Innovation
The Dark Side of the Cloud
Why what makes so many things possible can also be a trap
You’ve probably never heard of VanMoof. It’s a Dutch e-bike manufacturer. The style and technical innovations are ahead of the competition. An app lets users check battery status, lock and unlock the bike, track rides, and over-the-air updates make the bike smarter the longer you use it. And it all comes at a very reasonable price.
Sounds great? Well, not so much. The favorable price was one of the massive strategic mistakes. Furthermore, highly innovative components that were under-tested led to frequent failures that cost the company a lot of money in repairs and replacements. On July 18, an Amsterdam court declared the company insolvent.
The consequences of risky innovation and insufficient strategy
Insolvencies are not unlikely in the startup sector. And they entail consequences for customers and users. Anyone who bought a VanMoof for more than $2,000 now faces a total loss. The hardware remains in their possession, to be sure. But it becomes absolutely unusable if a part breaks (there is no longer a supply of spare parts) or the cloud platform still running behind the app is shut down (which is not unlikely in the coming weeks or months).
