{"id":35755,"date":"2022-05-02T16:45:50","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T20:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=35755"},"modified":"2022-05-02T16:46:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T20:46:10","slug":"success-and-failure-at-pebble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/02\/success-and-failure-at-pebble\/","title":{"rendered":"Success and Failure at Pebble"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Migicovsky<\/a> (via Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

I started Pebble with some friends from the University of Waterloo in 2008. We were the first company to work on smartwatches. Pebble defined what a smartwatch was meant to do — vibrate and display incoming calls and messages, control music without taking out your phone, track your exercise and sleep, and be customizable by downloading fun watchfaces<\/a>.<\/p>

You might remember us from 2012 we launched Pebble on Kickstarter<\/a> and raised over $10m from 68,000 people around the world. This was our first breakthrough (a classic 5 year overnight success!) Over the next few years, we sold 2 million watches and did over $230m in sales.<\/p>

We succeeded at inventing the smartwatch and an entirely new product category. The product itself is amazing, people still use it to this day. […] But in the end, we failed to create a sustainable, profitable business. We sold parts of our business to Fitbit at the end of 2016.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

We weren’t the only one with positioning problems. Look back at the original Apple Watch marketing. ‘Most precise timepiece ever.’ Ultra luxury $17,000 gold models. LVMH partnerships. Thousands of apps on your wrist. $350+ price point. It took Apple 2 years to reposition as a sports\/fitness device. This turned out to be the largest market for wearables in 2016\/2017.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n