July 2009The Segway hasn't delivered on its initial promise, to put it mildly.There are several reasons why, but one is that people don't wantto be seen riding them. Someone riding a Segway looks like a dork.My friend Trevor Blackwell built his own Segway, which we calledthe Segwell. He also built a one-wheeled version, the Eunicycle,which looks exactly like a regular unicycle till you realize therider isn't pedaling. He has ridden them both to downtown MountainView to get coffee. When he rides the Eunicycle, people smile athim. But when he rides the Segwell, they shout abuse from theircars: "Too lazy to walk, ya fuckin homo?"Why do Segways provoke this reaction? The reason you look like adork riding a Segway is that you look smug. You don't seem tobe working hard enough.Someone riding a motorcycle isn't working any harder. But becausehe's sitting astride it, he seems to be making an effort. Whenyou're riding a Segway you're just standing there. And someone who'sbeing whisked along while seeming to do no work — someone in a sedanchair, for example — can't help but look smug.Try this thought experiment and it becomes clear: imagine somethingthat worked like the Segway, but that you rode with one foot infront of the other, like a skateboard. That wouldn't seem nearlyas uncool.So there may be a way to capture more of the market Segway hopedto reach: make a version that doesn't look so easy for the rider.It would also be helpful if the styling was in the tradition ofskateboards or bicycles rather than medical devices.Curiously enough, what got Segway into this problem was that thecompany was itself a kind of Segway. It was too easy for them;they were too successful raising money. If they'd had to grow thecompany gradually, by iterating through several versions they soldto real users, they'd have learned pretty quickly that people lookedstupid riding them. Instead they had enough to work in secret. Theyhad focus groups aplenty, I'm sure, but they didn't have the peopleyelling insults out of cars. So they never realized they werezooming confidently down a blind alley.
