Is Pebble Scared of the Apple Watch?
A couple of years ago, Canadian entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky successfully pivoted his company from a BlackBerry-based smartwatch company to one focused entirely on iOS and Android. He did so by raising more than $10 million from 66,000 backers on Kickstarter, smashing his goal of $100,000 and setting a crowdfunding record that wasn’t broken for—in internet time, at least—ages.
And despite major troubles meeting production and shipping deadlines, Pebble is alive and well today—for now. Smartwatches have been launched en masse this year, and 2015 promises nothing less, with the much-anticipated Apple Watch slated for production as soon as January.
Is Pebble scared? Migicovsky says no, but evidence suggests otherwise.
The Vancouver-born, University of Waterloo-educated founder believes that while Pebble does less than the Apple Watch, what it does do, it does better. It is, in his eyes, almost a different product category.
“We’re not trying to make a luxury product like Apple is making,” he told Business Insider.
It makes sense that he wouldn’t fear a product in a different category. Only that’s not the whole story.
Pebble posted a graphic on its website this week poking fun at Apple designer Jony Ive, who spoke recently about the company’s forthcoming watch in Vogue. It also substantially lowered the prices of its watches, which now start at $99. These are not things a company would do if it weren’t at least a little scared.
Not that Migicovsky could be blamed for his fear, whether or not he’ll admit to it. When Apple launches new products, potential competitors better pay attention—Pebble included. 2015 will test whether the company has staying power in the smartwatch arena or is doomed to be a crowdfunding wonder of the past.
