
GoPro Files For IPO - adidash
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/07/gopro-files-for-ipo-as-the-action-camera-maker-prepares-to-go-public/
======
chasing
GoPro's an interesting company. Conventional wisdom would say that the market
for dedicated mobile cameras is getting eaten up by general-purpose mobile
devices. Think of what happened to Flip. And, yet, they seem to be thriving.

Anyway: They seem to have a good product and they definitely have been great
at creating/expanding a new and distinct niche for mobile photography -- one
not easily serviced by iPhones and other mobile devices.

So: Congrats!

~~~
sheetjs
I think the wisdom is "the market for dedicated _general-purpose_ mobile
cameras is getting eaten up by general-purpose mobile devices", and Flip
didn't have a compelling niche.

On the other hand, GoPro cameras have a reputation for usability in some very
extreme situations, use cases outside of the smartphone story (if you are
going to mount a device on your helmet or elsewhere, you better hope that it
can withstand the elements and a crash or two

~~~
jmharvey
Flip's compelling niche was that it was easy to get the pictures off the
camera. But as easy as an integrated USB plug is to use, wireless is even
easier.

------
radiorental
My understanding is that they have difficulty with customer retention. Many
people are drawn in by the amazing videos on youtube only to find

1) Video editing is tedious and often greatly underestimated.

2) Their product usability is wanting. I have both a v1 and v2, I still have
to read the manual to figure out what the different modes are.

3) Battery life has been disappointing and I understand the v3 has issues too.

I've heard first hand evidence from insiders that loyal customer retention is
a big challenge. Growing out of the niche they're in is hard to envisage.

~~~
joelrunyon
I think the biggest killer for me has been battery life.

Video editing isn't that bad if you know what you're doing or willing to put
in time to learn.

There aren't _that_ many different modes, you can pick most of it up in 15
minutes of looking at the manual (which is probably worth doing with anything
you're spending $300+ for.

The battery life though - it's a bummer to be out in the middle of nowhere &
expecting to capture some awesome footage to come home & realize that your
camera crapped out halfway through.

~~~
ntaso
Battery life is indeed bad. My advice:

\- Turn off WiFi. This drains battery faster than just having the camera
record everything.

\- Take only "snippets". This makes editing easier later anyways, since it's
usually more convenient to browse through smaller files than through one big
long video over an hour. I try to keep every snippet < 1 minute. Most of the
time, only 3-5 seconds of one snippet end up in my final video to give it a
fast pace anyways.

\- Keep a spare battery pack.

But I have to admit that this won't help you a lot, if you're in difficult
situations where you can't easily change batteries (under water for long
periods of time, climbing somewhere, flying, driving).

~~~
grecy
I've been thinking about buy one - do you mind giving some details about
approximately how long I can expect the battery to last in each of your
scenarios above? Thanks.

~~~
nl
Time to flat, when recoding, from [1]:

Garmin VIRB Elite #1: 2:21 (Marketed: 3:00)

Garmin VIRB Elite #2: 2:24 (Marketed: 3:00)

Garmin VIRB Regular: 2:36 (Marketed: 2:36)

JVC GC-XA2: 1hr 51m (Marketed: 1:48)

GoPro Hero3 Black: 1:29 (Marketed: 1:30)

Sony AS-30: 2:11 (Marketed: 2:40)

Pyle HD PSCHD60WT: 2:54 (Marketed: “More than 2 hours”)

My Hero3 Black lasts well under an hour with WiFi enabled. I believe the
Hero3+ is better - they claim 30% better because of software optimisation and
a bigger battery.

I don't find recoding resolution makes a big difference.

[1] [http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/12/garmin-depth-
review.html](http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/12/garmin-depth-review.html)

------
josefresco
Nothing to do with the IPO but I found the Hero3 both hard to learn and
operate. Maybe I'm spoiled by user friendly tech, but it seems the compromises
in usability to achieve durability severely limits the ability for an average
person to use the product. The tiny control interface and cryptic symbols
required much time in the tiny but dense instruction booklet.

I was only helping a family member (as the resident family geek) but was left
with the impression that it would take a solid weekend (or three) to fully
understand the options and how best to get the footage you want.

To contrast I have a "tough" Lumix digital camera which is water, drop and
generally abuse resistant that is drop dead easy to use, records in high-def
and also has a large LCD and dedicated record/photo buttons that make
operating it easy. And I'm not talking about normal recording conditions, I've
used both extensively on the trail, in the cold (winters in Maine) and mounted
on various vehicles and body parts.

I do think the reasoning behind many of these inconveniences is _toughness_
but the net result is a very difficult product.

/rant

~~~
drone
To be fair, I always thought the Contour was miles ahead in form factor and
usability, it's a shame that they weren't able to continue to compete with
GoPro.

Edit: a couple of links:

[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-21/three-
lesson...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-21/three-lessons-in-
the-wipeout-of-contour-cameras)

[http://www.geekwire.com/2013/investor-plans-revive-
contour-r...](http://www.geekwire.com/2013/investor-plans-revive-contour-
reaches-deal-buy-gopro-rival-19-million/)

~~~
btgeekboy
I actually bought a Contour before I ended up selling it to get a GoPro 3
Black. The video quality just wasn't comparable at all. The laser level was a
great concept, but the WiFi viewfinder is far easier to use, despite sucking
down battery like there's no tomorrow.

There were 3 things I really liked on the Contour, though: the standard tripod
screw on the bottom (that's an extra accessory on the GoPro), the battery life
was far better, and the model I had was able to withstand a few feet of water
without a big bulky case. (Snorkeling/swimming okay, SCUBA not.)

------
mbesto
1\. I heard somewhere that GoPro hasn't produced any video for it's own
marketing material - they just leverage user generated content. (genius)

2\. This company is going to get really interesting when it starts to compete
with YT/Vimeo in specific verticals for video publishing.
([http://gopro.com/channel](http://gopro.com/channel))

~~~
shittyanalogy
1) They do. I have friends that work for GoPro. They fly all around the world
shooting video for ads. I am extremely jealous of their jobs.

------
wil421
Interesting what causes a successful company to file an IPO?

I understand why some do it, they've reached a point where they need funding
to scale and already have many private investors. Maybe thats not even right.

When I start a company one day I dont think I will ever want to take in
public. It seems like you loose too much control over where you are going.
Maybe its because I am a build what our customer want type person and not a
lets return value to our shareholder by delivering a cheaper product type.
Maybe that doesnt make sense.

~~~
mahyarm
If you want to stay private forever and always have full founder control, then
you should never offer stock based compensation (maybe profit sharing instead)
or have plan to cash out that stock based compensation in the future, that you
communicate when you hire people.

~~~
matthewmcg
It depends how you structure the plan. Publix is an example of a privately
controlled* company that has wide employee stock ownership.

*the stock is held by a small group of owners and many employees. Transfers are limited by contract and by securities laws. Because of the large number of shareholders, the company does have to file periodic reports with the SEC but the shares are not listed on an exchange and not available to the public. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix#Publix_stock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix#Publix_stock)

------
lquist
Not reported here, but they recently (i.e. a few months ago) brought their
software consultants (General Things:
[http://generalthings.com/](http://generalthings.com/)) in-house. General
Things did all the work behind the GoPro website, and I always thought it was
a bit odd that a company so big had almost completely outsourced web dev. Once
they acquired General Things, an IPO seemed a foregone conclusion. Congrats
all!

------
Luc
The Russians have been using GoPros during the last couple of spacewalks they
did (to install the earth observation cameras on the ISS). They have the
regular helmet cams, but also a GoPro around their wrist in a little white
box.

I'm not sure if they're 'stock' GoPro cameras. The temperature extremes are
nothing to sniff at.

~~~
IgorPartola
But... there is no temperature in space:
[http://www.universetoday.com/77070/how-cold-is-
space/](http://www.universetoday.com/77070/how-cold-is-space/)

~~~
lutusp
> But... there is no temperature in space ...

That's misleading (and the linked article offers no support for your claim). A
vacuum has no temperature, but objects in space certainly do have a
temperature and all the normal thermodynamic rules apply.

If what you said were true, you could safely approach the sun as long as you
didn't come into contact with it. But that's not true.

In the neighborhood of the non-planet Pluto, the median temperature is just 33
Kelvins.

In the extremes of space, between the stars, the temperature of an object
falls to the CMB
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background)),
about 2.7 Kelvins.

The linked article makes the same points.

~~~
IgorPartola
Of course. The way I think about it is this: when you go for a space walk,
first you are inside the airlock where the temperature is about our usual 293
K or so. Now, you suck all the air out and are in a vacuum. You are insulated,
except if you are touching another object, and the heat you are losing through
radiating it. So the question is: given a GoPro camera strapped to your wrist,
and say, a 30 minute space walk, what temperature will it be once you are back
in the airlock and before you pump all the air back in? My hunch is that it
will be pretty darn high. After all, it is connected to your wrist, and the
inside of your space suite must be at least above 273 K for you to be able to
do anything.

~~~
lutusp
> So the question is: given a GoPro camera strapped to your wrist, and say, a
> 30 minute space walk, what temperature will it be once you are back in the
> airlock and before you pump all the air back in? My hunch is that it will be
> pretty darn high.

Think about this. One of a spacesuit's key features is that it uses insulation
to protect the astronaut from the temperature of space (meaning those objects,
however distant, that exchange heat energy with the spacesuit via radiation).
This means the spacesuit's exterior will quickly rise or fall to the
temperature of its environment. That, in turn, means the GoPro camera will
also rise or fall to the temperature extremes of its environment.

So, if the astronaut is located in a shadowed environment -- let's say on the
moon -- the spacesuit exterior and the GoPro camera will fall close to the
temperature of space, or the temperature of the shadowed areas of the moon:

[http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091217/full/news.2009.1149.h...](http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091217/full/news.2009.1149.html)

Quote: "Previous findings had identified the Moon as the coldest place in the
Solar System, but the latest results push the temperature even lower, all the
way to 26 kelvin ..."

The above refers to the shadowed areas of the moon. Pretty damn cold. :)

But -- if the astronaut walks around in the sunlit parts of the moon, the
temperature will be very high. My point is the astronaut's temperature inside
the suit isn't the issue, and the more efficient the suit, the less its
external temperature reflects that of its occupant.

So the GoPro camera would have to tolerate a very wide temperature range.

> After all, it is connected to your wrist, and the inside of your space suite
> must be at least above 273 K for you to be able to do anything.

A spacesuit that externally radiated any significant energy at room
temperature would be a very poor design indeed. And the GoPro camera isn't
attached to the astronaut's wrist, it's attached to the spacesuit wrist area.

~~~
IgorPartola
I understand what you are saying about things like the Moon, Pluto, etc. If a
bury a thermometer on the moon, and dig it up 5 minutes later, it will be very
cold.

But we are talking about a space walk here. Let's phrase the question this
way: if I have a 1 kg mass of plastic and metal in some proportion and I throw
it out of the airlock with the initial temperature of 293 K, what will its
temperature be 30 minutes later if it was (a) in the shadow and (b) in the
sunlight? This is a different case than being in contact with a hot or cold
satellite or planet. It's a rate problem. If we assume a near-perfect vacuum,
the only heat going in and out is via radiation. So the question is, how fast
does a hunk of metal/plastic radiate heat at 293 K.

Now, the radiation heat transfer out of a black body will be: q = σ T^4 A,
where q is the Watts of heat transferred, σ is the Boltzman constant, T is the
temperature in Kelvin, and A is the surface area. Roughly: 5.6703e-8 x 293 x
0.1 for a GoPro camera. That's 1.66e-6 Watts, or 1.66 microwatts. That's a
pretty damn low transfer rate: we are talking about roughly 3 mJ of energy
lost over 30 minutes.

Now, the delta T here is equal to Q/(mC), where Q is our 0.003 Joules, m is
the mass, 0.135 kilograms, and C is the specific heat. The specific heat is
tricky but let's assume this thing is made out of copper: 390 J/(K kg). That
gives us a delta T of, drum roll please, 5.7e-5 degrees. So assuming we are in
the shade and are not touching cold objects, the GoPro will come back at the
exact temperature it left after a 30 minute space walk.

We can of course figure out what it will be in the sun, where I expect it'll
heat up quite a bit, which is probably the more dangerous thing for a piece of
equipment. The equations are nearly the same.

~~~
lutusp
> Let's phrase the question this way: if I have a 1 kg mass of plastic and
> metal in some proportion and I throw it out of the airlock with the initial
> temperature of 293 K, what will its temperature be 30 minutes later if it
> was (a) in the shadow and (b) in the sunlight?

To answer, I have to say first that radiation is a much more efficient way to
transfer heat energy than convection, and in some contexts it rivals
conduction. If it's in shadow, exposed to space and not the sun, the object in
your thought experiment will radiate most of its heat energy rather quickly,
and will ultimately fall to a temperature near the CMB, i.e. 2.7 Kelvins.

> Now, the radiation heat transfer out of a black body will be: q = σ T^4 A,
> where q is the Watts of heat transferred, σ is the Boltzman constant, T is
> the temperature in Kelvin, and A is the surface area. Roughly: 5.6703e-8 x
> 293 x 0.1 for a GoPro camera. That's 1.66e-6 Watts.

In your calculation, you failed to take the fourth power of the temperature.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-
body_radiation#Stefan.E2....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-
body_radiation#Stefan.E2.80.93Boltzmann_law)

j = σ T^4 (j = radiated power watts)

= 5.67 * 10^−8 * 295^4 Watts from a "unit square", presumably a square meter,
or about 430 watts.

Remember that three-dimensional objects lose their heat energy more quickly as
they become smaller in size (because their dimensions decrease proportional to
the square of their dimensions, but their volume declines as the cube). This
means the GoPro camera, initially at room temperature, exposed to space would
radiate away its heat energy very quickly.

The linked article suggests that a person (at body temperature and in a normal
earthly environment) radiates away a net power of about 100 watts. Remember
about this figure that is is a net (radiation minus absorption) for a person
of about 2 square meters surface area at room temperature.

If we calculate the example of a person exposed to space (in shadow) directly
without any heat inflow, the radiated power would be about 860 watts.

If a person were shaped like a GoPro camera (with the same density) and we
scaled it down proportionally, the rate of heat loss would increase (even
though the power would decrease) for reasons given above. That consumer camera
would not be long for this world -- in fact, it would probably expire faster
than the hapless human in the above example.

> So assuming we are in the shade and are not touching cold objects, the GoPro
> will come back at the exact temperature it left after a 30 minute space
> walk.

Do take the fourth power of temperature. See how that turns out. :)

~~~
IgorPartola
Ha! You are totally right. Yes, at 430 Watts we are talking about substantial
heat transfer. Without getting into the calculus, if we approximate that the
heat transfer will stay constant for a short period of time, then in the first
second, we will lose roughly 8.2 degrees. Yup, you are correct, the thing will
be damn cold.

~~~
lutusp
Believe me, I'm not gloating. I can't count the number of times I've drawn a
bogus conclusion after missing a critical calculation step.

------
startupfounder
This is a big win for hardware startups! Showing that being a cash cow and
having sustainable growth is signaling the market that the startup hardware
revolution is upon us.

~~~
debt
Completely agree which makes it such an awesome IPO. I'm really blown away by
the popularity of their cameras. They seem like a really creative bunch so
it'll be cool to see what's next.

------
joering2
GoPro is like Apple for fans; screw the price; I'm getting one anyways!

As of whether there are better solutions or not, I cannot attest. I will
however tell you that a friend of mine working at BestBuy (Florida) told me
they sell those like crazy. It is normal to sell five cameras a week from all
major brands combined. It is normal to sell five of GoPros a day!

Their product seem top notch and going around reviews, they mostly seem to
confirm. I am not sure, however what will they do with a buffer or cash? Their
approach is we wont screw people over X amount of years and introduce new
things into our devices; we go all the way in in version 1. That's goPro.
Where will they go from here, not sure...

~~~
rmc
_GoPro is like Apple for fans; screw the price; I 'm getting one anyways!_

Actually GoPro (& related action cameras) customers are probably very
interested in expensive sports/hobbies. Many motorcyclists have one, and if
you're interested in that you'll be spending a lot of money on the bike, the
equipement, servicing, insurance, etc. So what's €300 for a camera?

------
thrush
Next, GoPro announces Google Glass competitor for recording video and taking
pictures.

~~~
mikeryan
There's actually a company exactly trying to fill that niche called Recon

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3018645/fast-feed/this-google-
gla...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3018645/fast-feed/this-google-glass-
competitor-has-already-shipped-50000-devices)

[http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/jet/](http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/jet/)

~~~
_zen
Jet Recon looks very promising, but professional cyclists will probably not
consider it until they iterate on the design and improve peripheral vision.
Proper cycling glasses have unobstructed peripheral vision on the
left/bottom/right, and sometimes even top. This is where Google glass slightly
edges the Recon Jet, but the Recon Jet looks to have far more stabilization
for sporting than the Google Glass.

------
bennesvig
Beyond the fact that they have an amazing product, a good chunk of their
success is due to phenomenal user-generated content. I can't think of any
other recent company that has better user-generated marketing than GoPro.

~~~
alexcroox
Yep, so good 5 years ago I built a site to try and catalog the best ones!
[http://goproheroes.com](http://goproheroes.com)

------
hcarvalhoalves
I've seen _a lot_ of advertising around GoPro lately, even on TV shows that
normally have nothing to do with it. Now it's explained.

~~~
aluhut
The latest spot with Red Bulls Stratos made me think: where do you want to go
from there? We've seen those things can handle a jump from space. You can't do
that. Nobody can do that anymore. This is the ultimate thing. Everything else
we've seen already. All those crazy base jumps, flight suits, whatever.

There is nothing more to get there.

How do you sell a new product based on this??

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
They have been just iterating over basically the same product for a while. I
don't think they will introduce any "new" product, just upgraded version with
higher resolution, more FPS, etc.

------
joelrunyon
Tangent: Why does _everything_ have autoplay videos these days? It's like
we're going back to the terrible days of geocities.

------
sizzle
wow he is a fellow UCSD alumni, respect.

" featuresBack to SchoolA Full Ride to Fulfill DreamsThe Best Ride of Our
LivesGame ChangerBeyond the Brew

The Best Ride of Our Lives

￼

￼Nick Woodman still remembers the day he decided to become a surfer. He was
eight years old, standing in his friend Brian’s bedroom. Brian’s family had a
house in Hawaii, and his walls in California were plastered with tearouts from
Surfer magazine depicting palm trees, beautiful people, and the curling
turquoise waves of the North Shore.

“I didn’t even know that world existed,” recalls Woodman, Muir ’97, who grew
up surrounded by tech startups in the wealthy Silicon Valley community of
Atherton. “But from then on, I knew I wanted to live in that world.”

Thirty years later, Woodman is still in Silicon Valley, but he’s tan and fit
and has a cheeky freckled grin that suggests he’s living the good life. He
should be grinning. He’s the founder and CEO of GoPro—one of the world’s
fastest growing camera companies, now worth an estimated $2.25 billion. He’s
created a device that helps people capture and share their passions from the
North Shore and way beyond.

￼It started as a durable wrist-mounted camera for surfers to record their
feats in the lineup—effectively helping them “go pro.” Now the palm-size
cameras, which sell from $200 to $400, can be fastened to helmets, handlebars,
ski poles, and, yes, surfboards to document experiences both ordinary and
extraordinary. Last October, the Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner—equipped
with five GoPros—jumped from 24 miles above the earth’s surface, breaking the
world record for the highest and fastest freefall, and broadcasting it live
for all to see. A few months later, the cameras were streaming 30-foot waves
at the Mavericks Invitational surf contest in Half Moon Bay, Calif., and a few
days after that, snowboard slides and backside airs at the Winter X Games in
Aspen, Colo. For GoPro, this is every-day R&D. "

------
evan_
I'm watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies right now and a lot of athletes
are walking in filming with GoPros- in past years it's been iPhones and other
cell phones. They probably got them in goody bags, but still it's a pretty
good sign.

------
_zen
Anyone know when the GoPro Hero4 is expected? What is GoPro's release cycle?

------
trustfundbaby
Now it makes sense why they were all up on 60 Minutes last November.

------
NDizzle
I love GoPros and I wish the company well.

My favorite GoPro video is this:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2AfsBrpwRQ#t=1m10s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2AfsBrpwRQ#t=1m10s)

Skip to 1 minute, 10 seconds if it doesn't place you there automatically.

------
mr_shickadance
ipo's keep making my rent go higher. Can't afford a house.

------
af3
They put cameras on the helmets? good enough to file an IPO...

~~~
jonknee
They put cameras everywhere and sell a ton of them for quite a bit of money.
Makes a lot more sense than losing money shoving 140 characters around the
globe...

Check out their YouTube channel for examples of what their customers do with
their cameras. It's pretty amazing.

[https://www.youtube.com/gopro](https://www.youtube.com/gopro)

~~~
nether
We mount them in various locations on our aircraft during tests. GoPros have
nice experimental science applications when you need a rugged camera with an
integrated stable mount.

