Essential Products, Startup From Android Creator Andy Rubin, Lays Off 30 Percent of Staff (fortune.com) 56
Essential Products, a startup founded in 2015 by Android creator Andy Rubin, was started to create a smartphone with high-end design features that wasn't associated with a particular operating-system maker. Unfortunately, reaching that goal has been harder than anticipated as the company has laid off about 30 percent of its staff. Fortune reports: Cuts were particularly deep in hardware and marketing. The company's website indicates it has about 120 employees. A company spokesperson didn't confirm the extent of layoffs, but said that the decision was difficult for the firm to make and, "We are confident that our sharpened product focus will help us deliver a truly game changing consumer product." The firm was Rubin's first startup after leaving Google in 2014, which had acquired his co-founded firm, Android, in 2005.
Essential's first phone came out in August 2017, a few weeks later than initially promised. It received mixed reviews, with most critics citing its lower quality and missing features relative to competing smartphones, such as a lack of waterproofing and poor resiliency to damage. The company dropped the price from an initial $699 within weeks to $499, and offered it on Black Monday in November 2017 for $399.
Essential's first phone came out in August 2017, a few weeks later than initially promised. It received mixed reviews, with most critics citing its lower quality and missing features relative to competing smartphones, such as a lack of waterproofing and poor resiliency to damage. The company dropped the price from an initial $699 within weeks to $499, and offered it on Black Monday in November 2017 for $399.
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Saw it coming... (Score:4, Funny)
He sold out to Sprint and still didn't listen to consumers and decided it was a good idea to allow a privacy faux pas. I mean, if you are looking to upset the industry you sure as heck cannot look and act just like them to do it!
Why? (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
It has a valuation of $1,000,000,000! I mean it is worth so much! Why would you lay off people?
Apparently they weren't essential personnel.
In related news (Score:4, Funny)
The company has also announced that in the coming weeks they will be changing their name to "unnecessary".
Shrug. (Score:3)
Surprise. No one cared about an overpriced below average phone that offered nothing of interest beyond minimal curiosity among nerds.
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On the same news, his overpriced bakery in Los Altos, Voyageur du Temps, is closing and Rie Rubin is getting a divorce.
staff * .3 (Score:5, Funny)
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Don't worry - you keep your limbs. They just stop paying for the 'extra' leg or organ.
Andy, give us what we want. (Score:3)
Being just another smartphone on the market isn't going to cut it when you're charging sky high prices. No, this doesn't mean you should add a 5th camera ("fuck it, we're doing six!") or making it so thin that it bends if held tightly. What it means is you give people what they want. It's not complex either, it's removable battery packs, a headphone jack, a MicroSD Card slot and solid but modular construction that is robust that still allows the owner to replace parts if/when they break it.
It's not sexy but it's what we want. Sadly, you want to sell us a new version of the same phone every year, like Apple and make a killing but that requires an insane amount of capital. Just give us what we want and you will sell lots of smartphones, just not every single year ad infinitum.
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It's not complex either, it's removable battery packs, a headphone jack, a MicroSD Card slot and solid but modular construction that is robust that still allows the owner to replace parts if/when they break it.
That's just going to end up targeting the small group of people that thought the Nokia N900 was a good smartphone (I'm in that group) but that is simply not profitable. Take the LG V20 for example, it is a sturdy device with a removable battery, SD card slot and a headphone jack but LG's sales are tanking and the phone never sold well because, as i said, the market for such a device is very niche and not profitable.
Re:Andy, give us what we want. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not sexy but it's what we want.
Pretty sure that 'we' is vastly overstated.
Re: Andy, give us what we want. (Score:3)
Wait, I don't understand - how would any of those features help Big Brother spy on us even more?
You know what they say in Surveillance Valley: if it doesn't snoop like a deranged stalker or arbitrarily restrict freedom of speech, it's not REAL innovation!
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It's not sexy but it's what we want.
Where "we" means slashdot-reading geeks, as opposed to "the general public".
Seriously, do people here really think that if there was a mass market for phones with huge removable batteries, Samsung or HTC or whoever wouldn't have jumped in and grabbed it?
Well of course they were cut (Score:2)
Turns out those staff members were non-Essential.
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If they haven't produced the product yet, why were they even paying marketers?
Surely that is pre-emptive and wasteful, after all, the product was going to be so good it would sell itself.
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If they haven't produced the product yet, why were they even paying marketers? Surely that is pre-emptive and wasteful, after all, the product was going to be so good it would sell itself.
Contrary to popular wisdom, if you build a better mousetrap and don't market it, the world doesn't beat a path to your door.
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So did they have a product ready to sell already?
the phone I want (Score:1)
1) Security/Privacy is top priority
2) Physical keyboard with real keys
3) Removable battery
4) Headphone jack
A pity (Score:2)
This is the cost of grievous mistakes (Score:1)
Releasing a phone in 2017 that has a poor camera and reception issues is unacceptable.
If you don't do your homework on what people want and don't do proper field research on the item's performance, this is what happens.
There is an alternative on the market much cheaper (Score:4)
You've heard of all the clones of the Raspberry Pi SBC? One of them is the Orange Pi. They have a line of DIY kits that will let you build your own phone starting around $40 on AliExpress.
Too expensive for a "no name" (Score:2)