Instant Pot Files for Bankruptcy
One of the Most Successful Kitchen Products of All Time
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When Cornell Capital bought Instant Brands and merged it with another kitchenware maker, the combined company was valued at more than $2 billion. On Monday, the company declared bankruptcy, weighed down by more than $500 million in debt. How does that happen? Did a wildly successful product become unsuccessful?
That's the wrong question. Instant Pot remains a huge success. Any inventor would LOVE to take the ride that inventor-entrepreneur Robert Wang has enjoyed since creating the Instant Pot in 2009. Sales have simply gone flat because the market is saturated and Instant Pots last a long time.
This kind of sales cycle is common for TV products. When the product is being advertised on TV, sales explode. When advertising stops, sales drop off a cliff. Anticipating and planning for the drop-off enables a product and a company to continue.
But even if the company that now owns Instant Pot fails, the product won't disappear. It will survive. Cue Gloria Gaynor.
-Mike
June 12, 2023
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