Quibi could have succeeded. Here's how

It takes either audacious self-confidence or reckless hubris to build a completely asocial video app in 2020. You can decide which best describes Quibi, Hollywood’s $1.75 billion-funded attempt at a mobile-only Netflix of six to 10-minute micro-TV show episodes. Quibi manages to miss every trend and tactic that could help make its app popular. The ... See more

the main thing I got wrong was the last point. Quibi really was competing with Netflix, even if they wanted to compete with TikTok and Instagram.

The consensus view, then as now, is that the content was not good, it was not shareable (no screenshots!), and that Quibi blew through too much money too fast, before they could figure out what they were doing. But also, they spent too little money to effectively compete with Netflix, HBO, Apple, Disney, etc.

One is this idea that Quibi thought it was designing something for commuters, but went ahead with its launch plans even as everyone stopped commuting. That deserves a sympathetic sigh, but that’s reality now. The only path forward is to iterate toward what will work, which is more of a content and distribution problem than a messaging problem.

Fourth, I’m surprised that they weren’t able to make a bigger splash with their marketing, given the enormous budget. It seems like it focused too much on the concept of Quibi, and not enough on getting a compelling trailer for a specific show in front of people.