Migicovsky: Seven of Pebble's first 10 watches broke apart during shipping
Eric Migicovsky · A Conversation on Hard Tech with Eric Migicovsky · Y Combinator · Oct 12, 2018 · at 4:19
Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky speaks with YC Partner Adora Cheung about the early iterative prototyping and manufacturing mistakes on their first smartwatch (InPulse).
0:00 / 0:36exact quote · 36.6s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We screwed up everything you could possibly screw up. In the first 10 watches we had a lot of problems, but we had a problem with RF. We couldn't get the signal out of the watch, because it's like a Faraday cage sitting on your wrist. And so we said, well, maybe let's change the metal back for a plastic back. And so we had a whole bunch of laser cut acrylic, you know, sheet plastic cut to the same size as the back of the watch, and we kind of jammed it in, and then we shipped the first 10 of them out by FedEx, and on something like seven out of the 10, the electronics just exploded out the back of the plastic”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Eric Migicovsky
Migicovsky: Oculus' iterative hardware approach beat Magic Leap's secretive, mega-funded R&D
“Magic Leap raised lots of money and spent just 11 years working on a product, versus Oculus, which raised two million dollars on Kickstarter, shipped a, you know, an early development kit that was not amazing, but they iterated and they got through, and now th…”
Migicovsky: Pivot to building end products if customers won't buy your technology
“If you're in a situation where you're building something that's, like, mind-blowingly cool and revolutionary, but you're finding that customers don't want to buy it, pivot your company so you're actually doing what your customers would have done, and just use …”
Migicovsky: Patents are not a critical initial step for startups
“This is, like, one of those things that people who are not in the startup world think is a critical piece of starting a business, because they may have heard of, like, someone else who got screwed out of their idea or something like that. But if you're startin…”
Graham and Andreessen's product-market fit definitions are lagging indicators
“Paul Graham's definition for product market fit is when you've made something that people want. Marc Andreessen also has an amazing blog post about product market fit where he describes it as when the product is just being pulled out of you, when you no longer…”
Migicovsky: Overhyped hardware crowdfunding campaigns usually fail to ship
“Most of those campaigns, even if they do succeed at raising money, usually fail to produce and actually ship their product.”
Migicovsky: Early hardware startups cannot pay contractors enough to care like founders
“Some of the most painful moments of my early career were, ah, not having full-time co-founders, and having to work with contractors or consultants who, honestly, like, you can't pay someone enough to care. I mean, firstly because you probably don't have that m…”