GoPro CEO on the strategy (and new tech) he hopes can return his company to its former glory

Billionaire founder of GoPro Nick Woodman went from being America’s highest paid CEO to making just $1. But he’s not going down without a fight.

Nick Woodman was living everybody’s dream.

Preparing to embark on a surf trip to Australia at the age of 26, he came up with what turned out to be a billion dollar idea. He wanted to design a robust surf camera to capture his trip from the water while catching waves from Bondi to Bells Beach.

When he returned home to the US six months later he set about turning that idea into a global business which would become synonymous with the action sports camera industry. If you were an adventure junkie or outdoorsman, you soon wanted a GoPro.

The immense success of the product in the early days helped make Mr Woodman the highest paid chief executive in America in 2014 when he took the company public, raking in $US285 million in stock value.

But after its meteoric rise, GoPro has come crashing back to Earth.

In early 2018, the company’s board of directors stepped in to slash Mr Woodman’s salary to just $1 and deny him the chance of receiving any cash bonus.

The dramatic move came on the back of another disastrous year which included the company’s fourth round of lay-offs since 2016 as it struggled to turn a profit for the second year in a row.

In January 2018 it was reported that the company hired investment bank JPMorgan Chase to pursue options for selling the company but Mr Woodman later denied this.

But despite a string of rocky years and embarrassing failures, the 43-year-old founder and CEO has a plan — and new camera technology — which he hopes can return GoPro to its former glory. Or at the very least get it back on track.

‘WE BELIEVED ALL OF OUR IDEAS WERE GREAT’

GoPro has had to learn some harsh lessons from its troubles in recent years, which included retreating from the drone market after some of its first generation devices began randomly dropping out of the sky just weeks after being launched in October 2016.

Although it probably sounds obvious, the main lesson has been to engage with the customer and focus on what they really want out of an action sports camera.

“For a time we believed everybody was our customer and we believed all of our ideas were great and we weren’t really engaging our customers enough and asking them what they wanted,” Mr Woodman told news.com.au. “We weren’t even to clear as to why they were buying a GoPro in the first place.”

GoPro CEO Nick Woodman introduces the Karma drone in 2016. The company discontinued its drone line in January 2018. Picture: Josh Edelson

After releasing its first digital HERO camera in 2006, the company’s profits began to climb. It went from strength to strength with the release of the HERO3+ capable of filming 4K UHD video in 2014.

“With so much success we decided we would scale GoPro and make it for everybody. The reality is that GoPro was borne as a solution for active people to allow them to capture experiences that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to,” he said.

The key to its product success, GoPro came to realise, is the niche it fills. Its customers have to be engaging in an activity where a traditional camera or smartphone is unable to capture the moment.

“If not, then they don’t really need GoPro.”

The GoPro share price has not had a good run since 2015.

Focusing on customer feedback and addressing their primary needs from the product sounds like the same tired spiel that any company executive rolls out when the chips are down, but you get the sense the charismatic Mr Woodman really means it.

FIGHTING BACK

That obvious-sounding realisation helped lead to the flagship feature on the company’s latest premium camera — GoPro’s HyperSmooth electronic image stabilisation introduced on the Hero7 Black.

The technology uses advanced scene analysis and a roller shutter correction algorithm to analyse how motion is happening frame to frame and make slight corrections to produce super smooth video.

It automatically smooths out the vision and ensures the footage isn’t jerky. I have had the chance to play around with the Hero7 and the automatic image stabilisation is a most welcome update and has received roundly positive reviews. It will definitely appeal to the average user who doesn’t want to spring for extra equipment like a gimbal mount.

Focusing on image stabilisation makes a lot of sense for GoPro and HyperSmooth fulfils the promise for a better action sports camera.

“We found that resoundingly in all markets that was at the top of the list of what people want,” Mr Woodman said.

“Rather than place big bets on ideas, we’ve just recognised the value of including our customer in the process so that we can make these investments that are often two or three year developments and have a high degree of certainty that it’s really going to excite them.”

GoPro has also looked to significantly push down its production cost by about $100 per unit for the top-of-the-range Hero7 Black, which retails in Australia for $599.

“It doesn’t mean that we make them any lower quality it just means that the engineering teams were challenged with finding a way to make the same level of performance at a lower cost so we can be profitable,” Mr Woodman said.

Perhaps that more than anything will pave the way back to sustained profitability for GoPro. At least with HyperSmooth, the future looks a little less shaky.

GoPro creator Nick Woodman is on the comeback trail. Picture: Carly Earl

Originally published as GoPro CEO on the strategy (and new tech) he hopes can return his company to its former glory