Why some great products failed to survive on the market

And what we can learn from those failures.

With the impressive presentations on the metaverse delivered by Meta in mid-2022 and the news on massive layoffs happening at Meta at the end of the same year, we can all question what exact features make an idea successful in the market. Is it about the financial input, internal talent, perfect timing, or all these factors combined?

Just because a product fails once, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be resurrected in the future. However, in this article, I’d like to focus on products that failed or haven’t returned and what we can learn from those failures.

Segway

One of the products that failed to remain in the market is Segway. The company introduced the idea in 2001 as a perfect motorized scooter solution and an alternative to cars or bikes. Even though the product was revolutionary — at that time — it wasn’t as successful as initially expected. Roads in cities weren’t prepared for a novel means of transport that’s not a car that can use roads, nor a bike that can use dedicated paths.

Because of the lack of proper infrastructure, riding Segway in typical daily conditions, such as traffic hours or rain, wouldn’t be safe. Apart from the safety issue, could we say that Segway was even practical? The original product’s construction was too wide to allow the user to sneak between cars during traffic hours.

Considering the limited functionality of the product and its rather high price tag of $5000, the device failed to go mainstream. It showed that people didn’t feel the need to purchase such an expensive product if they couldn’t make use of it on a daily occasion. The company also got acquired in 2015 by Ninebot, a Beijing-based transportation robotics startup, and the original product was replaced with more portable devices.

Google+

Google+ is a great example showing that financial input and internal talent sometimes aren’t enough to make a product successful. The platform was first introduced in 2011 as the company’s response to Facebook. Google+ allowed users to create profiles containing details on their educational background, workplace, and hobbies. Users could also become friends with each other in the form of joining “circles,” similar to the concept of making connections on LinkedIn.

Although it was an interesting concept, at that time, it was missing a differentiating factor that would make the platform unique and convince new users to join. On the other hand, Google+ also lacked an entertaining factor that would convince users to stay.

In early 2019, roughly 8 years after the platform’s debut, Google decided to shut down the platform. As a result of this failure, we can assume that users didn’t feel the need to register to a new social media platform that offered less functionality than other platforms existing at that time, such as Facebook or MySpace.

Blackberry

Blackberry was a widely recognized mobile phone manufacturer in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Their devices were unique, and they completely changed the industry by offering phones with arched keyboards. Before touch screens, Blackberry offered a very efficient and convenient way of typing using separate keys for all letters.

A few years later, the mobile phone industry started focusing more on developing touchscreens. However, Blackberry was too afraid of experimenting and more keen to protect its existing designs. As they failed to adapt to market trends, BlackBerry’s CEO announced in 2017 that the company’s leaving the mobile phone manufacturing business.

Apple Newton

Sometimes success rate of new products is a matter of trial and error and a tactical adjustment to the market needs. The Apple Newton MessagePad series is a perfect example illustrating how a failure can lead to the introduction of new products — in this case — the iPod and iPhone. MessagePads were personal digital assistants (PDAs) equipped with handwriting recognition, which was a unique attribute at that time. The first device was introduced in 1992, many years before Apple became the most valuable tech company in the world.

Why did the Nawton series fail? The most crucial reason was the high product price. The cheapest model that you could purchase cost $700. At the same time, the product capabilities were highly limited, and Newton’s handwriting recognition was even ridiculed in one episode of the Simpsons. The product’s low success rate didn’t stop Apple from iterating, introducing new products based on their learnings, and making them a global success.

The takeaways

Success rate can’t always be guaranteed. Whether you’re investing a lot in research and development before launch date, it’s sometimes about a crucial but rather unpredictable factor — the right timing.

Another element that equally matters is leadership — a strategic leader that’s talented and bold enough to bring a product out there, invest when the time’s right, and put money into the right areas. Not every idea is successful at first, but every idea can make space for new learnings that you can apply next time. Out of ten different trials, it’s very likely that only one or two will succeed, and it’s crucial to not give up too early.

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