How is crowdsourced invention startup Quirky doing?
Not so well, apparently. In June, the company went through a series of layoffs after announcing that it would shift from producing people’s cool product ideas itself to partnering with companies like General Electric.
According to various reports, Quirky first decided upon this shift when introduced to G.E. by New York design/strategy firm Undercurrent, which it then acquired back in April. Last Friday, Quirky abruptly shut Undercurrent down and fired all of its employees.
Here’s the related tweetstorm from founder/partner/chairman Josh Spear, who isn’t too happy with Quirky at the moment:
1/ Seeing the disappearance of Undercurrent has been heartbreaking, confusing and troubling for all of us.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
2/ Undercurrent became collateral damage and a footnote in a larger, terribly complicated story I hope can one day be told in full.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
3/ To be very clear: Undercurrent didn’t fold. It was folded.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
4/ We spent months trying to unwind the sale when we learned how bad things were to get the people out safely
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
@joshspear 5/ but we were ultimately given no viable options to do so.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
6/ And then we learned Quirky would be shutting down Undercurrent and laying off all the employees.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
7/ A company that four months ago to this day was independent, profitable and growing.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
8/ Undercurrent was built by an extraordinary group of people who reached towards an extraordinary purpose.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
9/ I owe them all a great debt of gratitude for their hard work over the past eight years. An enormous thank you.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
10/ I know all of them have the brightest futures in front of them. I’ll continue to support them in anyway I can.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
11/ A lifetime of lessons were learned here, and many more will be realized in the weeks, months and years ahead.
— Josh Spear (@joshspear) August 4, 2015
The reason we post on this one is that it represents the very worst case scenario for small or mid-sized operations (like digital agencies) acquired by larger businesses (like holding companies).
We would point out a couple of recent examples in the ad world, but you get it.
The lesson here seems to be: stay indie if you possibly can.