

Scathing review of Scvngr by burned customer - thesausageking
http://www.vintank.com/2011/06/why-we-abandoned-scvngr-and-you-should-too/

======
pseudonym
Getting a server error when I hit the page, so pasting the text of the article
below:

One of our jobs is to find technologies that will help the wine industry
succeed. We often look outside the wine industry to find incredible solutions
that help wineries in any way possible. Through extensive research, analysis,
and lots of white board sessions we try to surface the technologies that seem
most helpful. Fortunately we have only made two mistakes in technologies that
we have strongly supported in our three year history. Our most notable was
Scvngr.

In the beginning, Scvngr seemed like it had innovated where other platforms
had stagnated (Gowalla and Foursquare were struggling to innovate at the
time). They offered a level of interactivity that was not just about checking
in but about engagement. They had fair pricing and a rapidly growing user
base. We loved the way they viewed game theory. So as a location based service
that would work for the wine industry, we chose them.

Everything was champagne and roses at first. Scvngr offered rewards for
engagement. In a hospitality industry, this seemed like a perfect fit. They
had unique features (taking pictures, answering quizes, etc) and fun mapping
tools called Treks to tie locations together to earn rewards. Scvngr loved the
wine industry because we represented a use case for regions that could easily
overlay a game layer with mass tourism and strong hospitality culture. For us
it also represented an innovative way to engage consumers in both the digital
world and the physical world and deepen the engagement when people visit any
winery tasting room.

Scvngr made us promises to ensure this was a giant success (with the potential
that they could roll it out to other tourist/hospitality based locations with
our case study like Las Vegas, Disneyland, et al). This is what they
committed:

Promise: They promised to give all Napa merchants (restaurants, retailers,
hotels, etc) free Scvngr rewards programs and games. They also promised to
support businesses with training and help to understand how to build rewards
and more. Result: They soon released this feature to all businesses nullifying
the value and barely touched anyone who signed up.

Promise: They promised to have a Mashable party in Napa to celebrate their new
launch with Robert Mondavi Winery and Franciscan winery as part of a major
release. They even talked about it with a strong press initiative. Result: We
are still waiting.

Promise: Setting up multiple Napa treks to make game play in Napa incredibly
interesting for Napa tourists. This was intended to spread to Paso Robles,
Sonoma, Walla Walla, and beyond. Result: Pretty much the same as above.

Promise: They assured us that they would add new game mechanics that would be
extraordinarily useful to the wine industry. Result: The platform has been
stagnant since their VC investment of $15 million dollars and their focus
completely changed to a new product called thelevelup.com (yes, another “flash
in the pan” – flash sale site).

Our promise: We would share our passion about their innovative product, our
time, and our relationships to help the wine industry benefit from this new
type of engagement. We signed a contract for biz dev fees which we waived to
give discounts to all wineries that work with us on digital brand management
so they could be involved in the treks and more. Three of our wineries signed
up, one pre-paid (and was fortunately refunded but only after threatening
legal action). I recently saw a Scvngr campaign with the Napa Valley Vintners
for the annual auction (I am curious how successful the campaign was) and upon
calling Scvngr, their statement was, “We don’t have the time or resources to
dedicate to those previous promises. If you can find us some resellers . . .”
Uh, no. How about you fulfill your promises made to us and the wine industry
as a whole.

All indicators pointed to Scvngr becoming a winner and helping wineries deepen
their engagement with consumers. Sorry to all that joined us in this debacle.
We really believed in them and made a rare mistake betting on their horse. The
net net is that we picked a “dog.”

Perhaps it was the money that diluted their focus. Perhaps the VC’s shifted
direction and the young management didn’t have the experience to properly
communicate. Perhaps they don’t understand the meaning of a partnership or a
promise. Maybe they don’t like the wine industry. Whatever the reason, the
lesson for us was make sure vision is supported by execution and find partners
that really keep their promises. In this case, we have ALL deleted Scvngr from
our mobile phones and we are back on Foursquare (who has lapped Scvngr times
ten in the last six months with awesome functionality) and Gowalla.

Visit us anytime at the “tank” and check in (with Foursquare or Gowalla, that
is).

~~~
temphn
Not really a big deal at all. These are some middlemen who wanted some biz dev
money for bringing in clients. Read closely and they "bring technology" to
wineries, they don't operate their own wineries. Scvngr probably realized
these guys were going to ask for lots of custom work without the $ to justify
it.

~~~
pmabray
Actually if you read, we waived all any fees to help our winery partners. We
asked for no custom work and spent large resources to help promote Scvngr with
no aspirations of revenue, just to help catalyze the wine industry through
digital means.

We don't operate our wineries but if you look at our bio's, we have operated
at wineries and for some of the largest wine tech companies in our industry
(three of which we founded).

------
dolinsky
I'm going to go out on a short limb and guess that most users here don't
understand who Vintank is or much about the wine industry in general. The
group at Vintank are hardly 'middlemen wanting some biz dev money'. I've had
the pleasure recently to meet Paul Mabray as I'm currently diving into the
wine world myself with an idea I've already pivoted on once with, and I can
say with a lot of confidence that these aren't just another group of marketing
guys trying to make a buck. Paul has a phenomenal reputation in the wine world
and is one of the preeminent voices when it comes to discussing how to bring
the old way of thinking by most wineries to the new ways of social media. If
things went down as Paul described, then Scvngr snubbed a whole industry, not
just one company.

Edit: Vintank also share the same passion for unifying and making wine 'facts'
free for all in the same way that SimpleGeo does with location data. Anyone
who spends more than 5 minutes in the wine world knows the horrible state of
fragmented / incomplete wine facts (not reviews,tasting notes,ratings) and how
that holds the industry back as a whole.

Just trying to paint a picture of who Vintank is for those here who don't
know.

~~~
pmabray
Thank you David.

------
tejaswiy
Slightly offtopic to the article, but is it just me or does anyone else think
the wine culture and an iPhone app + game mechanics just don't go well
together? I mean, the people that enjoy wine seem to be, well, just enjoying
it without needing any additional incentive to have more of it?

"Sample five wines and you get X points with a 'Wine taster' badge!". Just
doesn't sound quite right does it ?

~~~
mikeryan
Actually it does, it sounds like you have't spent a weekend in the Sonoma or
Napa Valley area (I don't mean this disparagingly).

A large part of what you do is drive around a large countryside tasting wines
at various family owned and operated winery tasting rooms, interspersed with
tasty meals. Many of the best wineries are way off the beaten track and there
are many wineries who only sell their wine at their tasting rooms so getting
traffic into them is crucial.

Something like what scvnger provides would be a great way for those who don't
know the area to find some of those off the beaten track gems.

~~~
tejaswiy
I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think iPhone apps driven by game
mechanics are the right answer to this problem. It doesn't necessarily go with
the relaxed Joie de vivre attitude of wine tasters. I feel it translates the
experience from about enjoying wine to a mindless WoW quest like experience
where all you want to do is to accomplish a set of objectives to get your
reward.

------
stickfigure
I'm pretty confused by this post. Just what did you commit in this "exchange"?

It sounds like you wanted to help an LBS service in the wine industry, and the
one you picked turned out not to have a sustainable business. Well, none of
the LBSes are making money and when the VC wears off, Foursquare may be in the
same boat. This is the risk of being an early adopter... it's a bummer when it
doesn't work out but I don't see why you are A) surprised or B) angry.

I don't know anything specific about Scvngr's business, but I spent a good
chunk of a year building an LBS (www.mobca.st, fwiw) that really doesn't have
any financial future. If _you_ are upset for after "investing" a man-month of
thought and a few chats with industry bigwigs over $200 bottles of Merlot,
consider a moment the disappointment that the Scvngr team must feel when they
set aside the game they've poured their hearts into so they can get to work
building a dumb Groupon clone. Your punishment doesn't even register.

When a product goes south, the stringed instrument which plays Ave Maria for
you is limited to:

* Founders - Double Bass

* Employees - Cello

* Investors - Viola

* Paying Customers - Violin

* Everyone Else - AM radio, if you can get reception

~~~
Hisoka
I'm sorry but the attitude in your post really bothers me. Scvngr is a
business, if you give them money, you expect to receive the services you
promise - case closed. Customers don't care if you're short on cash, stressed
out, overworked, or yo-yoing between missions statements and projects. As a
customer, I shouldn't care one single bit how the Scnvgr team feels (as a
programmer, yes I have empathy, but not as a customer).

~~~
stickfigure
There's no indication in the original article that they gave Scvngr any money.
From all appearances, the OP only qualifies as "Everyone Else".

------
seto28
Given that Napa is so close to the bay area, it might have made more sense to
partner with a local company from YC etc. than one on the east coast.

~~~
jsavimbi
To be fair to the Scavngr folks, inexperienced self-flattering wankers that
they are, I don't think it would've made any difference whom these people
chose as a technology provider as it is evident that Vintank lacks the basic
clarity required to a) identify and understand current or future trends in the
market and b) they can't even keep a fucking blog afloat, a pretty basic task
that should've been learned after a three-year history of ... what it is these
people do again? A digital think tank for the wine industry? Obviously not a
work tank. Because that would entail actually having a skill.

I cannot speculate what caused them to chose Scavngr over any other service,
what type of agreement, if any, that they had in place with them, nor how they
were going to measure results if any were to be produced. I also cannot name
the particular strain of toxoplasmosis that would cause someone to believe
that a company whose business model depends on mass adoption would somehow see
that restricting a subset of functionality to a particular industry segment
would be financially beneficial to them. The person who wrote this so-called
review is ignorant, uninformed and unqualified.

Scavngr isn't dedicating any resources to these types of products because
there is no market for it. It's as simple as that and their board has told
them to spend their money in another direction. Sorry, you lose.

~~~
pmabray
Wow, you don't know us at all. Thanks for your responses although they lacked
in any understanding or research. If you had dug deeper you might have noticed
that we have all been successful and we are both a work tank and a think tank.
We have one of the most prestigious clients lists of any digital agency and a
PROVEN track record for success.

To answer your statement:

A - We have led the industry for years as an innovator and we are recognized
for seeing the future (and present) time and time again. At the time Scvngr
seemed like the right bet. B - We had a server error. Do you need to really
troll like this?

Napa Valley has the most tourism in CA next to Disneyland and generate a
tremendous amount of income. This valley (and other wine destinations)
represents an incredible opportunity for the right LBS company. I think it is
less about the opportunity than it is about the focus of Scvngr changing from
their app to thelevelup.com.

PS - you spelled Scvngr wrong.

~~~
jsavimbi
Call and position yourself however you'd like. You're a social media
consultant in an industry experiencing 25% growth over the past decade. You're
riding the coattails of an artificially segmented industry that produces a
drug that has sold itself with little to no branding for thousands of years
and whose major players are trying to grab as much market share as they can
before people tire of snooty enoteca employees and they stop overpaying for
labels they know nothing about. Anyone can be successful when people are
throwing money at you, Paul.

And yet you fail to understand a basic point:

Scvngr isn't playing their little games any more because there's no money in
it.

And you don't understand the technology industry. One look at Scvngr's about
page would've clued you in.

------
Alex3917
"We really believed in them and made a rare mistake betting on their horse.
The net net is that we picked a 'dog.'"

The real mistake was betting on game mechanics without understanding the
underlying psychological principles. The vast majority of 'game mechanics'
startups are con artists, and without understanding the academic research on
motivational psychology you're just giving your money away.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
How in the world is any normal person going to be able to really "understand
the underlying psychological principals"? That is really akin to saying you
shouldn't buy software without understanding the underlying architecture and
design principals.

------
pmabray
Sorry for our site being down - service error from our provider. It is back up
now.

Paul Mabray VinTank

------
ideadude
Server is back up. Be gentle ;)

Jason coleman, stranger studios, winelog

------
vintank
Just wanted to let everyone know that the site is up and you can view the post
at [http://www.vintank.com/2011/06/why-we-abandoned-scvngr-
and-y...](http://www.vintank.com/2011/06/why-we-abandoned-scvngr-and-you-
should-too/)

------
parfe
Was vintank a customer? Were they paying for any services?

Edit: the blog comments feel like Astroturf.

Edit 2: submitter looks like a sock puppet account.

~~~
thesausageking
Abe Froman here. I'm no puppet. I've had this account for a while and had
never heard of these guys before I saw this post (I don't even drink wine).
With all of the hyperbole and big money around companies like scvgr I
thoughtit was interesting to hear theother side

~~~
parfe
Ferris Bueller's Age Froman? Your account hasn't been around for a while. It's
7 days old.

