Imagine a juicer that could change the world! Yeah, neither can I. But that didn’t stop Juicero or its founder who likened himself to Steve Jobs (Recode’s Kara Swisher). I don’t remember where I first heard about this spectacular fail, but it is definitely a good story with a very valuable lesson

Juicero, founded in 2013, offered a sleek $700 cold juice press (later repriced at $400) that pressed fruit and vegetable packets into “juice.” That’s basically it. It had a lot of hightech moving parts and components - DRM and internet connectivity. And it looked great - sort of like if Apple made a juicer. 

Google Ventures backed it as did notable VCs to the tune of $116M. There was definitely a market for pure vegan drinks, but the flaw was in the product conception. Did anyone ever ask if this product solved a problem? Nope. 

It soon became evident that people could simply squeeze the juice packets into their glass, and do it faster than the Juicero. But this was after the product had already been released. It’s easy to make fun of something that is so obvious, but I can see how it might have happened. It’s sort of like how people just went along with the notion that WeWork was a tech company, not a property leasing company.

I don’t know if Juicero ever did any user testing of their product. I can’t imagine it was terribly effective if they did. Maybe they asked all the wrong questions? Maybe the fatal flaw was in seeing themselves as a tech company, when tech was just a part of their product but not the driving innovation that could sustain a company. I’m not saying you can’t make a better juicer. But I’m also not saying there’s definitely a business case to try to either. 

I could imagine working at a place like Juicero, where people are so excited and blinded by their enthusiasm that they miss the forest for the trees. It’s definitely a cautionary tale not to lose sight of the bigger picture.