What I got wrong about Quibi

A post-mortem for a failed prediction, and a failed startup

19

đź”’ This is a preview of a Divinations Premium post!

Back in March, a few weeks before Quibi launched, I decided to write an essay that would make the bull case for the service. I hadn’t used the product yet or watched any of the content. I had the same feeling everyone else did that something was weird about a company raising nearly $2b before launch. But, the more I researched Quibi and thought through their strategy, the more excited I got. So I decided to go out on a limb.

After about a month, I began to realize I may have been wrong. Soon after, the New York Times published an interview with Jeffrey Katzenberg, blaming everything on the pandemic. I posted a thread for readers to share their theories of why Quibi’s strategy wasn’t working as expected. It was actually quite awesome. Quibi’s CPO, Tom Conrad, even chimed in!

Then, gradually, Quibi receded from my focus. Until today. 

So — what happened? Why did Quibi fail, and what did I get wrong in my original analysis?


To keep reading this article, you need to become a Divinations Premium subscriber through the Everything bundle. It’s $20 per month, or, if you think you’ll stick around for a year and you’d like to save $40, you can pay $200 per year.

What you get when you become a Divinations Premium member through the Everything bundle:

  1. My series of essays distilling Michael Porter’s ideas. If you don’t know Porter, he’s the HBR professor that created the foundation for modern strategy in the 80’s, and his ideas remain essential today.
  2. My series of essays distilling Clayton Christensen’s ideas. You’ve probably head of “disruption,” but how deeply do you know it? And have you dug into his other, more interesting idea: “the theory of conservation of modularity”? Christensen’s work is often misrepresented, but is critical for any founder or investor to know.
  3. Divinations original frameworks, like this essay, and others, such as “kernel strategies,” which explains the shape that all good startup strategies must take.
  4. Everything else in the bundle, including great stuff from Superorganizers (on productivity), Napkin Math (on investing), Praxis (from the inimitable mind of Tiago Forte), and Means of Creation (a talk show featuring Li Jin and myself on the passion economy). And we’re adding new stuff all the time! Just last week we launched Almanack, by Nat Eliason, which promises to help you get more healthy, wealthy, and wise.

PS — If you can’t afford a subscription for any reason, please email me and we’ll work something out!

Comments

You need to login before you can comment.
Don't have an account? Sign up!
Every

What Comes Next in Tech

Subscribe to get new ideas about the future of business, technology, and the self—every day