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Making mass consumer flagship smartphones and going up against Samsung, Huawei, and Apple is a really tough game, but I'm sure Andy and the team at Essential kn
by ajiang 8y ago
Making mass consumer flagship smartphones and going up against Samsung, Huawei, and Apple is a really tough game, but I'm sure Andy and the team at Essential knew that. I like that there are people who, in the face of giants, pick up the stone.
- syedkarim 8y ago>>I like that there are people who, in the face of giants, pick up the stone. Just upvoting this quote.
- realworldview 8y agoDavid got there first, I believe.
- realworldview 8y agoDamn you, down-voting Philistines.
- joering2 8y agoI honestly dont get it. What kind of stone is Google listing? Sorry just genuinely confused and search returned nothing on google stones ;(
- praneshp 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath#Modern_usage_of_%22David_and_Goliath%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath#Modern_usage_of_%22Dav...
- darkkindness 8y agoI think it was a reference to David and Goliath.
- realworldview 8y agoYou fell for the “Google knows everything” mantra…
- icebraining 8y agoIt does, though :) googling "people who, in the face of giants, pick up the stone" returns a bunch of results on David and Goliath.
- realworldview 8y agoOh, I thought it was a search for a new product, the Google Stone. Now that is a product I would buy.
- IncRnd 8y agoGoogle Stone: No privacy worries. No recordings. Nothing evil. Just a rock made by Google. https://googlelogorockpainting.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/google-logo-rock-painting-paris/ https://googlelogorockpainting.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/goog...
- IncRnd 8y agoIt is a reference to the stone used to slay Goliath.
- goatherders 8y agoGreat quote.
- vm 8y agoDifferent [1] is one of my favorite books on how to find a unique niche in crowded markets. It is written by a (brilliant) marketing professor but is useful for product strategy. Also see Blue Ocean Strategy [2] on this topic. Essential had neither of these approaches. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Different-Escaping-Competitive-Youngme-Moon/dp/030746086X https://www.amazon.com/Different-Escaping-Competitive-Youngm... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Expanded-Uncontested/dp/1625274491 https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Expanded-Uncontes...
- sometimesijust 8y agoI disagree. They are pursuing a Blue Ocean strategy but failing in execution as well as suffering from fast followers.
- vm 8y ago"Essential Phone The most beautiful Android upgrade, ever." is the tagline on their homepage. That's hardly an uncontested product niche (aka Blue Ocean Strategy). Apple dominates "beautiful" phones. Even if you believe the Android carve out (I don't), this is literally what Samsung has been doing for years and Google is doing with Pixel. Doomed strategy from the start.
- shams93 8y agoYeah a genius isn't always motivated by the same success metrics are normal people sometimes they just want to make something amazing even if they know it's a one off because it's not just business it's art.
- wpietri 8y agoI like art, and am all for it. But nobody should mistake it for a business. Want to make a poignant, subtle art-house film? Go for it. Want to make a blockbuster sequel which will be predictably profitable? Go for it. But please don't raise money like you're doing the latter and then do the former. Steve Jobs said, "Real artist ship." And given his record at Apple, I suspect he'd agree that real artists ship things people want.
- staunch 8y agoNo one has said it better than Steve Jobs himself: "We did iTunes because we all love music. We made what we thought was the best jukebox in iTunes. Then we all wanted to carry our whole music libraries around with us. The team worked really hard. And the reason that they worked so hard is because we all wanted one. You know? I mean, the first few hundred customers were us." "It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do."
- sho_hn 8y agoClassic Jobs indeed. In the sense that iTunes was originally called SoundJam MP and not done by Apple, but published through Casady & Greene and bought up. But he knew to tell and sell a narrative.
- jacobush 8y agoIn a way, it doesn't matter. "Real artists ship, even if it means stealing" - you could amend it probably.
- wpietri 8y agoI'm all for audacity, but I think it's better to have at least a few stones. It surprises me that they only raised enough money for one throw. I believe there's still a lot of room for innovation in smartphones. But if your whole company is riding on your first product, I think it produces a lot of weird design pressure. You simultaneously want to be low risk and super edgy. While trying integrate a lot of new people, new partners, and (hopefully) new tech. Getting an industry-beater in one go under those conditions seems like winning the lottery.
- goatherders 8y agoYou make good points for sure. I wonder how much it takes to bring one phone to market compared to 2 or 3. In other words, how possible/practical is it to try for 2 or 3 bites at the apple compared to simply focusing on getting the first one right enough to keep going.
- cma 8y agoTheir one throw took a notch out of every major smartphone.
- daveguy 8y agoExcept it didn't, and that's why they are selling the business: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/12/17004278/essential-phone-2017-sales-90k-units-sold-six-months-post-launch https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/12/17004278/essential-phone-...
- jhall1468 8y agoIt was a joke. Essential introduced the "notch" in the phone around the camera. And it was a well-designed implementation.
- mjfern 8y agoI don't understand how selling 88,000 phones isn't considered a success. That's $44M in revenue, assuming the phones sold for $499 each. For a startup, even one founded by a Google veteran, like Rubin, this seems like a home run for a first product offering.
- rb808 8y agoYou mean going up against Samsung, Huawei, and Apple, + Sony, Google, Motorola, LG, Xiaomi, HTC, Microsoft, Nokia, BlackBerry, BLU, ZTE, Kyocera, Alcatel & a bunch of generics. That's tough!
- cc439 8y agoIt's not like it's hard to carve out a niche now that literally every flagship phone is functionally identical. There have been so many novel features that have been tried since the birth of the Android ecosystem that there are bound to be dozens of useful, now-unique features to choose from that only failed to be adopted because the phone they debuted on was fatally flawed in other ways. In my opinion, there are 3 major features that are immediately obvious, yet always overlooked by OEMs that are such low hanging fruit that I'm constantly amazed that no manufacturer has put them all together. They aren't even all that interesting either, the only reason they haven't caught on is that all the also-ran's have tunnel vision about playing copycat with Samsung and Apple. 1. Battery life. Seriously, we could have phones with 4+ days of battery life if we'd only stopped making them thinner to the point where the rear camera sticks out, effectively ruining the aesthetic of thinness. We've also sacrificed the 3.5mm jack in the pursuit of the most anorexic phones imaginable and all for what? A feeling of awe when we open the box of a new phone which only lasts 10 seconds before we throw it in a case which makes it as thick as an OG Motorola Droid? 2. Stock Android. Stock Android. Stock Android. I will never buy anything but a phone running stock Android (or maybe a dumbphone once Big Brother Google pushes me over the edge). Even the most technically illiterate users recognize that stock Android (whether they know what that means) is vastly superior to the Samsung Galaxy Whatever they just traded in. 3. Durability/Ease of Repair. Modern phones have become less fragile in many ways (waterproofing) but the screens and batteries are still weak points. Glass can never be made shatter-proof and lithium ion batteries will always lose a significant amount of charge capacity after being cycled several hundred times (a fault made worse by fitting a phone with a battery that often requires 2+ charges a day). So how do you fix this? Easy, just make the screens and batteries easy to replace like those of older iPhones. This works directly in conjunction with point #1 as we've been forced to accept bonded screens and sealed back panels as a result of the thinness wars. Extra Credit: You know how you can get my money as well as the money of everyone I know? Bring back the landscape QWERTY keyboard. There hasn't been a phone since the Droid 2 that could lay claim to being anything more than a lower midrange design. The first company to do all of the above will make waves, I promise you.
- stirlo 8y ago“Even the most technically illiterate users recognize that stock Android (whether they know what that means) is vastly superior to the Samsung Galaxy Whatever they just traded in.” Not even close to reality. Tech savvy users recognise stock android occasionally however when I worked telco sales frequently the thing that got the sale across the line was some kind of gimmicky feature/addition the manufacturer had integrated. The average user couldn’t even tell iOS and Android apart as long as it had the Facebook app installed. Manufacturers should of course recognise the massive saving to be had by developing only minimal customisation and being able to quickly roll out updates/new features in the latest Android releases.
- rdlecler1 8y agoIn this case it looks like the investors picked up the stone.
- jillesvangurp 8y agoHmd/Nokia succeeded where Essential failed in roughly the same timeframe grabbing a lot of marketshare. So it can be done. Essential fought themselves into a corner with a product that was too expensive and not that remarkable or indeed essential. Wrong strategy and they failed to deliver something to differentiate their products. Nokia took a more simple approach by first covering the low end with attractively priced and relatively well received products. Crucially, by shipping stock android, they took software off the critical path and wowed consumers at the same time by not exposing them to the usual crapware and focusing on hardware quality instead. Then they started doing the same for the mid and high range. It turns out there's a market for well built phones that simply run the latest android.
- stingrae 8y agoIt's not necessarily a fair comparison given the power of the Nokia brand in the mobile phone industry. Would Essential have gotten as much press as it did if it had gone to the low end? I doubt it.
- walrus01 8y agoNot just going up against Samsung, but oppo/OnePlus are tough competition, as well as several other 2nd tier Android manufacturers.
- baybal2 8y agoMaking a hole in the screen was a bad idea.