Entrepreneurship · Silicon Valley
Yesterday, Bloomberg published a story about Juicero, a hot Silicon Valley startup adored by VCs. Juicero, which some tech blogs call the Keurig for juice, is a $400 Internet-connected machine that turns chopped fruits and vegetables into packets of juice. The company has about $120m in funding. Sounds promising? Well hold on a second. Some investors and the public have figured out that you can create the juice by simply squeezing the bags of chopped food — no $400 machine required. This smacks of investors not doing their due diligence. Is this a problem of investors feeling that if they would use a product, then everyone else will as well?
I think it's about the thinking of Investors. Maybe the man that come up with this idea manipulate investors mind on some points ?
On the other hand... Juicero's business model is probably not based on selling the $400 machine. This looks like a classic razor and razor-blade business. All the profit is in the razor-blades (in this case packets of chopped produce, in keurig's case the K-cups). If someone wants to skip the $400 machine and just buy case after case of produce packets, I bet Juicero would be fine with that.
My question is whether perishable produce can really be chopped, packed, and shipped in packets that won't spoil quickly? Strawberries and roasted coffee beans are two very different things.
Hmmm. this reminds me a little of http://somabar.com/
If they want to waste their money that is their business- the gizm inventor is the smart guy- VC is survival of the most clever
There is no problem here- the startup raised million on a worthless item- they sold the Emperor's new Clothes- and the had willing buyers, They did a cursory DD -but they LIKED that space - emotion trumps logic every time.
Maybe, but this is an outlier. The motive for many VCs was that Alphabet was an early investor. If Google likes it, how can that be a bad thing. Well, like this.