Steven Eidelman, Whistle // Finding Success in Consumer Hardware
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Proprietary and Confidential Steven Eidelman Co-Founder & COO
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Transcript of Steven Eidelman, Whistle // Finding Success in Consumer Hardware
Proprietary and Confidential
Steven EidelmanCo-Founder & COO
Proprietary and Confidential
So you’re building hardware…
(Welcome to the club!)
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Where does the value come from? How do you know if
you’ll be successful*?
*Disclaimer: learnings apply to consumer product companies
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The device itself? The data? The platform?
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A necessary but NOT sufficient question.
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Two key questions:
1. Why do people buy your product?
2. Why do people use your product?
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Only one way to figure it out:
Listen carefully - to both answers.
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OR
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OR
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Why pets? More specifically, why technology for pets?
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>$10K SPEND PER PET, MAJORITY ON HEALTH.
>60% OF U.S. HOUSES HAVE A DOG OR CAT.
>90% OF OWNERS VIEW THEM AS FAMILY.
MORE U.S. HOUSEHOLDS WITH DOGS THAN KIDS.
10M DOGS GET LOST EVERY YEAR. 1 IN 3 DOGS WILL GET LOST IN THEIR LIFETIME.
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The Whistle Activity Monitor: building a platform around
engagement
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Hardware = Hard
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*HW + SW = harder than HW or SW
HW + SW = Magic*
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We solved #2
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Customers loved the product
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Press loved the product
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Retailers loved the product
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But what about the people that weren’t buying the product?
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We still hadn’t solved for #1 for a majority of pet owners
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Turns out people really want and understand GPS.
And they’re willing to pay for it.
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Obvious value proposition at time of purchase
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Device (that people want) enabled app (that people use)
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Just because people want your product, doesn’t mean everyone will use it.
Just because people use your product, doesn’t mean everyone will buy it.
