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No assets, superceded product development, complete abandonment of core line/retail customers and stupid overheads for a company selling no products.
They launched a niche premium product into a rapidly evolving marketplace with a feature heavy yet under preforming board with high R&D costs then pivoted to a completely new product abandoning what little customer base they initially had and sinking all their revenue into establishing production for yet another over engineered product set to launch into an already saturated market.
Shark tanks? Shifting to scooter business? No innovation in 3 years? Ridiculous small battery? US based factory? No wonder!! … Inplosion in 10, 9, 8, 7… (tic…tac…tic)
Case study for business model failures. Even huge mega corps like Coca Cola made the same mistakes that almost sent them bankrupt. Remember the ‘New Coke’. Trying to chase mirages when there was no need for it. What a shot on the foot!