GoPro is done! 🪦

GoPro is done! 🪦

Well, almost…

GoPro has signed a merger agreement with Starman Optical and announced plans to expand into equipment for AI data centres. So let’s send this legend into a well-earned retirement with a farewell post.

We may be witnessing the end of a remarkable story that began more than two decades ago. In 2002, an enthusiast named Nick Woodman (not to be confused with another famous Woodman) identified a pain point shared by tens of thousands of people and created an entirely new category of device. GoPro went on to become a generic term for action cameras.

There is no shortage of detailed post-mortems explaining how GoPro lost its footing. They have been appearing since 2016, when the company suffered its first major failure: its ill-fated attempt to take on DJI in drones.

My own take is simple: this was not primarily about tactical missteps; it was a strategic failure. While GoPro was trying to catch up with Chinese competitors in consumer drones, Chinese companies were making inroads into the action-camera market through genuine innovation — Insta360 being the obvious example.

A failed new-product strategy, an attempt to coast on past success and a chase after an arrow already loosed from an Asian bow led GoPro to this predictable outcome.

Simply chasing trends that have already taken off or copying other companies’ products is always a bad idea, even behind trade barriers and with government protection. Unfortunately, I see this regularly in the Russian market: there are plenty of strategic mistakes built around the logic of “import substitution,” even when it is dressed up as “leapfrogging.” Get in touch if you need a strategy and want your company to avoid GoPro’s rather prosaic ending ☺️