Quirky has filed for bankruptcy
quirky.com
quirky.com
I just think the wisdom of the crowd can't replace that deep domain knowledge, but I might have been biased against Quirky from the beginning: I met the team at TED years ago, before they were Quirky -- I think they were called 'Kluster' at the time. They were trying to transition from being a hardware startup that made ipod/iphone accessories to a 'crowd-sourced idea marketplace' or something. But their most impressive employee was leaving, because they couldn't find a role for him through the transition, and clearly weren't doing anything to retain him (ironically, he was a hardware guy... would've been helpful in the transition to Quirky).
So I guess I see this as a morality tale about recognizing and retaining talent more than anything.
I think what I'll miss most about it was scrolling through the list of inventions and marveling at the incredible amount of variance between seemingly good ideas, and the heaping mass of ridiculous ideas. Even though I loved picking apart ideas that I thought were completely implausible, the very fact that people were putting the time into designing and fighting for their inventions was something I loved. I honestly didn't follow the company during the last few years, and I can't say I'm completely surprised that they reached this point, but it will always have a special place in my heart for enabling the creative side of many people.
Quirky's whole concept (or my interpretation/critique) was that there was that idea generation needed to be scaled. But in practice, ideas were easy, particular by those industrial designers and wannabe designers, especially for cord management solutions...
The truth is, they were crowdsourcing the easiest part - the idea - and taking on all the risk themselves by bringing a bunch of 'inventions' to market, few of which were particularly revolutionary.
On the positive side, the site is fully responsive and loads fast.
Currently doesn't load at all, actually. Oh well.
(Innovations Catalogue in the UK.)
For those who were tragically born too late, a taste:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/majestically-useless-items...
And for a more recent update: http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/24/8488531/quirky-invention-p...
tl;dr An online community for inventors to brainstorm and pitch ideas they have. The entire community helps refine the idea (name, marketing slogan, features) - and then Quirky picks a few at a time to bring to market (manufacturing, distribution).
That number is absolutely staggering. I would love to see what their internal product development was like.
They were also very effective at separating the Schenectady NY economic development agency from a lot of money!
Perhaps that speaks to my mom's taste in gifts. But I suspect that the real problem is that Quirky offered expensive products for solving trivial problems. None of the items I received solved any pressing needs in my life.
For something like Quirky to succeed, it probably needs to use crowd-sourcing to identify a few A+ ideas for products and then manufacture them at a scale sufficient to make prices competitive. Instead, it seemed to offer a ton of different cute, kinda useful items.
That doesn't seem like a business model destined to take over the world.
http://www.amazon.com/Quirky-Egg-Minder-Enabled-Smart/dp/B00...
One product was a spray cap mounted on a spike, which you were supposed to insert into citrus fruits so that you could spritz things with them.
Another was a silicone cap for placing over citrus after you slice it in half so that the remaining fruit would stay fresher.
There was a square block that you could insert the top of a wine bottle into, so the bottle would not roll when stored on its side.
The only product I actually use is an octopus-like hybrid between an extension chord and a power strip, which works well for providing quick access to electrical outlets all along the couch in my den.
R.I.P.
The only Quirky product I own is the Pivot Power [1][2] and that has been useful.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1609917 (back when it was new)
Ultimately Quirky failed BECAUSE they took on all the risk and shipped too many duds and not enough hits.
While it's relatively common for people to associate the word "bankruptcy" with the "we ran out of money so we need to liquidate any assets we have left and walk away from our debts" (Chapter 7) or "we can't pay our debts on time so we need a payment plan" (Chapter 13) types of bankruptcy, and it is true that 50 Cent also filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it's a bit disingenuous to say that it doesn't mean they don't have any money.
A Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a tool to protect a debtor's assets and give it time to come up with a plan to pay back its creditors: in this case, the plan proposed by Quirky is to sell off all of those assets at auction so that it can raise enough money to pay off its debt. The Chapter 11 filing is being used as a way to say to potential buyers "don't worry, these assets won't be taken from the company before the sale can close."
They are otherwise very much broke and are counting on the sale to raise the money to pay off their debts. If they can't sell quickly enough, it'll likely convert into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Here's a good overview of what's going in: http://www.frostbrowntodd.com/resources-1562.html