A surfer's problem and a rubber band
A surfing trip to clear his head after two failed ventures turned into the idea for GoPro. Nick Woodman, born in California in 1975, saw his first two startups fail. His gaming platform Funbug collapsed in the dot-com crash, losing about $4 million in investor money. Feeling humiliated and adrift, he went to Australia and Indonesia to surf.
On that trip, he had a problem: he wanted to film himself surfing, but there was no good way for amateurs to do it. He tied a 35mm camera to his wrist with a rubber band and experimented. The insight was simple but powerful: people didn't just want to capture action; they wanted to be in the action.
From a sewing machine to a minibus
When he returned, he sewed straps on his mother's sewing machine and drilled holes in plastic parts by hand. He funded the company with $30,000 of his own money, $35,000 from his mother, and an investment from his father. To raise more cash, he and his wife sold bead and seashell necklaces they brought from Bali out of an old Volkswagen minibus along the California coast.
In 2004, GoPro got its first big order, and sales doubled every year after that. On June 26, 2014, GoPro went public, making Woodman a billionaire. He was named the highest-paid CEO in America that year. In the years that followed, the company went through ups and downs, but Woodman had created an entire new category: the action camera.
'The best businesses don't always start with a big vision. Sometimes they start with duct tape and rubber bands.'
Woodman's story is one of rise and fall, hitting both the peak and the hard times. But it proves the essence of entrepreneurship: an honest solution to your own problem is often the strongest product strategy.