Quibi, the billion-dollar failure
This is why Quibi failed
Hey friend!
Before we kick-off, this quote by Blair Warren has been lingering in my head since last week:
People will do anything for those who:
• Encourage their dreams
• Justify their failures
• Allay their fears
• Confirm their suspicions
• And help throw rocks at their enemies
Okay, now lets kick-off!
Today we’re talking about:
🔥 Why $1.5 Billion couldn’t save Quibi
🔥 4 Psychology principles to 🚀 customer experience and growth
🔥 An exciting announcement
Why $1.5 Billion couldn’t save Quibi
There’s going to be a 1000 people tell you why Quibi failed, and they all are probably right. But before we dig into this, let’s get one thing straight, I thoroughly and fully respect Quibi’s exec teams decision to pick up that things aren’t working and shut shop
Quibi tried something bold, they tried creating a new category, however, they didn’t actually solve a problem, they solved a niggle. We’ve all faced niggles, the uber is 2 mins late - but that doesn’t mean you build out an entire taxi network to fix 2 mins
See video and short-form video already existed via YouTube, TikTok and Reels. Sure you can say that they’re not profession shows, but there lies Quibi’s biggest problem. Their shows were not good lol.
-> Expensive, streaming wars are rough
-> Poor content to begin with
-> Not enough viral content, Netflix has a dedicated meme team
-> Content was not sticky, churn was high!
4 Psychology principles to 🚀 customer experience and growth
Anchoring Bias
What a user sees first affects their subsequent decision process. This works even when there’s no correlation between what they see and what a user does.
A common use is Watch and Jewellery stories, they usually put the most pricy products in the windows, so when you get into to shop and see the prices cheaper, you automatically feel like you’re “saving money”
Demand Dysfunction (Social Proof)
A famous case study that was done and covered by Nir Eyal in Hooked where they placed 2 cookie jars, one with fewer cookies (Jar A) than the other (Jar B). The product was absolutely the same, but as humans, we often follow the steps of others
The visual sentiment that one jar had fewer cookies (i.e more demand) than the other lead people to exclusively choose from Jar A.
Labour Illusion
People appreciate hard work. It’s how we operate as humans as it triggers empathy layers within us. This leads to people wanting to support the cause more than they would otherwise.
Easy ways you can do this, is by consistently sharing the hard work you’re putting into building your company, or as its called “building in public” these days.
Another way is visualising effort, Skyscanner does a pretty neat job at it when its finding tickets for you, it shows you the effort it’s saving you, preventing you from leaving them and trying it out yourself.
Sunken Cost Fallacy
Notion, Slack, Code all do a great job at this, once people invest time and effort into something they’re most likely to stick to that product because they don’t want to give up on all the effort they put in.
This is also the same reason why founders stick to businesses longer than they should have and why people lose money when they gamble
This same principle has lead products like Notion to be VERY successful
An exciting announcement
We are now LIVE on TikTok and I’ll be pushing out content every week on YouTube - from interviews, podcasts, breakdowns and detailed research into startups.
PS if you’re interested, the new podcast with millionaire founder of Zookal - Ahmed Haider
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