin01 11y agoYou sound defensive. He's just voicing his opinion.
- jeremybell 11y agoI spoke about that in the post - we had narrowed our efforts to just be hardware focused, but soon realized that wasn't enough. We then narrowed even further and were going to simply offer a podcast radio with a number of customizations. But that decision was made too late.
- soneca 11y agoI agree. My personal choice: they should have focused on "build your own personal digital alarm clock - make it snooze however you want: shouting at it, moving it or just placing the snooze button on a particular hard to reach place".
- jkestner 11y agoI had a speculative-design project in the back of my head, where objects physically evolve over successive versions, using only existing use data fed into a generative design. The alarm clock was the specific object I chose (what method of waking you up works the best for you?), and this would've been the perfect platform to realize it. Just a silly concept, but you need to come up with a reason to do millions of one-offs, rather than letting a designer doing her job well for a single universal model.
- VLM 11y agoSomething to think about WRT focus is consider a world, magically without retail car part stores. Actually I'm old enough to remember the world before autozone and pep boys and whatever other competitors I'm forgetting, and we got by pretty easily. But anyway... It would be tough to startup the first ever disruptive retail car parts store if you focused deeply on parts for a '98 Saturn, however convenient it would be for a couple people. You'd have to make sure you focused deeply on ... How bout sparkplugs? Every spark plug commercially available today. It probably sounds insane, but there's a successful chain that theoretically sells nothing but batteries. This was actually pretty easy to focus. I think their project was immensely harder to focus. I think it would be extremely challenging to narrow their market yet still have more than a handful of customers.
- coldcode 11y agoIt's always instructive to see how people failed and how they eventually realized why. In this case I would have told them up front this is too much to do to start with. To get big wins eventually you have to start with small ones.
- pcarolan 11y agoI'd say you were just too early, everyone will benefit from them having pushed these ideas further.
- rasz_pl 11y agoEarly? Chumby was 10 years ago.
- jeremybell 11y agoChumby was an inspiration. As were things like LittleBits.
- pistle 11y agoThanks for the mostly transparent insight into your experience. How does one enter a deal to pay back investors with a shuttered operation? Does that mean make them whole or just pay something back? It seems like someone is holding onto a bag - THE bag?
- jeremybell 11y agoNobody is holding a bag of money. I only wish it played out that way. It was essentially an acquihire, so I'll be going to another company, and part of that deal allows me to make our investors whole.
- jbob2000 11y agoIf your business hinges on "playing the VC game", do you really have a business?
- jkrejci 11y agoPOP!
- 1123581321 11y agoHow did Wattage secure a deal to return its investors money? Presumably they had spent it. Did they arrange a loan on terms that would give the original investors liquidation preferences?
- jkestner 11y agoThe good news is the vision of mass-customized electronics is a huge deal. The bad news is, Apple proved it in 2007-2008 with the iPhone + App Store. The points that you could've focused on a specific object are good. It would've made you think like your intended customer, the designer. You would've been forced to answer the question "Who wants this?" instead of planning layers of abstraction. You should've taken a smaller slice not only so that a small team could execute it well, but also to make the concept much more graspable to customers. That's the true brilliance of the App Store.
- pjc50 11y ago? The iPhone is less customisable hardware than the old Nokia candy bar phones.
- jkestner 11y agoThe customization people actually want is met by the software layer. With a responsive touch screen and apps, you can satisfactorily reproduce physical interfaces, and more importantly, their functions.
- pjc50 11y agoPeople expect total plasticity of software. But that cannot satisfactorily reproduce all physical interfaces - people cannot operate a touchscreen without looking at it. Despite this they seem to be becoming popular in cars where they cannot be safely operated by the driver. The rise of smartwatches suggests that people want another kind of interface. The complaints over screen size are another aspect. You can't have a screen that's both small (easily carried) and large (easily read) at the same time. Finally there's an aesthetic argument. People like the appearance and heft of twiddly knobs and clicky buttons. This is why Roberts DAB radios are so popular. People customise the external appearance of their featureless iPhones with flip or shell cases. People like to be visibly a bit different.
- jeremybell 11y agoThere are some questions about the deal we secured to return our investors' money. Without going into the specifics, I can say it was essentially an acquihire. I'm going to another company, and part of that deal allows me to repay our investors in full.
- jonknee 11y agoThat's a standup move on your part.
- kamaal 11y agoJust wanted to ask how common is it to return money to VC's? Or how is this any different than a bank loan, If the VC doesn't shoulder the risks that come with these kind of projects I wonder what is the value they add. People might as well borrow the money on loan.
- oalders 11y agoThe post says they raised "$250,000 from friends & family". That seems like a strong incentive to make sure your investors (read: loved ones) can recover their investments.
- chrissnell 11y agoWould the typical VC deal allow founders to return money to their seed round investors before the VCs?
- balls187 11y agoPretty sure not. Seed round funding usually uses a convertible note. Assuming the VC round is a priced round, the seed round investors are treated as if they had put in money during the price round. Thus they would have same class of stock as the VC investors, with the same liquidation preferences.
- birken 11y ago
- shin_lao 11y agoThe idea is interesting, but I think the technology isn't there for scalability (need of better 3D printers like the OP said). Just allowing me to customize a radio (do people still buy radios? I'm curious) isn't of incredible value right now. I'd wager that "custom drones" would have been a more successful start point, but scalability would have been a problem.
- VLM 11y agoI read the pitch deck. Reading between the lines they were planning to be a far more advanced version of something like FPE. http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/ http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/ Or maybe seeed studios is reminiscent of what they're aiming for. The more advanced part being assembly and the like, plus coupling with suppliers. I can only imagine how entertaining the customer support would be for something like that. FPE has it easy, whip out the digital dial calipers and is there, or is there not a 2.54 mm hole there or not, customer support is just simple yes no QA work, whereas debugging someone else's electronics design is not for the faint of heart. Think of it like print on demand for books. Somebody PODs a "Complete genealogy of the Towne family in colonial Massachusetts" and puts it in the background photo of the pitch deck and the point isn't that almost nobody is interested in that topic, but that everyone who isn't hopelessly boring has something to make, whatever it is.
- rasz_pl 11y agoWhole business model was around selling box that can be replaced with fancy tablet case/stand? Wow, wonder why it failed.
- copsarebastards 11y ago> 1,600 people signup for our email newsletters, and each of them received a personal message from me. I gave them my email address and phone number, and invited them to chat if they had any questions. I heard from 100's of them, and many shared “the thing” they wanted to create. The problem is many of them simply weren’t feasible with the current technology. I suspect we could have eventually delivered on most of them, but not in the foreseeable future. I would love to see these emails (anonymized in some way).
- consultutah 11y agoThat sucks. I really like that you were pushing boundaries and creating a platform that had the potential to advance mankind - too few people are building things that have that potential.
- BillyParadise 11y agoThat really IS a nice pitch deck.
- mushi3 11y agoCan you (or someone else) provide a mirror? The public Dropbox links are no longer functional due to generating too much traffic...
- myth_buster 11y agoIt's on Google Drive now. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B95cJ2uw4oQlSm5rSTEwU0NZLUk/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B95cJ2uw4oQlSm5rSTEwU0NZLUk...
- myth_buster 11y agoThat deck is really pretty but I'm really curious whether investors would spend their time going through so much text. Here is a pitch deck that buffer used. http://www.slideshare.net/Bufferapp/buffer-seedrounddeck http://www.slideshare.net/Bufferapp/buffer-seedrounddeck
- jeremybell 11y agoI felt I needed to tell a richer story about what we were trying to achieve, mainly because we were created an entirely new market. I couldn't point to another company and say "we're like them, but 10x better." I didn't exactly have market numbers to use as a method of framing the investment potential. I felt I needed to paint a picture about a future we were trying to create... but you may very well be correct.
- myth_buster 11y agoI'm with you on having a narrative and conveying the drive. Did you find that some investors understood that and made decisions based on it or was it that you found them to be speaking a different language? Btw, I respect the effort and thought that went into analyzing the reasons for failure and the courage required to be open about it. Hope things work out in your next attempt.
- noteloop 11y agoSorry to hear things didn't work out. I am curious to know more about your thoughts on VCs in Toronto versus those south of the border. Canadian VCs have this rep of being quite conservative, only wanting to invest at later stages when there is very little risk. Does your experience agree with this characterization?
- Lord_Zero 11y ago"Having previously raised $250,000 from friends & family" I cant imagine any of my friends or family being able to give me a quarter million.
- ryanSrich 11y agoRight? I see this a lot and it's often an investors first response when asking for small seed rounds: "Well have you considered raising money internally? Ask around your friends and family". If I had friends and family that could just toss me a $250k I don't think I'd be in this position.
- daenz 11y agoReminds me of Mitt Romney's entrepreneurial advice: "Borrow money if you have to from your parents." Such a disconnect. Must be nice to have parents to be able to bankroll your businesses, Mitt.
- jeremybell 11y agoWhy would you immediately think it was my parents? Sigh.
- sbov 11y agoI don't think it was a slight on you. Just the idea that some people (again, not you) think that it's easy to get access to this sort of cash (or even 1/10th, or even 1/100th of it) to "bootstrap" themselves to success (bootstrap in quotes because relying on cash from others isn't equally feasible and I'm not sure if it's really pulling yourself up from your bootstraps).
- skj 11y agoWhy would you immediately think the poster was referring to you? Seemed directed at Romney.
- meric 11y ago
- t1m 11y agoYou may have failed, Wattage, but you certainly left the place in better shape than you found it! In a time where a good portion of the industry is helping us click on ads that we would rather not see, you attempted something difficult, different, and with less money than most VC backed start-ups spend on their espresso machine. I am looking forward to your next venture.
- grffn 11y agoNailed it @t1m. Excited to see what these guys do next!
- danielvinson 11y agoMirror for the pitch deck? Looks like Dropbox is 429'ing it.
- bhagman 11y agofixed - it's on Google Drive now
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoI wonder if somewhere a Dropbox engineer is crying over that comment!?
- jeremybell 11y agoYa, it's up on Google Drive now... Dropbox temporarily suspended my account because of “excessive traffic”. I guess a few people downloaded that deck.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- solve 11y ago> “Now That’s A Beautiful Pitch Deck” Reminds me of this quote: "As a designer, this is hard to admit: Extremely beautiful design is a negative warning signal for startup success. (70%+ accuracy.)" https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/571082598920925187 https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/571082598920925187 So, so true. Also, I've long noticed that startups who call themselves beautiful on their front page seem 99% bound to fail. Noticeably higher failure rate.
- jeremybell 11y agoI would tend to agree with this, but it's usually a sign that the startup has incorrectly focused their energies and money on design, instead of focusing on the underlaying business itself. In this case, I simply designed the deck myself. I'm flattered that everyone thinks it looks nice, but my intention wasn't to make something with style over substance.
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoOn the penultimate slide, p.24, what's the relevance of the company logos? It appears to be an endorsement, in what way is that true or false. The alternative interpretation is that the 70 years of product development has been for the listed companies?
- alaskamiller 11y agoThis is like making a McDonalds because everyone says they want it their way but deep down the truth is we just want an In-N-Out menu of 5 things. And the McDonald's way is bloated, slow, expensive, and dying.
- aaron-lebo 11y agoOne of my favorite Jobs stories is how he took Apple's late-90s lineup of numerous products and simplified it in a 2x2 matrix. (Maybe not the best link, but it shows what I'm talking about.) http://www.slopefillers.com/steve-jobs-product-matrix/ http://www.slopefillers.com/steve-jobs-product-matrix/
- jeremybell 11y agoThat strategy worked because Apple was dying and Jobs needed to focus their efforts. But that all changed once they found their footing. Consider the iPod and all the sizes and colours they offered, or what Apple is now doing with the Watch. There are many many customization options, and I suspect these options are only going to grow.
- zyxley 11y agoStill, compare, say, "Mac mini, iMac, or Mac Pro?" to the set of desktops available from Dell. Apple has lots of options, but they generally stick to consistent branding of a couple of core product lines.
- marincounty 11y agoI don't know you, but you seem stuck on customization? A lot of us out here just want a functional product with a decent half life. I think Apple is making a big mistake putting form over function? I cringe when I hear I need a heat gun in order to open their sleek products. If a product is well made, and does what it's suspose to do, I don't see the need for a bunch of aesthetic nonsense. The best watchmakers don't vary their designs much-- Rolex, Patek, and Omega vary their styles so little, I mistake some older models for new. I glad you have a new job. I'm just more mystified over VC funding/hiring than before I came here today.
- Animats 11y agoIt's not about the pitch deck. It's about the product. How many people really want a custom radio front panel? There are other customized products in that space which might be more useful. * Customized entertainment remotes. Tell us what gear you have, what you like to do with it, and we make a remote or remotes that makes it easier to use. You might have a simple "watch TV only" remote, and a tablet type "does everything" remote. * Light your house and garden. Send us pictures of your house and garden, answer some questions about how you use them, and we'll design an outdoor lighting system for it and have an installer put it in. You get to see renders of what it looks like at night before you buy. (There are Autodesk tools for that.) * Custom control panels for the aftermarket auto sound industry. Make cool stuff for LA rappers and wannabees. * There are lots of industrial products which need heavy customization. Offer on-line ordering tools for such products as a service to industrial sellers. Trying to hammer a customized product model into the web-based "order on line, ship to customer, integration is someone else's problem, no customer service" model wasn't going to work.
- pbreit 11y ago> How many people really want a custom radio front panel? It looks like they finally decided to focus on this one product which I think is smart because my guess is "way more than you think". Customization may be difficult to make but it is very easy to sell.
- rudolf0 11y agoI think sticking with one product to start off with is a good idea, but I'm not sure a radio was the right choice.
- jeremybell 11y agoYou may be right. We liked the radio because it was unique enough that we felt it would stand out. Instead of flipping between AM/FM stations, you'd be flipping between podcasts. I think that would have sold pretty well... or at least well enough for us to prove the concept and raise the large amounts we needed.
- antoniuschan99 11y agoI would like to know how far you got with the product. Even if it's incomplete, I think I would rather judge this on how far completed to beta launch you guys were. I signed up a few weeks back and was interested in seeing what the product would look like.
- jeremybell 11y agoWe have a fully working version of the creation tools, which would output all of the files required for fabrication. We had created all of the custom electronics, and were able to produce a number of functioning prototypes. The beta was intended to do a few things: 1. Measure interest in the platform and generate traction for investors. 2. User-test and see what was/wasn't working 3. Get a sense of what parts and materials were most popular, to ensure we properly handled inventory.
- antoniuschan99 11y agoI would like to know how far you got with the product. Even if it's incomplete, I think I would rather judge this on how far completed to beta launch you guys were. I signed up a few weeks back and was interested in seeing what the product would look like.
- pbreit 11y agoOne of the few postmortems that actually may be fairly accurate. Yes, the pitch deck is easy on the eyes but terrible at piquing investor interest. I still wasn't quite sure what the product was or why so much energy was being spent trying to create a picture of 10 years from now. Focusing on 1 (or 2) promising products was definitely the way to go. A customizable wifi radio that plays a podcast, Pandora or Spotify sounds kinda cool.
- innocentoldguy 11y agoOne of the most important take-aways from that article is the importance of focus. I think if they had limited their priorities to, at the very most, two things, they may have been successful. I find whenever I have more than two priorities, I don't have any priorities at all. Some people argue that the magic threshold is three, but for me it is two.
- jeremybell 11y agoNo arguments here.
- jguimont 11y agoI built the Timbuk2.com bag customizer (http://timbuk2.com/customizer http://timbuk2.com/customizer) and I would say that 50% of their business is on the custom side. People are playing with the product and often they surprise us. Timbuk2 ends up charging a premium for the custom bag, but it a unique bag. Same applies to Nikeid or adidas or converse or ... A lot of people are trying to build custom products and let the consumer get access to their manufacture, but it is not as simple as it sounds. There are, as in all things, a lot of moving pieces and enough rope to hang yourself.
- listic 11y agoThanks for the tip re: Timbuk2. They are offering a bike share if you leave your driver's license and CC as a guarantee. I really wouldn't want to leave my CC; I wonder if this is legal.
- flashman 11y agoThat's a really cool customizer. Good job.
- jakejake 11y agoCool looking customizer - nice work! I created a super simple product customizer that allowed users to slap their logo on promotional products (similar to cafe press, but a few years before that). Even with that ridiculously limited set of options it was a challenging project, so kudos to you on the bag customizer.
- stevewilhelm 11y agoTwo other show companies as well: - New Balance http://www.newbalance.com/nb-custom/ http://www.newbalance.com/nb-custom/ - Vans http://www.vans.com/custom-shoes.html http://www.vans.com/custom-shoes.html
- chrionsr 11y agoThanks for sharing your story!
- tptacek 11y agoThat seems less like a pitch deck and more a professionally polished brochure for a product, or maybe the introductory section of a prospectus. I don't see how an investor evaluate the company in that deck; I can't see: * Go-to-market, or even a price point (did I miss it?) or COGS estimates, or a plan for distribution * Traction, up-front sales commitments, or a sketch of target customers * Competitors and substitutes --- not having competitors is not usually a good thing. * An "ask" and a use-of-proceeds summary; what is this deck actually raising? * Why this particular team (also: the connections between the logos on the bottom and the people listed aren't clear) If you look at the Mixpanel, Airbnb, and Buffer decks: they're not pretty. They're dry and factual and cut to the chase. Those decks probably work (to the extent decks matter) because they do a good job of surfacing exactly the facts investors care about when evaluating a deal. I used to sweat decks the same way this designer did, and I'd get compliments on them. Now I feel like I spend more time talking my friends down from sending decks like these to prospects.
- jeremybell 11y agoThere are a few of things that I omitted from this version that were usually included or shared in person. Use of proceeds and traction was always shared. We also provided a breakdown of how the pricing worked (as it depended on what you were building). I usually spoke in more detail about who the team was when I met with someone.
- tptacek 11y agoThanks for replying! A question: did you ever wonder whether producing such intricately designed collateral actually harmed you from a signaling perspective, by tipping investors that you were focusing a lot on stuff that didn't matter? I ask because I started telling myself that a few years ago (not really so much re: investors, which I thankfully don't have, but other business associates) and I found it very liberating to not have to worry so much about design anymore.
- inthewoods 11y agoTo me the issue with the deck is that it doesn't simplify the idea - it expands it over and over again until you get overwhelmed by the details of the business. That feeling of complexity, in my opinion, would leave investors feeling that the whole solution was so complex that there were too many ways to fail. Manufacturing? Marketplace? Hardware? It's too much for me - I can't imagine how an investor takes it all in and feels that the team could successfully execute on all the parts. The best decks I've seen, in addition to everything you've brought up, also simplify the idea down.
- lurkinggrue 11y agoNot clear who this was and what they were selling.
- advertising 11y agoReally hard to start something you have to educate people about in the first place, before selling them. Case in point: it was not quite clear to me what they wanted to do (for a layman like myself in this space) after reading the post-mortem. I felt like I was filling in the blanks in my head and making assumptions.
- carrotleads 11y agoThis is one of our pain points as well, educating our customers/users
- kriro 11y ago"""We were targeting software developers, as we believed we could offer them an entirely new outlet for their creative efforts. But this narrative wasn’t big enough. Investors want to hear a story about changing the world.""" I disagree with this. I think focusing on software developers and making the "hardware side easier" is a viable enough hypothesis. It's better to focus on one segment and understand it well. Have a vague notion of the other potential customers but leave the dreams of hockey sticks to the VCs instead of feeding them imo. Rather focus on whatever segment you identify as a good entry point and validate that is true. I think a smart VS prefers someone that is laser focused on a segment vs someone that dreams too big early but I might be wrong.
- lectrick 11y agoI really wanted that customized joystick. Damn...
- amit_m 11y agoWow, that mission statement is so ambitious it made me cringe. Reality check: hardware startups are struggling to ship very simple products after obtaining >$1m funding. Choosing just one product for color/material customization is a good idea, but I'm not sure that radio is the right choice. I venture a guess that the founders were simply stuck on the concept of making customizable electronics. Maybe a fashion accessory (e.g. headphones, skateboards) or home decor/furniture of some sort could have been a better choice. People will pay a lot of money to show off.
- sciencesama 11y agoits not just about the pitch deck, also about the vision and the usage, how many people working daily and returning from work to home want to play with the radio that has a touch screen with a customization buttons/themes !!
- orionblastar 11y agoAs part of a business plan you have to research your target market. I highly doubt the average person wants to customize their own electronics, much less a radio in the 21st century were people have smart phones with music streaming apps. Hardware is hard to sell, look at the OUYA project and how it is struggling and trying to sell itself to save itself. They too had quality issues, they too raised a lot of money but had a hard time selling units. Most people just play video games on their smart phones these days, they don't need to buy a video game console that runs Android. Good research and a good business plan would have saved them from these mistakes. Instead of making a radio, maybe they could have made wireless Bluetooth speakers for smart phones to play music in the house/apartment for the average person. I'm sure that would have sold better than an AM/FM radio.
- downandout 11y agoI'm not sure how I feel about all of these companies shutting down prematurely to return investor capital (the following example is not based on this company, but it illustrates the point). If a $50M investment actually means $10M in risk capital, and the $40M will be returned at the slightest sign of failure, then entrepreneurs are giving up far too much equity because the investor is actually only risking $10M. Further, the signal that a $50M investment sends to the market about a company is far different than that of a $10M investment. Combine that with other things like preferred shares, and these large investments wind up being horrible for entrepreneurs, unjustly rewarding for the primary investors who are actually risking small sums in exchange for large portions of equity, and unfair for others that invest based upon what the "smart money" invested with a huge headline number.
- nly 11y ago> then entrepreneurs are giving up far too much equity because the investor is actually only risking $10M. Either that or the valuation is inflated artificially 5 fold.
- downandout 11y agoIt's probably somewhere in the middle. In any event, entrepreneurs and later investors are clearly getting the short end of the stick here. I can imagine the conversations that lead to these capital returns..."you're failing....if you don't return capital now, you'll never get another investment from a major firm again" (that's if the investors don't negotiate enough board seats/voting rights to just return it without the founder's consent).
- jeremybell 11y agoWe burned through all of our investors' money, and worked until we couldn't meet payroll. Once it was clear that we were going to run out of cash, I took a job and negotiated a deal that allowed me to make our investors whole.
- downandout 11y ago
- Chanie 11y agoSorry to hear you couldn't give birth to your own unicorn but thanks for sharing the story, a good read.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- shirazi 11y agoThanks for sharing.
- retreatguru 11y agoThanks for the post mortem. Did you do much customer development?
- Animats 11y agoThere's a minor industry devoted to customized imagery and colors for consumer product. There are startups set up to serve that market, with online design tools.[1][2]. Custom shoes and sports equipment are doing reasonably well. The T-shirt industry has been doing this for at least half a century. Bain, the consulting firm, has an article on what works in product customization.[3] Basically, let the user tweak minor stuff, but not change much. None of these companies actually let the user affect product function much. It's all decorative, or sizing-related. Autodesk has gone further, with Autodesk Homestyler, which is a free CAD system for home interiors.[4] This is a descendant of Autodesk Kitchen Designer, which was for sizing kitchen cabinets to fit a kitchen space. This lets you lay out a house, existing or planned, add commercial furniture, and view the house in 3D. Available for desktop, browser, and mobile. Despite being an impressive tool, it's never caught on. Probably because most people are terrified of starting with a blank screen and designing their house. Carl Bass, the CEO of Autodesk, thinks that user design mods and product customization will be important, but aren't here yet. Autodesk has come out with a range of low-end CAD products. They now have their own 3D printer, and there are things like their 123Catch, for turning sets of pictures into 3D models. The technology is doing fine. But designing your own stuff isn't an instant-gratification thing. [1] http://www.dogma.com http://www.dogma.com [2] http://www.fluid.com http://www.fluid.com [3] http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/making-it-personal-rules-for-success-in-product-customization.aspx http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/making-it-personal... [4] http://www.homestyler.com/floorplan/ http://www.homestyler.com/floorplan/
- brc 11y agoRemember the original business model for Pixar was for it to be a home animation studio, in the same way that people use photoshop to do their own graphics. I think they had terrible takeup on that and started producing shorts to show how good the technology was. I think it's the same point - if you can't get instant gratification with something, then the consumer takeup is low.
- frozenport 11y agoI could see this working if it were marketed towards kids, as a kind of `Build a Bear` workshop.
- Grue3 11y agoI think the product (radio) is totally non-viable but you would've made a killing on Kickstarter (see Coolest Cooler etc.)
- OliviaGrey 11y agoDoes that mean Medium.com is shutting down?