
GoPro cuts workforce, changes sales strategy - doppp
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-15/gopro-cuts-more-than-20-of-workforce-changes-sales-strategy
======
knolan
I was gifted a Hero 2018 when I left my last job. I use it for recording my
cycle commute because I guess my death at the hands of a homicidal taxi driver
should at least be recorded.

It comes with a basic set of features. 1080p video and some simple time lapse
options. Pretty barebones.

Anyway it occasionally freezes when disconnected from the charger so I went
and checked if there was a firmware update and it turns out that the Hero 2018
is the previous year's high end Hero 5 Black crippled by software. Someone put
together a tool to load that camera's firmware onto it and now I have a 4K
camera with GPS, a wide range of time-lapse and high frame rate features,
stabilisation, wind noise reduction...

[https://gethypoxic.com/blogs/technical/latest-gopro-hero-
is-...](https://gethypoxic.com/blogs/technical/latest-gopro-hero-is-actually-
a-gopro-hero5)

~~~
sergiotapia
I won't ever buy a gopro if this is true. Why the hell would they do this?

~~~
goldenchrome
Imagine you're the CEO of a hardware company that refreshes their products
every year. Last year, you overestimated the demand for your premium product
and end up with thousands of extra units.

Now, you're planning to launch this year's line of products. You have a brand
new premium product that's slightly better than last year's, and it's priced
$50 higher. What do you do with all your extra stock of last year's premium
offering? You can't sell them side-by-side, otherwise everyone will just buy
last year's stuff and you'll have the same problem next year. You can't throw
them away because you can't afford the losses (GoPro was trading at $8 in
2017).

So you take last year's premium product, and install some software to turn it
into this year's entry-level product. You have to sell it for way less, but
hey — you might break even. Consumers are content because they're getting what
they expect: entry-level features at a reasonable price.

It's not necessarily evil. Perhaps it was mismanagement. Ultimately, GoPro
found out that the market for action cameras isn't as big as they hoped.

~~~
sudo-i
I mean... this is what Tesla does? All their cars come crippled if you don't
pay them more money?

Maybe the only difference is Tesla let's you pay to upgrade and not buy a new
Tesla to get some feature?

~~~
philwelch
How hard is it to jailbreak a Tesla?

~~~
outworlder
Cars are expensive and have warranty. I wouldn't mess with that.

Besides, Tesla will know the moment you connect to the ethernet port.

~~~
viklove
It is a bit odd for a car though, you have to admit. Imagine buying an ICE car
with a fuel tank that had an artificial limiter. Add 4 gallons to the tank for
$x (120 miles). Would people accept that?

~~~
rovr138
Having only one model would mean you can streamline everything since you’re
always doing the same.

The cost of every car is the same in terms of hardware and Human Resources.
Easier to work with.

If you ever decide to upgrade, you’ll just pay them. 0 effort on their part.

Repairs are also easier regardless of upgrades since there’s only one model.

If the car is resold, they can enable more features too.

~~~
philwelch
If the actual functionality is dependent upon Tesla’s systems, sure. Otherwise
you’re just enabling a jailbreak market. There’s even precedent for this with
Malone tuning.

------
ghaff
Obviously the current situation is a big factor but I can't help but wonder to
what degree things like GoPros and drones are something of a fad outside of a
fairly niche market.

I suspect a fair number of people buy GoPros for their association with
adventure sports and, after taking video of doing a few runs down some blues
at the local ski area, come to the realization that they don't in fact base
jump or kayak off waterfalls.

As for drones, I've thought about them from time to time. But after taking
some video around my house, I'm honestly not sure what I would do with one.
They're sort of obnoxious in wilderness settings and are often banned in any
case.

~~~
jonplackett
I remember going snowboarding with a go pro. We were so excited to see the
footage. The guy in the Chalet even offered to put it on the big screen so
everyone could see. What followed was about 30 minutes of embarrassing slow
and inordinately dull snowboarding. The jumps that seemed high were barely off
the ground. The speed that seemed potentially deadly was a snails pace.

Recording yourself doing sport only makes sense if you are really good!

~~~
Godel_unicode
Making appealing video requires thought, knowledge of lighting and how cameras
work, and creativity. "Just strap on a camera and go" is definitely not the
way to do it, people make amazing videos with mediocre skill in the thing
they're doing.

It's like any other complex tool, garbage in garbage out.

~~~
matsemann
My best clip [0] is fastening the GoPro to a clothes hanger where I removed
the middle pin, and added some cardboard on one side to make it not wobble.
Then some fishing line and spinning it around my head while skiing. At 0:09
the shadow of the contraption can be seen.

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXlwJYt0mg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXlwJYt0mg)

~~~
teruakohatu
That shot is really good. Do you have a photo of the contraption?

~~~
matsemann
No, but some googling I found something looking very similar [1].

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV1qTigUkR8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV1qTigUkR8)

------
mft_
GoPro has long baffled me as a company.

1\. On the face of it, their main products in 2020 (i.e. action cameras) are
barely innovative, and seem to have nothing to attract and lock customers in
other than brand recognition built on expensive marketing campaigns.
Essentially, they're selling commodity equipment at a large mark-up. Why
haven't they been totally displaced by a manufacturer with a cheaper clone,
also offering a _good enough_ brand and ecosystem to compete?

2\. Where they have innovated, they've hugely missed the target. In
particular, their drone release was just an awful, awful misjudgement. Not
just because it fell out of the sky. Not just because it came out at the same
time as a superior competitor from DJI. But because it totally missed that
GoPro is/was seen as a provider of _action_ cameras - things that can be
_started and then forgotten about_ as they record your activities. They
released a fairly generic drone, which required constant operator interaction.
Had they released a drone with a tether, which could be _started and then
forgotten about_ as you ride your MTB, or your snowboard, they'd have likely
had a hit, aligned with their brand identity (assuming it didn't drop out of
the sky).

~~~
ravenstine
> 1\. On the face of it, their main products in 2020 (i.e. action cameras) are
> barely innovative, and seem to have nothing to attract and lock customers in
> other than brand recognition built on expensive marketing campaigns.
> Essentially, they're selling commodity equipment at a large mark-up. Why
> haven't they been totally displaced by a manufacturer with a cheaper clone,
> also offering a good enough brand and ecosystem to compete?

I think they were selling shovels during a gold rush.

With the popularity of YouTube growing, the demand from everyday people for
better cameras and so-called "action cameras" increased significantly. It
should have been pretty easy to see what would be profitable.

They were also taking advantage of the fact that most cameras are complicated,
that most established camera manufacturers are slow to change and have a hard
time valuing simplicity, and that the idea of an "action camera" was a new
concept to average people. Having a relatively small product line also made it
clear to people what they were about; it also made their products easily
identifiable with their brand. Why buy an action camera from a company that
makes a bunch of different things, when the action camera is what GoPro does?

To sum that up, I think they appeared on the scene at the right time and
existing camera brands were too slow(at least for a while) and had poor
marketing.

> 2\. Where they have innovated, they've hugely missed the target. In
> particular, their drone release was just an awful, awful misjudgement.

Yeah, that seems like a huge misstep.

~~~
ghaff
>camera manufacturers are slow to change and have a hard time valuing
simplicity

I would never use simplicity and GoPro in the same sentence. At last the model
I played with a while back had an absolutely terrible user interface which
made it really hard to sure it was on if it was mounted on a helmet.

~~~
ravenstine
Funny you should say that because, compared to every other digital camera I've
used, GoPros were pretty easy to use. But it's been many years since I've used
one.

~~~
sjagoe
I'm disappointed with the Hero 8 Black. I prefer my old Garmin Virb XE.

I guess this isn't all "ease of use" stuff, but I do think it's all more
generally usability:

\- The Virb XE has a much easier to find and actuate record switch (physical
moving switch); the position of the switch will tell you if you're recording
or not if you can't see the camera.

\- The Virb XE waterproofing isn't compromized by connecting it to power; the
GoPro battery door has to be removed/opened to connect to power.

\- The GoPro won't let you connect a bluetooth headset/microphone, so you
can't connect a mic and keep waterproofing.

------
jonahhorowitz
There's a lot of negative comments here, so let me add my positive experience.
I love my GoPro. I started with a "Hero3+" and have upgraded twice. I now have
a Hero7 that I use a few times a week. I took five different GoPros on a
rafting trip down the grand canyon and came out with some great footage.

The advantage of GoPros from the beginning is that they're a small durable
camera that takes good footage. With the image stabilization that they have
now, you can get smooth footage even when you're mountain biking down a rough
trail.

The downsides are: they take a while to get used to using (although the newer
ones have a much better interface), and you have to spend time editing the
videos before sharing them. Also, it turns out a lot of what we do is pretty
boring.

As to why no other camera manufacturer has taken the market from GoPro, it
turns out it's hard to build a compact camera that's durable and produces good
footage. The $150 knockoffs just don't have the same quality or durability. I
still see a bunch of them on the slopes though (particularly on kids, which
makes sense).

Still, it's a limited market, and phones have gotten better (and waterproof),
so people don't feel like they need a dedicated camera, so it's going to
suffer the same that most of the camera industry does.

~~~
car
Second that. I've taken excellent videos freediving with a GoPro HERO7. It is
color corrected for underwater lighting and waterproof down to 10 meters/33
feet.

------
code4tee
GoPro has been struggling for a while but like a lot of companies they will
likely use the present situation as cover to make some changes.

It’s a lot easier for executives to say “there was this terrible Coronavirus
thing that forced us to downsize” vs “the business strategy I was in charge of
wasn’t performing well and we have to downsize.” That’s happening a lot at the
moment.

~~~
esel2k
This! Exactly this was done already in 2008 crisis and it is just so weak and
simple for management to blame anything else than themselves. For me I think
we moved toward of a more connected society in feedback we give on companies.
A company that would let me go with such a ridiculous argument I would not
join or give a very bad review online... and more and more I will join
companies that treat their employees good. After corona - people will jump and
consider companies that treated their employees right in crisis time...

------
andreyk
I'm an owner of a GoPro and also of a nice digital camera (Sony Alpha 6000)
and have done a decent deal of photography, so maybe I can comment on the
appeal of GoPro: the interface and software on their device is excellent (far
better than my Sony), and their app to interact with the camera is also
excellent (far better than the barely functional one for my Sony), the form
factor and built in smoothing makes it great for documenting outdoors stuff,
AND their app has an excellent do-most-of-the-work for you video editor. For
doing videos of hikes, vacations, etc (see eg this example
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1E7a5-yH01JCxJcf1-35YiRAcOH...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1E7a5-yH01JCxJcf1-35YiRAcOHBS_lDC))
it's really a game changer, so I quite like it. But of course it's only really
useful for people who like making videos in the first place.

------
for_i_in_range
> ‘We have a clear opportunity to super-serve consumers’... Chief Executive
> Officer Nick Woodman said in the statement.

Anyone fluent in CEO-Speak able to translate?

~~~
parsimo2010
I'm not 100% sure, but in this context I think he means direct to consumer
sales. Woodman might be trying to pitch it as a way to keep customers happy,
but I have a hard time believing that anyone had an issue buying a GoPro at
BestBuy or REI. It's pretty clear that this is just a way for GoPro to make
bigger profits by taking profits from the full retail price, rather than only
taking profits from the wholesale price.

He might also be alluding to their subscription services, which make money for
GoPro after a cameara sale, but that wasn't mentioned in the article. And
honestly, they are doomed if they rely on their subscription services at all,
because they suck. Anyone that wants to edit and share their videos is better
served by other tools, and I don't think they make much money from
subscriptions.

------
obilgic
I would guess their risk is similar to travel & sports industry's, they are
mostly dependent on people being outdoors and recording things, you would
probably use your phone or camera to record in doors.

------
russellbeattie
I bought a GoPro Hero 8 a month ago, and for what it is, it works well enough.
But I've been really disappointed in GoPro's attitude towards openness.
They've locked down the USB port, WiFi and the OS pretty much completely.

I think this is the type of company that would really benefit from an excited
and engaged hacker community. The GoPro could be a camera-centric IoT device,
used for a ton of things from webcams to 3D imaging to a bunch more. But
there's no support at all for developers.

It seems like they were going in that direction early on, then changed their
strategy and killed their SDK and dev program. It's too bad. This will
definitely be my last GoPro as a result.

~~~
Asuchug4
Before buying Hero 7, I watched a lot of reviews and tried to decide between
older but still powerful Sony action camera. The quality was great, but
sometimes GoPro decided to freeze. It is very annoying to find that your
camera stopped recording 20 minutes ago. I thought that my model might be just
a bit faulty. Then comes the GoPro 8, and the improvement noted by few tech
reviewers was that it no longer freezes. Totally destroyed any trust in
reviewers I had left. No one told a thing about freezes in Hero 7.

------
StillBored
Back when gopro first introduced 4k video on their cameras, it was an
impressive feat for the price compared with the many thousand+ dollar cameras
available at the time.

Most midrange+ phones these days can do 4k video. Sure they don't have a wide
angle lense, but that is something like a $30 purchase on your favorite
eretailer.

The problem is that gopro is still selling the same midrange sony sensors, and
expecting a premium. If they were doing 8k@60 FPS, then they would have
something that could command the price premium vs the dozens of competitors
that have discovered sony sensor+cheap SOC+battery = action cam.

Or for that matter, they could move into the mirrorless camera market, but
they are only releasing gimicky UI upgrades and drones to attach your camera
while wondering why a lot of people are just buying cellphone mounts for their
bikes/etc.

So why exactly are the gopro's so darn expensive given its just using an off
the shelf Sony IMX277 sensor ([https://gethypoxic.com/blogs/technical/gopro-
hero7-teardown](https://gethypoxic.com/blogs/technical/gopro-hero7-teardown))
and a super low-end SOC?

~~~
ProAm
This is a great comment if you switch out GoPro for Apple. Every market has
it's people.

------
cyberpanther
They've always made it hard to use their devices as webcams. If they had that
feature, they would be selling like gangbusters now. Wyze did a firmware
update and bam, you have a webcam. It hurts you in the long term to always
upsell and partition your features into different levels. That complexity in
your business, translates into your code and processes and makes it harder to
pivot.

------
kube-system
They are so close to being a premium product but they're having trouble
getting there. I prefer to drop premium dollars on equipment that "just works"
but my experience with their products is that every one of them has some kind
of annoying issue.

They need to figure out what kind of company they are. Are they producing
cheap consumer toys, or are they making reliable prosumer equipment?

~~~
ratfaced-guy
Exactly, I was expecting an Apple-like experience so I was very disappointed
in that sense. The hardware was great (for me at least), but the UX was just
too annoying that it soured the overall experience.

I wish now that Apple would build an action camera.

------
dvcrn
GoPro is lacking innovation, each camera sounds identical to the previous one
with only very small changes. They were still the market leader in action cams
so for a while it was the only real viable option.

Nowadays there are a lot more companies that innovate in this field. DJI
released the Osmo Action with dual screen and fantastic stabilization, Xoami
has the Mi Action Camera for cheap, and just recently Insta360 released the
modular "One R" that allows to quickly swap the camera module for 360, 1" or
4k action. I was in the market for a action cam and went for the Insta360.

GoPro created the market but nowadays I just don't see a reason to get a GoPro
when there are arguably better options with more innovation out there.

~~~
mackrevinack
well in fairness the hyperlapse feature they released a few years back was
fairly innovative. and the stablisation was/is better than your find in some
phones.

but yea apart from that, most models seem pretty much the same to me

------
akssri
I heard that GoPro hasn't been doing well in the past couple years [1]. Did
they ever transition out of their "badge re-engineering" approach to products
?

[1].
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qa1tGmi5g4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qa1tGmi5g4)

------
ww520
A "personal dashcam" or bodycam product direction would be good for GoPro or
some other companies.

------
kayoone
> GoPro Inc. said it will cut more than 200 jobs > The operational changes,
> staff reductions of more than 20% and cuts to office space will save $100
> million in 2020

That must be a very high average salary considering the office space is
probably the cheaper part of that.

~~~
zimpenfish
Or "the operational changes" will save a fair chunk - but those aren't really
gone into (other than "will direct serve consumers", I suppose.)

------
heyflyguy
I would love insider knowledge on their innovation tract. I'm sure they are
licking wounds after the karma fiasco but it's like they went back to vanilla
action cams, and that market is seeming nascent. What's happening?

------
davio
They should do a quick pivot to high-end webcams.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/mrDnY](https://archive.md/mrDnY)

------
mgh2
Here is a non-paywalled link:
[https://www.benzinga.com/news/earnings/20/04/15814828/gopro-...](https://www.benzinga.com/news/earnings/20/04/15814828/gopro-
to-lay-off-20-of-employees-and-shift-to-direct-sales-strategy)

