Soylent (VC: $22.3mm) and Vessyl (VC: $3mm) are two titans of the Liquids-as-a-Service economy.
These companies are also bitter rivals with polar opposite views on matter caught between the gaseous and solid phases. Soylent militantly opposes any human consumption of a liquid other than its extremely viscous namesake. Vessyl promises to reveal the inner lives of all liquids to you, can you just give us a little longer? Can these mortal enemies make nice?
To recap: Vessyl still hasn’t shipped the most awesome cup ever, originally scheduled for Q1 2015. They probably never will for a variety of reasons, most notably that the product is painfully stupid and totally pointless.
It isn’t just the laws of chemistry and physics that prevent Vessyl from forging their Holy Grayl. There’s a bit of a math problem too. By now they’ve learned that $3 million just isn’t enough money to bring their groundbreaking vision of the Internet of Cups (IoC) to life. Most of that cash has been spent trying to get people to accidentally put a water-only Vessyl into their Amazon shopping cart – in the hopes that someone out there won’t mind buying a cup that costs as much as every other cup they will ever buy because it tells you that the water you just poured in it is still in fact there and also please charge my battery.
Flailing around in their desperation, Vessyl has also come upon their salvation. They have climbed Mount Olympus and stolen the secret of water from the gods. They have created a single-liquid Vessyl, and what better pairing for it than the only VC-backed liquid capable of supporting human life?
Introducing Vessyl: Just Soylent. All of the thick, sludgelike goodness you’ve come to expect from Soylent working in perfect harmony with the high tech beep-booping of Vessyl’s industry first $200 smart cup.
The possibilities are endless:
- Remind you that you’re running low on Soylent (orders must be received at least 6 months in advance).
- Cross-reference the Soylent in your Vessyl with the Soylent Changelog and link you to the release notes for your branch’s latest commit hash.
- Offer helpful tips for food that pairs well with the rich, gag-reflex triggering goodness of Soylent (dirt, tree bark, small to medium insects).
Best of all, with Vessyl: Just Soylent, there’s no need for them to actually do that thing they said they were going to do that sounded kind of hard.