
Lessons from the awkward life and death of the Segway - jseliger
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-15/rip-segway-the-dorky-grandfather-of-micromobility
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raiyu
The segway failed because of product market fit.

As a product it was very interesting, but it had pitfalls. It wasn't exactly
clear where to store it. The people who saw it all had houses and garages, but
for the everyday user in the city hard to figure out where you would put it
after each use. Even bicycles are challenging to store in NYC, which is why
Citibike is interesting.

The second problem and much larger was the price point. If you want something
to succeed you have to price it so that you can gain mass appeal. The
$5,000-10,000 price point is a dead zone. As consumers we almost never spend
this amount of money.

We spend hundreds of dollars all the time.

We spend a thousand or two thousand dollars infrequently, but we do it.
Computers, vacations, some furniture.

But when you get to $5,000+ that is a price we pay very rarely. It is actually
more common to find something more expensive, such as $10,000+ for a car, then
to find $5,000. As a result it was hard to figure out where that price fit in.

Also, no one thought of subsidizing the cost. With the iPhone, it's expensive,
but you have the carrier to subsidize the cost and more importantly create a
monthly payment plan. If you could at least convert $5,000 to some sort of
monthly fee that would help.

So what they really failed at is distribution. In fact if they planned around
distribution they could have actually jumped on the entire citibike, jump, etc
market before it ever existed.

It would also mean that customers wouldn't need to pay $5,000 out of pocket
and instead could pay per use or a monthly fee.

Often people discount distribution when it comes to product market fit and
failures.

Lastly, riding a bicycle is rather awkward. Think about learning it as a kid.
It's counter intuitive. A bike can't stand on it's own, you have to pedal to
go, if you stop it falls over. Though it is extremely unintuitive, it is
cheap, you can try it, it has a culture, and is a rite of passage. So we learn
this behavior even though it doesn't make sense.

The Segway is also counterintuitive in some ways. Looking at people riding
them, never gives you a sense of confidence. There are also plenty of videos
of people falling off of them, similar to bicycles.

But with a much higher starting point you aren't really tempted to try it, or
even have access to one to test it out to see if it becomes intuitive or not.

Lastly, our cities aren't designed for this type of commute. People drive,
they can take the subway, but the number of people that commute outside of
that on bicycles is small in the US. In Europe like in Amsterdam, the Segway
takes up more space in a lane than a comparable bicycle, so it really wasn't
an improvement. And since Americans aren't used to bicycles they though oh wow
this is great! Europeans were like for $50-$150 one time I can have a bike
that lasts forever, doesn't require charging, takes up less space, and I
already own it.

~~~
jseliger
Oil prices are the other key. Around the year 2000, some thought we were at or
near peak oil. If oil prices had risen above $200/barrel in the '00s, the
Segway might have made its way in the market.

It's a bit like the Chevy Volt, a car that I see criticized on HN and
elsewhere occasionally. It was conceived of at a time when future oil prices
were uncertain, and, if they'd remained sustainably high, it would have been a
huge hit. But Americans have short memories and don't actually care much about
the environment, so it was a relative flop.

~~~
spaetzleesser
The Volt owners I have talked to all loved their car. I think Chevy has messed
this up by not marketing the car.

~~~
pureliquidhw
I wonder why they didn't just create a Volt brand alongside Cadillac and all
their others. Then to make the next Hummer an EV seems like a misguided
recycle of the brand.

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buzzert
I was too young to buy into the hype when the Segway was released in 2001. I
will never forget the first time I rode one though, I thought it was the most
incredibly fun and cool thing. I ended up saving every penny earned from two
summer jobs to finally buy one my last year of high school.

It actually ended up being the perfect vehicle for living off campus at
university, as I learned first hand watching my friends and roommates struggle
with all kinds of other forms of transportation. Cars needed to be parked in
expensive and crowded garages, bikes were stolen all the time and
uncomfortable to ride in the desert summer (in southern Arizona), busses were
unreliable, etc.

The Segway was actually totally rideable in extreme heat as opposed to riding
a bike. Something about being vertical made the breeze totally counteract the
heat. Obviously the no physical exertion helped with the sweatiness as well.

~~~
rhn_mk1
What kept the Segway from getting stolen like a bike?

Did anyone use motorized bikes?

~~~
buzzert
It has a really good security system built in. When activated, it “locks” the
wheels by applying reverse torque in whichever direction you attempt to drag
it. The key is also a small device that communicates with the Segway
cryptographically (pretty impressive for the early 2000’s!).

But mostly I think it’s because it was really heavy and perhaps novel enough.
Nobody ever messed with it, even though the city I was living in was pretty
bad in terms of crime rates.

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mring33621
Check out electric unicycles (EUCs). The Segway is alive and well. Minus one
of the wheels and the silly handle.

~~~
brink
I ride mine almost every day and it's amazing. Everyone wants to ask about it,
and I just tell them it's a Segway minus a wheel and a handle. For just $1.5k
you can get a uni that will travel up to 60 miles.

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dvt
There's a throughline the author would like us to follow: the fate of the
Segway might end up being the fate of Lime/Jump/Bird/etc. This might be true,
but a major reason Segway failed was the price tag. $5,000-$10,000 (the price
of a Segway) is how much a solid 200-500cc motorcycle would run you.

Scooters look kind of silly, too, but they at least won't break the bank.

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jm234541436234
_Segway’s current owner, Beijing-based Ninebot, says the PT sales were
hampered by the vehicles’ sheer unkillability: “We have seen an over-
saturation of the market for Segway PTs,” the company said in a statement.
“They are an extremely durable vehicle, with many that are 10 years or older
still on the road.” The Segway PT made up less than 1.5 percent of the
company’s revenue last year._

Should there be some sort of subsidy for 'things that last'? Or 'year beyond
average lifespan that thing is still in use'?

It feels like companies will actively try to avoid making durable things if
there isn't.

~~~
echelon
This is why products are starting to turn into subscriptions.

When you bought Adobe Photoshop, you never needed to update it.

Likewise, if you buy a Honda or other well-engineered car, you'll be able to
get a decade or more out of it.

Thinkpads used to last forever and were user upgradable.

Tesla is introducing micro-payments and unlockables. I think other auto makers
will follow suit.

Why can't farmers repair their own John Deere equipment that they "own"?

Everything is turning into recurring revenue.

~~~
zdragnar
By the sound of it, BMW is planning micropaymemts and subscriptions as well,
with one example given in the original article being heated seats you only
subscribe to in winter months.

~~~
haecceity
I'm waiting for the day when I can buy a toaster and get subscriptions on
toasting modes.

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Exmoor
It seems like the ultimate lesson of the Segway is not to over-hype your
product. I recall reading quotes from people who had seen the device back when
it was just (IIRC) "It" and they said things like "cities will be redesigned
around this new invention." When it came out people were unsurprisingly let
down and the jokes began.

~~~
cyberbanjo
I can't help but think that they almost had it now that I see Lime Bird Uber
scooters on every block. Close but no cigar.

~~~
ajmurmann
Uber and Lime didn't create the electric scooter, they created the
sharing/distribution model. Segway created the vehicle but failed at the
distributing.

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Animats
_“Segway will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy,” Kamen
asserted. Steve Jobs thought the product would be just as important as the PC,
while venture capitalist John Doerr predicted that Segway Inc. would be the
fastest company in history to make $1 billion in sales._

After that much hype, of course it was a disappointment. If it had been
pitched as a mini version of small electric industrial carts, such as the ones
seen in big industrial plants, no one would have been excited about it, but it
would have been a minor seller.

This is the second article about the Segway which mentions its durability as a
minus.

~~~
lhpz
I think there is an interesting generalization to be made here: major
innovations cannot be introduced to the market by raising billions to fund
aggressive marketing push campaigns. Only minor innovations can follow this
route to market, and it’s still risky.

If you define a major innovation as one that will have to challenge the
established habits; then first and foremost, diffusion of a major innovation
requires time, not money. To be understood, desired and finally accepted by
the market/society. That’s why all major innovations I can think of started
from very niche applications, and then patiently won neighboring niches, one
after the other, slowly improving in the process, till they eventually became
mainstream, sometime after several decades. This diffusion process generally
spans over the lifetime of several companies. One example here: automobiles,
around which our cities were ultimately redesigned.

It’s difficult to rewrite history, but had Segway started small as you
suggested … it may have been more successful in the long run, as a concept and
maybe as a company. To really change the world with some major innovation,
starting small and targeting niche applications is the way to go.

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dehrmann
> Instead of becoming a mass-market last-mile mover, the Segway became a
> slapstick prop in aughties comedies.

That GOB, always on his Segway.

[https://i.imgur.com/PVKh2Hd.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/PVKh2Hd.jpg)

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mixmastamyk
So why did the price never come down?

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ggm
Clive Sinclair's electric car is calling you...

