Quibi, the Humane AI Pin, and Juicero all spent huge amounts of money launching products without fully testing whether people actually wanted them. Each probably could have tested its biggest assumption much more cheaply.
Quibi
We believe people will pay $5/month for premium short-form videos instead of watching free content on YouTube or TikTok.
To verify, we will release 10 short episodes with a free trial and a paywall.
And measure how many viewers become paying subscribers.
We are right if at least 10% convert.
Humane AI Pin
We believe people would rather use a wearable AI assistant than their phones for everyday tasks.
To verify, we will give 20 people a basic prototype to use for two weeks.
And measure how often they choose it over their phones.
We are right if at least 15 use it daily and prefer it for three recurring tasks.
Juicero
We believe people will pay $400 for a machine that squeezes juice packets, even when they can squeeze them by hand.
To verify, we will demonstrate both methods to 100 people and offer preorders.
And measure how many people put down a $50 deposit.
We are right if at least 20 people preorder.
It was hard to find how much they tested these assumptions and actually did this before spending millions of dollars developing the product, but I’m assuming that they could have done a lot more to validate before launching.
