{"id":11795,"date":"2026-01-13T03:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=11795"},"modified":"2026-01-13T03:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:17:11","slug":"pebble-founder-says-his-new-company-is-not-a-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=11795","title":{"rendered":"Pebble founder says his new company is ‘not a startup’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Pebble\u2019s founder, Eric Migicovsky<\/a>, is doing things differently with his reboot of the Pebble<\/a> smartwatch<\/a> brand and an AI ring<\/a>. The team is small, inventory isn\u2019t being manufactured before it\u2019s sold, and there\u2019s no outside funding.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, he says, the new company, Core Devices<\/a>, is \u201cnot a startup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve structured this entire business around being a sustainable, profitable, and hopefully, long-running enterprise, but not a startup,\u201d Migicovsky told TechCrunch on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week.<\/p>\n

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Image Credits:<\/strong>Pebble<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cStartups are good for the world,\u201d he clarified. \u201cYou need to have money in order to build really new ideas and create something. But this is not a new idea,\u201d Migicovsky said, referring to the smartwatch reboot. \u201cThis is an old idea. We\u2019re just bringing it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pebble founder said he\u2019s learned a lot from his earlier efforts at building a hardware device maker, including what not to do.<\/p>\n

Pebble, the original company that Migicovsky started, was sold to Fitbit in 2016<\/a> for around $40 million; Fitbit was later acquired by Google<\/a> for $2.1 billion.<\/p>\n

Just before its exit, Migicovsky\u2019s team had been scrambling. Christmas 2015 had put Pebble into a tailspin, as the company had bought too much inventory.<\/p>\n

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Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cHardware is different from software. You have to predict ahead of time how much you\u2019re going to sell, because you need to build the hardware,\u201d Migicovsky explained, reminiscing on the time when things went wrong. <\/p>\n

Pebble\u2019s team then had estimated they would do $102 million in sales that year, but they did \u201conly\u201d $82 million. While that number is impressive for a smartwatch brand (particularly one that\u2019s not Apple, Google, or Samsung), the company was left with unsold inventory that had to be sold at a discount.<\/p>\n

Retail partners were also upset because discounted sales meant reduced margins. Meanwhile, Pebble didn\u2019t have enough money to finish developing its new products. To make ends meet, the company had to do rapid layoffs and reorganize. And ultimately, it had to find an exit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I lost sight of the vision of why I was building Pebble,\u201d Migicovsky admitted. \u201cAt the beginning, it was very clear. We had a Kickstarter. We posted on the web: here\u2019s exactly what Pebble does, here\u2019s what the features are, here\u2019s who should be interested in it. And then we kind of meandered a bit. We tried to do health tracking. We tried to do stuff that didn\u2019t feel like us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Image Credits:<\/strong>Pebble<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This time around, Migicovsky aims to take a different path. The new Pebble smartwatches aren\u2019t meant to be for everyone, he says. They\u2019re meant to be for people like himself: a self-described \u201cbit of a nerd,\u201d who just likes hacking, building, and creating things. Nor are they for fitness junkies or those who want a smartphone on their wrist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want a companion to my phone, rather than a replacement for my phone. I want it to be more like a Swatch than a Rolex. I want it to be a little bit more fun, casual, playful, and plasticky.\u201d Plus, he added, with the reboot of Pebble, he\u2019s now okay with a watch that doesn\u2019t try to do it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m okay with a limited vision and a limited scope of what we\u2019re trying to accomplish,\u201d Migicovsky said. <\/p>\n

Under the new company, Core Devices, the team has announced the Pebble Time 2 smartwatch<\/a>, a round-faced Pebble Round 2<\/a>, and a $75 AI smart ring, called the Index 01<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Notably, the company today is not going to be a large team of 180 employees as before, or one that works with distributors. Instead, there are only five people, and it sells directly to consumers on its website.<\/p>\n

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Image Credits:<\/strong>PebbleOS documentation website (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The foundation, however, remains PebbleOS, the smartwatch\u2019s operating system, which was thankfully open sourced by Google.<\/p>\n

Migicovsky recalls that he ran into a Google employee, Matthieu Jeanson, at a kid\u2019s birthday party, where he got the contact information for someone who might be able to make a call about open sourcing the smartwatch\u2019s operating system. He sent the email requesting that Google make the OS open source, and a year later, it followed through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really am thankful to Google, because what other big company in the world would do that?\u201d said Migicovsky. \u201cI think they did it as an homage to the Pebble community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without PebbleOS, the rebooted Pebble smartwatch would have been an impossibility, as it took a team of 30 to 40 people working for years to build it originally. Recreating that from scratch wasn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n

So far, the new company\u2019s structure is working. The company has sold 25,000 preorders for its smartwatches, and around 5,000 for its AI ring, which is newer.<\/p>\n

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Image Credits:<\/strong>Pebble<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pebble preorders are currently shipping about six months out, but Migicovsky said that the team will tighten that down to a couple of weeks. In addition, the Pebble App Store features 15,000 watch faces and apps. In a few weeks, the team will also be relaunching the SDK for developers.<\/p>\n

Migicovsky says the team is in a \u201ccomfortable spot,\u201d where their expenses are paid, and they\u2019re able to finance new projects. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s right \u2014 the team is not done yet. Migicovsky won\u2019t detail what sort of hardware devices Core Devices may ship next, but says they\u2019ll be the sort of things he personally wants to have.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of products that are already on the market. Nothing that we\u2019re making is like something that already exists,\u201d Migicovsky hints. \u201c[The next products will be] fun, casual, simple hardware, and they\u2019re things that will kind of make my life a little bit better, one block at a time. And they\u2019re going to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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