Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
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Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
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Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#2I can't say I'm surprised. They hired a lot of people for a niche product that isn't a huge seller. Sure it sells pretty well for what it is but, at least from the outside, it never looked like it could support the huge influx of people that they hired.
Also the number one complaint about the Pebble that constantly comes up with every single release is the huge bezel and then their latest watch, the round, almost appears as if it has more bezel. Sorry but I just don't think it looks attractive that way and I honestly really want one.
Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#3>Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is laying off 25 percent of its staff amid increased financial concerns.
>letting 40 of Pebble’s 120 employees go.
What the math?
Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#4If they could get rid of that horrible bezel design, more people would probably buy their product. I still can't understand how they shipped the round with that HUGE bezel. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?! Did no one want to tell Eric that that was a bad idea or was he just stubborn in wanting to ship it like that? Also, what was up with their terrible website design? SEE THIS FOR CONTEXT --> https://web.archive.org/web/20141230224643/https://getpebble... I mean, I know they wanted it to look friendly but it made Pebble look like it was marketing a toy (or something specifically for nerds), and not a well designed consumer product.
Honestly, there's a lot of talented people at Pebble, but their vision IMHO has just been the wrong one. I still think they should partner with someone like Timex, Casio or Garmin and ship something like an F-91W or a G-Shock with PebbleOS. That would be really interesting. Hell, if they partnered with Garmin they could probably build an awesome developer community around solid HW.
All this said, I really admire Eric and the rest of the staff at Pebble. They've put in a lot of hard work to ship something functional, BUT they really need to rethink how they're marketing themselves, who they're marketing to and what the vision of the company/product should be if they intend to survive.
Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#5>Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is laying off 25 percent of its staff amid increased financial concerns. >letting 40 of Pebble’s 120 employees go. What the math?
40/120 = 33%
except misreporting, another possibility is that there was a previous layoff. Like 120 to 107 (~11%) and then from 107 to 80 which is ~25%.
Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#6If they could get rid of that horrible bezel design, more people would probably buy their product. I still can't understand how they shipped the round with that HUGE bezel. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?! Did no one want to tell Eric that that was a bad idea or was he just stubborn in wanting to ship it like that? Also, what was up with their terrible website design? SEE THIS FOR CONTEXT --> https://web.archive.org/web/201…
Maybe noone needs a watch neither a smart one, anymore?
Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#7>Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is laying off 25 percent of its staff amid increased financial concerns. >letting 40 of Pebble’s 120 employees go. What the math?
I guess it's not commonly known in HN circles, but hardware startups often measure their staff in kilograms because it's an SI unit.
Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#8>Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is laying off 25 percent of its staff amid increased financial concerns. >letting 40 of Pebble’s 120 employees go. What the math?
I guess it's not commonly known in HN circles, but hardware startups often measure their staff in kilograms because it's an SI unit.
This comment was funny.
Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#9I am currently thinking getting a cheap one from eBay.
How deeply integrated is the product into the company - will the product still be useful in case Pebble goes bust?
Can one side load apps?
Re: Smartwatch firm Pebble lays off 25% of its staff
#10I am currently thinking getting a cheap one from eBay. How deeply integrated is the product into the company - will the product still be useful in case Pebble goes bust? Can one side load apps?
You can side-load apps, but the watch is very tightly dependent on the phone apps - without them it's essentially just a regular watch. If Pebble were to go bust, I'd hope they'd at least open-source the api. Unless they do this, the minute an Android/iOS update breaks the Pebble app the watches become useless.