Why Segway Failed and Not Tesla
Creating products that people love is hard.
Just ask Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway.
It’s the most successful, unsuccessful product.
It was brought to market in circa 2001 as the Segway PT–short for personal transporter.
The launch had much fanfare, with the legendary Steve Jobs saying it could be as important as the PC.
But it never really took off.
(Steve Jobs later rescinded that accolade and replaced it with, “it sucks.”)
These days you might see one rolling through the Dallas airport ridden by security or on the streets of a Scandinavian country, moving tourists through the city.
In 2015, the beleaguered company Segway Inc. was acquired by a Chinese startup called Ninebot to resolve a patent dispute between the two companies.
An article from Time magazine entitled, “Why This Chinese Startup Just Bought a Company Americans Love to Ridicule” put it best …
By itself, Segway is an exciting choice for acquisition.
The New Hampshire-based company’s self-proclaimed “future of transportation” didn’t quite catch on in America, perhaps aside from sometimes being the ride of choice among mall cops.
(TIME once named Segway one of the 50 Worst Inventions.)
Faced with limited success, Segway was sold off twice to investors, once in 2009 and then again in 2013.
The first, British investor Jimi Heselden, died in an ironic, tragic Segway crash in 2010, and the second, Summit Strategic Investments, intended to “refocus” Segway over several years, but that project was never completed.
About the Author
John Belizaire is CEO of Soluna, a serial entrepreneur, advisor, and investor. He is also the editor of CEOPLAYBOOK — an online publication dedicated to exploring what it means to be a startup CEO. Connect with him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. To subscribe to his popular newsletter — Mental Candy — read by over 1,500 professionals, sign up here.
