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Silicon Valley's $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg report: One of the most lavishly funded gadget startups in Silicon Valley last year was Juicero Inc. It makes a juice machine. The product was an unlikely pick for top technology investors, but they were drawn to the idea of an internet-connected device that transforms single-serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables into a refreshing and healthy beverage. Doug Evans, the company's founder, would compare himself with Steve Jobs in his pursuit of juicing perfection. He declared that his juice press wields four tons of force -- "enough to lift two Teslas," he said. Google's venture capital arm and other backers poured about $120 million into the startup. Juicero sells the machine for $400, plus the cost of individual juice packs delivered weekly. But after the product hit the market, some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands. Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it.
Here I thought you would stick fruit containers in it, and it would pulp them up. But using bags of... juice? Did no one along the line wonder what the device was actually for?
It is so simple (and I'm guessing more economical) to go to the grocery store and get some veggies and/or fruits and throw down a regular juicer.
Hell, I have a Breville multi-speed one for about $200....why would someone buy a $400 machine that requires you to buy prepackaged produce to be squeezed out of it...?
How did so many people think this was a bright idea?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
... some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands. Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Back in the old days. a pair of HP engineers put in purchase order for a Saturn V rocket launcher and it got all the way to VP before it got cancel. These days you can combine a toaster with an iPhone, call it iToast, and no one will think twice about throwing money at it.
It's not a juicer if it doesn't even make juice. All it's doing is squeezing already made juice out of a fancy bag. So if anything, it is a $400 (after the price drop, looks like it was originally $700) juice dispenser, not juicer. Looking at the photos in the article, it looks like what we would have if CapriSun was made by Apple.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
This article and the recent ones about Tilt makes me thing that these "investors" decide where to invest almost entirely based on how dynamic and likable the pitchman is, nothing else.
As for this juicer, you can buy frozen fruit at Costco and juice or make smoothies for pennies on the dollar of this product. But too any good juice or smoothie is just too sweet to be healthy in the first place. Another "health food" gimmick as are almost all of these diets, supplements, programs and devices.
I don't know, but it works for me.
For more durable transport and easier handling you could even offer options for putting it in cartons or jugs. Where's my $120M now?
Too many people fall for the 'jucing' meme every year, which is why shitty companies keep producing them. You want to eat healthier and be healthier? Eat whole fruits and vegetables instead. Goal attained, and you saved hundreds of dollars in the process. You're welcome.
I kind of liked home brewing. But home bottle sterilizing was a fucking bore.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Silicon Valley is one of the weirdest places you can visit on Earth.
Strange things happen when you take naive, out-of-touch leftists and then give them huge amounts of money that they didn't really earn in any meaningful way.
For example, you end up with a city like San Francisco that's supposedly "liberal" and has immense financial wealth, yet it also has the highest concentration of homeless in America. What's worse, they aren't just homeless, but they act in the most uncivilized ways possible. They urinate and defecate on sidewalks, for example, and then turn around and sleep in their own filth! There are entire districts of the city where this is a typical scene.
You end up with absurd property zoning bylaws that prevent anything resembling modern high-density development. So not only are there many homeless, but housing becomes increasingly scarce and nearly impossible to afford even for those who should be able to support themselves. It even gets to the point that highly-paid professionals, who in other cities live in very nice housing, end up living out of their vehicles.
You end up with a large number of adults who have a mentality that's comparable to that of a child. What's worse, these people somehow become CEOs and other executives at companies. They expect all sorts of unreasonable accommodation, and you shouldn't be surprised to see them crying (yes, with actual tears and pouting) if they don't get their way, or especially if somebody says something "mean" to them.
You end up with technology that's utterly asinine in its concept and execution. For example, just look at the UIs of software like Firefox and Chrome. They're total rubbish. Or you end up with devices that cost a huge amount of money for delivering very little practical value.
When visitors come to Silicon Valley, one of the first things they notice is that they're saying "What the fuck?!" to themselves constantly. The more you learn about the region and its people, the more idiotic it all seems. Things happen there that would be laughed at and ridiculed everywhere else, yet these things are considered perfectly normal by the local inhabitants, despite how much stupidity and idiocy is often involved.
Silicon Valley is all about "What the fuck?!"
My grandmother kept her juice cups next to her moonshine. Respectable people don't swig from the bottle.
Uh, your juicer obviously isn't internet connected, duh. How else can you use their IoT app to start the juicer, automatically request shipments for more overpriced veggie/fruit bags (with DRM in the future I'm sure, (
Kuerig anyone?), and make needless automated social media posts about your healthy juicing/nutrition with embedded advertisements. Oh boy.
I'm sure they also have plans to link with a select for exercise apps/smartwatch apps to import your juice bag data to track your diet and make you feel like you're a super hero.
what exactly is the purpose of this "juicer"?
Provide a gravy train of free investor money for a select few at the head of the operation. Duh.
I confess, I RTFA.
Bags are $5-$8 and produce about 8 fluid ounces of juice. There are a lot of chumps in the world, but this is just pushing stupid a few steps too far. Even the special kind of 'stupid' that comes from lack of meat in the diet won't fall for this crap (outside LA anyhow).
The company obviously doesn't understand it's own business model. They are now only selling the bags to known machine purchasers. Apparently to stop 'hand squeezers'. Would HP refuse you printer ink because you hadn't registered your inkjet?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Dumbass investors saw this as a Kuerig for vegans. A new device that accomplishes the goal of selling the most amount of cheap material crap to people at a exorbitantly marked up price, with a potentially successful marketing message of a "better way".
Somehow people bought heavily into the concept of Kuerig, even though you have had small (even single) serving coffee machines for decades and decades. But no, now you can buy a wasteful and expensive single serving cup that you drop in and there's a water tank and a pump that will eventually fail too, all for the low price of 5-10 small, simple, almost never failing, thermosiphon drip coffee maker. Oh and you get to pay tons more for your easy to use coffee cups now too! Yay!
A lot of people seem to think their lives get better as they acquire more technology. Doesn't matter what it is. If it has a button and a screen and it does something that didn't have a screen before, its better. Now it even has the internet so it can do... even more things or something.
TL;DR Why? Because stupidly blind and wasteful consumerism.
It puts a smile on my face to see such an expensive shit device like this fail so hard.
I thought to make them healthy you were supposed to add rum
Consider this quote from TFA: "Tech blogs have dubbed it a 'Keurig for juice.'" Then consider how Keurig machines and the coffee pods they use have sold over the past few years. Nobody ever went broke overestimating people's laziness.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Not only internet connected, but the founder managed to conjure up the ghost of Steve Jobs and inject "Tesla" into his public statements, even though neither has anything to do with a juice squeezer.
That's why I started kegging after a couple or three years. Sanitizing the bottles wasn't too bad (a trip through the dishwasher would suffice, either with heated drying or (if available) the sanitizing option enabled), but it's much easier and faster to fill one keg than 50+ bottles. You can also dry-hop in a keg.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
BUT, now you have the power to lift your TWO Teslas!
It's sold primarily to companies with many employees. If your office has a kitchen where lots of employees mingle, getting coffee and using the refrigerator and so on, you are their market. The idea is that companies that can afford to spend money on "wellness" for their employees will be willing to spend 5-8$ a bag to keep them happy. It's an office perk, like a fancy coffee machine.
Whether that is a valid business model or not, I have no idea.
But their juice is quite tasty. I'd recommend it if that's your thing.
Per the article: $5-$8 per bag. 8 oz juice/bag.
Your office manager has to be a special kind of stupid. All costs are opportunity costs, you could have an 'endless' bowl of fresh fruit and a weekly keg of good beer in the office for less. I'd be bitching about wasting bene money on overpriced crap.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I read the article. The packets are moronically expensive, but there's a sucker born every minutes. At the same time, while, on the whole, it may be cheaper to do it yourself, if you don't use your juicer a lot then it may be more expensive in the long run when you have to buy many different ingredients that don't last that long. It all depends on how much you use it. Like any recipe, if I don't cook a lot, then I often need to buy a bunch of ingredients that other cooks might take for granted - certain uncommon spices, for example, that end up costing me several dollars for the bottle when I only use it once because I don't cook that much. Suddenly it would have been cheaper to go out or buy it ready made.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Which reminds me --- Coca Cola pulled out of the Cold Drink effort with Keurig. After product launch it all tanked. --- again they forgot to test the market. Nobody wanted to pay a big price for the machine, have it occupy counter space, and then fork over about the same money as a can of soda costs.
oh- and everyone is getting wise to health and sugar -- and that they should drink less soda.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
So sure, having just a "regular" juicer not only gives you a lot more options, but it's healthier and you get fresher fruits and vegetables in your juices
Fruit juice isn't healthy. It's basically all of the sugar from the fruit with none of the fibre to slow down absorption.
Eat the fruit instead. The fruit as a whole is good for you, the extracted sugar, not so much.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
I don't know which is worse: that a company exists that thinks there are people stupid enough to pay ten times what this thing is worth, or that that there are enough stupid people in the country that will pay that outrageous price to support such a company.
With my $40 blender, I can make a frosty, 40-ounce Organic slushy by adding ice and about $3.00 worth of Organic fruits and vegetables. That's about sixty cents for an 8-ounce glass of a tasty, healthy snack in drink form.
Which no one would eat. No one in an office eats fruit from a fruit basket. It just doesn't happen. I dunno why, but if you put a bowl of bananas or apples on the table in the office kitchen, chances are it will still be there, untouched a week later.
I don't know what the actual cost of those bags are to us; I suspect that the price drops if you order in bulk or have a contract over time. We do go through a lot of them. I think we were one of the early adopters, so we may have gotten some sort of deal there too; I should ask our HR person.
Look, its a perk. Some companies spend extra money for employees on massages, coffee, beer, or soda. We spend it on a juicer. :-)
Because the kale is fresh; I just bought it this morning too from a local corner store, and I shop there daily so I know when they get in fresh veggies. Do you have something against kale? Are you a kale-hater? A kaleophobe, if you will? Are you antikale? A misakaleopic person, mind you?
those Tech Billionaires must have thought "yeah I'd drop $400 on this" but forgot to test the market
No, they thought "Yeah, I'd drop $699 on this.".
$399 is the "Oh shit, no one is buying these", fire sale price.
Make the machine cheap and sell the consumables above cost.
That's a terrible use case. A better solution to that iron problem is for the iron to just turn itself off once it has sensed that nobody's moved it for 15 minutes or so.
At the same time, while, on the whole, it may be cheaper to do it yourself, if you don't use your juicer a lot then it may be more expensive in the long run when you have to buy many different ingredients that don't last that long.
No, the point is that it's $400 cheaper, with exactly the same results, if you don't buy the juicer at all. Also: No, you could use a standard juicer and throw away half your ingredients (probably much more than that), and it would still be cheaper than $5/eight ounces.
There's a convenience cost, and for the people willing to pay it that second point is less important, but the first point is the mark of a scam - this product is unnecessary.
But that's not all!
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Are you ready to start juicing your way to a healthier, more active lifestyle? Are you ready to lose weight and enjoy the health benefits that will come with daily use of the Juice-a-Matic 9000? Are you ready for your kids to be excited by drinking delicious, healthy fruit and vegetable smoothies? If you are, call the number on your screen now, and get ready to live your life the Juice-a-Matic way! Operators are standing by.