
Goodbye to Grommet - Brett_S
https://julespieri.com/2020/07/13/goodbye-to-grommet/
======
vosper
> No one had heard of brands like SodaStream, Fitbit, OtterBox, PopSockets,
> S’well, Bombas, SimpliSafe and Mrs. Meyers when we embraced and launched
> them.

I'm a little confused, it sounds like they're taking credit for SodaStream, a
company that's more than 100 years old and has been in homes for decades [0]?
And Fitbit was only a success because of these people?

Or am I just misunderstanding what they're trying to say here?

[0] Aside: SodaStream is surely ripe for disruption. Home fizzy water is
great. Their margin on a tiny bit of CO2 gas must be enormous, surely they're
laughing all the way to the bank. How have they maintained their virtual
monopoly for so long?

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
Re: sodastream I do agree, and I don't particularly like their product. The
profit margins of selling canned soda water are incredibly high. Sodastream
has managed a virtual monopoly because they appear to have undercut that
margin substantially (in that it is much cheaper to do yourself at home than
buy soda) and have a very wide distribution network. There's a spot to swap
canisters in the small hardware store down the block.

If you were to create a competitor, what would your differentiator be?
Cheaper? Good luck, it's already pretty cheap. They're just not worth
competing with, it seems.

~~~
schwartzworld
There already is a competitor. It doesn't take a ton of expertise to attach a
regulator and carbonation cap to a co2 tank. Doing it this way, it costs me
$20 to get the tank filled, and I can use regular soda bottles.

------
2020-07-17
I was involved in e-commerce when The Grommet came about and they have a lot
to be proud of. That said, the reason for things ending with the founders
losing control is that they took a lot of money and then didn't live up to
expectations.

Put more directly, they never held their own against Kickstarter, IndieGogo,
or Etsy.

Their investor/owners went from Rakuten (the Amazon of Japan) to Ace Hardware.
The latter probably thinks of The Grommet as a way to use quirky products to
get people into physical stores. At that point the founders probably want out
more than they are letting on.

~~~
js2
So they stuck some end-caps in Ace stores and put a section on its website and
for that gave up a majority share?

[https://www.acehardware.com/grommet](https://www.acehardware.com/grommet)

What was Ace Hardware expecting out of this deal?

Aside: my local Ace is frustrating more often than not. I go there because
it's a mile away, but the inventory is so small that at least half the time I
can't find what I need and end up driving the extra 15 minutes to the big box
hardware store.

This Ace also has a small section devoted to pet supplies, but there again,
it's often too small to be useful. An example: we adopted a dog last year and
I wanted to get a name tag right away. PetSmart has kiosks that print these
on-demand. The Ace store does not.

Their employees are also no longer the experts that Ace stores were once
staffed by. I'm lucky if they even know their inventory. Meanwhile at HD, I
can usually find someone with plumbing experience in the plumbing section,
electrician experience in electrical, etc. Not always, but so far I'm batting
0% at Ace.

------
kitd
_No one had heard of brands like SodaStream, ..._

Huh? They've been around for decades.

------
Brett_S
An positive example of how passionate founders operated to serve both
shareholders and the wider community comes to an unexpected end.

------
delduca
I thought that was this "grommet"[1]

1 - [https://v2.grommet.io](https://v2.grommet.io)

~~~
jimmaswell
All I could think of was Wallace and Gromit.

