Ainda acerca da Quirky

Ainda não tinha dez anos já esta imagem fazia parte do meu mundo:

Quando olhamos para trás e pensamos no Homo Erectus ou na mais antiga Lucy, podemos perceber que continuam connosco, algures cá dentro dos nossos genes, e que tiveram o seu papel para chegarmos até aqui. Algures na linha do tempo foram essenciais e foram as respostas mais adequadas a um dado contexto do ambiente em redor. Porque mudaram e o mundo mudou, o nível do jogo subiu e foram precisos jogadores com outras capacidades.
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Ao ver as notícias sobre o falhanço da Quirky não consigo deixar de pensar que foi uma primeira tentativa, uma primeira abordagem a este promissor futuro da democratização da inovação e produção. Outras experiências virão e sobre os ombros do que a Quirky conseguiu desenvolverão ainda mais o conceito. Acho que já é a segunda vez esta semana que recordo Popper em sintonia com este tema.
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Em "The Real Reason Quirky Failed" encontro uma reflexão interessante sobre elementos que possam ter contribuído para este desfecho:

"building 50+ hardware products a year as a startup is the modern-day version of gluing feathers to your arms and flying.
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Quirky didn’t want to build one or two products a year (like most normal product companies), it set its sights on 20, 30, then 50+ products a year. The entire Quirky organism was designed for speed: ingesting thousands of ideas, selecting the best ones with a high-speed voting system, crafting beautiful marketing, and customizing end-caps at major retailers. But that’s where it stopped.
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A good company builds one product, learns from its customers, and iterates to make that product exceptional. Each step in the process is designed to refine a product and find the often elusive “product/market fit” that is the basis for all successful startups.
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Quirky never iterated on its products.
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Quirky systematically broke the cardinal rule of startups: iterate rapidly to build a product people love.
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Lack of product focus had a nasty side-effect. When you look across the Quirky product line, you’re left with one fundamental feeling: confusion. 

Customers are left asking “what does Quirky stand for as a company?”
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The Quirky brand can’t be everything to all people but it was trying to.
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Quirky was competing on all levels with all brands in every product category. This is a losing strategy for any startup."

E este trecho que se segue... devia ser motivo de reflexão para tantos que não ousam por falta de financiamento:

"Hindsight is always 20/20. I’m sure a lot of decisions within the company would be made differently today than in 2009 when the company was founded. If Quirky raised a little less money, hired a few less people, and focused on building just a few products that people loved, I bet the path of Quirky would look very different today. Part of the culprit is the venture capital model, which optimizes for growth over all else. But companies shouldn’t forget that building a product that people love is the oxygen that enables everything else to exist."