From 2014 to 2017, Juicero collected a whopping $120 million in funding from venture capitalists. The company then applied “the Silicon Valley formula” to its product, a juice dispenser. They made a sleek-looking machine that pressed juice made of fresh, local ingredients from specifically designed and verified packets. They charged $400 for that machine. They launched exclusively in California and only sold to customers via a subscription model. And a few months later, they shut down and failed.
It was a rare but gratifying example of Silicon Valley cutting its teeth on common sense—because there were so many obvious flaws in the product, an eight-year-old could have told you it wouldn’t work.
The dispenser couldn’t actually make juice out of fruits or vegetables you bought at the store. It had to be the packets. Those packets were not just expensive, they also expired after only seven days. And once they did, the machine wouldn’t press them. Oh, and to check that it shouldn’t press the bag, the Juicero Press had to be hooked up to the internet, too. No wi-fi, no party. But what ultimately did them in was a one-minute video from Bloomberg: A reporter pressed the bags by hand, and voilà, the juice still came out just fine. In fact, it was probably faster than using the machine. Less than five months after that video, Juicero announced they were quitting.
Just because something has millions, sometimes billions, of dollars behind it, that does not make it genius, useful, necessary, or even relevant. It can be billion-dollar bullshit. Don’t be impressed too easily—and whatever you buy into, make sure the juice is worth the squeeze.
