The biggest Humane flop

Written By Tim Richardson

We’re excited to announce our latest client - Rapanui. They’re the D2C brand of sustainability platform, Teemill, and are embarking on a replatform project from a custom stack to Shopify. We’ll be bolstering their in-house team from a Shopify / tech solutions and general commerce consultancy perspective. Stoked to be working with James, Ewan and the rest of the Rapanui team

If you’re a brand embarking on a similar journey or simply want to discuss what it’s like to work with a boutique, founder-only agency, then hit me up here.

Your pals, Lucy & Tim

Commerce Everywhere

A couple of weeks ago I attended an event by the excellent Sourcerie team. The topic was 'eCommerce Everywhere' with Peony (Jude), Freddy (Wild), Gyve (SURI) and Katy (Luna Daily).

What did I glean from the session?

Bar Suri, I was surprised at the D2C v Retail % mix. D2C was more evenly distributed (or even lower) than I expected. Much of it is due to the type of product / consumer, but I do feel it speaks to a broader evolution in the D2C playbook where omnichannel is happening earlier than in previous years.

Brands shouldn't be afraid of Amazon or more traditional platforms such as QVC. The risk of brand dilution or cannibalisation might be overestimated. However, we didn’t get to talk about modern social commerce platforms like TikTok. I’d be interested to see the comparison stats of QVC v TikTok. Of course, it’s a very different consumer profile but I suspect they might be relatively comparable.

Google and Meta aren't the only toll bridge operators; Tesco, Sainsbury's et al are equal culprits. And if one was to cost / benefit them they might find that the toll tax is closer than you think.

Niche retail (Sephora, Erewhon etc ), depending on the type of brand, is an interesting play. Better in-store brand exposure, potentially easier to work with? I’d also wager that the toll tax is much lower.

These sorts of small, niche, founder-guest events are rad. You get a great insight into how brands are navigating the current landscape, whilst enjoying nice pastries and coffee

A big thank you to Kristin and Alex for the invite

A Humane Flop

Humane released its long-awaited Ai pin product and…it didn’t go so well. OK, I shouldn’t be so harsh. It did get released - so that part went splendidly. But the reviews were far from stellar.

But why?

First, let’s rewind. here is the original launch video. And here are my musings about the launch in Issue #32 of the newsletter. In that email, I explored whether this thing has legs. What did I think now?

I still dig the vision. A voice-activated device that does everything I could ever need AND also reduces my screen - yes, please.

But the issue seems to be that the device just doesn’t work. My favourite fail in this piece is when David asks it to play a Beyonce song and it reads out some sort of internal back-end code (1min 05 secs in this video)

Of course, there are going to be teething issues with a paradigm shift consumer product like this. And Humane’s Head Engineer rightly points out that ‘"There is no perfect product. The Ai Pin form factor is wonderful, and our new Ai operating system is a wonderful new landscape to explore, but it's not magic. Expect the same kind of ups and downs as your other tech."

But shouldn’t we expect more? Ex-senior Apple people (imagine how good that looks on their LinkedIn profile), seven years in development and +$250m in investment (and therefore access) to some of the most impressive people on the planet and this is what we get?

Maybe the problem isn’t the Humane, it’s the humans. Maybe we’re just not ready for this sort of tech. We’re hard-wired to reach for our bigger less sophisticated pin, our phones. And when I say hard-wired, I mean HARD WIRED. So much so I know a lot of people that have to physically lock their phones in a box so they don’t use them. That’s hard behaviour to disrupt.

So is it bad PFM? Or bad MVP? Or both?

The true test will be in the subsequent versions. Many of the issues have been bugs. So when the pin is firing on all cylinders, we will understand whether it’s solving a problem. But will that happen before or after Altman and Ive convince Masayoshi Son to give them a zillion dollars and go to market with their own pin? I dunno. Right now it feels like an Ai world and we’re just living in it

What Else Is Clucking?

Playlist

Given that Vogue has declared skinny jeans are back, I thought it only fair to pull together an indie dancefloor bangers playlist - enjoy.

Want to know what it’s like to work with the A-team?

Tim Richardson
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