Skully Helmets Shutting Down??

DucatiDan

DucatiDan

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Apparently Skully is pulling the plug:

https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/26/o...helmet-startup-skully-has-crashed-and-burned/

"Last week TechCrunch came to you with the dramatic departure of AR helmet maker Skully’s CEO and co-founder Marcus Weller and now several sources from inside the company tell us the startup is no more.
Operations have ceased within the company, and we’re told the website will be turned off at some point today. Weller has also been asked to sign a confidentiality deal with investors.
Weller told TechCrunch today he will not sign and that he’s completely walked away from all dealings with the company as of 10 days ago.
“I’m shocked and deeply saddened that they would now shut this company down,” Weller said in a phone conversation today. “We were raising a Series B to continue raising capital but then we had a buyer…I’m almost dubious to this.”
The site is still up for now but it says Skully’s AR-1 helmet is sold out in every size and no one is able to order. A source tells us sales were cut off on Monday."
 
Damn it. I just discovered these a couple days ago! Thought they were pretty cool!
 
Geez what a surprise, they ran out of cash and those who prepaid wont get there money back, how shocking....

Only a fool buys a product that doesnt exist to hopefully save some money

BB
 
busabim said:
Geez what a surprise, they ran out of cash and those who prepaid wont get there money back, how shocking....

Only a fool buys a product that doesnt exist to hopefully save some money

BB
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That’s a fair statement. I am a sucker for kickstarters though, and it’s typically clear whether or not the project will succeed in the comment sections leading up to the final days.
 
I read the recent article and then I laughed...and laughed some more.
 
PT Barnum's ghost is having a good chuckle.
 
I read the article and the reference to the other failed companies.
It left me thinking there are a bunch of morons with access to money driven by their misplaced egos.
And then the article went on to talk about egos getting in the way.lol

You burned through a pile a money only to deliver NOTHING.
hmmm sounds like the Liberals and their business strategies e.g. gas plant.
 
Comment on the Tech Crunch article:

Lance Nanek said:
Ex-Skully engineer here. I feel free to comment since the company has closed and there was no separation agreement or severance or anything like that.

The closing is sad from an engineering perspective because the first product was largely complete. More units per day were coming off the assembly lines each day. Customers were relatively happy with what they received. A big deal had just been struck with a major retail store for them to carry kiosks and helmets. Online sales were also doing well.

On the hardware side there was a minor PCB change coming up to improve wireless range. On the software side there was an update ready for release that moved factory testing from WiFi to USB cables to make production faster and fixed some issues with the navigation overlay. After that another update under beta testing fixed charging issues, bugs like accepting voice calls not working, volume issues, and many other things.

The whole company was pretty much ready to jump into the cost down next product version based on the Intel platform, which would have provided more profit margin/lower consumer price/better battery life/etc..

AFAIK, the acquisition did not close, however, and the B round did not close. So there just wasn't funds to continue operating the company in the meantime. It's tough for an engineer to learn something from a non-engineering problem like this. We engineers don't have much visibility into finance. The best comment I heard from another engineer was, "we were where we needed to be [with manufactuing], we just needed to be there six months ago."

I hope everyone taking on the tough problems in the augmented reality field can take heart from how close we came, at least, and complete what we couldn't. We did get to show everyone some awesome technology at the World Tour events and CES. Everyone knows it is possible to ship a real, life saving AR experience now and I'm sure someone will take up the torch again soon. God speed.
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TwistedKestrel said:
Comment on the Tech Crunch article:
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Well given the the tech does now exist, doesn't that mean Skully will sell off any assets, including the design and technology, to another company? Unless they are going the route of the Avro Arrow and burning all documentation and destroying the prototypes, I'm pretty sure this technology will show up elsewhere...and some of the engineers will be hired to work for said company.
 
That engineer quoted above seems to have been working inside a really small bubble. He says they had a complete product yet the few dozen people who received their helmet were all complaining about pretty major bugs, like a nearly useless iOS app, random Bluetooth disconnects, hardware failures, etc.

The only good thing in this fiasco is that someone will inevitably pick up where Skully left.
 
triniboy27 said:
FWIW, I'd love to see this tech introduced in a visor plus unit combo that you can attach to an existing helmet.
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There'd have to be some serious miniaturization for that to happen without a bunch of electronic boxes to 3M to the outside of the shell. The beauty of the Skully helmets were that they integrated/hid the electronics in the rear spoiler.
 
triniboy27 said:
Agreed. I don't get why people are so happy they shut down.

FWIW, I'd love to see this tech introduced in a visor plus unit combo that you can attach to an existing helmet.
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It's not that people are happy per sey
It's more that is sounds like a bunch of bs and people have no sympathy because they played stupid games and lost people's trust and money.
For that people prefer they burn and let someone else with integrity bring the product to the market.
 
-D- said:
It's not that people are happy per sey
It's more that is sounds like a bunch of bs and people have no sympathy because they played stupid games and lost people's trust and money.
For that people prefer they burn and let someone else with integrity bring the product to the market.
Click to expand...

you hit the nail right on the head, cudos to you my friend.
 
Oh no.

Another crowd funding campaign that failed? Who could have seen that coming?
 
Too bad. I really liked the concept. I'm sure that someone will pick it up.

9 out of 10 business will fail.

I work in production and post production in Media and Entertainment, and have done 6 startups over the last 20 years .

Producers will never finance 1 film. They will always finance 10 to hedge their bets. Similar for VC's. That's why they have a portfolio of companies.

You can't win them all.
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