"Quibi. I think that will be a fun name for us."

When I first heard of Quibi last spring, my initial thought was "not interested." Which translates into "not buying." And it turns out I wasn't the only one.

Quibi - from "quick bite" - was a content service focused on delivering short burst videos to smartphones. (They recently made a last ditch effort to provide their videos on other devices as well.)

There is, of course, no lack of content you can get on your smartphone, since pretty much everything you can watch on your television set or your computer is also available on the really small screen. And that means everything from a full-length movie to a short burst Tik Tok video. 

So who needs another service, even if it comes with original content like Murder House Flip (which I wrote about last spring)? Make that especially if it comes with original content like Murder House Flip. 

Quibi launched last spring, and six months later, it's out of business. It was able to attract plenty of glam funding - $1.75 billion worth - but failed to woo enough subscribers to keep it going. 

You'd think that, what with the pandemic gluing people to their devices for longer periods of time, they might have had a shot, but there are just too many sources of content out there that subscribers are already paying for or that's just plain free.

$1.75 billion sure sounds like a lot of dough for an outfit that only managed to last six months, but what do I know. I mean, I went to business school and all, but it's not like I'm some kind of Meg Whitman or something.

If her name rings a bell, it's because for over 20 years, she's been one of the most prominent women CEOs. She headed up eBay. She headed up Hewlitt-Packard. And she headed up Quibi. Prior to becoming CEOs, she worked, among other places, at Hasbro, where she headed up the division that owns Mr. Potato Head, and where she was responsible for bringing the Teletubbies to the U.S. (Teletubbies say 'eh oh'.) 

She also spent $150 million of the billions she's made over the years trying to get herself elected governor of California, losing to Jerry Brown, who is pretty much the antithesis of Meg Whitman. So it's not like she has an impeccable record when it comes to bad ideas. 

Quibi's cofounder is Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose name might not be as household-wordish as Whitman's, but who has quite a background himself: Disney, Dreamworks (which he co-founded with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen)...

The duo managed to attract some heavy-hitting investors: Disney, NBCUniversal, and WarnerMedia. They had advertising commitments from blue chippers like Google, P&G, and Pepsi. And some big name content providers as well. It wasn't all Murder House Flip:

Quibi had about 50 original titles at launch, including shows featuring originals with Jennifer Lopez, Chrissy Teigen, Chance the Rapper, Liam Hemsworth, Sophie Turner, Lena Waithe, Nicole Richie and Reese Witherspoon. It also greenlit pricey projects with Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi, Antoine Fuqua, Anna Kendrick, Rachel Brosnahan, Issa Rae, Kevin Hart, Steven Soderbergh and the Kardashians, among others. (Source: Yahoo Finance)

One of the sweeteners for the content providers - who were paid up to $100K per minute for their offerings - was that the content producers got to keep ownership of their content. And, while they had seven-year licenses "after two years, content owners have the right to assemble the shows and distribute them elsewhere." So what was appearing on your smartphone wasn't all that exclusive, unless you're the type of content consumer who needs to see what's new with Nicole Richie and Chance the Rapper right away, and just can't wait for it to become non-exclusive. 

This part of their structure turned out to be a problem when  Quibi went shopping around for someone to save them. Turns out, since the content wasn't Quibi's own, possible buyers of the company weren't that interested. And with just 500,000 subscribers... (Some/most of who probably came from Quibi's deal with T-Mobile to offer a free Quibi subscription to their customers.) Well, yawn.  (In comparison, Hulu has 28 million paying customers.)

And now Quibi is winding down. They're laying off their 200 employees and looking to sell off whatever they actually do own. And they're probably looking for someone to take their 10 year lease for 49,000 square feet worth of office space off their hands, too. 

Investors are hoping they'll be able to claw back 50% of what they put in, but that's probably optimistic. But it's likely not that big a deal for most of them. (To quote Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners: "It came easy, and it went easy.")

When Whitman and Katzenberg announced Quibi in October 2018, they were having fun with it, as one does, Whitman noting that:

“Jeffrey can't stop saying the name Quibi. I think that will be a fun name for us.”

As it turns out, maybe not all that much fun, unless you count the fun the people making fun of their downfall are having. And probably not as much fun as managing Mr. Potato head, let alone getting Tinky-Winky, La-La, Dipsy and Po to cross the pond.