Silicon Valley’s $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/silicon-valley-s-400-juicer-may-be-feeling-the-squeeze?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

by jatsign • 9 years ago

52 18 9 years ago

bloomberg.com

LostWanderer• 9 years ago

Such a bad design flaw,How come the intelligent investors pushed for this device? What are some of the red flags that one should keep in mind to avoid such issues?

Sometimes I cannot fathom the depth of laziness we have gone into,But hey.. Laziness has been the driving force for the evolution of humans

SwellJoe• 9 years ago

It reminds me of the episodes of Silicon Valley where the new CEO pushed really hard for a physical box and a licensing deal to deploy the box. There's one quote in the article that makes me think the actual tech here is the "organic fruit delivered to your home" (though I'm not sure how that's revolutionary or even novel, either), and the squeezer is a dongle they stuck on there, I guess to make it more obviously a luxury product? I'm not really sure.

To me, it just reeks of a classic Internet of Shit kind of model, where tech is imposed on a product not because it makes the product better, but because it makes the product more expensive and exclusive.

I mean, Keurig has had a ridiculously successful run doing the same basic thing: Stick a low cost commodity product into a pricey DRM-protected package and sell expensive devices to extract the commodity product from said packaging. Coffee makers have never been hard to use, and yet, somehow Keurig sells billions of K-cups. So...maybe these folks figured they'd reproduce that model, and maybe their investors believed they could do so.

baybal2• 9 years ago

Who in his right mind buys original kcups? I was buying Chinese ones since i first bought keurig set back in 2011

mpeg• 9 years ago

Except in HBO's Silicon Valley, the box (or more broadly the appliance model) was probably the right choice.

A compression product like that would be a much easier sell to enterprise if it's on-premise than as a cloud service.

pebcakID10T• 9 years ago

This is one case where the juice was not worth the squeeze.

Black-Plaid• 9 years ago

It's not a bluddy juicer, it's just a dispenser.

retrac98• 9 years ago

What a joke.

Walf• 9 years ago

If you thought Juicero was a good idea, you may be a wanker.

rcarrigan87• 9 years ago

I was under the impression the jury was still out on the overall health benefits of juicing in general. Doesn't the removal of all the fiber make drinking the juice a lot less beneficial than actually eating the fruits and veggies themselves?

lithos2• 9 years ago

At least there is less dental damage from it.

goldenkey2• 9 years ago

There can actually be more due to volatile chemicals being basted on to the teeth - the consensus is that juicing does more damage to teeth than eating the comparable veggies/fruits.

goldenkey2• 9 years ago

Juicing can actually cause liver and kidney damage due to absurdly high amounts of oxalates and other minerals that normally wouldn't be possible to get if you actually ate the original produce. In addition, juices tend to do more damage to tooth enamel despite the lack of chewing, surprisingly.

Be careful with juicing. Strong pigments, bitter tastes are warning signs for heavy hitters on the liver and kidneys.

soloadventurer• 9 years ago

I cannot upvote you enough. Juicing gives you the ability to easily consume a cup of flavored sugar water. Now throw in all the "healthy" raw kale and spinach and some seeds, and you end up with a concoction that is high in sugar, high in fructose, high on phytates, and high in oxalates.

There are reasons why our ancestors soaked, fermented, and sprouted various vegetation--to reduce the toxicity associated with consuming it raw and untreated.

gunnyguy121• 9 years ago

as far as I understand it, yes. Your going to be drinking mostly sugar without a lot of the benefits you would normally get.

Dowwie• 9 years ago

I love juicing but it requires substantial effort.

Juicing took me 20-30 minutes a day and so was unsustainable for my lifestyle. I probably went overboard with the ingredients and may have been exceeded vitamin intake requirements, though. Veggies and fruits had to be washed and cut. Parts had to be cleaned after each use. I use an auger-based omega juicer. I'd listen to a podcast to make the most of my time in the kitchen.

If I were to innovate in the juicing category, I'd begin with a produce washing machine + dryer. I don't know about you but where I buy my produce, it doesn't come cleaned and cut (Emeril reference).

johnvonneumann• 9 years ago

"He said he spent about three years building a dozen prototypes before devising Juicero’s patent-pending press. In an interview with technology website Recode, he likened his work to the invention of a mainstream personal computer by Apple’s Jobs. “There are 400 custom parts in here,” Evans told Recode. “There’s a scanner; there’s a microprocessor; there’s a wireless chip, wireless antenna.”

Honestly, this right here, is probably indicative of a lot if true. Nothing says "effective engineering culture" like custom building parts for your innovative-unicorn-10x-juicer when you can get cloned Arduino parts from China. Wankery of the highest order.

justforFranz• 9 years ago

Yay for frothy investments!

Silicon Valley’s $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze

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