
Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire - codenerdz
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2012/12/20/foxconn-buys-stake-in-camera-maker-gopro-turning-founder-into-a-billionaire/
======
aresant
Prior to inventing GoPro Nick Woodman had a full on, VC funded bubble startup
in 2000 called "FunBug". (1) (2)

FunBug was "designed to drive consumer traffic and spending to online and
offline client businesses" via games & sweepstakes.

His FunBug co-founder, Stephen Baumer, is the current CTO of GoPro.

Woodman credits FunBug's failure as partial inspiration for GoPro in that he
wanted to pursue something he was genuinely passionate about.

So what?

Don't give up on the dream, fail fast and fail big, keep your best people
close, and build stuff you wish existed.

Good stuff to think about with the new year around the corner.

1 - [http://www.dmnews.com/funbugcom-looks-to-infest-the-
net/arti...](http://www.dmnews.com/funbugcom-looks-to-infest-the-
net/article/67854/)

2 -
[http://web.archive.org/web/20001017210942/http://www.funbug....](http://web.archive.org/web/20001017210942/http://www.funbug.com/)

~~~
pbsurf
FunBug slogan: Be a winner. GoPro slogan: Be a hero.

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InclinedPlane
The GoPro is an excellent example of how product design can be hindered by an
excessive feature list. The conventional wisdom is that consumers always want
more features and removing features or failing to support the features your
competition does is a recipe for business suicide. But the truth is that often
times some features are not necessary and supporting them can serve as a
roadblock toward developing other features or improving the core meta-features
(usability, performance, robustness, cost, etc.) GoPro was smart enough to
realize that there is a huge market for a camera which is not a jack of all
trades, which is optimized to be compact, light, super easy to use, good for
action shots or establishment shots and also inexpensive but not necessarily
good for still photography, portraits, close-ups, low-light shots, etc. By
making those compromises they were able to create a product that excelled in
its niche, cemented its brand name, and destroyed the competition.

If you want to learn how to disrupt existing industries and build billion
dollar companies from nothing, there are few better examples.

~~~
mason55
> _a camera which is not a jack of all trades, which is optimized to be
> compact, light, super easy to use, good for action shots or establishment
> shots and also inexpensive but not necessarily good for still photography,
> portraits, close-ups, low-light shots, etc._

This sounds exactly like Flip (RIP). What do you think the difference was? The
GoPro anti-shake technology & the ability to attach to helmets?

~~~
dvdhsu
That was my first question as well.

I think Flip was unlucky in that their releases coincided with the rise of
smartphones, which took their lunch. When one device just takes video and
costs around as much as an subsidized smartphone, there isn't any question
which one I'm going to pick.

GoPro, though, wasn't hurt by the rise of smartphones. Surfers won't use
smartphones for footage; they'll use the GoPro, since it's waterproof, has
anti-shake, and other inportant features, _targeted specifically at surfers_.

Perhaps the moral is: when the rest of your industry is declining, focus on a
niche, and execute well.

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flyinglizard
Digital consumer video cameras predated GoPro by more than a decade, and the
market was split between electronics giants. You wouldn't bet on a billion
dollar company emerging from nowhere in THAT market, would you?

But, apparently, when you build a great brand, find a solid niche and make
something consumers WANT to buy - as opposed to need to buy - great things can
happen.

~~~
jrockway
_find a solid niche and make something consumers WANT to buy - as opposed to
need to buy - great things can happen_

I don't understand this comment. The food and pharmaceutical industries seem
to be doing just fine, even though food and medicine are things that people
_need_ to buy.

~~~
Kliment
But nobody loves them

~~~
coryl
People do love their brands, such as Coca Cola, McDonalds, etc.

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mitchellh
Just noting that based on the valuation of the company he is a billionaire,
but GoPro is still a privately held business, so he [probably] doesn't have
that sort of money on hand or available as short/safe investments.

There are rumors of a GoPro IPO early next spring though[1], so he may have
the cash very soon.

[1]: [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-17/gopro-
widens...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-17/gopro-widens-the-
view-of-its-customer-base)

~~~
unreal37
He was given $200MM for his stake, so I'd say he is set for life even not
counting his 51%+ remaining stake.

~~~
pcl
The article doesn't get into details about the structure of the deal -- the
$200M could be invested in the company (i.e., a dilutive event for
shareholders), rather than a simple stock purchase. I'd guess that it's
probably some mix of the two.

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nakedrobot2
Congratulations to Gopro. They basically created the market of action cams.
The dinosaurs Sony, Nikon, Canon are seeing their hegemony erode because of
the incredible vision and product design of Gopro.

One interesting thing is that we are seeing a huge amount of "fisheye" videos
now because of Gopro. Where it was once an extremely gimmicky kind of image,
now it is becoming much more normal to see. And in certain situations
(surfing, skiing) it really makes sense.

~~~
evan_
It's kind of interesting you mention that because the one place that fisheye
lens videos WERE extremely common in previous decades has been in extreme
sports videos- especially skateboarding videos.

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mrb
pg says that founders should be relentlessly resourceful. Well GoPro founder
Nick Woodman is definitely resourceful: he raised initial capital ($30k)
partially by selling bead-and-shell necklaces!
[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/gopros-incredible-
small...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/gopros-incredible-small-
durable-camcorder-07012011.html)

------
jzwinck
Did anyone else take notice of the percentage stake being 8.88%? It's
interesting because eight is a lucky number in China where the buyer is
located. I haven't noticed such a blatant use of this particular superstition
in a western business deal before.

Also, this post currently has a score of 88....

~~~
winter_blue
> Also, this post currently has a score of 88....

Woa.. spooky coincidence...

Anyways, spot on.

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tiddi
You don't just buy a GoPro, you buy all the accessories too. I bought a Hero 3
Black last month, my first GoPro and found myself spending almost as much on
accessories (LCD, batteries, mounts,etc.) as I did on the camera. I would
think thats where they make most of their money being that its cheap to
manufacture a couple pieces of plastic that sells for $40.

I don't do any sports, I'm not really interested in photography but a GoPro is
something I always wanted.

I used it to record the plane landing as I came home from vacation and even
use it to record my kids in the backseat while driving. It's a fun camera and
congrats to woodman.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zb7OBLtoAo>

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kjackson2012
I've used GoPros a few times on road trips, and they are fantastic.

I did a time lapse of 5 days driving through the South-West on one occasion,
and new SLC on another, and the picture quality is great, and its time lapse
functionality is really amazing. The only problem is that it generates a lot
of data... I had to scale down from 1 pic per second to 1 pic every 10s, and I
still had about 30GB of data. Anyone considering using the GoPro for time
lapse, though, 1s frequency is what you want for a smooth video afterwards,
10s is too coarse and it gets really jumpy.

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eyeareque
I've used every GoPro camera made, minus the first film camera they started
with. I love them, but I also tend to hate them at times too. I've had to RMA
about three of them, and my friends have had issues too. Hopefully they can
put their massive popularity and growth (money) back into the product to make
it more stable and robust. They've really created an awesome product when it
works well. I know that if someone came up with a product that worked
flawlessly every time, they could chip away at GoPro's market share.

~~~
fudged71
Honestly, I had no idea that they had a film camera. Thanks!

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sk5t
What prevents a serious camera company like Nikon or Canon from rolling and
and owning this market? Is a couple $bn not enough to get them out of bed in
the morning?

~~~
kunle
They never took it seriously to begin with, and now that its clear that this
is a serious market, they're too late. I wouldn't put it past them to invest
additionally in GoPro (or some competitor).

Separately - who are GoPro's competitors?

~~~
rorrr
There are tons of GoPro competitors:

Contour Contour+2, ContourRoam

Sony Action Cam (HDR-AS10 and HDR-AS15)

Polaroid XS7, XS20 and XS100

CamOne (camonetec.com)

AEE BlackEye XTR (Magicam SD21) (www.aee.com/en/)

Tachyon (tachyoninc.com)

UnmannedTech FPV HD camera

Tons of unknown asian brands like 808 #16 720p micro camera ($8 to $40).

~~~
kjackson2012
There are competitors, but none of them are a threat. The Contour has some
traction, and the Sony ActionCam is pretty decent spec-wise, but nothing
compares to the GoPro HD3 Black edition: 120FPS @ 720p, 240FPS @ WVGA, and
even 30FPS @ 2.7k. They are still a generation or two ahead of their
competitors.

The only thing I wish the HD3 Black had was GPS so that you could geotag your
videos. That's about the biggest missing piece to that camera, otherwise it
would be perfect.

~~~
josephlord
Apart from the 2.7K mode (where would that be useful) the Sony matches the
specs you mention. Specs aren't everything and I haven't tried either product.
Go Pro has the better accessory ecosystem at the moment and may still be the
better product in many ways.

------
sandieman
Does anyone remember flipcam?

~~~
gojomo
For reference: Cisco bought Pure Digital, an SF-based startup that created the
Flip camera line, for $590 million in 2009, only to shut them down completely
2 years later:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/technology/13flip.html>

That episode may be more a reflection on Cisco's confusion than anything wrong
with the original product/market. (Perhaps with a less neglectful acquirer,
Flip would have been a worthy competitor to GoPro.)

~~~
masklinn
> Perhaps with a less neglectful acquirer, Flip would have been a worthy
> competitor to GoPro.

It'd have to flip mightily, Pure Digital did consumer "point and shoot"
cameras, gopro does actioncams. They're the same thing only in that both are
cameras (and then again, so are RED, would you argue RED is going to become a
gopro competitor?)

~~~
bonzoesc
They're both simple video cameras, GoPro just has a more robust housing to
make it into an action camera.

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bennesvig
Amazing cameras. Super affordable. And, the amount of marketing consumers do
for them is insane.

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dharma1
GoPro and RED are definitely shaking things up in the camera business. The
japanese companies are just too slow/old school to keep up.

Both also uniquely have excellent proprietary video codecs - RED has
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDCODE> and GoPro acquired
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CineForm>

AFAIK GoPro 3 is using Sony sensors, yet Sony can't seem to get it's act
together to produce a decent GoPro competitor (ActionCam).

My money long term is on high quality sensors from Sony etc. running on
Android, and h.265 for higher resolutions/framerates rivaling offerings from
GoPro and RED. Give it 1-2 years.

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imrehg
Just got my Hero3, it's brilliant! :) (and living here in Taiwan, Foxconn's
CEO is regarded pretty much as a business hero by the locals)

