Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2013. Its data are from that time, including Invisible Girlfriend’s monthly prices of $9.99, $29.99 and $49.99, plans for an “invisible boyfriend” version, and Sprayable’s crowdfunding total of more than $160,000. The closing joke about 2016 is also dated.
Some business ideas leave no one indifferent. If the huge success of the Pet Rock already gave us plenty to think about, when we hear that one of the winning ideas in a business competition was an invisible girlfriend project, we might think we’re going mad.
What exactly is the product sold by Invisible Girl Friend?
As the name suggests, it’s a service that provides you, in the eyes of others, with a girlfriend who doesn’t really exist. They also offer different subscription levels, from the basic girlfriend (the one you’ve just met) to the girlfriend you’re already very serious about.
The 3 payment plans cover:
- For $9.99 a month you get an automatic service that sends you text messages and automated calls.
- For $29.99, on top of the above, you get a relationship status on your Facebook profile, voicemails and even gifts and notes. (Now that’s starting to look like a girlfriend.)
- For $49.99 you’re in a serious relationship: you can customise your girlfriend and create your own story, in addition to everything above.
Who would pay for something like this?
According to the company, it’s the solution for getting friends and family to stop worrying about your love life. It’s also ideal for gay men who haven’t come out yet: that way, as far as everyone else is concerned, they’re in a relationship with a girl, and in private they can do whatever they like with whomever they like.
It’s also a way to avoid indecent proposals at work, since you’re in a committed relationship. And finally, it lets you work at companies that believe single men are more easily distracted and less promising than those with a stable partner.
“We’re giving them the opportunity to tell a good story to others, even if the story isn’t true,” says the company’s CEO, Homann Riverfront, who says they went from an idea meant as a joke to a business in less than 54 hours.
Now, following the success the invisible girlfriend is (ironically) enjoying, they’re preparing an invisible boyfriend version aimed at women.
The coffee you don’t drink
We’ve said before that a business idea doesn’t need to be very innovative to be profitable. In the case of spray-on coffee, I honestly think they’ve overdone the innovation and probably didn’t do proper market research. Even so, the project has raised more than $160,000 on a crowdfunding platform.
The idea behind these entrepreneurs’ product is that people can get the energy boost of caffeine and enjoy coffee without having to drink it. All they need to do is spray it on their neck as if it were perfume.
Supposedly, this way we get all the benefits of coffee while avoiding the alleged risks of caffeine.
But I think these entrepreneurs have forgotten that most people who drink coffee do so as a ritual in which the aroma, the flavour and the social moment all count. Personally, as a lover of good coffee, if one day I could no longer drink it, I would never use spray-on coffee. Besides, the benefits of coffee (good coffee) are far too many to waste.
As I said at the beginning, I think this kind of innovation twists the very word innovation until it becomes a step backwards.
As we can see, there are all kinds of ideas, and one way or another they get support from investors. That’s why it’s so important to know how to sell your product. Whether time will tell us that these ideas finally became profitable is another matter. In the first case (the invisible girlfriend) I don’t think there’s a business that will last, and in the second (spray-on coffee) I’d even struggle to believe the business will get off the ground. Of course, I could be very wrong and find that by 2016 people no longer drink coffee and spray it on their necks instead.
Featured image: Vee Satayamas, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
