• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, September 14, 2017

Who’da thunk it but apparently the best way to launch a new business is not to suggest that you’re going to wipe out mom-and-pop shops — and steal their generic name and beloved vermin-hunting mascot while you’re at it. Unless you’re looking for publicity-generating backlash, that is.

Fast Company yesterday published piece about a new venture called Bodega that aims to make it easier on those among you who “run out of milk or diapers in the middle of the night and need to make a quick visit to your neighborhood retailer.” This is not one of your fusty dotcoms from the olden days, either. It’s website is housed at bodega.ai. 

“Paul McDonald, who spent 13 years as a product manager at Google, wants to make this corner store a thing of the past. Today, he is launching a new concept called Bodega with his cofounder Ashwath Rajan, another Google veteran,” writes Elizabeth Segran. “Bodega sets up five-foot-wide pantry boxes filled with non-perishable items you might pick up at a convenience store.” 

Big oops. And we’re not talking about milk being perishable.

“Why not just replace the pizza parlors and bagel shops while you’re at it?” charges the lede in the New York Daily News, which had a team of four reporters on the story. 

“A pair of tone-deaf techies want to do away with the Big Apple’s beloved bodegas in favor of oversized pantry boxes that customers could access with a smartphone app…. Cameras record what customers take, triggering charges to their credit cards,” continue Laura Dimon, Kerry Burke, Leonard Greene And Constance Gibbs.

Adding to the assault on all that’s revered, “the company's cat-shaped logo is a reference to the ‘bodega cat’ meme,” Ali Montag reports for Fortune. You can get a sampling of what people on da street think about the idea in general by watching this short video that’s embedded in her story. (“Puh-leese, I mean vending machine is ridiculous,” says one.)

“Twitter is not having it,” writes Monica Burton for Eater, compiling a sample of the reactions. To be sure, some see benefits;  but not most. 

“Some say Bodega isn’t just a bad idea, but also offensive. Bodegas are often owned by immigrants and people of color and serve as communal spaces for entire neighborhoods. Eliminating bodegas would not only destroy livelihoods, but also that feeling of community,” Burton writes.

“Weird that they're calling this heinous vending machine ‘Bodega’ and not ‘Gentrification Box’,” tweets Tristan Cooper, for instance.

“My bodega guy lives in my building; I'd like to see your dumb machine bring you an egg sammie at 11 pm & talk about its world travels,” writes Danielle Henderson.

The Washington Post’s Molly Robert’s sums up the “online outrage” thusly:

“Bodegas — or corner stores, or minimarts, or whatever you want to call them — stand for everything Silicon Valley does not. Their whole point is that they're run by individuals. The charm that comes from rogue felines sunning themselves in their windows or sashaying down the home goods lane is all about the absence of corporatism.

Before the day was out, co-founder McDonald had written and posted an online apology.

“Despite our best intentions and our admiration for traditional bodegas, we clearly hit a nerve this morning. And we apologize to anyone we’ve offended,” he says.

“Corner stores have been fixtures of their neighborhoods for generations. They stock thousands of items, far more than we could ever fit on a few shelves. They’re run by people who in addition to selling everything from toilet paper to milk also offer an integral human connection to their patrons that our automated storefronts never will.”

As of now, there are 30 Bodega locations in the San Francisco area. 

“Short of promising a name change, McDonald wrote that the company will ‘commit to reviewing the feedback and understanding the reactions from today,’” points out Jessica Roy for the Los Angeles Times. 

She reports that the venture has “received angel investments from executives at Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox and Google, and secured funding from a number of notable venture capital firms.

“But on Twitter, at least one prominent tech investor criticized Bodega for its botched rollout. Spark Capital partner Nabeel Hyatt summed up Bodega’s issue as one of branding, saying it’s the ‘best example yet that framing your start-up properly matters.’”