
Juicero Is Shutting Down - uptown
http://fortune.com/2017/09/01/juicero-is-shutting-down/
======
jpao79
I think they went about getting to market wrong. They should not have targeted
end consumers with their equipment.

They should have went after the convenience store market using the soda
dispenser/automated latte/vending machine/icee making business model.
Basically convince the store owner to have some refrigerated space dedicated
to the pouches and then put the machine nearby for the customer to make their
own juice in real time.

I see a Juice company in the SF Ferry Building selling fresh squeezed juice
for over $8. If they could have positioned themselves somewhere between that
and $2 pasteurized/packaged juice from the grocery store, they could have done
very well.

[https://www.yelp.com/biz/sow-juice-san-
francisco](https://www.yelp.com/biz/sow-juice-san-francisco)

~~~
nickparker
The trouble is, I've always thought Juicero was a bank shot for digitized food
in general. If that's the case, they needed to be serving consumers not
businesses.

The concept of food that's uniquely tagged and tracked from origin to
consumption is pretty attractive - makes contamination a breeze to trace back,
keeps you from cooking with rotten food since the machine knows to reject it,
and it could automatically track what you've got in your kitchen to suggest
recipes / restock for you.

That's all been thought of before, the trouble is how on earth do you build
that network? I suspect the reason Juicero got _so much_ money is they were
trying to build it first with high end luxury foods, and then expand down-
market to eventually own the 'groceries of the future.'

Personally, I think good ol Jeff Bezos is going to win this one too by first
owning grocery delivery straight up, and then going 'oh by the way they're all
trackable if you want, you should buy Amazon brand appliances to make use of
the feature :)" because as others pointed out here, counter space is at a
premium and nobody really wants appliances that don't work with all their
ingredients.

Anyway, that's what I tell myself to make this whole ludicrous story less sad.

~~~
aoenht2nte8
> The concept of food that's uniquely tagged and tracked from origin to
> consumption is pretty attractive - makes contamination a breeze to trace
> back, keeps you from cooking with rotten food since the machine knows to
> reject it, and it could automatically track what you've got in your kitchen
> to suggest recipes / restock for you.

What makes you think people want those things? I certainly don't, and I've
never heard anyone mention wanting any of those things. I have heard people
mention that they hate appliances like the coffee makers that only work with
the expensive patented coffee pods from their manufacturer. (And printers,
etc.)

I don't want any appliance that the manufacturer can shut down or refuse to
run remotely. (See the recent story about the guy who paid off his car, but it
was disabled remotely because he didn't pay the "remove the disabler" fee.)

In ~35 years of cooking, I don't recall ever using ingredients that went bad.
I'm sure I probably did once or twice, but it didn't leave a bad enough
impression on me to even remember, let alone want this sort of device that's
tethered to the network and manufacturer, with all the problems that brings.

~~~
flyinghamster
Let's call it what it is: the Internet of Rent-Seeking. As far as I'm
concerned, I want my appliances to NOT be networked.

~~~
Spivak
We should probably split hairs here. I would love for all of my appliances to
be _networked_ \-- just not on the public internet.

\- Preheat the oven as I'm driving home

\- Alert me when my laundry/dishes are done

\- Alert me if my air filter needs replaced.

\- Manage my AC/Heating for maximum energy efficiency.

\- Real time energy usage monitoring.

\- Turn on/off lights when I arrive/leave.

~~~
jasonlaramburu
Assuming you have a dynamic ip this won't be possible without a cloud service.

~~~
dasmoth
There's absolutely no reason why everyone who wants one shouldn't have a
static block of IP(v6) addresses. If they're hard to get, that's an ISP
problem rather than anything else.

~~~
mjg59
Most mobile providers don't offer IPv6

~~~
dingo_bat
I think it's the opposite. Mobile operators have higher IPv6 adoption.

------
fsckin
AvE tore one of their machines down awhile back[0]. It's so over engineered, I
was wondering how they'd ever make money back with their business model.

[0] [https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ](https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ)

~~~
x0x0
this is another teardown with a similar conclusion

[https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so-
expensi...](https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so-
expensive-6add74594e50)

~~~
trendia
I love how Bolt.io tore down a pair of Beats headphones and came to the
opposite conclusion -- that they were a ripoff and that the components inside
in no way justified the pricetag.

But, take a look at the quality of the internals of Juicero vs. Beats
headphones and realize that one of the companies is worth $1.5B while the
other is shutting down.

~~~
JimDabell
That "Beats" teardown was with a counterfeit pair of headphones.

Even so, I don't think a large difference between the BOM and the price the
consumer pays is necessarily a ripoff. There's more to a product than simply
how much it costs to manufacture.

~~~
kuschku
> Even so, I don't think a large difference between the BOM and the price the
> consumer pays is necessarily a ripoff.

Actually, in some jurisdictions, if that difference goes over 12.5% of the
paid price, and the customer is not specifically informed about this (and
about potential cheaper competitors), the contract is not valid.

~~~
JimDabell
I've not heard of that before. Where is this?

~~~
kuschku
Germany used to have laws similar to this for centuries (also in terms of a
limit of how high interest could be, and a general profit limit, see
"Wucher"), but many parts of these rules have been removed over the decades
and centuries.

------
epipping
After watching their promo video at the top of the page, I'm left wondering
two things:

\- If the machine takes away all my liberty (I cannot use it on my fruit and
vegetables) and even their packs need to be refrigerated and stay good only
for 8 days, can't I just buy the resulting juice and put it in my fridge? (If
I left the bottle closed, that would last equally long). So what do I gain?

\- They're using QR codes to check that I'm not using their packs beyond the
"best by" date or try to trick the machine into squeezing a competitor's
cheaper packs. And for that, they need a camera on the inside. And WiFi.
Didn't somebody at some point notice that the way they're treating their
customers is really disrespectful? This is the whole printer-cartridge-thing
all over again.

EDIT: layout/typos

~~~
nikanj
You gain the prestige of saying "you want a fresh-squeezed juice?" to your
guests. Keurig grew HUGE in large part thanks to the appearance of higher
class it brought to ordinary homes and offices. Instead of fooling with tools,
you click a button on a sleek looking SV futuremachine, and presto.

Humans are weird, and this is a very good marketing strategy.

~~~
jakobegger
I'm not familiar with Keurig, but I assume it is similar to Nespresso?

Nespresso became extremely popular because:

1) The machines are very cheap (compared to other espresso makers)

2) They take a fraction of the time to prepare coffee (compared to other
methods)

3) They are extremely easy to clean

4) Capsules have a long shelf life, you can get them in small quantities, so
it doesn't matter if you drink 3 cups of coffee per day or 3 cups of coffee
per month.

5) They have really fancy stores in top locations where they sell their
capsules

Everything about Nespresso is convenient and feels great. There is no DRM,
because that would not be convenient.

The only thing that's convenient about the Juicero machine is that it is easy
to clean. Everything else about it, from the short shelf live to the
subscription pricing, to the long time it takes to make juice, is just
inconvenient. The DRM and Wifi requirement is just stupid.

~~~
nailer
I thought nespresso had DRM to stop other coffee pods.

~~~
mnem
No DRM as far as I can tell. You can make your own pods with simple kits which
are basically just an empty capsule and some foil you stick on the top.

~~~
Reason077
Indeed. Lots of supermarkets and coffee brands in the UK sell their own
Nespresso-compatible pods, often much cheaper than the "real" ones.

In Germany, Nestle tried and failed to ban sales of unlicensed pods:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9479999/Court-
rejects-Nestles-call-to-ban-third-party-Nespresso-coffee-capsules.html)

------
rhinoceraptor
Even if the machine was $50, I don't think many people would want to spend
that much for the privilege of being locked in to Juicero proprietary juice
packs, letalone spend kitchen counter space to a dedicated juice squeezer
machine. And everyone who did now has an exquisitely engineered $700
paperweight.

~~~
hwillis
Ultra expensive juicers aren't new[1]. Even "normal" juicers are quite
expensive[2]. Juicero was just trying to jump on a fairly well-established
gravy train catering to the juice woo crowd.

[1]: [https://www.acemart.com/equipment/beverage/juicers/zumex-
ess...](https://www.acemart.com/equipment/beverage/juicers/zumex-essential-
pro-essential-pro-juicer/ZUXESSENTIALPRO)

[2]:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EXF4PLC/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EXF4PLC/)

~~~
dingo_bat
Has there ever been a juicer before this that has forced you to buy all your
fruits from one company? I think that's the key. People are ready to pay big
bucks for premium appliances, but lock-in is another matter.

~~~
hwillis
People love being locked in. Applying the keurig model to the juicing trend
was a very solid business idea- it rocketed keurig to the top of all coffee
makers, and juice fanatics make coffee fanatics look positively sane. I'm
pretty cynical about it, but it _is_ still a real and good thing. A half
second of convenience makes you feel good and selecting, storing, washing and
prepping produce is not trivial. A few extra clicks in one area of UI makes it
a _terrible_ design. The same thing translates into the real world, although
at extreme cost (to the environment, primarily).

Negative press, overengineering, the smaller market group, and underdelivering
convenience (the bags are just way too big compared to coffee) killed juicero.
It was such a high-profile and brutal lambasting that it will be a scarlet
letter for quite a while, but the core idea is solid enough that I wouldn't be
surprised to see the idea re-emerge in 2-3 years.

I still can't get over how much people viscerally hate the idea. You'd think
apple, google and microsoft had partnered to make a juice press because of how
much juicero represented silicon valley-ness.

~~~
dingo_bat
> People love being locked in.

Are you serious? I think Keurig succeeded because it was able to offset the
lock-in with genuine convenience and better coffee than most people were
drinking.

If the idea will re-emerge, I'm sure it will be more focused on customer
convenience rather than lock-in. Literally every single "feature" of juicero
was there to enforce the lock-in. The camera, qr codes, always-on wifi,
proprietary bags. It's a miracle the company lasted this long.

------
theDoug
Founder seems to be having a good time at Burning Man the day his company
shuts down.[1]

[1] [https://www.instagram.com/p/BYaIlV4jFb5/?taken-
by=dougevans](https://www.instagram.com/p/BYaIlV4jFb5/?taken-by=dougevans)

~~~
weston
Even founders of failed startups deserve a chance to relax.

~~~
theDoug
Never claimed otherwise, just unfortunate or perhaps obtuse timing. People
around here sure wouldn't dare miss the Burn, even as their company burned
out.

------
zilchers
_The Bloomberg article described Juicero as "one of the most lavishly funded
gadget startups in Silicon Valley" and founder Doug Evans once said he planned
to do for juicing what Steve Jobs did for computers._

With vision like that, it's hard to believe there were any issues.

------
userbinator
Meanwhile, the Chinese clone with what is likely a very similar mechanism, but
no DRM or other IoT crap, seems to be still alive:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1793272089/juisir-
juici...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1793272089/juisir-juicing-
without-the-cleaning)

...and Juicero even tried to sue them a few months ago:

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/juice-wars-
juice...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/juice-wars-juicero-has-
sued-another-juicer-maker-for-patent-infringement/)

~~~
dingo_bat
At least some people have common sense. This is so much better!

------
napolux
Come on. Juicero was pure Silicon Valley craziness.

It’s strange they didn’t fail from the very beginning.

Tried it in a bar in San Francisco: slow as fuck, avg juice.

------
palakchokshi
Can we agree that if any founder makes a statement comparing themselves or
their vision for their product with Steve Jobs and Apple, that they are
automatically disqualified from being funded? Steve Jobs was one of a kind. If
you are like Steve you don't have to say it, people will figure it out.

------
petra
The thing i'm curious about: why did this raise $120M? And how much has
already been spent, on what ???

~~~
rdl
Founding team were serial successes in an adjacent/directly-related industry.
"Because they could" is probably the best explanation of why they did.

------
amichal
This video is one of my favorites

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-
BGQfpHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ)

Edit: Most like contains strong language...

~~~
1_player
Amazing video, the money they threw to design and build this device is mind
blowing.

------
snake117
This will serve as a good example for future startups where taking one concept
from one market does not always work in another market. Keurig managed to make
a great product at an affordable price range, both the machines ($80-$250) and
the K-Cups (~$0.85 per pod). However, a $400 machine, that just squeezes the
pack for juice, and each juice pack running several dollars is enough to kill
anyone's wallet. I liked how they made an attempt to promote a sustainable
healthy lifestyle, but ultimately there are cheaper alternatives.

~~~
aoenht2nte8
But how is it sustainable to grow fruit, pick it, wash and peel it, then cut
it up and put it into some sort of disposable bag, then ship it to each
individual who wants it, then require them to own an appliance that likely
runs on fossil fuels to get the product out? They could have just shipped
bottle of juice to the local supermarket and cut out the machine entirely. The
waste would have been less because the bottles would have been recyclable, and
they'd own the machines and use them in place in bulk. The shipping would be
more sustainable because of the scale of doing all shipping to fewer grocery
stores than all their customers (or at least all they hoped to reach
eventually). The whole thing is wildly wasteful.

~~~
snake117
To clarify, I meant sustainable in the context of maintaining a healthy
lifestyle, not in their overall manufacturing process and waste output.

------
Twirrim
It was a product solving a problem few people had, at a price point few people
could justify for a one-purpose device.

That the founders and the dialogue around it were all aspirational BS just
exasperated the problem. It felt like it was constantly pitching a lifestyle
very few people have, want or care about.

------
TillE
The fundamental problem with Juicero (at least as an ambitious startup) is
that juice isn't a product with broad appeal, especially after the recent
trend against sugary drinks. You could overcome price barriers and other
issues if there were some real demand, but I just don't see it.

~~~
andreasgonewild
Did you just call pressed veggies and fruits sugary drinks? As in more or less
the same as Pepsi? The problem with Juicero is that it was a scam, pure and
simple. Overpriced bullshit and awesome profits, at least that was the plan.
Thank god it's over. Now we're just waiting for Uber to fold and then maybe we
can start actually making a difference, as opposed to spewing bullshit until
no one can tell the difference.

~~~
allover
> Did you just call pressed veggies and fruits sugary drinks?

Pressed fruits at least, are sugary drinks. Anyone who's calorie conscious is
probably wary (as a calorie counter I know I am).

~~~
nxsynonym
yup pressing/blending fruits destroys any nutritional value. You're left with
basically sugar water. Yes it's "natural sugar", but it's still not the
healthy food people make it out to be.

~~~
dragonwriter
> yup pressing/blending fruits destroys any nutritional value.

Pressing (but not blending) leaves some of the good bits (including bits that
mitigate some of the adverse effects of sugars) behind, but it does not
destroy the nutritional value, as many of the important micronutrients of the
fruit are retained in the juice.

Hyperbole isn't helpful here.

~~~
nxsynonym
You're correct, I mixed up pressing and blending. My bad.

Either way - an all fruit diet is not healthy or balanced. And as far as I can
tell, whole fruits are still better for your health then
pressed/blended/squeezed.

Relevant : [https://www.wired.com/2015/04/nobody-can-prove-cold-
pressed-...](https://www.wired.com/2015/04/nobody-can-prove-cold-pressed-
juice-better/)

------
swamp40
Their failure was in trying to "squeeze" a hardware-as-a-service/recurring
revenue model into a device that was better suited as a single purchase
appliance.

If you could have just shoved fresh fruit into it, they would have been ok.

But whoever talked investors out of $118M probably also sold everyone on the
H-A-A-S model, which didn't quite fit for this product.

------
joegosse
One of the VC-funded businesses we all knew would fail has finally failed, is
this an early indicator of a market correction?

~~~
xenity7
I don't think so, because an idea this obviously silly should fail under
almost any market conditions.

------
msyea
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-
BGQfpHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ) breakdown of juicer. So
fantastically overengineered. Beautiful.

------
_ph_
I am a big fan of kitchen gadgets - and there are a few really useful ones
around, this product is just odd. Besides the price for the machine and the
pods, I fail to see how it adds any value to the process.

If you want really fresh and nutritious drinks, get a high-power blender. Not
only do they operate on any fresh fruit and vegetable, they keep all the fiber
in the produced drink. So less sugar percentage (especially if you have lots
of vegetables in the mix) and vs. eating the fruit directly, the high power
mixing helps digesting all nutritients much better than just chewing can.

As a bonus, you can use it for many other cooking tasks (soups, sauces) but
also you can do things like blending a good amount of ice with the fruit to
get a cold and icy drink and my favorite is just to mis a scoop of natural
yoghurt with frozen berries (add sugar, cream, a shot of bourbon to your
taste) to instantly get a nice ice-cream like dessert.

(Disclaimer: there are a very few vegetables which should be eaten cooked
only, so don't use those for a smoothie, others only in reasonable dosis, so
some very basic reading is recommended)

------
johnhenry
I simply do not understand the mindset of silicon valley investors. I used to
think that perhaps they had some edge that helped them to get behind
successful companies, but looking at this -- how much money they raised and
from whom -- I think that there are just a bunch of people who have so much
money that they can afford to risk throwing it away on something that will not
likely succeed.

Can someone watch the video in the article and explain what sort of mindset
you have to be in and think that this is a good idea? Perhaps the initial
vision was different somehow and the final product does not align with what
you thought you were putting your money behind? Is it possible that you see
the issues, but have so little faith in consumers not to buy crap that it
seems like you'll make a reasonable profit? Maybe there's something you see or
know that I don't -- perhaps some sort of shake up in the fruit industry was
set to make this a hit only to not meet expectations?

I am now more deeply concerned than ever about the effect that an exploding
tech bubble is going to have on our economy.

~~~
_sentient
The answer to this is fairly straightforward: VCs don't actually expect (or
need) every investment to be successful, they just need it to have the
potential to be huge if everything works out.

Laypeople always seem shocked when a VC-funded company implodes. We should
actually be surprised if we didn't see routine flame-outs, as that would mean
VCs aren't taking on appropriate quantities of risk for the asset class.

As a final aside: I've lost count of the number of times I've pulled an about-
face on businesses I initially thought were stupid -- once I had a chance to
talk to the founders and better understand the vision. Many of these seemingly
'dumb' ideas have surprising depth.

Some, granted, are in fact dumber than a box of rocks.

~~~
yahna
It's not that a VC company failed, it's that the entire idea looks completely
ridiculous from the start.

~~~
_jtrig
You could say that same about Soylent as it's simply a Pediasure/Ensure
marketed towards hipster 20-somethings. People love drawing the conclusion
that superior marketing/design equates to better products.

Often times, if you can make a consumer happy with the experience, they don't
care if they're overpaying for a terrible product.

The problem with Juicero is that their user experience laid bare how futile
and ridiculous their product was by having consumers manufacture the product
themselves.

If the Juicero simply made those juices in a bottle (EVEN IF the nutritional
value was lost during bottling) I can see them succeeding based purely on
their marketing and people suspending disbelief to support their idea they
were being healthy while looking cool.

~~~
Laforet
>The problem with Juicero is that their user experience laid bare how futile
and ridiculous their product was by having consumers manufacture the product
themselves.

Blue Apron and every other meal kit delivery business sits on the other end of
the same road, yet they seem to be doing okay and without the same level of
ridicule.

I wonder whether Juicero could have avoided this outcome had they mailed their
customers whole fruits and asked them to peel and fill their own juice bags,
that way people will not be able to put two and two together to realise that
it is just another beverage maker with DRM.

P.S. I remember Juicero being rather well received by the resturant industry
as it is fully automated and requires minimal cleanup, so perhaps they
marketed to the wrong crowd after all.

~~~
_jtrig
I agree Blue Apron is equally ridiculous and I totally agree that Juicero
marketed to the wrong crowd.

Juicero was too visible in high-standard markets and thus became an easy
target. Whereas Blue Apron flew under the critic radar (mostly in Facebook mom
feeds) before gaining enough market share for consumers to shrug off ridicule

~~~
sseveran
As a former blue apron customer I don't think it was ridiculous. I churned
when my wife was out of the country. There are still recipes that they sent
that I still cook. Now as a business I don't think they will be able to
compete with a hybrid solution that amazon/Whole Foods will be able to devise.
But I see Juicero as completely different.

------
Powerofmene
It is a shame that Juicero could not develop a product with a lower price
point that could reach a much broader marketplace. With the initial price
point they should have clearly seen that their customer pool was going to be
smaller than that of a lower cost product.

It seems that they did not have enough time and money to right their ship. It
is sad to see a dream die even if you don't agree with the product or business
plan.

~~~
Grustaf
I don't think the price point per se is an issue, people happily pay over 400
for a quality juicer. But the kind of person who does that probably wants the
full experience, chopping the vegetables etc. This experience just seems too
similar to just buying high quality juice in the shop.

I know this model works for coffee, but there the prefab alternative is not an
option.

~~~
CodeWriter23
I think the "full experience" you speak of is getting fresh juice rather than
some pre-oxidized slurry in a bag.

And shame on the VCs for not using their heads. You can't get a half pint of
juice out of a pint bag of fruits and veggies.

Which reminds me of my brilliant idea of making fresh squeezed lemonade for
our wedding guests. I had to cut a whole 25lb box of lemons in half and then
press them into the Kitchen Aid to get about two quarts of juice. It took me
hours and a lot of elbow grease to do that.

------
Meekro
Juicero has been quoted as saying that they sold "over a million Produce
Packs." [1] Does anyone know who bought so many of them? Or how many they
would've had to sell to stay in business?

[1] [https://www.juicero.com/company-news/](https://www.juicero.com/company-
news/)

------
auvi
I think this will be a wake-up call for companies like uBeam. For uBeam's
case, you can send mechanical energy via ultrasound: true, with very little
efficiency. But very few will be interested to buy the device.

------
nandreev
Rumor has it that their engineers couldn't concentrate...

------
dreamcompiler
Magnificent engineering to solve a stupid non-problem. Sigh.

~~~
MBCook
Given how overenginered it was, was it really magnificent? I don't think it's
hard to make a quality Mechanism if you're willing to spend 400% of what's
necessary for 108% of the benefit.

------
jonnathanson
I hope the writers of "Silicon Valley" were paying attention to this saga.
There's some juice left to be squeezed from it.

------
hota_mazi
If anything, I'm surprised they're only laying off 25% of their staff. I have
a feeling more lay offs are around the corner.

------
scottkduncan
I'll pick one up in the liquidation sale.

~~~
azm1
Like for what?

~~~
Retr0spectrum
I think it was a joke, maybe.

~~~
solatic
Yeah, it's a pun on the word 'liquidation'.

------
samstave
I just secured the purchase of two of these... for $200 to tinker with...

Anyone have any ideas on the DIY project to make from them?

------
Upvoter33
Juice is bad for you anyhow, no matter the price. TOO MUCH SUGAR!

------
blizkreeg
This will be one for the (forgotten) history books!

------
ioquatix
Oh noooo!! Think of the Juice(ro). What will happen to existing machines once
the servers are shut down!? Are we destined return to the days of squeezing
juice by hand?

------
5_minutes
So they got squeezed.

------
pmarreck
Color me not shocked? The whole premise of this was ridiculous from the start

------
Xorlev
I guess the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze.

------
samstave
These remind me of the CUE::CAT

------
DannyBee
Are they shutting down using a super-complicated completely over engineered
method of shutting down, or the regular way?

~~~
theandrewbailey
There was Shutdownify, but now there isn't a trace of it left, aside from news
articles about how fake it was.

~~~
dredmorbius
[http://web.archive.org/web/20170610003354/http://www.shutdow...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170610003354/http://www.shutdownify.com/)

------
alva
Seems like they felt the squeeze after that expose

~~~
BrentOzar
And now it's time for a liquidation

~~~
eelkefolmer
The early investors are left holding the bag!

~~~
Slartie
They should have scanned the QR code on it first, it would have told them
something's rotten in there.

~~~
knieveltech
WTF? HN is allowing humor now?

~~~
et-al
There's a Hacker News subreddit. We should keep all the puns there.

------
desireco42
Noooo!!! :)

------
wheeler4x4
Juicero is shutdownero.

------
TaylorGood
Those who funded this will only squeeze their portfolio companies still
remaining for a juicier return.

------
abhi3
120 million USD in funding and such a spectacular failure because of one
article. This whole episode goes on to show the power journalists have. I know
the sales number were bad but with so much money the founder could have bought
the market or pivoted but with no coming back from the PR disaster the
investors most likely just wanted their money back.

~~~
johnhenry
Unless their was a serious problem with their product or their team, with 120
million USD, they should have been able to avoid a PR disaster set off by a
single article. Obviously, there are numerous issues with the product itself:
no one wants to subscribe to packets of fruit, especially if those packets are
perishable, especially if they have to buy a six-hundred dollar machine to
properly use the packets and to know if they are fresh, even if you later find
out you can just squeeze them with your hands. I suspect if you dig, and
probably not too deep, you'd find issues with the team that tried to make
money with this product as well.

There are problems that even $120 million can't fix.

