
The Rise and Fall of Quirky: The Startup That Bet on the Genius of Regular Folk - nols
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/they-were-quirky.html#
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sjs382
If the customer service experience was anything like what it was pre-pivot,
I'm not surprised they failed.

When they were going out of business/pivoting, I ordered a bunch of their
inventory at a large discount. One week after the "expected arrival date" (and
14 days after my order), surprised that my order hadn't arrived, I emailed
them asking for a tracking number. They told me that it was waiting for the
carrier to pick up the order and that I would get a tracking number that day.
Every two days, repeat the same thing. Promises, no tracking number. Finally,
5 weeks after the order was completed, I received a tracking number.

Terrible experience, for what amounted to a bunch of (fun) junk.

~~~
Ologn
Less than a year ago, Quirky announced a "hackathon" where people could come
to their office and hack on their products. We had to sign an NDA before
attending. I went, as did several dozen others - most of the attendees being
programmers.

We arrived, in the midst of a massive downpour of rain, and had to stand in
their hallway for about 15 minutes. Then they told us that the hackathon had
been cancelled, but they would try to throw together a little presentation for
us.

So what I know of Quirky is this - they announce a hackathon so programmers
can try their products, then cancel it that day. They take this person's money
for some merchandise, then ship it out weeks after it is expected. Now we
learn, without much surprise, that the company is failing.

This goes along with another point which I've come to believe from my
experiences over the years - that a company that just does its job is already
ahead of a significant number of its competitors. Just do what you say you'll
do - and you're already way ahead. If you announce a hackathon so programmers
can try your products - don't cancel it the same day. If you take someone's
money to ship merchandise out - don't ship it five weeks after they expect it.

I called a medium-sized server colocation facility in New York in 1998,
because our company was interested in hosting a cage with server racks there.
I called the sales team and did not get a call back that day, nor the next
day, nor the next day. I also called a number of other colocation facilities,
all of which got back to me, and one of which we chose and gave however many
thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a month to. About a month after I
made the initial call, and a few days after we had made our selection and were
closing a deal with one of their competitors, the unreachable colo company
calls me back up finally. I told them we had already selected a competitor and
they hung up. Then a few months later they called back and asked if we needed
colo space. I said we already had our machines elsewhere and were happy with
their competitor. Then they called again a few months later, really laying on
the thick sales talk and pot sweeteners.

Just call me back in the first place! If they had called me back the next day,
or the next week, we very may well have given them the contract for tens of
thousands. If you get a hot lead (we called them), because we want to sign a
contract giving your company tens of thousands of dollars a month - just call
us back! By the next day, or at least within a few days. Amazingly, some
companies don't do this. Not surprisingly, the company which did this went
bankrupt in early 2002.

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strictnein
Worked at a major retailer. Quirky would bring their products through to show
us and the universal reaction was:

1\. WTF?

2\. The MSRP is what?!?

I mean, an $80 egg minder tray that talks to my cell phone?

~~~
petra
I agree. Just out of curiosity ,at what price the egg minder will sell well
(if possible) ?

~~~
Agustus
Whatever you see on the store shelves 60% goes to the store, 40% goes to the
manufacturer as a starting point; you can of course negotiate, but just assume
this. You could back track from the egg minder being $80 and people who are
shocked to find this out when they need a certain cost to cover costs,
estimate that it was $32 originally to make a profit; still not going to work.

The key concept is to look in stores to find what product category you fit
into. Are you selling a timer, what does another timer look like and cost,
that's your target. If there is not a comparable item, then look to see what
item has a similar finish, does it look like an Apple Watch or a $5 egg timer.
Egg timer is $5 at Wal-Mart, start poking around that price.

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ingsoc79
> The Startup That Bet on the Genius of Regular Folk

Well there’s your problem!

~~~
rosege
exactly! Guess they weren't George Carlin fans

------
westtimothy
Quirky was also the startup that tried to sue somebody over a rehash of a
100-year old patent:

[https://blog.adafruit.com/2015/06/14/quirky-sues-oxo-for-
pat...](https://blog.adafruit.com/2015/06/14/quirky-sues-oxo-for-patent-
infringement-case-settled-quirky-vs-oxo-invalidating-patents-from-
crowdsourcing-ideas-posting-videos/)

------
WalterBright
I looked at a couple of the referenced products, the air conditioner and the
wireless speakers, and they reminded me of the same kind of stuff that the
airplane shopping catalog sells.

~~~
jkestner
Friend, you just described most of the Internet of Things.

~~~
shas3
This theme appears in a recent New York Times article:
www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/sunday/allison-arieff-the-internet-of-way-
too-many-things

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ChuckMcM
This is kind of sad for me to read. I realized it was always a long shot but
it is certainly appealing to encourage the creativity to flow. Given that
their failure was that they green lighted too many products that never went
anywhere, I'm wondering if there is a way to fix that aspect of the problem?
Sort of an MVP version of a product before full production.

~~~
mdorazio
I think the problem is a bit more complex than that. Anyone with an idea that
actually has real market potential is probably going to want more than 10% of
the profit. And with Kickstarter/Indiegogo generating millions of dollars in
idea funding, it's a lot easier these days to build a product yourself. In
order for this kind of platform to work financially, you would probably have
to alter the model so that 1) inventors can get out of it as much as they put
in, 2) it only promotes products that can actually make it in the market at a
realistic price, and 3) it doesn't depend on a black box of expensive
engineers and product people.

Something more like a rapid fab company to prototype possible products and vet
them with the community, probably integrated with a crowd interest platform
like Kickstarter.

------
WalterBright
If somebody wants to make money, consider my problem: under my desk is a rat's
nest of wires of every sort, hooking all the crap together.

I'd like my workstation to look like the advertisement photos, where there's
no wire in sight.

I cleared a bit of it up by switching to a wireless keyboard and mouse. But
there's a long way to go. How about a wireless connection for my monitor? (I
know the bandwidth is an issue for the video, but there's an audio cable,
too.) How about a wireless USB connection?

~~~
maratd
The answer isn't to make everything wireless. It's to go to Home Depot, buy a
dollar's worth of cable ties, bend over, and clean it up.

Funny enough, this is a stark lesson for why Quirky failed. They made exactly
the sort of thing you asked for and nobody wanted it.

~~~
WalterBright
Zip ties still wind up with wires running across my desk, and they have the
unfortunate side effect of nailing everything in place with railroad spikes.

I have a similar problem with my stereo. Once you've got all those random
pieces of equipment hooked up (Roku, Blu-ray, cable box, VCR, turntable, iPod,
preamp) you've got a snarl of epic proportions.

Heck, just the turntable needs 4 cables. It's madness.

~~~
nols
Most people use velcro instead of zip ties nowadays, you can some for sale
right next to all the A/V wires

