Jun 22, 2023·edited Jun 22, 2023Liked by Jaryd Hermann
Cool article, but what about Genry Ford citation: If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses
I think the main problem is that they tried to move too quickly and burning too much cash. It is like acquiring millions of users with nearly zero retention: you should start small and grow gradually. Low retention can burn billions of cash
I'd never heard of Quibi... I guess because they never made it across the atlantic. But totally agree with your argument that streaming services are all about the content and not the technology. Especially when you are competing with free content - some of it very high quality - on Youtube and other platforms.
Excellent post, I enjoyed it 'til the very end. Perfect length, simple and efficient structure, funny tone. From an aspiring newsletter author, congrats! 👏
Thanks for sharing. Super appreciate your ways of unpacking the fail story paired with references! I kept thinking how Quibi could compete with TikTok as soon as I understood their concept, and it was funny to see that the founders targeted the wrong competitors from the first place lol
...what was the tech bubble 1.0 equivalent of what quibi was to streaming start-up failures?...Pets.com?...the funny thing for me with quibi is that at no point did it ever appear to be a viable content product from a consumer standpoint...none of their innovations were things that people were asking for...similar to other gripings i have griped about elsewhere this was a classic example of solving a problem that didn't need solving and wasn't even a problem to begin with...innovation can sneak in the cracks of non necessity, but I'm struggling to see where that happens in content products...even lazerdisc had more value/utility...quibi's best asset might have been it's name...out of the gate it sounds like a rejected joke from silicon valley...something hooli might have even produced...one thing passed over here was also having meg whitman at the helm of a content company...a leader who doesn't even like the genre she is building in lol... https://theweek.com/speedreads/923863/quibi-ceo-admits-not-really-entertainment-enthusiast ...who would guess someone so out of touch and uninspired with their product vertical would fail at building something useful in that space?...
Cool article, but what about Genry Ford citation: If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses
I think the main problem is that they tried to move too quickly and burning too much cash. It is like acquiring millions of users with nearly zero retention: you should start small and grow gradually. Low retention can burn billions of cash
I'd never heard of Quibi... I guess because they never made it across the atlantic. But totally agree with your argument that streaming services are all about the content and not the technology. Especially when you are competing with free content - some of it very high quality - on Youtube and other platforms.
Excellent post, I enjoyed it 'til the very end. Perfect length, simple and efficient structure, funny tone. From an aspiring newsletter author, congrats! 👏
Thanks for sharing. Super appreciate your ways of unpacking the fail story paired with references! I kept thinking how Quibi could compete with TikTok as soon as I understood their concept, and it was funny to see that the founders targeted the wrong competitors from the first place lol
...what was the tech bubble 1.0 equivalent of what quibi was to streaming start-up failures?...Pets.com?...the funny thing for me with quibi is that at no point did it ever appear to be a viable content product from a consumer standpoint...none of their innovations were things that people were asking for...similar to other gripings i have griped about elsewhere this was a classic example of solving a problem that didn't need solving and wasn't even a problem to begin with...innovation can sneak in the cracks of non necessity, but I'm struggling to see where that happens in content products...even lazerdisc had more value/utility...quibi's best asset might have been it's name...out of the gate it sounds like a rejected joke from silicon valley...something hooli might have even produced...one thing passed over here was also having meg whitman at the helm of a content company...a leader who doesn't even like the genre she is building in lol... https://theweek.com/speedreads/923863/quibi-ceo-admits-not-really-entertainment-enthusiast ...who would guess someone so out of touch and uninspired with their product vertical would fail at building something useful in that space?...