31–40 of 55 posts
Anyone have a good alternative to the Pebble Core that runs some kind of open OS (Linux/Android) with 3G built in a very similar form factor? Will take suggestions from AliExpress even... Wish I would have just gotten my Pebble Core instead :/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a classic "no money falls on common" situation. Debt holders are early in line; investors have preferred shares with liquidation preferences. Very interesting how they're treating their $33mm kickstarter obligation. [Edit: sorry, I wasn't sure what had been fulfilled already, thanks skuhn]
They don't have a $33mm Kickstarter obligation to take care of. Their most recent project raised $12.8mm for the Pebble 2, Time 2 and Core. According to this rumor, they intend to refund people who pledged money for the Time 2 and Core. Doing some quick math, it looks like they plan to refund $9,650,775 (plus any amount people pledged above the minimum threshold for a given pledge tier). Of course they're returning t…
Shame. I really liked my Pebble Time, and I was looking forward to buying a Time 2. The pebble is the only smart watch that is still a good watch.
It feels like I'm starting to like a market and it dies. Like watching Firefly after the show was long cancelled. Back to bare wrists for me, alternatives do not exist. :(
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can anyone think of an example where you take two failing tech companies, merge them, and it works out?
Fitbit had revenues of $14.5 million in 2011, $76.4 million in 2012, $271.1 million in 2013, $754 million in 2014, $1.8B in 2015 and is expected to do $2.4B in 2016. 'Failing' in what sense?
Stock down more than 70% year-to-date, and competing in a market that is rapidly becoming commoditized.
Perhaps "failing" is a a strong word, but I wouldn't describe them more positively than "struggling." Like GoPro, Fitbit sells commodity hardware and is not greatly differentiated from its competitors in terms of hardware, software, or platform lock-in (you may disagree, but the consumer market has clearly spoken).
If this goes through, best of luck to everyone from Pebble and Fitbit. Hardware is tough, but we all need it.
Can anyone think of an example where you take two failing tech companies, merge them, and it works out?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can anyone think of an example where you take two failing tech companies, merge them, and it works out?
Both NeXT and Apple weren't looking so hot in the face of utter dominance by Microsoft and Intel in 1997, but here we are.
Lord why? 40M for engineers who will quit as soon as possible? What is the point? 《Edit》honestly I read the whole article, please explain how this makes sense from a fitbit perspective.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fitbit had revenues of $14.5 million in 2011, $76.4 million in 2012, $271.1 million in 2013, $754 million in 2014, $1.8B in 2015 and is expected to do $2.4B in 2016. 'Failing' in what sense?
> 'Failing' in what sense? Stock down more than 70% year-to-date, and competing in a market that is rapidly becoming commoditized. Perhaps "failing" is a a strong word, but I wouldn't describe them more positively than "struggling." Like GoPro, Fitbit sells commodity hardware and is not greatly differentiated from its competitors in terms of hardware, software, or platform lock-in (you may disagree, but the consumer…
The 30% fall was mainly triggered by Fitbit revising revenue estimates for Q4 from 985M to somewhere around 725M as well as Q3 performing poorer than expected.
What's fascinating is that Fitbit is still going to do about 2.2B in revenue (up from 1.8B) last year. So annual revenue is going to be more than current market cap (1.7B).
Apart from a less than delightful user experience (resulting in device abandonment and low engagement/retention), Fitbit is also losing market share to Xiaomi in Asia.
So I wouldn't call it failing, but yeah it could do much better :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't have a $33mm Kickstarter obligation to take care of. Their most recent project raised $12.8mm for the Pebble 2, Time 2 and Core. According to this rumor, they intend to refund people who pledged money for the Time 2 and Core. Doing some quick math, it looks like they plan to refund $9,650,775 (plus any amount people pledged above the minimum threshold for a given pledge tier). Of course they're returning t…
Thanks, I was making a (bad) guess about what had been successfully delivered. Hm, that makes the reported $40mm price closer to having money falling on common, but probably not close enough. Did the $15mm series A have a 2X liquidation preference?
Since they kept going back to the Kickstarter well, maybe their business never got to the point where the fundamentals made sense -- after all, they were selling a $99 Pebble Core for $69 (actually $62.10) via Kickstarter. That kind of thing really eats into your margin.
Maybe they thought the Kickstarter customer base was just the most enthusiastic 10-20% of customers, and if it turned out to be 90-100% of customers they were left with production costs that didn't work. If you don't hit scale on production, you still get to pay the giant upfront costs.
At any rate, why liquidate the company if they had enough money in the bank to pay the entirety of your debts. A company at that point will hope that there might still be a way out.