YC
Eric Migicovsky at Startup School SV 2014
@ Y Combinator
10/15/14
Takeaways
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
It's an honor to be here and I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
I started working on Pebble back in 2008 while I was an engineering student at the University of Waterloo.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
I sketched my first idea, a bicycle computer that would connect to your phone, because I wanted to see notifications without pulling my phone out while biking.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
After some feedback, I pivoted from a bike computer to a watch, combining a Nokia 3310 with an Arduino to create an early prototype.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Pitch competitions helped fund the early stages of my company, originally called Impulse, which aimed to show notifications on your wrist.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We built our first working prototype with the help of friends and funding from pitch competitions, along with some support from my parents.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
The first prototype worked exclusively with BlackBerry devices, and while it wasn't perfect, it demonstrated the concept of a smartwatch.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
In late 2009, we decided to publicly announce our product, which led to significant interest and media coverage.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
I leaked a render of our product to a popular BlackBerry blog, which generated excitement and led to widespread speculation about a BlackBerry watch. We saw massive adoption of our product, but we struggled to connect it to our brand until we followed up with blogs, clarifying that the watch they covered was actually our startup's product.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
After reaching out to blogs about our product, we realized that everyone loves page views, and this led to increased visibility for our startup.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We built our first 500 watches by hand in a garage, which gave us a deep appreciation for the effort involved in creating consumer electronics.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We launched our first product, an alpha-grade smartwatch, and learned valuable lessons from customer feedback, including the need for a firmware upgrade to show the time.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
In 2011, we published an SDK for our smartwatch, inviting developers to create apps, which resulted in over a hundred apps being developed within a few months.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We designed Pebble by incorporating feedback from our first product, ensuring it worked with iPhones and included features that users wanted.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Despite having a promising product, we struggled to secure investment, leading us to consider launching on Kickstarter, which was suggested by Paul Graham. We built our Kickstarter page and filmed the video ourselves, starring our friends and interns.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
I distinctly remember pressing the launch button at 11:00 p.m. the night before our Kickstarter campaign and wondering what would happen next.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We aimed to raise $100,000 to sell 1,000 Pebble watches, but we reached that milestone in just 2 hours and hit our first million in 28 hours, ultimately raising $10 million from 70,000 people in 30 days.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
The success of our Kickstarter campaign was due to three main factors: clear communication of our product's core features, effective marketing, and the ability to explain those features simply.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We highlighted three key features of Pebble: notifications and calls on your wrist, sports and fitness app integration, and customization options for watch faces, which had never been done before.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
When we launched on Kickstarter, we were just five people, none of whom had experience in consumer electronics, so we spent six months in Asia developing the first prototypes of Pebble.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
I had a moment of realization when I pulled the first red Pebble watch off the assembly line on December 28, 2012, feeling that all our efforts had finally paid off.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Our team grew significantly after launching, and we shipped hundreds of thousands of watches worldwide, despite initially feeling uncertain about our direction.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
I started working on wearables six and a half years ago because I wanted to create a more affordable smartwatch, as I didn't want to spend $400 on existing options.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
The trends in wearables are returning, with companies like Apple and Google entering the market, but we focus on creating a product that integrates seamlessly into users' lives.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Pebble is lightweight, inexpensive, has a long battery life, and is open and hackable, which excites me about the community that supports it.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Our community has created over 250,000 custom watch faces for Pebble, showcasing the creativity and engagement of our users.
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Eric Migicovsky
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
It's mindboggling to see how far we've come from starting out to create a watch just for ourselves to now having a global community building innovative applications for Pebble.