MagicJack and the Problem With Gadget Start-Ups
You have a great idea for a product. You have a great designer. You have a manufacturer willing to pump something out for not much money. You’re on your way to gadget riches, right? Wrong.
Dan Costa wrote a cautionary tale for all those looking to produce a consumer electronics product. His focus is magicJack, a company that we wrote about in August 2007, a post that currently has 167 comments, none of them particularly good. Here’s an example from our own comments:
MagicJack is basically a VOIP dongle that plugs into your USB port. You then add a telephone and make calls. It costs $40 and then $20 a year. It should be plug and play but, as with everything in life, it often isn’t. Fair enough, you say. Just make a phone call to the support line and you’ve got it solved. Sadly, this is not the case.
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