Recently I launched the Sonic Bow Tie – the first project I’ve ever designed from the start to be a product, instead of a project that turned into a product by accident. The Bow Tie is an electronic kit with a circuit board shaped and sized like a real bow tie. It’s a blinking, beeping, musical tuneable theremin-type thing you can actually wear – perfect for those nerd-centric formal occasions, or project night at the local hacker space. Following the examples of the Weevil Eye, the Simon, the Drawdio, and basically everything at ThinkGeek, it’s intended to be a fun project kit to assemble with a friend, appealing to engineers with a sense of humor. I mean who wouldn’t want a dazzling neck-based audio-visual spectacle?
Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn’t seem to agree that bow ties plus electronics is a match made in heaven. Since I launched the Sonic Bow Tie about ten days ago, it’s received zero feedback, zero interest, zero sales, zero anything. It’s enough to make me wonder – did I actually hit the “publish” button on that product announcement? Yup, I did.
This isn’t the end of the world, and my financial investment in bow tie kits is small. But what disturbs me is that something I thought would be fairly popular, or at least fairly amusing, proved to be such a complete flop. I spent many hours iterating on the circuit design and physical layout, sourcing parts, and manufacturing kits for an idea that proved to be a total non-starter. It shows that using yourself and your immediately family as a proxy for public opinion may not be the smartest idea. Meanwhile, if I don’t find more bow tie enthusiasts, I’ll be buying space in a New Mexico landfill next to all those unsold Apple Lisas and E.T. cartridges. Live and learn!
Do you have any good product failure stories you’re willing to share? Post ‘em here and make me feel better. 