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Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

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Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#161

Post by brlewis »

twblalock wrote: post #144
cbhl wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that the incumbents wouldn't have thought it possible to build a smartwatch or fitness tracker if it wasn't for these start-ups, though. They're just really good at acquiring and copying. When the iPhone first came out, the way you measured your heart rate was by putting your finger over the camera on the back of the phone.

> They're just really good at acquiring and copying. Right, but that's why the products become commoditized. The inventors get an early burst of success and easy money, but everyone else figures out how to make similar products very quickly. Even smartphones are commoditized. The iPhone and the Samsung phones are the rare examples of commodity hardware that can beat the competition on the strength of their software e…

There is competition among fitness trackers. Fitness trackers are not commoditized. There's a difference.

https://ycharts.com/companies/FIT/gross_profit_margin

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#162

Post by maneesh »

yueq wrote: post #23
stingrae wrote: post #11

The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. With so many high profile VC backed (Fitbit, GoPro, Hello, Juicero, Coin, Pearl, ect.) and kickstarted (Lily.ai, Pebble) failures, no one is willing to risk it.

Smart hardware belongs to big players only. A hardware company needs to deal with, Design, Engineering, Marketing, Production, Sales, Customer services, etc... If any of those step is messed up, the product is over. This is why I don't recommend anyone to get involved in this kind of business.

It's possible to build a consumer hardware company without significant investment --- we did it with Pavlok. Here's an article about it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14717976

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#163

Post by maneesh »

wvenable wrote: post #113
joshvm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons that these products fail is usually feature creep. Whether due to Kickstarter stretch goals, or pressure from VCs, people don't know when to draw the line and ship. That's followed closely by underestimating costs and under-pricing products. After that you have the risk of developing the product you want, not the product that everyone else needs. I would never suggest anyone starts a hardware business unt…

> The reasons that these products fail is usually feature creep. That's part of the reason Pebble failed; they were forced (like from pressure from VCs) to expand their business and they really over extended. But more than that, I think Pebble was dead the moment Apple, Samsung, and the other big players jumped into the market. Pebble's first mover advantage was destroyed almost immediately by the technology and mark…

The more money hardware companies accept, the harder they crash and burn. Every single time.

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#164

Post by maneesh »

stingrae wrote: post #29
hammock wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do the big corps succeed (Google, Apple, Amazon) and the startups fail. I guess all three of those have had failed hardware products and successful one as well. So they can afford a failure? Startups just need more runway?

Big corporations are ok with costs of creating a low margin hardware product because it is loss leader to other products and services with higher margins. Bringing a hardware product to market costs a minimum of $7m in the US. At Seed/Series A, this is a huge amount of money for investors to swallow.

Not true. We built a wearable device with 50,000 units sold, and raised way under a million dollars. It can be done.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14717976

Our first Pavlok took about 2 years, and probably just over $1MM in total costs---but we presold units to cover the float.

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#165

Post by maneesh »

flylib wrote: post #45
stingrae wrote: post #11

The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. With so many high profile VC backed (Fitbit, GoPro, Hello, Juicero, Coin, Pearl, ect.) and kickstarted (Lily.ai, Pebble) failures, no one is willing to risk it.

Lily and Pebble also were VC Backed and each raised 15+ million https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/pebble https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/lily-robotics#/entit...

Money tends to be spent. The more you have, the faster you spend. Hardware companies take it the worst, because new founders don't know what they don't know.

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#166

Post by brlewis »

Naritai wrote: post #160
brlewis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See https://www.fitbit.com/technology for a partial and outdated list of novel Fitbit technology.

There are 3 items on that list, and all 3 have been present in all of Fitbit's competitors for years. Even if Fitbit was first mover on these technologies, they've long since lost any unique ownership of any of these 3.

Read the details. Yes, Apple Watch has some form of heart-rate monitoring. But what's described on that page is continuous all-day monitoring. Fitbit has better technology to better serve the consumer.

Yes, you can tell Apple Watch what kind of workout you're about to do and it will record it. But what's described on that page is automatically detecting and recording a type of workout based on motion. Fitbit has better technology to better serve the consumer.

Yes, you can track sleep with a third-party Apple Watch app if you're careful about when you recharge the device. But that page says "your Fitbit tracker can record your time spent in light, deep & REM sleep, as well as your time awake, then distills that information in easy-to-reach graphs in the Fitbit app."

There have been niche products that supposedly tracked sleep stages but they've been reviewed as inaccurate. Fitbit has unique ownership of this technology and major players haven't even claimed to compete with it.

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#167

Post by maneesh »

swiley wrote: post #55
theli0nheart wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pricing of $49 is the kicker. No one can make the device you're describing for that. Garmin devices (like the Forerunner 935) tick off your feature requirements but are relatively expensive.

I'd be willing to bet that I could.

Do it. I'd wager on this.

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#168

Post by sailfast »

bambax wrote: post #140
replicatorblog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd ascribe the failure to the commodification of the fitness tracker and increasingly platform-driven smart speaker space. Here are some companies that have raised big rounds recently: + SimpliSafe raised $57M from Sequoia + Ring raised $100M+ from DFJ + Formlabs raised $50M from Foundry + Sphero raised $23M in April + Anki raised $52.5M in PE I'm not sure what the future holds for Anki/Sphero, but the first three e…

The blog post is from Aug. 2015 and asks: > What makes today’s hardware successes like GoPro, Arista, Fitbit, Nest, Dropcam, Zayo, and Oculus different? GoPro, Fitbit, Nest, Dropcam (part of Nest) are struggling. Hardware is hard.

Can somebody provide more context about Nest's struggles?

I understand that their new products may not be selling that well (lots of cash for a CO detector / camera / etc) but what about the thermostat business where they have partnerships with most every energy provider and their setup process / support is great? What articles did I miss?

I ask because of self-interest: I just installed a couple and I appreciate them, and I'd hate to see the software support fall by the wayside / be decommissioned by their parent company.

EDIT: I'm reading about not enough revenue on the acquisition price and leadership issues, but I find it hard to believe a company with a solid thermostat product being sold in outlets across the country would collapse, especially given the current utility partnership incentives. That said, I've been surprised before.

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#169

Post by acjohnson55 »

stingrae wrote: post #11

The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. With so many high profile VC backed (Fitbit, GoPro, Hello, Juicero, Coin, Pearl, ect.) and kickstarted (Lily.ai, Pebble) failures, no one is willing to risk it.

Sounds kind of like software startups!

Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

#170

Post by mipmap04 »

EpicEng wrote: post #80
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. So I haven't worked at a hardware start-up but it seemed pretty difficult even before these companies to raise funding versus a pure software play. I'm not necessarily convinced this makes it easier or harder. Is there a specific reason you think it will be harder now? Also, for what it's worth, Fitbit and GoPro are still going. I'm convince…

I worked at a VC funded hardware start up for the first eight years of my career. You'll never read about it here though; we made digital pathology scanners. When I left we had sold the company for ~300M and were bringing in about ~30M / year in revenue. I guess my point is that there is more going on in the VC space then you'll read about on HN.

This goes well with the great-grand parent's comment on consumer hardware not being as attractive to investors. I think a lot of it lies in the complexity of the product. A smart watch or rugged video camera seems trivial to replicate and commoditise from an investment and technology standpoint compared to digital pathology scanners.
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