Disruptive Innovations That Failed and Why

This $850M startup is now shutting down and selling assets for just $116M. Humane Inc., founded by ex-Apple execs Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, aimed to revolutionize personal technology with its AI Pin - a wearable, voice-activated assistant. But now, less than a year after its launch, the AI Pin is gone, and Humane Inc. is being sold for spare parts. So, what went wrong? Let’s break it down: 1. Bold vision, flawed execution Humane marketed the AI Pin as an "iPhone killer," but failed at product design. Slow response times, overheating issues, and an awkward user experience made it feel like a prototype. 2. A flawed pricing strategy The $699 price was high as is, but the added $24/month subscription made possible customers say “I’ll just use my phone”. 3. Skipping real-world testing Poor battery life, laggy cloud processing, and unreliable voice commands made it impractical for everyday use - issues that should’ve been caught in testing. 4. Operating like a corporation, not a startup Humane followed Apple’s “big reveal” strategy instead of iterating based on user feedback. Prioritizing design over function, they ignored early warnings and launched an unfinished product. 5. No ecosystem, no adoption Unlike Apple or Google, the AI Pin had no app store, third-party integrations, or seamless device compatibility, leaving users with a standalone gadget that didn’t fit into their workflow. 6. Burned cash without a backup plan Despite raising $230M, Humane’s high burn rate meant they needed mass adoption fast. When early reviews highlighted flaws, demand collapsed, and they had no pivot strategy. - In my 25 years building healthtech products, I've learned that big-company experience doesn't always translate to startup success. Corporate executives often struggle with the rapid iteration and lean thinking startups need to survive. What do you think was Humane's biggest mistake? #innovation #ai #startups

We've all been there - that amazing product idea that seems like a can't-miss hit. But far too often, those game-changing inventions end up failing spectacularly because of one critical oversight: not actually understanding user needs. Let's learn from some cautionary tales of failed products: 1. Google Glass: Google Glass failed to resonate with consumers due to privacy concerns and a lack of clear use cases. The product's intrusive nature and potential for surreptitious recording made people uncomfortable, while the high price point and limited functionality failed to address any specific consumer problem, leading to its downfall. Now we’ll be able to see if Apple can get it right with their headset. 2. Juicero: Juicero's expensive Wi-Fi-connected juicing machine was ridiculed for solving a non-existent problem. The device required proprietary, pre-packaged fruit pouches, but consumers quickly realized they could squeeze the pouches by hand, rendering the over-engineered and costly machine unnecessary. 3. Microsoft Zune: Microsoft's Zune struggled to compete with Apple's iPod, largely because it didn't offer a distinct advantage or address any particular customer issue. It entered a market dominated by an established competitor without a clear understanding of consumer desires, leading to its eventual discontinuation. These products missed the mark because the teams failed to deeply understand the human problems they were trying to solve. It's a trap that's easily avoided by embracing user research. User research builds empathy, mitigates risks, prevents costly misses, and ensures you're designing solutions to real problems your audience actually has. It's the critical step that separates products that flop from ones that flourish. What has been your experience with user research? I'd love to hear about other success stories, challenges faced, or lessons learned! #UserResearch #ProductDevelopment #ProductManagement #ProductInstitute

Why VC’s attempts at reinventing primary care was a misdiagnosis. If you walked through an upscale neighborhood in recent years, you may have seen a Forward Health clinic. I passed one in Cherry Creek, Denver recently. The doors were padlocked. A legal notice from the landlord demanded back rent. Not long ago, Forward was a Silicon Valley darling, valued at $1B in 2021 after raising $100M from SoftBank, Eric Schmidt, and Marc Benioff and other A-listers. Their business plan: reinvent primary care: → $150/month subscriptions → Dedicated care teams → Sleek “CarePods” with mood lighting, biosensors, and AI dashboards Everything looked futuristic. It all sounded disruptive. It wasn’t sustainable (from the start). Last November, Forward abruptly shut down, leaving employees, patients, and landlords stranded. The misdiagnosis? Primary care doesn’t need reinvention with glossy tech. Patients didn't ask for sci-fi pods. They want the basics: → Affordable, convenient access → High quality care → Bills that make sense → Importantly, doctors who listen That requires realigning our nation's providers with better payment models, and valuing prevention, not futuristic screens and $200/month memberships. Forward tried to optimize form over function. Patients didn’t hate it, they just couldn’t afford it. Outside wealthy urban hubs, the model failed to scale. Lessons from Forward’s fall: 1. Solve the Right Problem Patients care about wait times, costs, and rushed visits: not interfaces. 2. Tech Is a tool, not a strategy In healthcare, tech only matters if it reduces cost, expands access, or improves outcomes. Otherwise, it’s theater. 3. Beware the Silicon Valley fallacy SaaS playbooks don’t translate to the actual provision of healthcare. The very human demands around the supremely personal topic of healthcare don’t respond well to flashy approaches. 4. Sustainability > shine Headlines come from glossy demos (like the CarePod). Survival comes from viable economics. Double-click on typical PCP economics and you can see why Forward failed. The future of healthcare won’t be rebuilt by reinventing its look. It will be rebuilt, quietly and effectively, by solving for access, affordability, and trust. Sometimes the smartest move in business isn’t to reinvent. It’s to realign. ______________________ I'm Marc Cabrera, a former investment banker. Wall Street taught me the numbers; life taught me what really counts.

As VP of Prime Gaming at Amazon, we failed multiple times to disrupt the game platform Steam. We were at least 250x bigger, and we tried everything. But ultimately, Goliath lost. Here's why: The 15+ year long attempt to challenge Steam started before I was VP of Prime Gaming, but we never cracked the code. Not under my leadership or anyone else's. The first way we tried to enter the online-game-store market was through acquisition. We acquired Reflexive Entertainment (a small PC game store) and tried to scale it. It went nowhere. Then, after buying Twitch, we created our own PC games store. Our assumption was that gamers would naturally buy from us because they were already using Twitch. Wrong. Finally, we built "Luna," a game streaming service that let people play without a high-end PC. Around the same time, Google tried the same thing with their product "Stadia." Neither gained significant traction. The whole time, Steam dominated despite being a relatively small company (compared to Amazon and Google). The mistake was that we underestimated what made consumers use Steam. It was a store, a social network, a library, and a trophy case all in one. And it worked well. At Amazon, we assumed that size and visibility would be enough to attract customers, but we underestimated the power of existing user habits. We never validated our core assumptions before investing heavily in solutions. The truth is that gamers already had the solution to their problems, and they weren't going to switch platforms just because a new one was available. We needed to build something dramatically better, but we failed to do so. And we needed to validate our assumptions about our customers before starting to build. But we never really did that either. Just because you are big enough to build something doesn’t mean people will use it. Reflecting on these mistakes, I realize how crucial it is to deeply understand customers before making big moves. That’s why James Birchler’s guest newsletter caught my attention—his piece is a practical guide on obtaining real customer insights and using them to challenge entrenched assumptions that can hurt product success. James breaks his advice down into three key steps, illustrated with stories from his time as VP of Engineering at IMVU: 1. Talk to Real Customers Before Writing Code 2. Test Assumptions, Not Just Features 3. Build Measurement Into Your Process After explaining how he learned these lessons the hard way (getting screamed at by customers and board members), James shares action items you can implement within a week to improve how you understand your customers. I wish Amazon had followed James’ playbook before trying to take on Steam. But since we didn’t, at least you can. Read the newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gKih3Mmm Readers—what is the worst assumption you’ve made about your customers? What was the result? Who on your team would this post help?