RadioShack reinvents itself as a crypto platform with wild tweets | Hacker News Reader

RadioShack reinvents itself as a crypto platform with wild tweets

washingtonpost.com

39 pointsthm47 comments

This isn't Radio Shack. It's a corporate husk that was purchased for the name and is now be used to run a crypto pump and dump.

It's obviously modeled off GME. "Hey, let's buy a nostalgic company from the 80s/90s..."

This is run by Internet fake guru Tai Lopez who is known for the “here in my garage” viral video.

Guess he’s not fake anymore if he owns a huge PE firm.

Remember before the internet, those little electronic pocket books with hand-written diagrams and whatnot? Good times.

Sure do. I loved going to Radio Shack, as a kid. I still have a few screwdrivers and whatnot, purchased there with allowance money. If they were still around, I’d be still shopping there. Microcenter is not bad, and of course ebay/amzn/newegg. Still there was a kind of charm about an old RS store, with the junky stereo equipment and made-in-Taiwan-or-wherever-was-cheapest toolsets and the guys behind the counter wearing ties. A lost era.

There are a few RadioShack left, though the one near me still has the parts cabinets from years ago, most of the store is bicycles, tobacco, and cell phones now.

No vapes? Seems like a good crossover market for DIY inhalers (or whatever vape machines are called), especially if they're already comfortable selling tobacco.

Probably - I don’t partake so I don’t really pay attention.

Yah, Forrest Mims' books were a massive part of my childhood.

I owned a couple of them. Unfortunately useless for understanding electronics. It is not their fault, they were no substitute for an electronics class.

Really sad to see RadioShack reduced to this. Grew up on a Tandy Color Computer. Hate seeing RadioShacks Twitter account being dragged through the mud by a foul mouthed crypto scammer intern.

> “It’s our voice, a new voice, one for the people,” said Abel Czupor, the chief marketing officer. “RadioShack’s audience used to be only an older demographic, but as times have changed and e-commerce has taken over, the old voice of RadioShack is no longer relevant.”

Everything about this quote makes me want to throw up.

It seems as though every product, service, media, or scam is now an “empowering community”

Can get you a cult following willing to pay more.

Seems like it's all -- and only -- about brand and image. Nothing about value or risk or profit. Who buys an investment on brand alone?

> we continue to see robust interest among gaming-token start-ups, in particular. They understand that the RadioShack brand is congruent with their own play,”

It sounds like they hired a 19 year old Twitter influencer to be their Chief Marketing Officer.

To me it sounds like a 70 year old talking the way they think 19 year olds talk.

We can split the difference; a 35 year old emulating a 19 year old.

I wonder if he is indeed this person. [1] [2]

I consider it unfortunate that Radio Shack feel compelled to hire a person from an unrelated segment and are even pressurized to pivot into a space (NFTs, general "crypto") that is being viewed with skepticism (perhaps less skepticism than it deserves).

While I myself am still studying this space, I do feel that there is a significant mismatch here.

[1] https://emamo.com/event/nftnyc/r/speaker/abel-czupor

[2] https://cryptobrowser.io/people/abel-czupor/

Someone actually made a documentary about similar situation - The Rise and Fall of Ryan Howard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc35afiM2f4

https://youtu.be/sI1SLHEC98I

What's especially stupid is that the maker economy, as it's now called, is very much of interest to young people and Radio Shack totally missed the boat on that by becoming a phone store. The old Radio Shack (the one that made money) sold parts for people who wanted to build electronics. That field is hotter than ever.

I had hoped that maybe Home Depot would have swooped in at the last minute and bought up RadioShack as they're at different ends of the DIY market and could have had some good crossover opportunities. And maybe Home Depot could have created some maker spaces in their big box stores. Anyone who has had anything cut at Home Depot has likely seen the "No precision cuts" signs, but what if that was a premium service one could purchase? Laser cut plywood? Waterjet cut aluminum panels? Might not have been a market for it in every store but I'd like to think it could have worked at a couple of locations in each large metro and maybe trickled down from there.

Radio Shack missed a whole fleet of boats over the years.

I sure wish they'd hire a graphics designer to center the "R" inside the circle of their logo. It bugs the shit out of me.

I'm sure the center-left R seemed more "dynamic" or "broadcast-y" or something. It seems intentional.

It was part of the 90s revamp when they turned into a phone and remote-controlled toy store.

So it’s a meme-Ponzi-scheme-crypto-rugpull? What makes it different from all of the other ones?

Wow. Hedge fund bros run a meme company. Real cool. (Eyes roll up into skull)

Looks like they were purchased by Tai Lopez’s PE firm and pivoted to crypto (exchange + token) + edgy tweets at the height of the bubble. RIP Radio Shack.

>private equity firm Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV) purchased it in 2020

Is it public how much they paid? I couldn't find any info besides this https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201119005153/en/Ret...

This interview of Tai by Lady Ada made me wish the previously beloved brand would just be allowed to die quietly.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u8wwBIA8wMw

That was a stepping stone along the path to the crazy tweets: https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3423441/to-the-surprise-...

Wish the Shack had gone all in on the Maker stuff. I miss the old days (90s) when I could buy small quantities of components. Now I'm stuck buying the 1000 pack of 1/4W resistors in all the Ohms, and so many other things. But they come back on Crypto? Now!? Tell me your business is dead w/o saying "we're dead".

Our local RadioShack doubled down on the maker components. I go buy things from them weekly just to show they have community support. I really hope they don’t close.

Despite the statements at the start of the article, I remember at least the tail end of RadioShack and that still existed near me when I first got into electronics.

Nowadays, a lot of my project ideas die because I need some part, that I have to order and wait for shipping and by the time that happens, I've lost motivation or my mind has engaged another idea. It would be really nice to have a RadioShack or microcenter to at least pick up basic stuff, but ofc the former is basically dead and the latter has 0 presence the third largest US economy somehow.

Going to guess your local RadioShack is one of the handful of independent RadioShack dealers left. It would be a shame if they ended up dropping the RadioShack brand because the current owners of the brand find being profane as a good way of getting attention.

sparkfun and adafruit filled their niche

Reminiscent of when Long Island Iced Tea rebranded themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp

Battery of the Month Club for the win! Or was that just a Canadian thing?

I wish they would return to the electronics, corner the maker niche.

I think they tried but the overhead of physical stores and inventory was just too much to serve that small-ish market.

There’s no Radio Shack left to execute on any strategy, unfortunately; REV bought the brand, and just the brand (along with many others), and is busy burning residual goodwill in order to shill whatever crypto nonsense they’re pushing.

https://archive.ph/I8zLJ

I believe jwz coined the term "brand necrophilia" for such things.

It's a scam ran by the guy with books in his garage

You know what's even more impressive than owning radio shack? All my books....

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