More about GreenGoose and the Brush Monkey
Amazing story of a great looking product, and awesome demo, on the spot investment of $100,000 and still… It didn 't work. The story was told by Scott Kirsner in the Boston Globe:
"Today, GreenGoose is out of business, and Krejcarek is grappling with $80,000 in credit card debt -- his approach to funding the company after investors' money ran out earlier this year. When he says, "I'm trying to scrape together spare change to buy gasoline," it's hard to tell if he's kidding." (from The Boston Globe)
You have to admire that the founder of Green Goose (Brian Krejcarek) was willing to share his experience with Scott and the rest of us. There are many lessons there. To really appreciate the story you need to see how it started, with the demo at the Launch Conference. It was an unbelievable and triumphant presentation:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25zBZwCfF5M&w=560&h=315]
And yet. Here's a page of Bonus material where you can read more of how it ended:
"Krejcarek says that the company spent much of the money it raised exploring different product concepts. By the time he launched Brush Monkey, there was about $200,000 left in the bank. The product wasn't simple enough for people to set up. And there was no big distribution partner putting it on store shelves and helping to promote it. "Distribution is probably one of the hardest problems for a startup to solve," he says." (from Innovation Economy, Scott's Blog)