What's the Matter with Mophie?

Over the summer, I worked for a VC firm called Beringea. They're a pretty cool company, but I want to talk about one of their current portfolio companies, Mophie, and two of its products, the juicepack air and the juicepack plus. The juicepack line is the first set of "Works With iPhone" portable battery cases that were actually certified by Apple. The juicepacks, along with other Mophie products, are sold at Apple stores, Best Buy, AT&T, and other stores worldwide. They've been around for a few years, but I don't see them around that often, so I'd like to look at the juicepack using the Rogers's Five Factors and Gourville's matrix to try and figure out why Mophies haven't blown up like it seems to me they should.

I'll run through the Five Factors first:

Relative Advantage

The ability to charge an iPhone on the go while also serving as a case is game-changing technology, but both the plus and the air are really bulky compared to other, non-battery cases. 7

Compatibility

Almost everyone I see with an iPhone has a case. 10

Complexity

Having personally used a Mophie for a few months, I found it to be extremely self explanatory. It was easy to put my phone in the case, to turn the case on and off, and to plug the case into the wall to charge. The only thing that took a minute to understand was that, when the case is plugged in, it charges the phone first, and then the case. 2

Trialability

I know Mophie sent about 50 cases to Beringea to give out for free, so it seems like they're pretty easy to test. 9

Observability

Because people use their phones over time, it may be difficult to see the actual user experience in a controlled setting without following people around for a week and watching them use their phone. 2

In Gourville's matrix, I see Mophie juicepacks as a smash hit, with low behavioral change and high product change. Combine that with the fairly strong scores in the Five Factors, and it's clear that juicepacks should be much more popular. The only explanation I can think of as to why more people don't have juicepacks is the price. The air is $80 and the plus is $100. Most people don't want to spend that kind of money on a phone that already cost a couple hundred dollars. They also haven't marketed very much. I've never seen an ad for Mophie, and I probably wouldn't even know what a juicepack was if I hadn't worked for Beringea over the summer. What do you guys think? Am I missing something?

I also wanted to address the issue that the iPhone 5 will likely have a better battery than the 4 and 4S. When the 5 is released, Mophie could be in serious trouble if they don't figure out something new to sell. This reminded me of our discussion this week about Kodak and RIM losing out because of changing markets and changing competition. Using the lessons we learned in class, I've come up with a few suggestions for what Mophie should do to stay on the cutting edge of iPhone accessory technology:

• Mophie should definitely continue to make battery cases for the 4 and 4S. People will continue to buy these phones after their prices decrease from the release of the 5. However, they should also downsize this part of their operation.
• Mophie's competitive advantage comes from its ability to put a rechargeable battery into a case. If the iPhone 5 doesn't have battery problems, then I'm sure some other popular phone does. Mophie could do some research to determine which Android phone has battery problems, and then create a separate team or division to develop a juicepack-like product for that phone.
• Finally, as a last resort, they could make non-battery-powered cases for the iPhone 5. As I mentioned, this should only be a last resort, as they would be giving up their competitive advantage by doing this.

Can you all think of anything else they could do to adapt to the release of the iPhone 5 and the change it brings? What would you recommend to Mophie's CEO?