Uh, comparing Apple to Rolex is ridiculous. One is a mass produced piece of plastic retailing for a few hundred dollars, and the other is a status symbol of craftsmanship that, price point wise, is more equivalent to a used car. Smartwatches inherently occupy a niche like Google Glass. Real watches, timepieces, chronographs, are already so well established and up market that, uh, I don't think the conversation is really even comparable.
What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble
41–47 of 47 posts
Re: What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hindsight is 20/20
He thought he could create more value from his product which he did not. You either can or cannot. A counter-example is that of Mark Zuckerberg. He stuck to his product. A good CEO has to know the limits of his product/service and stick or sell at the right moment.
I think being a good CEO involves many traits. Obviously he had the wrong impression of where Pebble stood in the marketplace and where the company was headed (ie. he didn't foresee the fitness trend, or thought they could successfully pivot). But I assume he had good reasons for doing what he did. Having multiple $10M+ kickstarter launches is evidence that he understood product needs better than most of us could ever hope to.
I'm sure he regrets the decision to not sell more than ever now, and realizes he was wrong, but to say he was a bad CEO because he didn't sell at the right time is akin to being a "Monday Morning Quarterback Expert" where it's easy to criticize somebody for not acting correctly in the past because the right decision is so obvious now.
That's what I meant by the 20/20 statement.
Re: What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
He thought he could create more value from his product which he did not. You either can or cannot. A counter-example is that of Mark Zuckerberg. He stuck to his product. A good CEO has to know the limits of his product/service and stick or sell at the right moment.
I think being a good CEO involves many traits. Obviously he had the wrong impression of where Pebble stood in the marketplace and where the company was headed (ie. he didn't foresee the fitness trend, or thought they could successfully pivot). But I assume he had good reasons for doing what he did. Having multiple $10M+ kickstarter launches is evidence that he understood product needs better than most of us could eve…
I understood what you meant, that's why I disagreed. :)
> but to say he was a bad CEO because he didn't sell at the right time is akin to...
My point is exactly this. This, in hardware startups at least, is probably the most important trait of all, at the end of the day. Everything is a wave. You need to take the photos and jump while you are on the top of it, otherwise you are swallowed by it further down the "road".
Knowing when the wave is at its max (before breaking) is as important in surfing as in business, apparently.
Re: What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble
#44Everybody is claiming that the focus on fitness is what drives smartwatches purchases, and pebble was just too late to it. Is it just me that stopped looking into smartwatches because they became too fitness oriented? I loved the focus on productivity and having a watch becoming slower because it had to track an increasing number of health metrics I couldn't care less of actually killed it for me.
Same here. I actually chose Pebble as my "brand" explicitly because it was a tool first, and initially had none of the bullshit fitness focus. I was a tad disappointed when they later started focusing their marketing efforts on fitness crowd, but thought - hey, maybe that's what they need to survive/grow. I guess it wasn't enough. I'm painfully aware I'm too nerdy a person and don't fit well on the market. Shiny toys…
You are not alone.
Pebble just forgot their history and got greedy.
I wished they just worked on efficiently reading messages, replying. Got the basics right.
Re: What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd go one step further: the pivot to fitness is what killed Pebble. Pebble's first KS campaign resulted in $10MM in pledges. The second campaign resulted in $20MM. The third campaign resulted in $10MM. The second campaign revamped the interface and added capabilities for voice input and other "productivity" features. The third campaign added a heartrate monitor, more fitness features and the Core, a separate device…
Don't you think the fact that their product didn't live up to their own hype was the reason their subsequent campaigns didn't product sufficient funding? Even before they slinked out of the industry their product won't connect properly to iOS. I think your glowing characterization that their users "loved them" was overblown.
I never had any problems with the Pebble Time and every Pebble user I talked to was very happy with them. Though I have to admit I think most people I talked to were using Android phones, so maybe it's not representative?
Re: What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble
#46There's focus and there are killer apps. For the Apple Watch, I use it for 3 main things: 1) fitness - it's a great motivator in addition to Strava (I don't record all my activity like walks in Strava). 2) Wunderground complication + timetravel is fantastic 3) Duologin for 2nd factor is much easier than the iPhone. Pebble failed because Apple made the watch into a iPhone accessory and Apple Watch was better integrate…
Yeah, and once Apple decided to sell their own watch, the hope that anyone else would be able to successfully integrate their smartwatch with the iPhone went out the window, unfortunately.
I hate these stupid ecosystems. There are times I want to use Prime Video on an Apple TV and then stream from a PC or something odd like that. Maybe I want to use an Apple watch with an Android phone..
Re: What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble
#47I think Pebble's CEO simply screwed the moment of selling. He should have sold to Citizen for almost 10x the value a year before. He did not. He burned his cash in the process of making another product. It was a textbook CEO mistake.
actually, we do not know the specifics of the supposed Citizen deal.