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I think Pebble's biggest issue is that they should have been a product of a larger company rather than a stand alone company. A few years ago I bought a produc

I think Pebble's biggest issue is that they should have been a product of a larger company rather than a stand alone company. A few years ago I bought a product called a Flip. It was a standalone video camera that was dirt simple to use, took decent quality video and was cheap. It came along at the right time, just before the iPhone took off and people realized that their phone's camera was good enough from most of their video needs. Flip understood that they were a product mascarading as a company and sold to Cisco. Pebble is similar in that they were the right product at the right time. Their failure was in not realizing they had a window of a few years to build their product and sell. There's nothing wrong with that, lots of products, like the flip, are valuable for only a few years before their main features get consumed into other devices and they become obsolete. I'm really not sure how the board let the CEO make the decision to not sell when they had an offer on the table. I'll buy the book when it comes out as its probably a good case study of product not company.

jathu 10y ago
How do you differentiate a product and a company? There are obvious examples like most of the stuff on Shark Tank (i.e. cookies, jam, clothing, food products). However, I find it hard to think Pebble was just a product and not a company. Doesn't every company start off as a product? Apple started off as Apple I, Google started off as search and Snap started off as a photo sharing app. By your definition, a product is something that can be superseded by a competitor? Isn't that every company ever? My guess was, Pebble believed it could become a company and not just a product... but Apple had other plans for them.
- chollida1 10y ago
  > How do you differentiate a product and a company? Good question. And I think you got it mostly right. Being a product doesn't mean the company has no value, just that its only a matter of time before someone else builds their features into their product. The answer is that its very fluid. Everyone is a product until they are big enough. My rule of thumb is, can I see this companies being a feature for another company, or put another way.... What moat does this company have that ensures another company can't just create a feature to their own product that duplicates them. In the Flip case, it was obvious once the iPhone came out that the average person wasn't going to carry around a separate device just for video. Dropbox was a company that was famously refereed to as a feature, and they've done a great job of becoming more than a generic file syncing company. Cruise automation is a company that I think would have been in trouble if they hand't sold, not necessarily today, but can any one really see a future where most cars produced don't have self driving hardware built into them by the manufacturer?
wodenokoto 10y ago
While I get that cameras have been absorbed into phones, I am not really sure what product has absorbed smart watches. I actually still see this as a new(ish) product category.

jathu 10y ago

How do you differentiate a product and a company? There are obvious examples like most of the stuff on Shark Tank (i.e. cookies, jam, clothing, food products). However, I find it hard to think Pebble was just a product and not a company. Doesn't every company start off as a product? Apple started off as Apple I, Google started off as search and Snap started off as a photo sharing app. By your definition, a product is something that can be superseded by a competitor? Isn't that every company ever? My guess was, Pebble believed it could become a company and not just a product... but Apple had other plans for them.

chollida1 10y ago
> How do you differentiate a product and a company? Good question. And I think you got it mostly right. Being a product doesn't mean the company has no value, just that its only a matter of time before someone else builds their features into their product. The answer is that its very fluid. Everyone is a product until they are big enough. My rule of thumb is, can I see this companies being a feature for another company, or put another way.... What moat does this company have that ensures another company can't just create a feature to their own product that duplicates them. In the Flip case, it was obvious once the iPhone came out that the average person wasn't going to carry around a separate device just for video. Dropbox was a company that was famously refereed to as a feature, and they've done a great job of becoming more than a generic file syncing company. Cruise automation is a company that I think would have been in trouble if they hand't sold, not necessarily today, but can any one really see a future where most cars produced don't have self driving hardware built into them by the manufacturer?

wodenokoto 10y ago

While I get that cameras have been absorbed into phones, I am not really sure what product has absorbed smart watches. I actually still see this as a new(ish) product category.