“Dead Simple Web Tablet”, that was the idea behind a post in July 2008 that Michael Arrington ran on his blog TechCrunch.com. The seed was planted and the outpouring of ideas and support exploded. Not only was he able to develop prototypes but even secure capital, developers, manufactures, distributors and retail opportunities. The concept was seemingly simple, develop a low priced web tablet for surfing the web, nothing more, nothing less. The device would be around $300 and only open sourced software would be used. Unfortunately that dream came to an end yesterday. I was certainly one of the ones who would have ordered a Crunchpad as it came to be known but alas the story comes to an end, or does it?
How was a “Journalist” who started a blog less than 5 years ago able to get so close to delivering on what billion dollar corporations such as Dell, HP and Apple haven’t?
The Background
Going from blogger to consumer electronics retailer is certainly not a typical business progression. TechCrunch started in the middle of 2005 as a blog about web 2.0 and the technology sector in general. Founder and owner Michael Arrington built up a very strong following to become one of the most trafficked blogs ever. It grew to several more sites such as Crunchgear, MobileCrunch and even expanded to include a “demo” event, TechCrunch 50, which gave an opportunity to new and upcoming companies to showcase their product. Companies such as Yammer and Mint were past winners. The latter of which was recently sold to Intuit for $170m.
So while Mr. Arrington’s success in blogging stands by itself to think that he could parlay that into developing a consumer electronics device, we’ll lets just say it’s never been done before. So how was a journalist able to translate blogging success into something nearly far greater?
The Future Business Model
The simple answer is that Mr. Arrington isn’t a Journalist he’s a 21st Century Entrepreneur. Its an example everyone in business should pay close attention to. While I’m disappointed to see it come to an end I can tell you that what we have witnessed isn’t a failure but the future of business. Whether you’re the small entrepreneur with aspirations of creating something big or you’re a big company with aspirations of not getting outdone by a small entrepreneur, you really need to pay attention to and analyze the Crunchpad. It is a lesson from today on what business of tomorrow will look like.
The Creation
The typical product life-cycle goes research, development, creation, marketing, prospecting and selling. Look all around us, whether its the new Droid or a blockbuster movie, the products life-cycle goes the same way. A company will start to develop a product first, then market it to grow the audience, create demand and ultimately sales. Now look at the Crunchpad. The first thing in place was the audience. TechCrunch has a huge audience. In fact even more impressive was that while its’ audience was certainly tech minded it was not an audience dedicated to consumer electronics. Think of the opportunity to grow an audience around a broad idea and only after doing that first, then offering a product. This is a clear example of how the future of business will work. Entrepreneurs will first grow an audience than offer that audience a product. First creating that trust then delivering on a product.
The Crowd
So how does one guy with a blog create something as complex as a consumer electronics device? With the power of the crowd, that’s how. Outsourcing development, production, distribution and sales is an example of what the future entrepreneurs business will look like. The fact is outsourcing is nothing new, but crowd-sourcing is. Allowing people to participate in the development in return for the opportunity to be a part of something, the ability to be one of the first to get it, or for an exchange of free press, that’s what crowd-sourcing will change.
The Crunchpad
Over the last 6 months when the industry talked about web tablets two products came to mind a) Apple Tablet b) Crunchpad. Read that again and let it sink in. We’re talking about arguably the most dominant brand in all of consumer electronics vs a blogger. A real world Goliath vs David. That’s the world we live in today and its darn exciting. Anyone, anywhere, anytime can create the next greatest product.
It may not be anything new, just look at IBM vs Microsoft in the 80′s or Microsoft vs Google most recently. Small companies coming from nowhere to outperform much larger established organizations has been happening for a while. The difference now though will be two things. First it will happen much more frequently and second it will happen at an increasing pace. The barriers to entry have been blasted down, to the point where a blogger can compete with a billion dollar company.
The Critics
If you’ve followed Techcrunch long enough you know that they can be controversial at times. and I suppose there will be those that are happy Mr. Arrington didn’t succeed. There will also no doubt be those that second guess any business agreements that were in place leading to the ultimate demise of the Crunchpad. However don’t be short sided enough that you miss the fact that we have been witness to what is possible in today’s world. Critics or not that still wont change the fact that the future of business is changing. The method of creating has changed. The method of competition has changed. The method of marketing has changed. The method for entrepreneurs has changed. No one in a million years would tell an entrepreneur to first go start a blog, build an audience, create trust and only after all that then invent something.
I for one applaud Mr. Arrington for having the vision and the guts to try something most would say was crazy. He certainly has already made his mark in online histroy with the success of all of his websites, however I believe the one thing he will be most remembered for was something that didn’t even happen, the Crunchpad.
I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Do you feel this is the future of business?