Reading Eric Migicovsky’s reflections on why Pebble failed is instructive. Is it really true that Pebble failed because he lacked vision and failed to stick to their initial niche? (‘Quirky, fun smartwatches for hackers’)
Or are there other reasons?
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One of the difficult things about learning in business is that feedback isn’t perfect. The lessons you learn could be the wrong ones, and nobody can really tell you otherwise. It’s also never really clear what the confounding variables are.
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At any rate, I think Migicovsky’s reflections are well worth reading in their entirety: medium.com/@ericmigi/why-
(I really liked Pebble, for what it’s worth).
I just think that there could be other lessons, and I think reading his learnings in say 15 years would be instructive.
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To lay all my cards on the table, I thought their move of launching the Pebble Time was the ‘right’ one — and by that I mean it was a perfectly reasonable attempt at crossing the chasm.
Sure, hindsight says it didn’t work, but it wasn’t some horrifically bad product decision.
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I think the dynamics of the smartwatch category in the years after have been telling: there’s the Apple Watch, supported by its ecosystem and chip prowess, and then … Nothing? Else?
Perhaps there was no way Pebble could have survived as a mass market product.
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And so you could say “oh, they should have stuck to their niche” — but you gotta remember, they were VC backed, and at the time, it seemed like the entire market was about to explode! I remember thinking ‘smartwatches are going to be a thing now!’
Could you really blame them?
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I mean, really blamed them for attempting to cross the chasm*
Also worth noting that Apple themselves flubbed the initial positioning, and explicitly repositioned for health+fitness with the Apple Watch Series 3.
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I’m not saying that I know the right lessons, by the way. I’m just saying that the framing of “we didn’t focus on our vision and should have stuck to our niche” seems like a lesson biased by hindsight.
This is what makes learning from failure difficult.
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Definitely. They had a good smartwatch with a great battery that acted as a notification hub that nerds and moms (phone in purse) loved.
They then shipped a shitty metal dress watch that couldn’t compete with Rolex or Apple Watch.
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#1. Nobody likes watches. Write me your objections with your fountain pen.
#2. Apple is not a "watch." It's an EKG.
#3. It is now possible to reach pretty much ALL the market for a thing. Pebble did this, I suspect, based on other cases I've seen. Probably the real lesson here.
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