So I just saw that article on the verge about inboards investors liquidating the company after the failed EScooter initiative. looks like they were going to score big in the EU for the scooter market but weren’t quite able to convince the execs.
another thing I find interesting about inboard is the fact that they used hub motors on 1 iteration of their board line, and never attempted 2 Go the external motor and belt route, or use any of the$10,000,000.00 they made to innovate that battery system.
That battery could have been the future of Esk8. The battery only got 5Mil each, but 30 seconds in and out? That’s impressive.
Just curious about your thoughts of them as a a company and as a product in the ecosystem we all have began to call home.
Well Elon Musk who have a space ship and Tesla still uses Li-ion battery’s so a small drop in the ocean inboard have no chance to “Innovate battery technology”
Looks cool, the prebuilt market is just kinda so saturated on all sides it’s not supprising even big players are folding. Not folding boards but like folding their cards… Nvm
As far as I know, they had one major software update that improved torque/hillclimbing ability. After that I never heard about Inboard 2.0 or other minor changes. Just the same thing month after month - it seems they were content to be stagnant with their innovation and development.
It was a novel product but they never advanced it’s capabilities and that is why I believe they failed. Look around, all the Chinese companies are improving at an annoyingly fast pace. A board bought from Meepo/Backfire/Wowgo is outdated in 3 months, an Inboard from 2016 wasn’t different from 2019 afaik (If they were even selling them at that point).
Failure to renovate to keep old and capture new customers. The M1 was a good board when you are comparing it to the Boosted V1 which is what it was after at the time. Their stuff deck was stable at their highest speed of 22mph if you don’t weight as much as me. The remote turns in the board was a first at the time. They were also one of the first and few with hub motors and they used Blood Orange urethane which was actually really good. But they never improved upon that formula and just kept selling the same thing for three years! People who liked the board likes the 99wh travel battery, but there’s no reason why they can’t make a larger cavity for a larger battery if/when needed.
I think the investor saw the money making potential from scooter rental and push them to do that but a little too late since laws has started getting more strict on that rent and drop off anywhere strategy.
I think they just didn’t advertise enough and realized it might be easier to go into the scooter market and get B2B customers but maybe failed in doing so. Could also be because they got money they weren’t able to do what they wanted to get more traction… maybe.
The boards were I think $999 and then they were selling them for like $599.
Sure thing, and can be done faster. I call 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out. Will give you a taste by January I guess, first the magnetic drive, Santa and my skates. Lookout for @Zach modules too. Lot of potential there, very wow, much scalable.
They gained fame as the perceived boosted alternative, raised 8m investment, made a few hundred boards and realised the money was in fleet scooters, convinced investors that it was the way to pivot, stopped stocking thier core esk8 product (literally NEVER in stock), blew 6m on r&d and tittybars, went back to investors for promised round two seed, investors asked what they had to show:
No assets, superceded product development, complete abandonment of core line/retail customers and stupid overheads for a company selling no products.
