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BYB - 'Build Your Dreams' - went from being a battery maker for cell phones, before becoming the No1 EV manufacturer. May in time become the No1 auto manufactur

BYB - 'Build Your Dreams' - went from being a battery maker for cell phones, before becoming the No1 EV manufacturer. May in time become the No1 auto manufacturer of any category on the planet. Great business story

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Here in the EU we're asleep at the wheel. Can't have such start-up success stories because they'll disturb the oligopolies of the 100 year old car companies. Thank god Tesla made them wake up a bit. Fingers crossed BYD does the same. I remember Fiat was once a very innovative company, experimenting with EVs way before they were cool, even being the first to mass produce one[1], but now, I'm struggling to find a car in their portfolio I would want buy. Much like Philips, they seem to be dying a slow death. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4OE4GPJITw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4OE4GPJITw
- hunglee2 4y ago
  Incumbent resistance to innovation, probably won't get a better case study than that of European (and Japanese) auto manufacturing. You could include US into this also, as Tesla was pretty much free radical which entered the market from left field, Ford / GM etc equally committed to ICE
- Melkman 4y ago
  Philips isn't really dying a slow death. The company has been split into pieces. Some of which are very successful like ASML. Some are doing OK like NXP and Signify. Some are struggling like the leftover Philips that only does healthcare now. Other parts have been sold like the consumer goods and the Philips brand licensed as part of those deals. I'm not sure the outcome would have been better had they not split the company.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Yeah but these companies aren't Philips anymore, they were 20 years ago. Present time Philips itself is dying, only chugging along on their healthcare business they bought themselves into.
  - hakfoo 4y ago
    I'm sort of amazed the "ancient brand under license" business idea hasn't burnt itself through over the years. It's so often applied to products that are huge shifts from what their original credibility was in, and/or with a huge gap, long enough for any original brand equity to have seemingly reset. Furthermore, it's almost exclusively used in low-end markets where they aren't even trying to say they're competitive with today's leaders. I could see it working better if it was an immediate cutover, potentially where existing designs and R&D were licensed along with the deal. Then you're still exploiting "fresh" brand equity rather than trying to engage in brand necromancy. Maybe there's a short enough gap for Philips to pull that out, but in the US, their brand was sort of shot already for a lot of consumer goods. They mostly traded as Magnavox or briefly Philips/Magnavox, and it seems they mostly ended up in markets like rent-to-own shops (where they want to sell marginally different crap from Walmart so you can't directly cost-compare and realize that $20 per week means spending $3,000 for a $600 TV) I saw a Fisher branded Bluetooth speaker the other day. Feels like we had both models there-- the name got sold a couple times in the 60s/70s, but they remained a consistent market presence under the new ownership, slowly degrading over the next 20 or so years. Sanyo, who I think was the end owner then, probably got a lot of value out of the brand. Now someone's trying to jab electrodes into the corpse long after the value is gone and I suspect the new-brand won't last 20 years.
jacooper 4y ago
If you believe their success to be organic or in anyway comparable to your average western company, you are Mistaken. They and other countires work in a much different way in terms of tech and company successes. Its still a good story but not really comparable, similar to the stellar success of Aramco.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  there is no such thing as 'organic' success. Free market was always propaganda
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    Freedom to play dirty is not a bug, it's a feature!
  - jacooper 4y ago
    True, although I would still say its not comparable
  - dragonelite 4y ago
    Free market is the race to be the first at the government money/feeding through. Elon Musk is a person particularly well in finding the quickest or even the only routes to those money through.
- winrid 4y ago
  Many American tech companies would not be where they are today without the US government. Oracle, from the CIA. Google and GMaps and the road data... heck, the internet in general.
- dopidopHN 4y ago
  Don’t worry, the organic EV incentive reserved to US brands will protect the organic Ford & GM!
- vgeek 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_Free_Trade_and_the_Secret_History_of_Capitalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_... This is a good read related to this topic.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

Here in the EU we're asleep at the wheel. Can't have such start-up success stories because they'll disturb the oligopolies of the 100 year old car companies. Thank god Tesla made them wake up a bit. Fingers crossed BYD does the same. I remember Fiat was once a very innovative company, experimenting with EVs way before they were cool, even being the first to mass produce one[1], but now, I'm struggling to find a car in their portfolio I would want buy. Much like Philips, they seem to be dying a slow death. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4OE4GPJITw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4OE4GPJITw

hunglee2 4y ago
Incumbent resistance to innovation, probably won't get a better case study than that of European (and Japanese) auto manufacturing. You could include US into this also, as Tesla was pretty much free radical which entered the market from left field, Ford / GM etc equally committed to ICE
Melkman 4y ago
Philips isn't really dying a slow death. The company has been split into pieces. Some of which are very successful like ASML. Some are doing OK like NXP and Signify. Some are struggling like the leftover Philips that only does healthcare now. Other parts have been sold like the consumer goods and the Philips brand licensed as part of those deals. I'm not sure the outcome would have been better had they not split the company.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Yeah but these companies aren't Philips anymore, they were 20 years ago. Present time Philips itself is dying, only chugging along on their healthcare business they bought themselves into.
- hakfoo 4y ago
  I'm sort of amazed the "ancient brand under license" business idea hasn't burnt itself through over the years. It's so often applied to products that are huge shifts from what their original credibility was in, and/or with a huge gap, long enough for any original brand equity to have seemingly reset. Furthermore, it's almost exclusively used in low-end markets where they aren't even trying to say they're competitive with today's leaders. I could see it working better if it was an immediate cutover, potentially where existing designs and R&D were licensed along with the deal. Then you're still exploiting "fresh" brand equity rather than trying to engage in brand necromancy. Maybe there's a short enough gap for Philips to pull that out, but in the US, their brand was sort of shot already for a lot of consumer goods. They mostly traded as Magnavox or briefly Philips/Magnavox, and it seems they mostly ended up in markets like rent-to-own shops (where they want to sell marginally different crap from Walmart so you can't directly cost-compare and realize that $20 per week means spending $3,000 for a $600 TV) I saw a Fisher branded Bluetooth speaker the other day. Feels like we had both models there-- the name got sold a couple times in the 60s/70s, but they remained a consistent market presence under the new ownership, slowly degrading over the next 20 or so years. Sanyo, who I think was the end owner then, probably got a lot of value out of the brand. Now someone's trying to jab electrodes into the corpse long after the value is gone and I suspect the new-brand won't last 20 years.

jacooper 4y ago

If you believe their success to be organic or in anyway comparable to your average western company, you are Mistaken. They and other countires work in a much different way in terms of tech and company successes. Its still a good story but not really comparable, similar to the stellar success of Aramco.

hunglee2 4y ago
there is no such thing as 'organic' success. Free market was always propaganda
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  Freedom to play dirty is not a bug, it's a feature!
- jacooper 4y ago
  True, although I would still say its not comparable
- dragonelite 4y ago
  Free market is the race to be the first at the government money/feeding through. Elon Musk is a person particularly well in finding the quickest or even the only routes to those money through.
winrid 4y ago
Many American tech companies would not be where they are today without the US government. Oracle, from the CIA. Google and GMaps and the road data... heck, the internet in general.
dopidopHN 4y ago
Don’t worry, the organic EV incentive reserved to US brands will protect the organic Ford & GM!
vgeek 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_Free_Trade_and_the_Secret_History_of_Capitalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_... This is a good read related to this topic.