I don’t often consider posting a negative post on the blog because my intent is to show remarkable companies making incredible products that will last a lifetime. But the recent failure of the company Skully is quite disappointing to me. Skully designed a motorcycle helmet that has an integrated rear facing camera which is projected onto the inside so the rider can see their rear view. The helmet is really quite impressive. It has the capability to stream all sorts of data like driving directions and speed to the heads up display.

About a week ago it was announced that the company would be shutting down. There were rumors and reports of problems originating with the brothers who co-founded the company. A variety of tech blogs have reported that they have filed for bankruptcy and will be shutting the company down.

This failure intrigues me because I remember seeing this helmet when it was first released as a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo two years ago. The Skully AR-1 helmet really caught my attention because like many motorcycle riders, I had day dreamed about a similar design. I rode a motorcycle for around 6 years. I had a group of buddies that I would go out riding with all the time and I distinctly remember having a conversation about how to prototype a design for a heads up display inside a motorcycle helmet. When I saw the Skully on Indiegogo I couldn’t believe it. I was really amazed that someone had created the heads up display that I had envisioned. I didn’t back the project. The design was really cool, but I wasn’t about to spend $1500 on a prototype that hadn’t been proven out. But I was impressed and and excited that the technology was out there.

I’ve kept tabs on Skully since its Indiegogo campaign. As with most start ups, Skully was incredibly late with shipping. Most new product-based companies struggle with shipping on time. Underestimation of work and time that it takes to manufacture a product is the root cause. But from the outside, Skully has appeared to be improving and moving forward. It was only recently that they fell apart from the inside.

Many investors not only invest in the ideas of businesses but also invest in the founders. They believe that the character, drive, and ability of the founder to start and run a company might be more important than having a brilliant product. And that can be hard for me to say because I really like cool products. The founders of Skully have received negative press about their personal lives and they definitely seem to be at fault for why this company went down. But their design was groundbreaking. When I first saw the AR-1 helmet I was skeptical, to say the least, about how Skully was claiming to make the idea a reality. Skully did indeed pull it off since they have shipped a few hundred prototype helmets. I think their downfall was in attempting to implement too many features in the first version of a very innovative helmet.

I feel bad for the people who backed them on Indiegogo and will not get a refund. This is definitely the risk of crowdfunding. It is unfortunate how seemingly few people know how Kickstarter and Indiegogo work. I would encourage you to go read the article I wrote on Kickstarter awhile back. I like Kickstarter and Indiegogo a lot. But, failures like this really don’t help the platforms but they cannot always be detected.