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GoPro cutting 7 percent of its workforce

135 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

iDemonix 11y ago
Well that tells me I know nothing about business. A few weeks ago I was thinking of having my first go at buying shares and thought GoPro could be an interesting company to look in to.
- tyingq 11y ago
  Buy low, right?
  - mfoy_ 11y ago
    Buy low, sell lower?
    - kelukelugames 11y ago
      I too own TWTR! I bought shares because my friend did. I have zero investment discipline. So now I just put every penny into my mortgage.
    - tyingq 11y ago
      Well, nobody can guess the exact bottom. Buying, even yesterday, may not look so bad if you look at the 1+ year chart. Unless you're into day trading.
      - frandroid 11y ago
        Technology stocks are a terrible sector to look at on the long term because there's so much churn. A company with one product that's saturating the market and/or being bypassed by the competition usually never recovers. All they showed is that they happened on a good product/market fit once and were able to execute, but can they reproduce this with a different product? Even Apple struggles with this now (Apple Watch) and they've had multiple record successes.
- JTon 11y ago
  It's down ~23% in after market trading. Ouch. Good thing you didn't pull the trigger eh
- Someone1234 11y ago
  If you didn't look into it yet, it hardly indicates you know nothing about business. Randomly picking companies to examine further is a perfectly reasonable way of trying to find investments (and what stops you following the crowd). In my OPINION GoPro's problem is that they haven't diversified in any significant way. Here's a list of products GoPro sells: GoPros (and accessories). That's it. But this area has hardly been standing still. We've seen drone-cameras take off, including the ingenius ones which follow you (e.g. Lily), we've seen those throw-up 360 degree cameras, smaller versions (e.g. Mokacam), and a near constant stream of less expensive generics which do 90% of what a GoPro can do (and can even use GoPro's accessories). GoPro had a MASSIVE market lead and still does, but they're squandered much of it on reproducing the same product over and over until the market is saturated.
  - Avalaxy 11y ago
    To be fair I don't think any of the cheaper knock-off products come anywhere close to the quality that GoPro produces, both in terms of solidness and image quality?
    - bduerst 11y ago
      They're almost all standard CMOS camera sensors, so depending on what you're wanting to do (action images, streaming video, etc.) you should compare on those features.
    - foobarqux 11y ago
      The Xiaomi cam looks like it has virtually identical image quality for $60. You give up water-proofness but you can get a waterproof case add-on.
      - jonknee 11y ago
        GoPro's aren't waterproof either, they require a waterproof housing.
      - lukeschlather 11y ago
        The built-in waterproofing is a big deal. As is the sturdiness of the case. Doesn't matter if I'm biking, swimming, diving, snowshoeing, I can always have my GoPro with me and I know it will always be available to take a video at a couple seconds' notice. I can't imagine I'd have the same confidence in a cheaper camera with a waterproof case add-on that I do in my GoPro. Also, the $130 I paid for the entry-level model was a good price.
- chrismcb 11y ago
  GoPro had been in trouble for a while. The rumor is they've saturated their niche. They also pushed back the release of the 5 which also hurt sales. And with Sony and others entering the market GoPro will have a tough time. I also think some people are putting too much faith in the stone. Ooh and their session didn't pan out quite like they expected.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
af3 11y ago
My comment two years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7197741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7197741): "They put cameras on the helmets? good enough to file an IPO..." ;)
tyingq 11y ago
Their investor faq page (http://investor.gopro.com/faq.cfm http://investor.gopro.com/faq.cfm) says 1460 employees total. That would make about 100 employees being cut. There's also about 80 open positions there now (I didn't count internships). https://gopro.com/careers/jobs https://gopro.com/careers/jobs
- djsumdog 11y ago
  I wish fuckedcompany.com was still around.
  - adventured 11y ago
    That makes no sense. GoPro is an actual business, not a dotcom bubble stock. Fucked Company specialized in covering the rapid collapse of dotcoms with no business model. They've been solidly profitable the last four quarters, and the three years before that - $220 million in net income over that time. They have $500m in cash and zero debt. How bright is their future? That's a great debate to have. And that's an entirely different question than: are or were they a real business, and will they still be around in a year (obvious answer: yes).
    - tyingq 11y ago
      "Fucked Company specialized in covering the rapid collapse of dotcoms with no business model" That may have been the intended purpose, but some of their most widely covered stuff was closer to this. Like the ruckus with Ford Motor Company.
- bduerst 11y ago
  I'm not saying GoPro is doing this, but many companies will list open positions online in order to collect applications to have on hand, even though they aren't hiring.
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    I've heard that, but I don't quite understand it. 1. Advertise open positions that aren't really open 2. Collect a bunch of resumes 3. When a position opens up 6 months later, offer it to someone who hasn't been able to find a job in 6 months...? More likely it's something to do with hiring quotas -- perhaps they have to show they made an effort to fill a position with a non-H1B worker, or something.
jaymoorthi 11y ago
(It looks like the link to the article 404s now)
jmsdnns 11y ago
Worth taking a look at the WSJ short interest tables, where GoPro has been for a while: http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-nasdaqshort-highlites.html http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-nasdaqshort-hig...
monk_e_boy 11y ago
Me and my mates are big users of GoPro cameras. We use them for spearfishing, kitesurfing, surfing and filming our kids at the beach. GoPro seem to be going towards smaller cameras (good) higher res (who cares - the camera lens is crap and fogs and is covered in water drops 90% of the time) and drones (who cares) What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user. [edit] I guess you guys may not be aware of Woo and Xensor which are gadgets you clip to your kiteboard, these measure GPS, jump height, speed etc. These are not sync'd to the video (they are different gadgets) but someone needs to make this work somehow. Not sure how they measure jump height in amongst the waves... it's all pretty neat.
- kcarter80 11y ago
  This doesn't sound niche at all...
  - beambot 11y ago
    This was GoPro's core audience, which gave them massive early adoption.
  - function_seven 11y ago
    My apologies if I read your comment wrong, but assuming you're being sarcastic: It really isn't niche. GoPro's target demographic are people engaging in all sorts of activities. Biking, motocross, hiking, surfing, skating, skydiving, regular diving, racing, waterskiing, and so on. All of these activities would benefit from some or all of the metrics parent listed.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      I think OPs sarcasm was a veiled comment that GoPro's valuation is based on a broad audience, which doesn't exist for their product. GoPro did indeed have first mover advantage, but it appears competitors are catching up now that the (niche) market has been validated.
colmvp 11y ago
Anecdotally, I know a couple people who buy a GoPro for a specific adventure. They use it, it's cool, but then it gathers dust for months afterwards. It's not hard to find used ones locally. Or to have a friend who you can borrow from if you know you aren't going to use beyond your own single adventure of the year. In terms of daily videos, the mobile phone is good enough for most people who want to capture moments. My comment isn't meant to poo-poo the GoPro because the product definitely fits a niche, rather to say that it wouldn't surprise me to see GoPro hit a certain ceiling with just focusing on portable camcorders.
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  Pooh-pooh is the saying [0], which removes the fecal component from your statement. Otherwise, that's been my experience with GoPro as well. [0] http://grammarist.com/usage/poo-pooh/ http://grammarist.com/usage/poo-pooh/ Edit: Downvote me all you want, it's the difference between literally taking a dump on something and figuratively doing so. Words matter. If that offends you, maybe you aren't as open to knowledge as you think.
  - wrsh07 11y ago
    Silly thing to nit, off topic, etc. Also, since I see no reason why grammarist is more trustworthy than wiki, you're not even necessarily right: [from wiki] "A pooh-pooh (also styled as poo-poo)..."
    - Domenic_S 11y ago
      I'm right. Did you look at the wiki reference? It's a book called "Seventeen Versions of Jewishness: 20 Examples" by a comedy/children's writer. More likely that example slipped by the editor.
    - mattl 11y ago
      Which wiki?
  - giaour 11y ago
    Good on you for not pooh-pooh-ing an errant "poo-poo." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeF1JO7Ki8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeF1JO7Ki8E
rdxm 11y ago
bought one of the new session cameras to put on the bike for rear-view capture of douchebag drivers. it flat out did not work. tried several approved microsd cards, etc, etc.. big disappointment as I really need a decent solution that will run for many hours at a time...
- post_break 11y ago
  It's an action cam, not a dash cam. Try the mobius action cam. The suggestion seems like a joke due to my first sentence but the makers worked with the users and added dash cam features to the firmware. Been using it as a dash cam for over a year and the quality rivals my GoPro. Under $100 too.
- chli 11y ago
  The thing is broken ! See my other message in the comments...
hkmurakami 11y ago
I've always wondered if GoPro has an iPad problem where the old models are "good enough" so the refresh rate will be low.
- kraig 11y ago
  They're not that good, they're just not innovating quickly. Even simple improvements like battery life or a better remote would probably drive a lot of upgrades.
- burger_moon 11y ago
  I own and iPad 2 and a gopro hero 2. Both are still running great and I still use both regularly so I suppose for the type of person that doesn't need the latest and greatest, it's holding back sales, albeit probably a small percentage.
freyr 11y ago
My understanding is that GoPro sells a small, rugged, waterproof digital camera that can easily be mounted on a bike/surfboard/whatever. It built a strong brand due to its first-mover advantage in the action sports community. But beyond its brand strength, has there been anything preventing the commoditization of the GoPro product?
- picardo 11y ago
  Patents, perhaps.
  - topspin 11y ago
    You would think that, but that doesn't appear to be the case. There are a plethora of GoPro clones available now. I count over 50 distinct brands offered via Amazon Prime and hundreds of models filling the spectrum. The "action camera" has indeed been commoditized and GoPro layoffs are not surprising.
    - piokuc 11y ago
      My feeling is they need to come up with something radically new to compete now. No idea what it could be. It'll be interesting to see how this market evolves.
      - itomato 11y ago
        They have trouble keeping up with the pace of their current products. Plus, they aren't really innovators.
      - SixSigma 11y ago
        Having 3d and 360degree models would be a future possibility - team up with Rift etc.
- jimduk 11y ago
  You need a certain amount of scale to stay close to the cutting edge (mobile) of imaging - GoPro uses the Ambarella chipsets and Sony sensors - if you want to talk to them directly (as opposed to 3rd parties), or the sensor manufacturers you need a level of scale/cash/backing. Also - in general its a tough market - if you look at the classic camera market their margins aren't great
netinstructions 11y ago
GoPro drives me nuts. I bought one of their (second or third gen) cameras in ~2012 that had a firmware limited number of photos I could take with it. One of my goals was to do a bunch of time-lapse shots, taking photos every few seconds and then making a video out of them. They marketed this feature (take a photo every X seconds) quite a bit, so it was definitely a selling point to me. I discovered the bug a few weeks after owning it, right before a big vacation I was hoping to record. It would take about 8 or 9 photos and then lock up. I couldn't turn it off or stop its capture. When I plugged it into my computer, I saw that there were hundreds of empty folders. I tried power cycling it by taking the battery out and putting it back in. I also wiped out the memory card both via the computer, as well as selecting the 'delete all' option on-camera, all to no effect. I emailed them, and their response was: > Hi, Do you take many time lapse pictures? What may have happened, is you may have encountered a known issue with our current firmware, in which the camera is no longer able to save files after it has taken 9999 images. Could you please let me know what the name of the last successfully captured image was? If this is the case, we would need you to send in your camera, and would reflash your firmware to fix the issue. So I had to shell out $20 in shipping and mail my (brand new) camera across the country for it to be reset. I wasn't able to record the trip I took. Still irks me today that they were selling cameras with a known, software-limited, number of shots you could take with them before they had to be sent back. If their QA department took a photo every 1 second (as their product was advertised to be capable of) it would take 2.78 hours for them to discover this bug.
- corp-a 11y ago
  Might as well get a $20 SJ4000 from Ebay [1] that can do most of what a GoPro can do... 1. http://www.ebay.com/itm/2015-SJ4000-1080P-FHD-Sports-Car-Full-HD-DV-Action-Waterproof-30M-Camera-/301747694961?hash=item4641906d71:g:H4oAAOSwxN5WZQxG http://www.ebay.com/itm/2015-SJ4000-1080P-FHD-Sports-Car-Ful...
  - sauere 11y ago
    I just watched a side-by-side comparison here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemeuGprSq0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemeuGprSq0 I have no use for actions cams and am not an expert in any way, but the quality of that $20 camera looks amazing, in some scenes it actually looks sharper and better than the GoPro that costs 5x as much.
gregdoesit 11y ago
I worked at Mivrosoft when Tony Bates - curent GoPro CEO - was Head of the Skype divison there. After the Microsoft aquisition, and Steve Balmer announced stepping down, Satya Nadella, Stephen Elop and Tony Bates were the front runners for the Microsoft CEO seat. When it turned out Satya got the CEO seat, rumours of Tony joining GoPro immediately surfaced - and turned out to be true. I am pretty sure GoPro execs were hoping Tony Bates would make GoPro the mainstream success that Skype was. He did... except Skype was never profitable - but it was also not publicly traded, so this wasn't apparent, and never really an issue. I do wonder if GoPro would have done better to appoint any other CEO, but personally I never even noticed any change of direction before or after Tony Bates being the CEO, despite the massive hiring spree that followed. Mind you, the same happened at Skype after the Microsoft aquisition - except Microsoft easily footed the bill. In the light of things I do think GoPro did make the mistake of hiring an overly ambitious CEO, who hired too fast and too soon, without the financial results following.
- mturmon 11y ago
  Interesting, thanks. I knew a couple of recent GoPro hires, both good people, very capable. I wonder how the restructuring is going to hit the technical side of the house there.
- nhod 11y ago
  Tony is GoPro's President, not its CEO. Nick Woodman is still very much GoPro's Founder & CEO.
matt_wulfeck 11y ago
I don't think this really surprises anybody. GoPro management is trying to pivot the company into a media company, which carries completely different stock valuations. It just looks like the decline in hardware sales is happening faster than anticipated.
neves 11y ago
Last week, I went to Iguaçu Falls with my kids. I was impressed with the amount of GoPros I saw. Just the elderly tourists didn't have one. Groups of young tourists, everyone in the group had their GoPro in a stick. Now I know it is mainstream. Sport people aren't their public as they are from North Face.
melted 11y ago
Basically everyone who wanted one already has one. I have a hero 4, and even though I got it at a 50% discount, it still was too expensive for what it does imo.
- rodgerd 11y ago
  > Basically everyone who wanted one already has one. And there are a gaggle of imitators at the bottom of the market (various Chinese brands) and the high end (Sony, Panasonic, etc).
xlayn 11y ago
The report is about GoPro cutting a % of their workforce because lower than expected sales. I see 3 different kind of comments for this entry: -A comment about an opinion of a GoPro camera... this reflects on "I would not buy another because". -A comment about internal politics about the company... -People stating "I have one" why should I have another? with that said, most of them are about "I have one" or "I don't see a reason to buy another", the market has got to a point where most of the people who have bought one doesn't see a reason and the company have not provide one. How is possible that no one on GoPro had done a market investigation prior to set quarter goals? for me this is a failure of estimating sales where there were no sales to be performed. The real question here is "What is this new feature that would make our users want to buy a new one?" that would reflect on stronger sales?
- baudehlo 11y ago
  I would just want a much better battery life, and software and UI that doesn't utterly suck. The only good thing about the GoPro is the lens/sensor and the case/mount system. The camera itself needs a lot of work.
- spyspy 11y ago
  Something people often forget is that consumers aren't the only ones buying GoPros. They're used a ton by other businesses. And for businesses they're pretty much considered disposable since they're so much cheaper than an actual video camera.
- baby 11y ago
  * I'd want a better camera for photos (I don't know if this is possible, and I bet this is not the principal use case of the gopro, but nonetheless I sometimes take pictures with it (maybe before I had a good smartphone) and it's just bad) * I'd want a screen on it (I think for the last one you can buy one, but the fact that I'm not sure tells a lot) * I'd want the interface to be easier to navigate (to setup the time, resolution, fps, etc... it's a pain)
- randycupertino 11y ago
  someone to watch your 4 hours of boring helmetcam video, pick out the coolest 90 seconds worth, edit it into a cool video, and put it to hip music then upload it. That is a feature I would pay for! Gopro is great but the editing process sucks and is totally boring.
spraveen80 11y ago
Fitbit is next. It is very hard for un-diversified hardware companies to exist once the product becomes commoditized.
- jbb555 11y ago
  I don't know about fitbit so much. The main advantage to me isn't the hardware, it's that it all uploads smoothly to their website for tracking. If I got a different device I'd have one website for steps, one for weight etc...
StillBored 11y ago
Gopro was pretty much the first "reasonable" price 4k camera on the market. I've often wondered why they didn't move up market into the nikon/canon space starting with the small mirrorless replaceable lenses format. That space has been ripe for disruption for at least a decade.
Negative1 11y ago
Out of curiosity is Woodman still the highest paid CEO in the US?
- freyr 11y ago
  Yes, though his compensation dropped to only $136M. It didn't stop him from recently buying a 180-ft yacht.
kkapelon 11y ago
The success of GoPro so far has been the result of 1)first mover advantage 2)Smart marketing with viral videos of athletes in various extreme sports 3)Selling proprietary accessories However now that some time has passed and competitors have appeared GoPro is losing ground on all types of users 1)Casual GoPro users already have one and are not going to upgrade 2)Pro users are turning to models with better form factor (sony, contour etc) The Sony action cameras come with built-in video stabilization a feature that GoPro cameras do not have yet.
Tepix 11y ago
I'm looking forward to the 360° camera they hinted at. I hope it will do 3d 360°, not just 2d 360°.
fithisux 11y ago
We bought 6 Hero Pro 4 Black and a Freedom mount. Multiple issues with latest firmware, misleading advertisement info a. Cameras freeze when are switched on and plugged in USB f PC. Have to remove battery to unfreeze them. b. Not able to explicitly sync time on cameras with Studio c. Not open in providing lens specs (it was proprietary information what kind of fisheye distortion happens), no focal length, no sensor size, nothing d. UDP streaming is proprietary e. Whatever you do, you need the Go Pro app, not possible to control from PC, no documentation f. Not developer friendly (no REST API for developers) g. Camera acts as a Wi-Fi router, you cannot put multiple of them in the same network as your PC. h. Unintuitive UI in camera, too many clicks to achieve your goal. i. For streaming, they forgot to tell you that you need a Micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter and a USB frame grabber, hidden extra costs.
castell 11y ago
Take a dust and water proof smartphone, some of them do 20+ megapixel picture and 4k videos. Why would anyone still use a clumsy device? (except for rare action videos)
- saddestcatever 11y ago
  Most likely, buying a dust-proof, water-proof, and shock resistant smartphone with 4k video support is going to be a tad more expensive than your entry level GoPro. However, for the casual user (not doing action shots), you've got a point. What use would my mom have for a GoPro that her iPhone can't do?
conradfr 11y ago
FWIW my brother has a Hero 3 Silver and got all kind of problem with it. Not booting, freezing, firmware etc. He serviced it and is supposed to have got back a new one, but years later it's worse and worse (I think it's a RAM problem or something, who knows). Now the warranty is over and the customer service is still useless with their stock sentences. So he need a new one and I'm guessing it's not gonna be a GoPro.

135 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

Well that tells me I know nothing about business. A few weeks ago I was thinking of having my first go at buying shares and thought GoPro could be an interesting company to look in to.

tyingq 11y ago
Buy low, right?
- mfoy_ 11y ago
  Buy low, sell lower?
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    I too own TWTR! I bought shares because my friend did. I have zero investment discipline. So now I just put every penny into my mortgage.
  - tyingq 11y ago
    Well, nobody can guess the exact bottom. Buying, even yesterday, may not look so bad if you look at the 1+ year chart. Unless you're into day trading.
    - frandroid 11y ago
      Technology stocks are a terrible sector to look at on the long term because there's so much churn. A company with one product that's saturating the market and/or being bypassed by the competition usually never recovers. All they showed is that they happened on a good product/market fit once and were able to execute, but can they reproduce this with a different product? Even Apple struggles with this now (Apple Watch) and they've had multiple record successes.
JTon 11y ago
It's down ~23% in after market trading. Ouch. Good thing you didn't pull the trigger eh
Someone1234 11y ago
If you didn't look into it yet, it hardly indicates you know nothing about business. Randomly picking companies to examine further is a perfectly reasonable way of trying to find investments (and what stops you following the crowd). In my OPINION GoPro's problem is that they haven't diversified in any significant way. Here's a list of products GoPro sells: GoPros (and accessories). That's it. But this area has hardly been standing still. We've seen drone-cameras take off, including the ingenius ones which follow you (e.g. Lily), we've seen those throw-up 360 degree cameras, smaller versions (e.g. Mokacam), and a near constant stream of less expensive generics which do 90% of what a GoPro can do (and can even use GoPro's accessories). GoPro had a MASSIVE market lead and still does, but they're squandered much of it on reproducing the same product over and over until the market is saturated.
- Avalaxy 11y ago
  To be fair I don't think any of the cheaper knock-off products come anywhere close to the quality that GoPro produces, both in terms of solidness and image quality?
  - bduerst 11y ago
    They're almost all standard CMOS camera sensors, so depending on what you're wanting to do (action images, streaming video, etc.) you should compare on those features.
  - foobarqux 11y ago
    The Xiaomi cam looks like it has virtually identical image quality for $60. You give up water-proofness but you can get a waterproof case add-on.
    - jonknee 11y ago
      GoPro's aren't waterproof either, they require a waterproof housing.
    - lukeschlather 11y ago
      The built-in waterproofing is a big deal. As is the sturdiness of the case. Doesn't matter if I'm biking, swimming, diving, snowshoeing, I can always have my GoPro with me and I know it will always be available to take a video at a couple seconds' notice. I can't imagine I'd have the same confidence in a cheaper camera with a waterproof case add-on that I do in my GoPro. Also, the $130 I paid for the entry-level model was a good price.
chrismcb 11y ago
GoPro had been in trouble for a while. The rumor is they've saturated their niche. They also pushed back the release of the 5 which also hurt sales. And with Sony and others entering the market GoPro will have a tough time. I also think some people are putting too much faith in the stone. Ooh and their session didn't pan out quite like they expected.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

af3 11y ago

My comment two years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7197741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7197741): "They put cameras on the helmets? good enough to file an IPO..." ;)

tyingq 11y ago

Their investor faq page (http://investor.gopro.com/faq.cfm http://investor.gopro.com/faq.cfm) says 1460 employees total. That would make about 100 employees being cut. There's also about 80 open positions there now (I didn't count internships). https://gopro.com/careers/jobs https://gopro.com/careers/jobs

djsumdog 11y ago
I wish fuckedcompany.com was still around.
- adventured 11y ago
  That makes no sense. GoPro is an actual business, not a dotcom bubble stock. Fucked Company specialized in covering the rapid collapse of dotcoms with no business model. They've been solidly profitable the last four quarters, and the three years before that - $220 million in net income over that time. They have $500m in cash and zero debt. How bright is their future? That's a great debate to have. And that's an entirely different question than: are or were they a real business, and will they still be around in a year (obvious answer: yes).
  - tyingq 11y ago
    "Fucked Company specialized in covering the rapid collapse of dotcoms with no business model" That may have been the intended purpose, but some of their most widely covered stuff was closer to this. Like the ruckus with Ford Motor Company.
bduerst 11y ago
I'm not saying GoPro is doing this, but many companies will list open positions online in order to collect applications to have on hand, even though they aren't hiring.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  I've heard that, but I don't quite understand it. 1. Advertise open positions that aren't really open 2. Collect a bunch of resumes 3. When a position opens up 6 months later, offer it to someone who hasn't been able to find a job in 6 months...? More likely it's something to do with hiring quotas -- perhaps they have to show they made an effort to fill a position with a non-H1B worker, or something.

jaymoorthi 11y ago

(It looks like the link to the article 404s now)

jmsdnns 11y ago

Worth taking a look at the WSJ short interest tables, where GoPro has been for a while: http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-nasdaqshort-highlites.html http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-nasdaqshort-hig...

monk_e_boy 11y ago

Me and my mates are big users of GoPro cameras. We use them for spearfishing, kitesurfing, surfing and filming our kids at the beach. GoPro seem to be going towards smaller cameras (good) higher res (who cares - the camera lens is crap and fogs and is covered in water drops 90% of the time) and drones (who cares) What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user. [edit] I guess you guys may not be aware of Woo and Xensor which are gadgets you clip to your kiteboard, these measure GPS, jump height, speed etc. These are not sync'd to the video (they are different gadgets) but someone needs to make this work somehow. Not sure how they measure jump height in amongst the waves... it's all pretty neat.

kcarter80 11y ago
This doesn't sound niche at all...
- beambot 11y ago
  This was GoPro's core audience, which gave them massive early adoption.
- function_seven 11y ago
  My apologies if I read your comment wrong, but assuming you're being sarcastic: It really isn't niche. GoPro's target demographic are people engaging in all sorts of activities. Biking, motocross, hiking, surfing, skating, skydiving, regular diving, racing, waterskiing, and so on. All of these activities would benefit from some or all of the metrics parent listed.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I think OPs sarcasm was a veiled comment that GoPro's valuation is based on a broad audience, which doesn't exist for their product. GoPro did indeed have first mover advantage, but it appears competitors are catching up now that the (niche) market has been validated.

colmvp 11y ago

Anecdotally, I know a couple people who buy a GoPro for a specific adventure. They use it, it's cool, but then it gathers dust for months afterwards. It's not hard to find used ones locally. Or to have a friend who you can borrow from if you know you aren't going to use beyond your own single adventure of the year. In terms of daily videos, the mobile phone is good enough for most people who want to capture moments. My comment isn't meant to poo-poo the GoPro because the product definitely fits a niche, rather to say that it wouldn't surprise me to see GoPro hit a certain ceiling with just focusing on portable camcorders.

Domenic_S 11y ago
Pooh-pooh is the saying [0], which removes the fecal component from your statement. Otherwise, that's been my experience with GoPro as well. [0] http://grammarist.com/usage/poo-pooh/ http://grammarist.com/usage/poo-pooh/ Edit: Downvote me all you want, it's the difference between literally taking a dump on something and figuratively doing so. Words matter. If that offends you, maybe you aren't as open to knowledge as you think.
- wrsh07 11y ago
  Silly thing to nit, off topic, etc. Also, since I see no reason why grammarist is more trustworthy than wiki, you're not even necessarily right: [from wiki] "A pooh-pooh (also styled as poo-poo)..."
  - Domenic_S 11y ago
    I'm right. Did you look at the wiki reference? It's a book called "Seventeen Versions of Jewishness: 20 Examples" by a comedy/children's writer. More likely that example slipped by the editor.
  - mattl 11y ago
    Which wiki?
- giaour 11y ago
  Good on you for not pooh-pooh-ing an errant "poo-poo." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeF1JO7Ki8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeF1JO7Ki8E

rdxm 11y ago

bought one of the new session cameras to put on the bike for rear-view capture of douchebag drivers. it flat out did not work. tried several approved microsd cards, etc, etc.. big disappointment as I really need a decent solution that will run for many hours at a time...

post_break 11y ago
It's an action cam, not a dash cam. Try the mobius action cam. The suggestion seems like a joke due to my first sentence but the makers worked with the users and added dash cam features to the firmware. Been using it as a dash cam for over a year and the quality rivals my GoPro. Under $100 too.
chli 11y ago
The thing is broken ! See my other message in the comments...

hkmurakami 11y ago

I've always wondered if GoPro has an iPad problem where the old models are "good enough" so the refresh rate will be low.

kraig 11y ago
They're not that good, they're just not innovating quickly. Even simple improvements like battery life or a better remote would probably drive a lot of upgrades.
burger_moon 11y ago
I own and iPad 2 and a gopro hero 2. Both are still running great and I still use both regularly so I suppose for the type of person that doesn't need the latest and greatest, it's holding back sales, albeit probably a small percentage.

freyr 11y ago

My understanding is that GoPro sells a small, rugged, waterproof digital camera that can easily be mounted on a bike/surfboard/whatever. It built a strong brand due to its first-mover advantage in the action sports community. But beyond its brand strength, has there been anything preventing the commoditization of the GoPro product?

picardo 11y ago
Patents, perhaps.
- topspin 11y ago
  You would think that, but that doesn't appear to be the case. There are a plethora of GoPro clones available now. I count over 50 distinct brands offered via Amazon Prime and hundreds of models filling the spectrum. The "action camera" has indeed been commoditized and GoPro layoffs are not surprising.
  - piokuc 11y ago
    My feeling is they need to come up with something radically new to compete now. No idea what it could be. It'll be interesting to see how this market evolves.
    - itomato 11y ago
      They have trouble keeping up with the pace of their current products. Plus, they aren't really innovators.
    - SixSigma 11y ago
      Having 3d and 360degree models would be a future possibility - team up with Rift etc.
jimduk 11y ago
You need a certain amount of scale to stay close to the cutting edge (mobile) of imaging - GoPro uses the Ambarella chipsets and Sony sensors - if you want to talk to them directly (as opposed to 3rd parties), or the sensor manufacturers you need a level of scale/cash/backing. Also - in general its a tough market - if you look at the classic camera market their margins aren't great

netinstructions 11y ago

GoPro drives me nuts. I bought one of their (second or third gen) cameras in ~2012 that had a firmware limited number of photos I could take with it. One of my goals was to do a bunch of time-lapse shots, taking photos every few seconds and then making a video out of them. They marketed this feature (take a photo every X seconds) quite a bit, so it was definitely a selling point to me. I discovered the bug a few weeks after owning it, right before a big vacation I was hoping to record. It would take about 8 or 9 photos and then lock up. I couldn't turn it off or stop its capture. When I plugged it into my computer, I saw that there were hundreds of empty folders. I tried power cycling it by taking the battery out and putting it back in. I also wiped out the memory card both via the computer, as well as selecting the 'delete all' option on-camera, all to no effect. I emailed them, and their response was: > Hi, Do you take many time lapse pictures? What may have happened, is you may have encountered a known issue with our current firmware, in which the camera is no longer able to save files after it has taken 9999 images. Could you please let me know what the name of the last successfully captured image was? If this is the case, we would need you to send in your camera, and would reflash your firmware to fix the issue. So I had to shell out $20 in shipping and mail my (brand new) camera across the country for it to be reset. I wasn't able to record the trip I took. Still irks me today that they were selling cameras with a known, software-limited, number of shots you could take with them before they had to be sent back. If their QA department took a photo every 1 second (as their product was advertised to be capable of) it would take 2.78 hours for them to discover this bug.

corp-a 11y ago
Might as well get a $20 SJ4000 from Ebay [1] that can do most of what a GoPro can do... 1. http://www.ebay.com/itm/2015-SJ4000-1080P-FHD-Sports-Car-Full-HD-DV-Action-Waterproof-30M-Camera-/301747694961?hash=item4641906d71:g:H4oAAOSwxN5WZQxG http://www.ebay.com/itm/2015-SJ4000-1080P-FHD-Sports-Car-Ful...
- sauere 11y ago
  I just watched a side-by-side comparison here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemeuGprSq0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemeuGprSq0 I have no use for actions cams and am not an expert in any way, but the quality of that $20 camera looks amazing, in some scenes it actually looks sharper and better than the GoPro that costs 5x as much.

gregdoesit 11y ago

I worked at Mivrosoft when Tony Bates - curent GoPro CEO - was Head of the Skype divison there. After the Microsoft aquisition, and Steve Balmer announced stepping down, Satya Nadella, Stephen Elop and Tony Bates were the front runners for the Microsoft CEO seat. When it turned out Satya got the CEO seat, rumours of Tony joining GoPro immediately surfaced - and turned out to be true. I am pretty sure GoPro execs were hoping Tony Bates would make GoPro the mainstream success that Skype was. He did... except Skype was never profitable - but it was also not publicly traded, so this wasn't apparent, and never really an issue. I do wonder if GoPro would have done better to appoint any other CEO, but personally I never even noticed any change of direction before or after Tony Bates being the CEO, despite the massive hiring spree that followed. Mind you, the same happened at Skype after the Microsoft aquisition - except Microsoft easily footed the bill. In the light of things I do think GoPro did make the mistake of hiring an overly ambitious CEO, who hired too fast and too soon, without the financial results following.

mturmon 11y ago
Interesting, thanks. I knew a couple of recent GoPro hires, both good people, very capable. I wonder how the restructuring is going to hit the technical side of the house there.
nhod 11y ago
Tony is GoPro's President, not its CEO. Nick Woodman is still very much GoPro's Founder & CEO.

matt_wulfeck 11y ago

I don't think this really surprises anybody. GoPro management is trying to pivot the company into a media company, which carries completely different stock valuations. It just looks like the decline in hardware sales is happening faster than anticipated.

neves 11y ago

Last week, I went to Iguaçu Falls with my kids. I was impressed with the amount of GoPros I saw. Just the elderly tourists didn't have one. Groups of young tourists, everyone in the group had their GoPro in a stick. Now I know it is mainstream. Sport people aren't their public as they are from North Face.

melted 11y ago

Basically everyone who wanted one already has one. I have a hero 4, and even though I got it at a 50% discount, it still was too expensive for what it does imo.

rodgerd 11y ago
> Basically everyone who wanted one already has one. And there are a gaggle of imitators at the bottom of the market (various Chinese brands) and the high end (Sony, Panasonic, etc).

xlayn 11y ago

The report is about GoPro cutting a % of their workforce because lower than expected sales. I see 3 different kind of comments for this entry: -A comment about an opinion of a GoPro camera... this reflects on "I would not buy another because". -A comment about internal politics about the company... -People stating "I have one" why should I have another? with that said, most of them are about "I have one" or "I don't see a reason to buy another", the market has got to a point where most of the people who have bought one doesn't see a reason and the company have not provide one. How is possible that no one on GoPro had done a market investigation prior to set quarter goals? for me this is a failure of estimating sales where there were no sales to be performed. The real question here is "What is this new feature that would make our users want to buy a new one?" that would reflect on stronger sales?

baudehlo 11y ago
I would just want a much better battery life, and software and UI that doesn't utterly suck. The only good thing about the GoPro is the lens/sensor and the case/mount system. The camera itself needs a lot of work.
spyspy 11y ago
Something people often forget is that consumers aren't the only ones buying GoPros. They're used a ton by other businesses. And for businesses they're pretty much considered disposable since they're so much cheaper than an actual video camera.
baby 11y ago
* I'd want a better camera for photos (I don't know if this is possible, and I bet this is not the principal use case of the gopro, but nonetheless I sometimes take pictures with it (maybe before I had a good smartphone) and it's just bad) * I'd want a screen on it (I think for the last one you can buy one, but the fact that I'm not sure tells a lot) * I'd want the interface to be easier to navigate (to setup the time, resolution, fps, etc... it's a pain)
randycupertino 11y ago
someone to watch your 4 hours of boring helmetcam video, pick out the coolest 90 seconds worth, edit it into a cool video, and put it to hip music then upload it. That is a feature I would pay for! Gopro is great but the editing process sucks and is totally boring.

spraveen80 11y ago

Fitbit is next. It is very hard for un-diversified hardware companies to exist once the product becomes commoditized.

jbb555 11y ago
I don't know about fitbit so much. The main advantage to me isn't the hardware, it's that it all uploads smoothly to their website for tracking. If I got a different device I'd have one website for steps, one for weight etc...

StillBored 11y ago

Gopro was pretty much the first "reasonable" price 4k camera on the market. I've often wondered why they didn't move up market into the nikon/canon space starting with the small mirrorless replaceable lenses format. That space has been ripe for disruption for at least a decade.

Negative1 11y ago

Out of curiosity is Woodman still the highest paid CEO in the US?

freyr 11y ago
Yes, though his compensation dropped to only $136M. It didn't stop him from recently buying a 180-ft yacht.

kkapelon 11y ago

The success of GoPro so far has been the result of 1)first mover advantage 2)Smart marketing with viral videos of athletes in various extreme sports 3)Selling proprietary accessories However now that some time has passed and competitors have appeared GoPro is losing ground on all types of users 1)Casual GoPro users already have one and are not going to upgrade 2)Pro users are turning to models with better form factor (sony, contour etc) The Sony action cameras come with built-in video stabilization a feature that GoPro cameras do not have yet.

Tepix 11y ago

I'm looking forward to the 360° camera they hinted at. I hope it will do 3d 360°, not just 2d 360°.

fithisux 11y ago

We bought 6 Hero Pro 4 Black and a Freedom mount. Multiple issues with latest firmware, misleading advertisement info a. Cameras freeze when are switched on and plugged in USB f PC. Have to remove battery to unfreeze them. b. Not able to explicitly sync time on cameras with Studio c. Not open in providing lens specs (it was proprietary information what kind of fisheye distortion happens), no focal length, no sensor size, nothing d. UDP streaming is proprietary e. Whatever you do, you need the Go Pro app, not possible to control from PC, no documentation f. Not developer friendly (no REST API for developers) g. Camera acts as a Wi-Fi router, you cannot put multiple of them in the same network as your PC. h. Unintuitive UI in camera, too many clicks to achieve your goal. i. For streaming, they forgot to tell you that you need a Micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter and a USB frame grabber, hidden extra costs.

castell 11y ago

Take a dust and water proof smartphone, some of them do 20+ megapixel picture and 4k videos. Why would anyone still use a clumsy device? (except for rare action videos)

saddestcatever 11y ago
Most likely, buying a dust-proof, water-proof, and shock resistant smartphone with 4k video support is going to be a tad more expensive than your entry level GoPro. However, for the casual user (not doing action shots), you've got a point. What use would my mom have for a GoPro that her iPhone can't do?

conradfr 11y ago

FWIW my brother has a Hero 3 Silver and got all kind of problem with it. Not booting, freezing, firmware etc. He serviced it and is supposed to have got back a new one, but years later it's worse and worse (I think it's a RAM problem or something, who knows). Now the warranty is over and the customer service is still useless with their stock sentences. So he need a new one and I'm guessing it's not gonna be a GoPro.