Picking people like John as spokesthings might have had something to do with it.
Was Wu an official spokes being, or did they shamelessly shill their awful-looking Blue Apron concoctions entirely on their own? I can't picture Blue Apron being pleased at Wu's pictures showing their products looking worse than garbage.
John is the exact market for their service though - A complete amateur who likes to think of themselves as an expert cook but doesn't want to put any of the effort in to learn to shop, adjust recipes and portion properly. Just follow the instructions and you can be a michellin star chef and the envy of your peers.
With fewer people learning adult skills such as basic meal prep, portion cost/control, and how to meal plan and shop accordingly, it's no surprise that services such as Blue Apron would appeal to those lacking those skills or the time to shop/cook. As a result, they either don't realize these kits tend to be overpriced given the ingredient quality or they simply accept the fact that they're paying a premium for the convenience that comes with a DIY meal kit.
On a larger scale, though, I'm not surprised Blue Apron has been losing as bad as it has. Apart from younger people who lack the time or knowledge to cook for themselves, there's not much of a market to sustain operations on a national level. Further, Blue Apron now has plenty of competition from both meal kit companies and grocery stores that offer delivery or their own "make your own meal" offerings.
I think the article really hits the nail on the head with how little Silicon Valley Simps understood the market.
I had thought that with the dot com bust and recession, venture capitalists were more selective with what they funded, but maybe not given how much they've lost with Blue Apron. However, these capitalists probably don't mind taking an occasional loss to offset their profitable investments. Still, I'm surprised that they accepted Blue Apron's bold promises and forecasts at face value and didn't give them much scrutiny to see if their business model was both sustainable and profitable in the long-term.
As a complete aside/opinion I think cooking is a vital life skill, and its basics should be taught at school.
Home economics used to be taught in high schools all over the USA.
At one point, my high school had a mini-restaurant that gave students the chance to learn everything involved in running a restaurant: food prep, service, hospitality, etc. That class/program was phased out presumably due to a combination of declining enrollment, lack of interest, and budget cuts. Still, the school offered Home Ec courses (one titled Personal Foods comes to mind) where students could learn basic meal prep, portion sizes, unit pricing, etc. With the current push to teach as much STEM as possible, it appears Home Ec has all but disappeared from the district's present curriculum -- and many other districts, I'd imagine. Ditto for other classes that taught life/adult skills.
No practical person would buy it, their only hope was brand recognition from people who saw it fashionable.
NGL, I only knew about Blue Apron from Wu's tweets posted here and what I think was a friend trying it out once. For whatever reason, Blue Apron didn't appear to promote itself that much in this area. Conversely, the TV stations around here had numerous prime time ads for HelloFresh. This particular one played quite frequently:
(Edits: typos & clarity)
