So many of these startups seem to have fragile, non-strategic products to get these valuations. I don't understand how they get funded in the first place. Hopefully my first jaded thought is further from the truth than I suspect it is, which is some college grad whose dad is plugged in gets his weak idea funded. Or maybe the far uglier truth is that venture actually has that much money to flat out waste.
I saw the CEO of Quixey give a talk when it was blowing up and was blown away by how little he understood the technology or the market behind his product. I dug a little deeper, perplexed at how Quixey raised so much money, and was extremely underwhelmed by everything. I followed it every few months till it collapsed and it really did seem like watching a disaster unravel
The issue is not that these startups fail; the whole idea is that most startups will fail. It's how much easy money they take with them. It should not require $59M to learn that delivering expensive food at a loss is a poor business idea.<p>The easy money in tech right now is harmful, as it crowds out actual innovation. But I don't see it getting better anytime soon.
I think the “problem” here isn’t one big problem with a single process (VCs throwing money on bad ideas), but rather a combination of issues that together result in so much failure.<p>There’s a lot of venture money out there, and like some other comments mentioned it needs to _do_ something - and that’s good. We as founders and consumers want to see that money do something. But...<p>It needs to do something meaningful. I believe that responsibility lies in the hands of those that give it. Bad ideas are merely potential opportunities, but bad business plans, founders with short term vision, and lack of discipline make this into a real problem.<p>So many companies can prove their model without big money. Yet, because investors are hoping for a home run those founders jump right into the deep end.<p>I don’t want to say getting money needs to be harder, because ultimately that could slow down innovation. I do however believe investors need to raise the bar for founders.
“This is a sad time for Beepi and everyone involved. We set out on an ambitious mission to build a massive company and radically transform a decades-old industry, and stopped well short of the goal line. We take full responsibility for that." -Former Beepi CEO<p>You can't help but feel bad for these guys. You know they must have poured their heart and soul into these companies. I guess that's corporate Darwinism for you though.
>Yik Yak - the anonymous social media app that was at the center of several college harassment scandals - announced its closure on April 28, after struggling to keep users on its platform.<p>YikYak was very popular at my univeristy back in 2014. What replaced it? Or has anonymous social media fallen out of favor all together?
It seems like most of these could potentially have been viable products, but none of them were ever going to be huge businesses making billions a year.<p>Why isn't a niche product making people wealthy seen as good enough anymore?
1. Too bad about maple.<p>2. I fear Blind will go the way of Yik Yak. A lot of rude behavior on it.<p>3. I'm not a fan of wearable devices. I suspect people enjoy collecting health gadgets more than actually getting healthier. I also found a Jawbone speaker in the gym and couldn't figure out how to get it to work with my iPhone. But that's probably my fault :P