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honestly my impression even at the time before the sale was that Pebble hired _loads_ of people. I honestly think that there was an alternate universe where th

by rtpg 5y ago

honestly my impression even at the time before the sale was that Pebble hired _loads_ of people. I honestly think that there was an alternate universe where they slowed down, paid people "normal" salaries, really tried to not scale up... I dunno. They had a perfect spot in the market where they could rely on older tech, but every company wants to become the biggest company controlling everything all the time. There are companies that survive without having 100% of the market share in something, or even 20%. Selling products at retail are hard and you have way thinner margins in theory. But it felt like there was a sweet spot they could have stayed in for a long time

twobitshifter 5y ago
Yes, the article identified the scaling issue. Since they received minimal VC they were perfectly positioned for “organic growth”, but being part of YC, may have led them to follow the pack and try to hire their way into 10x growth. The original model was made in a garage and then they took on a large staff which burdened the company to produce a higher volume of products. They could have chased more VC money or debt to keep the lights on, but facing up against the Apple Watch behemoth isn’t such an attractive proposition.