The Inventor of Ring Was Bankrupt. Here’s How He Turned it Around.
1h 3m 44s
Jamie Seminoff, the founder of Ring, began his journey with a simple idea: a Wi-Fi doorbell that would notify him when someone knocked. Working in his garage, he built a prototype that his wife said made her feel safer at home—a key shift from a novelty to a meaningful product. Despite facing financial ruin, skepticism, and rejection on Shark Tank, where he declined a $700,000 offer from Mr. Wonderful, he persisted. The product’s success grew from early adopters to a global phenomenon, fueled by real-world impact, such as preventing a crime through live video footage. Ring evolved from "Doorbot" to a trusted brand by focusing on user experience, not just technology. Jamie emphasizes that true innovation comes from solving real problems and staying dedicated, even when it’s hard. He later expanded into new products like the floodlight camera and Sidewalk, which enables smart home IoT connectivity. Though he has worked at Amazon’s innovative culture, he maintains his entrepreneurial edge by protecting his time and vision. His story highlights the power of resilience, adaptability, and believing in a product’s potential—despite early setbacks—proving that failure is not a dead end, but a stepping stone to breakthrough success.
Mr. Wonderful who gave you a very tough offer. Yeah, I mean, it was a brutal offer. And you pass on it, he said that that was the worst mistake ever made on Sharknank. Looking back, the scariest part is there's no way we're going to make it. How much money did you have? I had ordered 30,000 of these things, but I didn't have the money to pay for them. Are you saying you were going to literally go out of business? Oh, 100%. You have werewolves, you have cojones, Google went into space, and you? Well, I went after them, yeah, that was not smart. They put the electric bowl with the inside of the fish knife. Is this going to end badly? Thank God we didn't get electrocuted. Hopefully, Pete is not watching. I didn't do it on purpose, I was trying to cop the fish! I swear my life! I hitched Ashton Kutcher. Ashton was super nice, but was like, not for me. You went very quickly to a safety tool. We had a crime that happened. I saw it live on his phone, called the police, and they caught the person off of it. He had a gun on them. My guest today scaled and sold five companies, including one for a billion dollars. He's taken on Google and won. In 2013, he walked onto Shark Tank with almost nothing left in the bank, pitched a product everyone scoffed at and left without a deal. But then he turned that rejection into a company that's now in over 10 million American homes. When the garage where he invented his most famous product burned down, his first instinct was to start building again and that instinct is exactly why he's here today. Jamie Seminoff, the inventor of Ring, welcome to Builder Break. Thanks for having me. Jamie, I'm so excited to be with you and I love what we're doing here, because you and I become buddies and had some really fun lunch together and a couple dinners, but I learned so much about you and we're going to get to the mind of an inventor because I don't think we've had a true inventor in the show so far and the way you brain works, the way you've built so many companies that conceived and invented for me is awesome, but we're going to do that later. I want to start with Ring, because it's just incredible what you've accomplished and if we can go before the Shark Tank days back a little bit further to the beginnings, when it was actually called doorbutt, can you just tell us that story? How did it come about? Yeah, I mean, I was in my garage and I was working on other inventions. I've always been an inventor, which inventors are people just trying to solve problems and a lot of times inventors don't really make it, and so I always say I got lucky that I found something that I was able to get behind that was a big enough thing to fill my brain, which was making neighborhoods safer, not the actual doorbell and build that, but where it started was I was in my garage working on other things, couldn't hear the doorbell, just got an iPhone and I thought why wouldn't the doorbell go to my iPhone? Just online for a Wi-Fi doorbell, nothing existed and I built one. You're an inventor and entrepreneur and I do think there's a very big distinction, but you fit both because you had built multiple times. I would say I'm an inventor who realize that you have to have a company to have an impact with your inventions, like the more scale you have, the more your inventions can affect the world and so the impact is bigger with a big company. If I could get away with it, I wouldn't have a business, I'd just be building stuff. All of us tell ourselves our stories and that's probably very true, but when I read about you, while it's true that you work at a huge company scale, you also had tried multiple things before doorbought and I'm going to give you the title of an entrepreneur which is a very big title. Let's find out. I'll accept it. But let's start with doorbought, like so you have this idea and you're trying to solve a problem like why is this camera not on with Wi-Fi, why it's not in the 21st century, then what happens? So I built it, I put it on my front door, I hacked this thing up and it was my wife, was the first one who said this makes me feel safer at home. That was the first like this is more than just a gimmick, a gadget, something fun for a person who's working in the garage. This might be a little bit more than that. Well, I mean it's certainly going to make you feel safer, but it was a completely revolutionized the way people relate to a conventional function that existed for thousands of years, but now with technologies with the times, I'm going to go even deeper in that. This is a good lesson that I got lucky learning is if you can transform something that people understand, you understood what the doorbell was, where a doorbell went, that you needed a doorbell. So you all these like things core to a product to get someone to buy it, you understood. Then when you put a camera on, people are like, oh, I understand, this camera goes to my phone. By having all the doorbell things, you have 100 years that people have been using it, and then taking that pre-awareness and just putting your spin on it, it gave me such a boost to go out there, which I didn't understand it when I was doing it. But once I got out there, I realized it was what an edge of that versus building something from scratch. If I had just built like a camera system that did something where I. If you had built a Chikolabonga, it would have not benefited from the doorbell. Because you would explain everything. But still, like you said at the beginning, in hindsight, you can connect dots like I can connect with my narrative or what kind or whatever. But tell us about your struggles at the beginning, because it was not an overnight success. Like what happened at the beginning when you were in your garage tinkering, what's the next step? This is when pre-sale sites were coming, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, we were like, just when they were starting, and Kickstarter had kicked off all the hardware products. They decided they weren't going to allow any electronic products. They just did a whole thing. They kicked them out of their product. They said why? Because they weren't delivering. Because they're hard. So people were putting this idea up of a Chikobamba, whatever. And then they didn't deliver it. So Kickstarter got mad and said no more. So I said there should be a Kickstarter site for these products. That's actually what I launched. And that was called Christie Street. I'm parallel with your idea for DoorBot. I wouldn't even say no, I'm parallel. That was the-- What are the scissors? That was what we were launching. You stuck out opportunity. Christie Street. Christie Street is the street that Edison was where Edison's lab was on Christie Street in New Jersey. So I just thought it was like a fun, you know, Thomas Edison. Guess what you have to do when you launch Christie Street. You need a product on there. And so when I was going to pitch it, you're shitting me totally. You started DoorBot as a byproduct of Christie Street. DoorBot was the-- DoorBot was this thing I had at my house. And I was working on Christie Street. And who hadn't thought VCs that broke-- So far, it's so much that a friend of mine had a conference in Paris and he said you can present Christie Street. Like you can do it. I said great, I said here's the different products I'm thinking about putting on there's the first product. You just need to create your-- You need something to launch it, right? To showcase it and to prime the pump. And so I go through all the products and I get to the DoorBot. This guy's a French guy and he's like, this is a doorbell. And I'm like, you really think so, Luke? This guy Luke, and he's like-- You a Climaud? Yeah. He's a friend of mine. He's a great guy. The guy that we-- We're gonna look things. Yeah. And he said, do the doorbell. And I said, OK, I present Christie Street in the web in Paris and all anyone wanted to talk about was the doorbell. The doorbell. The doorbell. And the doorbell. Exactly. Exactly. All of a sudden, now we're trying to build the doorbell we have to build it. And I had never done it before. It's the camera, the firmware, the hardware, the battery, all these things. What were you at that moment? Were you an engineer? I mean, I'm a self-taught engineer. So I've learned engineering by-- I started with reading books. I mean, this was-- I'm pre-YouTube, pre-AI, you know? So I had to read books. And that's why I always-- when an entrepreneur comes to me, he's like, what is a book? Exactly. But when an entrepreneur comes to me, so funny, they'll say, like, I'm trying to do this thing and I'm going to hire this consulting company to do this. I'm like, you know, like, learn it yourself. And so I taught myself how to code to a certain level. I taught myself how to, like, lay out board all these things. And then, yes, I had to find people in the end, but I got everything pretty close. I hired a small group to do it. And we started building. But it was-- we were overwhelmed. We hired small contractors. I hired a couple in-house people. And where did you get the money to start this? The place you shouldn't get the money. We were pre-selling doorbots. Yeah. And I was using that money to try to build doorbots. So how much money did you get through that? There's hundreds of thousands, you know? Like it wasn't, you know, it was not enough to really do it, which was the problem. It's like, it wasn't enough to do it. I mean, at the time, it's like $100,000 was like, oh my, we're totally fine. And then you realize that everything's like millions, not hundreds of thousands. In your world. Because you can launch a kind bar with that amount of money, you can launch a product. That's exactly right. There are certain businesses that you can launch with $10,000. But you can do it in your kitchen sink, you know? I do it with it. I love something with a sophistication of you. You need more resources. So then what happens? And you need an app and all this stuff. So, you know, we kept going and this is where Shark Tank came in. If before you get to Shark Tank, right before Shark Tank, you already have sales or no? We are pre-selling. Pre-selling. We had not shipped a single unit. You have not shipped a single unit? We ordered units. We went to a factory, we went to Met this company in Taiwan and had them starting to build it. And we're trying to get this thing together. We're starting to order the parts and we're getting things together. And looking back, the scariest part is, mathematically, there's no way we're going to make it. I spent more than all of the money that I was getting in. I was going into debt to try to just to engineer this product together. I had ordered 30,000 of these things to sell them, but I didn't have the money to pay for them. I just want to make sure I understand how I'm going to do this. Oh, 100%. I'd say, personally bankrupt. You're like signing all this stuff. You're like, "Okay, we'll do this. We'll order this." And then all of a sudden, you're like, "Well, if we don't sell these, I'm on the hook for them." And the supplier trusts you to. Well, they're. Yeah. I mean, I. Yeah, I think everyone thought I probably had more sales than I did. I mean, you're playing kind of a shell game. What is your banker kind of look like before you got on track then?
you know, 5,000 comes in zero, 5,000 comes in zero. I mean, you just keep, like, as soon as you get some money and then, like, we basically pay the next person in line. So, like, the, whatever vendor, the factory says we need $50,000 to this. And you're like, okay, well, we have $50,000, we'll send that to you. - Are you married by then or no? - Married and I had a three year old. - So, are you coming home and crying, freaking out? What are you feeling before this? - You know, it's funny 'cause I put myself back into that. I wasn't freaking out during that time. I should have been. - But you were exuberant. - No, I wasn't exuberant. I think I was so focused. This crazy focus of, like, we're just gonna do this. Taking that risk today would kill me. Like, I can't even think of, I don't even know, I don't understand, honestly. Like, that year that I did that, I really don't know what I was thinking. Like, if you're barely scraping by, you're not pulling your hairs or crying at that moment before yourself. - I'm not because I'm just so, like, I am just focused. I am just like, like, a sniper, I'm just like focused. - And your wife is like, what the fuck are you doing? Or she's like, oh, Jamie, I love you, you're amazing. - I mean, I think this is where, again, where failure and success happens is like, she was like, you're gonna do this. Like, I believe in you. - And the baby doesn't know, just longs how to live. - The baby's, you know, he's now 17, so. But yeah. - No, but the three year old gave you energy. - He was, yeah, I mean, he was in the garage sitting there. We're not having my big set bucks that kind. Ooh, getting a hog from my kids was-- - Totally. - Very valuable. - If I could have taken a step back, taken a week and said, okay, let me just look at where we are. I would have freaked out. I probably would have tried to shut it down. I probably would have just ran. I don't even know what I would have done. - So you applied to track down about 20,000 people that apply only 160. That's, make it. - Yeah. - I got lucky. I mean, I got the call. - But right now, let's talk about the other experience of you coming as a somewhat desperate, if not, you know, with a lot of pressure and to partner. Walk me through the application process for a minute. Like, what does that feel like? Are you worried? Are you, like, how does that feel? - I would say I took it as the same sort of focus, which is they called and said, you know, we want you to come on Shark Tank. The process though is then very long. At the time, you actually didn't even build your own set. So you had to pay for that. So I built the set in the backyard. I was so focused. I was like, I am going to win Shark Tank. Like, I looked at it as like-- - When you get the call and take so long process, is your goal to get on the show so that millions see you or is your goal to get a deal? - My goal was that Mark was Mark Cuban in my brain. I think entrepreneurs do this. We like create these like lies and these narratives that are like, we kind of, it's almost like a movie we play out. - Yeah, we met a lot. - I played out that Mark Cuban was just going to like, say like, immediately I'm doing the steal, box everyone else out. Come up and give me a big hug. I was going to get the money I needed and I was going to like ride into the sunset. I was convinced that that was going to happen. - And that didn't happen. - First Shark out. Mark was out with it. - Why did Mark go out so quickly? - Like many people at the time when I would say, I would work on a doorbell. This goes to the other side of the doorbell. So the doorbell had pre-awareness. That was good. The other side of the doorbell was, it was like a joke. It was like, you're working on a, be like me saying, I'm working on steam engine cars or something right now. It sounded so old. - Almost too ahead of its time. - But it sounded old, a doorbell. Like it was like, oh, you're reinventing the doorbell. Like good luck to you. Like, you know, a doorbell is a $9 product. So everyone looked at the TAM, total addressable market. And they said the TAM of doorbells is what? $50 million a year. So you're going to step, if you got 10% of that market, that's $5 million a year. So no one could imagine, could you see it? You know, when I, when I was doing kind of my first use, I had no visibility to what was going to come. I had the vision to grow to a $10 million company. That was my, and then, but then was your climb, you see more, but at that point, you're just, you're just, you're just passionate about your product. - And again, it's interesting, you ask that, 'cause it's like, I didn't, like in one side of me, I didn't really see it. The other side, I was like, I was literally burning everything behind me and around me that it had to happen. - But it was the passion on the product. It was not the numbers. Like you were looking at me. I'm like, it's just gonna, it's gonna work. It's like, I'm gonna do this. So Mark, have you the brief with Mark off? - Oh yeah, I've talked to him many times. - This is like shit, I fucked up. - Yeah, of course. Mr. Wonderful, who gave you a very tough offer. - Yeah, I mean, there's a brutal offer. - And you pass on it. He said that that was the worst mistake ever made on Shark Tank to not fund ring. - Well, it's the largest company ever to appear on Shark Tank by leaps and bounds, not even like, not even close. And so, I think. - Not that you're proud of it or not. - Yeah, I worked really hard to have that record. - It's just a parenthetical. Jamie and I are, I think friends, like going to launch, we went to beta carry. - That was amazing. - It was an incredible place. Michelin start placing an empty garage log, empty gas station. And I think it closed. I was looking at it today. But we've had some nice moments. I've never seen the edge you have. When Jamie showed up at the studio, we're filming this one in LA. I noticed that our friend DOSCAR studio does not have a ring. - Yes, I think that's the interesting thing. I say I'm an inventor, I don't care whatever. But then there is this part of me that has, I guess, maybe a little bit of wanting to win a competitive. And so, I got invited to a friend's house. It's like beautiful. He's a very wealthy guy. He's in the credit card payments business. And he had a small conference going. And he asked me to speak. And I show up to his house. And he has a doorbell from a different company. And by the way, I think like the competition's fine. Let everyone succeed. But, you know, he asked me to go to his house and he asked me if he was about fuck him. - You know, your words. - And so, I kicked the doorbell off of his door. Got a picture of it. And I made it my first slide for the presentation. I thought it'd be so funny. And while he's, he gets up and introduced me, it's like 50 people in his house. It's a small thing. And he says, you know, I'm really sorry, Jamie. I guess I have a different doorbell than a ring. And I guess we should have whatever. I said, "No, don't worry." And I take it out of my pocket and I show him. And he goes, "Yeah, that's like the one I have." And I said, "No, that's the one from your front door." And so, we had a good laugh. We replaced it with a ring. - You're an inventor, but you take risks. You're an entrepreneur. And I think one of the things that is underappreciated when we're talking and coaching, that's why Mr. Wonderful sometimes just says it like it is. You have to have a competitive edge. You cannot win if you don't have the backbone to fight, to fight for your team, to fight for your children, to fight for your product. You have to have that competitive edge. - Yeah, I think that is something just in life in general that you have to be willing to fight for what you believe in. And I think if you're gonna do a product, you should believe in it. Like if you're gonna do a company, you should believe in it. And I think people always say like, it's not personal, it's business. And it's like, business is very personal to me. - You are on Shark Tank, marks out. Everyone else is out except Mr. Wonderful. Kevin gives you, do you remember this deal he offered you? - He gave me, it was like, so I asked for $700,000 for 10%, so it was $700,000 for 10%, but it had like a royalty in it. - I would have taken that deal, why didn't you invite me? - Yeah, exactly, I wish I wish you were on at the time. Trust me. But again, like it's, it's, it's, what's so funny now is people are saying like, oh, of course she didn't want the money. Like they look at it from now me. And they're like, why would you have wanted the money? It's like, of course I wanted the money. Like I was dying for the money. I mean, I did, and I really did, I'm the expertise, you wonder Mark, because he understood that's, I wanted the money. - He should have owned the money on him. - But I did, I did want Mark, because Mark was the tech. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, of all the guys up there, he would have been the one or the people up there, I'd say. - We're the one that really had the most. - Any shark would have helped you, Mark. - Laurie would have been good. But I would have, I would have, I actually would have loved like a duel with Laurie also, because you know, he was a little panel. He was Mark, Laurie, Kevin, Damon, and Robert. - And so they were all out, except Kevin, who offers you like to suck the blood out of your, which, I'm there, and I'm like, I know that type of deal with my business, which is just eating cash, is not going to be able to write checks in the cabinet. - Do you consider it or do you then consider it? - I did. No, I really, I was up there, so I was thinking, I might as well just take it to live another day. But I have had this thing where I'm like, I'd rather die with dignity, than die with sort of like slowly. And so it was like, you know what? I'm not going to do this, because this is going to lead, we're not going to make it if we take this. - You know? - You sweated and considered-- - Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I walk off, no deal. We film in September, at night, or that evening. What happens? How do you feel? - They film in Los Angeles. I live in Los Angeles, the garage at the office was in Los Angeles, and so I drive home, and I did cry in the car, I mean, it was like-- - Literally cry. - The go, cried. - What are you thinking? It's just like that was it, like it just, I mean. Like that was like, because you play this narrative, like I do think you might push myself this thing, like this is going to be it. Like we're going to, like, the miracle's going to happen. Like all these things lined up, and I'm going to have the money, and I'm going to come back, and we're going to finish this, and it's going to, you know. And again, at that point, it wasn't like, we're going to be doing my-- - We're not going to make it. - Oh, in the drive home? But by the time I got home, I was back to like, okay, like well, like one drive, you go from grief to acceptance to conviction. - And the conviction was that that was also, you, like, was very clear at that point. I could not stop. I had to make this work, or if there was going to be like real impact in my family to like, like that was, you know, if I, if I could have in that car, if I could have just walked away, No.
no foul. A hundred percent. I mean a hundred percent throwing the towel. A hundred percent I would have. I had a there actually similar dark moment right before launching kind. My dad just passed away. It's 2003. We have lost half of our business in the president company called Peaceworks. I cannot make and Smith. I cannot I can barely pay payroll. My salary was $24,000. Ten years I've been doing this with Peaceworks. We have the concept of what's going to become kind. We go around the table to decide whether we launch what would become kind. I swear, Jamie, I was this far away from throwing in the towel and I was partly was hoping that the rest of my team gives me the permission for all of us to take three months to find a job. But we just took a vote and say, right, let's try one side. Literally, if we had taken a vote and sometimes as myself whether I really would have given up, but I literally took a vote with a team and we all took a unanimous vote to do it. But would I really give a knock? I'm not 100% sure. But I certainly put it on the table. I mean, the lucky thing I had is, and again, lucky enough, but is if we had stopped, I owed so much money that it I couldn't take that vote. I tell you, I would I would I would I would have walked to that much money that you ought to tell me. You know, probably it was probably 700,000 million of stuff that we had. Again, we had guaranteed, you know, like future product, whatever, as we were ordering all this stuff. So it was bills that were coming that I couldn't stop at that point. September 11th, we filmed a memorable date. And when did that air? So this was the key. So they tell you when you get off there, like, but you don't even know if it's gonna air. Yeah, like a good, historically 40% don't air. So I was worried it wouldn't air, but they don't they don't tell you and I'm asking them as I'm leaving. Like, hey, and they're just like, we'll call you. I'm like, can I call you? Like, we'll call you. And so I didn't know. And if it had air, it ended up airing in November, which but it's good for you. Every day was worse for you, right? It was amazing. I mean, the air in November, we had just we just started to get product delivered from the factory. We had it like basically ready to come over. So it aired literally right when we were able to ship. If it had air, that season went till I think April, if it had ended up airing, which is, but they could have aired it in April, March, whatever. I don't think we still would have been in business by then. I don't think we would have made it till day because we just wouldn't have had the velocity to the sell. So now you enter class act two of the of the play or act three. I don't know. Holy shit. Yeah. Then you're going to term right? I mean, will we air in November? We're still pitching to get money. We're still moving forward. We're still doing it. No idea. We're gonna get there. But we're still going. I get introduced to Ashton Kutcher. I pitch Ashton Kutcher in his trailer of my two men or whatever the four airing after air, after taping before airing and no guarantees that you'll air no guarantees a little air. I'm in the trailer. I pitch in the whole thing. Ashton was super nice, but was like not for, not for me, which was crazy. I pitch Ashton. Ashton. And you know, he's sitting at the time. She's sitting in the back. She's, she's amazing. She's asking questions. I'm in this little trailer on the set. He's like, okay, I have to go. I start walking back. Again, this is like, it is like a Hollywood movie and my phone rings. And it is none other than Shark Tank calling to say, you're gonna go in air in November, whatever. And I'm like, I actually thought to myself, should I go run back to try to like get Ashton? I'm like, no, I'm like, even I had more respect than that at that time. And then definitely when we went on to quite tears of joy, I know more just like, I think it was like we go on air and the sales just, like that was definitely the first thing. I mean, it was, you know, 100,000 the first night, which back, funny is that seemed, I thought we'd get it all in one shot. So it was a hundred thousand. I'm like, oh my god, is that it? Like we're going to die. And then it was, it just never stopped. It was like, yeah, the cool thing about Shark Tank is the first night is a very big thing than the first three days, then the week, then the month, and then you got reruns and then you got rears. But it even just once it like set a new floor, like we just never, we just, it just went, we started shipping. It was going into the holidays. So it really did take it up a notch. We certainly weren't fine from there. And we had lots of problems. But we actually did feel like we might make it, we got this. And then, which then of course, for my side, I, I also am a type of entrepreneur person that runs on fear. And so I then all of a sudden go to, oh no, we just showed the world a great product. We better deliver. Well, we're not the best. Like we, like, door bot was a very challenged product. And I said, oh no, like someone else is going to now win this. So that, I kind of flipped from scared that I'm not going to sell any door bots to, oh no, someone else is going to now take this market. And we're going to be the person who invented the video doorbell and not the person who sort of had the success of the video doorbell. At which point do you change from door bot to ring? So we aired in November, between Christmas and New Year's, I brought my team, which was like five or six people together. And I said, they're going to launch it. So the way that the cycles work in electronics is that people come out with them in January for like the next season. So we had like 14 months that we knew we'd have competition. And if we hadn't get ahead of it, I was like, we're going to get just, we're going to get, like, it's going to be a tidal wave. We're going to be toast. You conceived that did you have enough patents to prevent that? No, nothing. But that was that was also the luckiest break we had. Because if I had patents for you to be more competitive, if I had patents, I would have been like, Oh, we have patents. We're going to license this. We're going to whatever. I would have like sat back. Instead, I'm like, we need to own this business. We need on the brand. We need to build a brand. We need to rebuild the product. And we need to launch it October is a fascinating insight that I want to make sure that everybody understands. Oftentimes, the patent can only give you so much protection. So you need to build your brand and your market power enough. So when that patent goes away, you have that. In your case, you said, no, even more so, because we didn't have that patent, we didn't have the luxury to get comfortable. You needed to win faster. Yeah, the only way we could win in my mind was to have the brand, the technology, the product, the, like, the network effects, all these, like, build the business faster than anyone else. And that started that between Christmas and years, we sat down. We called it project F5, which stood for fucking five star reviews. And we said, we're going to rebuild everything, the brand, the customer service, the product, the, like, we, we now, we have the structure and you have something, but it's not good enough. We're going to throw everything out. Everything. Everything. And basically, we, we know we have the right idea. And we need to launch it October. So that was, we had like nine months. And I mean, you have door, but which honestly is not nearly a school of names ring. But did you consider, like, ring is because the doorbell does ring. So did you consider calling it buzz or ding dong or like, imagine if your name had been knocked knock and they would have not. It was like, one of the things where I'm like, we need a new name. This is something I've done, like, a good job at. It's like, just keep moving forward. Like, we'll get the name, but let's just like, we know we need a new name. Like, it's a placeholder now, like, new name, but like, let's keep, it's F5, keep moving forward, build everything. Like, we're just going to figure it out. One of our seed investors, I went to and I, they didn't, they weren't going to put more money in, but it was like, let me just pitch you on F5, like the new business. And I want to get your feedback on it. And I pitched the whole thing in the last slide was, and we need a new name. And this one of the partners there said, Jamie, you've said the word ring, like ring of security ring around your neighborhood, ring this ring doorbell. And he's like, you've said it a thousand times. Just call it ring. I think the point that's really, really important here and I've seen that thousands of times is we need to be receiving the signals to the universe as entrepreneurs, as investors, as business people or whatever type of builder you are. Cause it's there. And then you need to listen to your team, you need to do your industry partners on that game that way. Yeah. Now, when you have five team members, are those the people that I read that you hired through Craigslist? There was definitely a couple of Craigslist people. I mean, we just hired, I mean, it's still to this day. We have a lot of people that are in our top management that came basically from Craigslist postings for, you know, the person who runs all of our planning and demand planning and everything for, for ring right now, which is a multi-billion dollar. I mean, it's like a very large consumer like trice company, lots of skews and everything else. He started in the shipping department for us. Is that, don't you love when your team grows with you? Cause it's not everybody can do that. But it is one of the best jewels. Like I'd say, I mean, I do love impact and purpose. What we've done with the ring has been great. And then from a team side, there are so many people that I do feel like we gave opportunity to who buy it and they deserve it. It was, it was in them, but not everybody can do it. It's amazing when, when somebody's able to grow like that. It sounds beautiful. You went very quickly from a convenience to a safety tool. Can you walk us through that? What was it? So I, when my wife said it to me when I first built it, I realized that this is a, this could be something that could change how home security works. That by delivering presence, by how the phone worked, we could change home security. So I did realize that. But I also was aware enough that if I came out and said, this is going to change home security, I would lose trust of people. You can't just say like, this is going to change your life. When you say this is going to change your life, you turn people off. When it's, when it's small and it's like, Oh, it's on the state and over deliver exactly careful, not to set expectations that you're not going to be able to meet or are you saying, when you're speaking about stuff, people might not find a crevice, it has to be a third party. You just, you look like a quack. You know, you're looking like you're trying to sell snake oil or whatever. And so I, I did realize we have to first start saying it's convenience. It's, it's, you know, it's monitoring your home. It's like we had to be soft about it. Factual. Factual and soft. Get those early adopters. And then kept saying the team will we start solving crimes with this and we
prove that then we'll come out our mission actually very early on was to make neighborhood safer when I hired people I would tell them what you're working on is to make neighborhood safer but we're not publicly saying that yet we're just we're sort of working our way into that and then finally we had a big sort of you know we had a crime that happened in the valley and in LA and they caught the person off of it he had a gun on them it was like a whole thing the guy saw it live on his phone called the police and so it was the first time we were like without this product this person would still be oh that was that was like the one of the greatest days ever I mean it was like it was amazing that was like because up until then it was like everything we were doing was saying that's gonna happen one of the questions that Oscar or producer wanted us to ask you is how do you feel about creating a whole genre videos because it just exploded so we created like half the genre art what happened was that exploded after ring was Instagram and tic-tac and all of these like short form video things that people are watching and it turned out that what we were capturing from the front door was interesting in these things you know a bear going into a car the first kiss happening of you know the the guy bringing the girl home from the prom like all these things that were so fun that got captured and you know things that happened in life and we fit into that and it definitely you know we put our logo on the video and that you know it was part of what sort of drove our success one of the tools that you and I've used is just sheer I don't have time to worry I don't have time to complain I don't have time to commiserate I just need to believe in myself and do it but you we all have self-dad I've had moments when I cry and by the way the self-dad exists today today I had moments I just a part of who I am and in fact I think when I hire I want people that are introspective that can have enough self-dad because that's how you grow how do you handle those moments where you feel like I'm the leader of really expecting to answer but I don't have answers but how do you handle that I probably not great at it because it does eat at me I think some people get crippled by it people to talk about their business forever but never launch it because they have the too much self-doubt I think I'm able to get past it and keep doing it while still having that self-doubt so I think that's the if there's a superpower there it's being able to like push through it but yeah I still haven't I think this is where it's very dangerous when you surround yourself with your village of community of people if too many people are not sort of supporting you I think most entrepreneurs do have that weakness and and can be turned off early on from things because it's just easy it's easy to succumb to that I want to go in a minute into the mind of an inventor he says out what I'm most excited to probe but before I don't want to ask you one last question on this stage of your life you eventually raised $385 million from incredibly strong VCs as well as from people like Richard Brownson and Shaquille O'Neal those Shaq or Richard Brownson or any of these fascinating people spend time giving you advice or they're just incredible figures but they're not involved in any advice Shaq gave me a lot of insight on marketing I mean Shaq has a real natural sense of how to sell how to boil something down like first principle like he really does like we would do commercials they give him a script and it was just so funny they give him a script he'd look at go yeah he'd throw it back at him the guy that worked for us who would do all the stuff that was Guy Carney and Shaq called him Spielberg he'd be like don't worry Spielberg I got it he'd throw it back at him and he'd just start riffing and whatever he did usually was better because he's just I mean he is the best in the world at that he's also hilarious oh he's so funny I received an award the year before he did from Lonely Ali from the Muhammad Ali humanitarian prizes and so we're in the same table seated together and I'm talking to the woman next to him and I'm Mrs. O'Neal and at one point I tell Shaq yeah you're wife and he starts laughing and he goes up to receive his awards as a gentleman next to me was talking to my mother and he was thinking that it's my wife my mommy so fine that this guy is hitting on her don't you be looking at my mom like that and it was hilarious he's just so fun he is so fun he never stops like cameras off cameras on and he just with him anywhere he's just always loves life yeah loves life and he's just super like he's just got that like you know some people just he just has that thing like he just has that like magic all right we're going to now go into what I'm most excited to go which is in the demented mind of the crazy inventor how the hell does that work you have this garage we're used to think there how did that come about in your life and tell me on more about how your mind works I think it's sort of DNA like it's just not like I've always been a kid you know when I was young that would just see a problem and I just always thought like I like just how to fix it youngest I can remember I was taking stuff apart tinkering with it my house didn't have air conditioning and I was hot at night and so my brother would complain that he couldn't sleep I built the thing with a fish tank and ice and a pump and I pumped cold water through my blanket like I just like a difference between you and I when I was a little kid my parents bought me a fish in the fish tank and I was worried that the fish was going to be too cold so I had built electric bulb in my mechanics class or my electricity class and I put the electric bulb inside the fish tank and then I covered the fish tank with a blanket because I was afraid that fish was going to be you cooked the fish I cooked the fish he was literally fried and thank God we didn't get electrocuted yeah I'm sorry I was six or seven please don't keep it I'm sorry I didn't do it in purpose I was trying to help you at least I hope you at least ate the fish afterwards I was trying to get some like you sous vide you created sous vide I was traumatized I was I came to cramp that's the difference between I but an entrepreneur is someone that sees a problem and then takes action to solve it yeah an inventor normally solves a prompt through creativity but doesn't necessarily have the gumption to create that's exactly that's what you are an entrepreneur inventor where did that come from like how do that start I heard that your dad had a pipe manufacturing company that dad have anything to do with it like he was he was so my dad was the CFO there so he was not like I mean he was like a partner but a CFO so he was the he was the finance guy he was not a part of the no I I was the I was the one fixing stuff around the house I was always how you do you were just born with that I think I was I mean I do just think there are some things that we are just you know I certainly wasn't born any athletic ability so that I didn't I didn't get it all the one thing my parents did let me do which was amazing looking back is we had a basement and they had this sort of like room with all the like like like the fix it room I guess which my dad just had to just junk in they let me just like take it over and I would spend almost any free time I had I was in the basement building stuff fixing stuff it really wasn't like until later in life I'm like oh I'm an inventor like I get first business the one about drafting briefs for professionals yeah so it was doing business plans and from what I read it sounded well first of all you had a lot of chutzpah because you were telling people how to do their businesses but I mean it's so funny but like it's like your business is probably destined to fail when you hire a kid who doesn't know how to do business to write your business plan if you remember like you had to have a business plan to have a business like it was like you and it was like a structured thing and I went to Babson which is an entrepreneurship school which is why you had to write business plans there and so I won the business plan competition and from that this was going into the dot com days everyone wanted to have a business they needed a business plan to go raise money and so someone came to me and said would you write my business plan I said I was actually I had a girlfriend in Bermuda and I supposed to go there for the summer and I said no and they said well we really need a business plan I said fine ten thousand dollars and at that time ten thousand dollars was like me saying a hundred million dollars and they said okay and I said well that I'm not going to Bermuda so I sat and I really haven't got with you or no I mean it's fine it's fine but I got ten thousand bucks and now you married your real life I marry my real life but but yes so maybe that was started I keep looking at cycle times I've really been focused on this recently of this idea of cycle times and a cycle is is can be something that doesn't work but you learn from it and you just but it's how fast you do the cycle and so to me it's like speeding that cycle up is how you get ahead is like is it making sure you keep turning that crank faster and faster meaning try to learn from it try to learn from it it's like and it's like because I don't want to say it's time to failure because it's not failure it's like time to learn well you know you know you understand the compote and he said there is no such thing as failure it steps to success yeah I think it's exactly right but you had some income from it would you consider that one a successor now it was it was yeah I mean I I I made a little bit of money it got me to the next thing was the next one voice over I mean voice of IP yeah so you know I learned voice of IP this guy was doing it I learned a little bit from him explain voice over IP so voice of IP it literally sending phone calls through internet it does not pick for granted it but back that was how everything goes but like at that time you these big switches and like a country like Bulgaria you know how to switch connected to whatever and AT&T would send their line over there they had these they they'd have a literally every year all the phone companies would get together and have a meeting and decide the rates they we're gonna pay you this you're gonna pay this this and when you were calling a broad you were paying many dollars per minute because of these because this so you I was like I don't want to go to a meeting I'm just gonna put a voice over IP box there and send the calls in and just blast them out so I just looked at like where was it?
there are profit and I just literally flew to a country guy that says that he's not an entrepreneur. That wouldn't end up well in the middle. That was my first money that I made but still I mean it wasn't huge but it was enough to keep going. Believe me so far you're tracking better than me, phone tag, voicemail to tech service. Is this the next step or is that part of the same thing? No that's the next step. Then I voicemail, you had to like it was annoying. You leave this podcast, you have nine voicemails, you have to listen to each one. And the guy was like yeah call me, you have to write it down and so I thought this black berries had just come out and so I thought to myself why wouldn't you be able to read your voicemail. But the technology already existed there? The piece is existed so like you could make with voice of IP, you could make a voicemail system, you could call forward to that voicemail system, you could then email it, people have blackberries. You had a piece of my accent even today it transcribes everything wrong. So we had a hybrid, we had a hybrid, we had a hybrid of like there was ASR you know speech recognition that was happening that like we used a little bit of that. And then if it basically lost a confidence level it would go to a human. So we kind of had this like so it was a hybrid which is again another good lesson is like don't wait for the technology like just use the innovator just like go with the manual and then automate later because once you have enough data and all that stuff which that business I I sold it for again a little bit but not honestly not not like but what I like about that is you have where was your cojones apparently Google went into space and you went I went after them. That was not smart. Why was not smart? No, it's not smart. Physically Google came out and said this one like this will never work and I then went after them and said they can't do it and like it was like but actually I guess it was smart because I was a nobody they were Google it got me a lot of press and it got our product out there. So why wasn't it smart? I guess it was smart. Maybe it was smart. It was it was it certainly poked Google which I guess maybe it was good maybe it was good back then. So and it was funny actually through that I met a guy named West Chan and West Chan was a Google voice and then he went to Google Ventures and then West Chan was actually the guy who I installed the ring on his house who was then at the island with Richard Branson who told Richard Branson about it which is you know again this is like for me life is long like life is a marathon like there's some entrepreneurs that come right out of the gates you know they're they're super young they have massive success super early on they're young you know it's like amazing it took me a long time of all these different pieces coming up. But also I thought what you're going to say it's so beautiful that if you build bridges and maintain those relationships things happen yeah I needed all that I wasn't as smart as those like the people that start to say I companies when they're like 20 and sell them. It's very interesting that you compare yourself to those because you're one in a billion or one in a 10 million in terms of your success level I just insane what you've accomplished but you still have this a little bit of a chip in the shoulder and it's what drives you and you know where that came from I think a lot of these things that the people that have accomplished a lot their most powerful trait is also their worst trait. And so the thing that drives me is also the thing that drives me crazy. Our strengths and our weaknesses and what we need to do is try to find a way to make them more strengths and ways. But you are right I do I definitely have a which part of that like wanting to win is that chip of feeling like I'm still like the kid you know like I mean when I was when I was young I certainly wasn't the popular kid in school I think maybe that. Relief tell me more. But for whatever reason maybe just because I was like inventing stuff and doing stuff I was a little bit weird and so nerdy and kids would bully you. I wasn't like nerdy but I was definitely different and I think different in New Jersey and a school back then was was something bullies were you know I was like I was food for bullies and in some ways that fueled you probably I think it did I think I think if I look back it's like that probably a lot of it is like why I like to you know win is like to a little bit of like see I can do it. This question they inventor thing again just connect the dots of how the hell did you come up with all this stuff like walk us in through any of these examples how did you come up with the idea because it's a lot of ideas that you came up with. I mean but just so even at ring you know we came out the ring doorbell the ring doorbell you know I say like a pretty revolutionary product that has done incredible things it is really a global sensation the actual doorbell we also came out the flood light camera told a completely new vertical that no one had thought of. Float light camera. Yeah so the if you look at flood lights you know the motion detection flood lights that camera and that's probably one of the largest single skew cameras now out there in the world is the flood light camera. It's for security like yep I should get one. Oh for sure you get ten of them but that's a huge success for us I mean and it's a completely new vertical how did we come up with it is when I drive around I look at every house I mean it's not safe for driving luckily now my car drives itself but but before that it was very dangerous but I would literally like look at every house and keep looking and looking you see all these flood lights there with the motion detection light and I'm like wow there's a place with light that what people want security let's add a camera to that. So how did we come up with it is I think you just for me it's it's traveling it's being aware it's like allowing the signals to come to you it just opens up your mind and I think the best inventors you're again you're trying to solve problems. Jamie before we go to the last part of the conversation I want to have with you on subscribe.com I think day day is good is the best idea best product worst business ever. Tell me more. So unsubscribed.com you know that you have the spam you know solves all of the real bad like email stuff they've solved the spam filters but yet you still have every day half your inbox you're trying to delete still today I mean like literally on the way over here I'm deleting stuff I'm unsubscribing myself I'm hitting the button and so we created this like system to go on that would like not only unsubscribed but it would check if it did unsubscribed it didn't subscribe it would contact the company there's a real like system for this the problem is it's expensive to run you had to pay for it and when it turned out it's there's there are things that people would say they would want and this is and yet they will not pay for it by this I couldn't I couldn't figure out again too. That's also why inertia matter so much for us as consumers and as business people if you get to somebody to subscribe it's so valuable to a business because a lot of people don't forget to unsubscribe and for us as consumers be careful what you subscribe to because then it keeps charging you and charging and charging or sending and sending you and there's a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to be on the right side of that we're going to run out of time before we go to the funk crazy stuff I'm going to torture Jamie in a minute as if I haven't already but let's talk for a minute about you working at a large company because for me it's fascinating that an inventor and an entrepreneur can survive a large company environment like I as much as I tried with my partners I eventually sold my sticker kind it was very very hard and there's nothing against anybody it's just that an entrepreneur wants to free them and you seem to be thriving and it's rare yeah and you're like the chief inventor at ring vice percent of product from security chief inventor chief inventor that's good enough that's good enough walk me through you sold it for what a billion dollars 1.15 1.15 but who's counting I mean it doesn't matter you sold it for a good amount how long ago was that 2018 and you're still thriving yeah still thriving I mean it's first of all it's definitely a testament to Amazon our cultures align you know Amazon is a founders culture at its core I mean Jeff set that culture Andy sort of still continues it today but any big company is going to have I mean it has to it has its processes and things I think now I've learned how to I'd say navigate that to have the most impact without getting worn down by the stuff that would wear down an entrepreneur walk us through what that is I've learned how to like navigate my schedule to to stay an inventor to allow my schedule to be free enough to not be in all of those things while still doing my job but to really keep driving invention innovation and I am proud that like we still are launching you know like big products every year you're not going to just have ring you have I run ring blink which is another another camera that we do like a more of a like battery and easy to sort of click and stick up key which is a access control for Amazon for delivery and sidewalk which is probably one of our most innovative things which is it's like a it's like a 10-year startup that's finally starting to work I actually started sidewalk before I came to Amazon it's a low low bandwidth long range that allows for like IoT like these internet of things devices to connect and with AI now we're seeing the importance of that everything kind of if the AI is a giant brain and if you can feed it more information it can give you sort of better analysis better data better everything and so so sidewalk is an interesting one that I think this year we're starting to see kind of turn the corner of going from a lab innovation to actually like out there in the world and making an impact can ask you side question we don't have Google's nest at home because our our conditioner companies drive me nuts and they don't let us interact well with it but I've always thought of the cleanliness of nest is a very good competitor to the cleanliness of ring yeah why have you not developed your own nest variation.
So when Desk came out, I wrote an email to Matt Rogers who was the co-founder and I said, "You know, you really inspired me. I'm working on a product that's completely different than what you're working on. Not competitive at all, but like, super inspired by it." He wrote back and said, "Thank you so much. That means so much to us." The funny thing is, Nest now makes a doorbell. So it is funny. Are you waiting for it? He's close here. No, it's coming. No, the thermostat is-- I think they've done a good job with it. There's people that have done a great job there. Amazon actually has a thermostat that's also out there. You do? Yeah, there's one that works with Alexa. So we've tried not to be a hardware company, we've tried to be a gadget company, we've tried to be a making neighborhood safer company. And just because we can build product doesn't mean we should. And instead, we just said, "No, we're going to win or die on our mission and that focus." And it did keep us focused. And that, again, even from innovation, like, you know, the flood-like camera, very clear how that was going to help make the neighborhood safer in this ecosystem of what we were doing. Yeah, I mean, my parallel to what you said, a very clear mission and very clear guard rails. At Peace Rocks, I didn't have that, and consequently, I was trying a thousand different things, and you dissipate your strength. And kind of we had the discipline, and it helped us to stay out of trouble. We, I remember, tried, and I can share this, for years we thought about launching a yogurt, because we wanted to do the inclusions with the yogurt. And the hardest thing is when you have a product that's good enough, but not best in class. And, or when it's kind of feeding the mission, but not perfectly. And that's, because if it sucks, of course you won't do it. And if it's perfect and if it's a mission, then you should. And it's so hard to say no. So it's like a six. Yeah, it's very hard to say no to be disciplined. Okay, last question before we actually last two questions. You're in 10 million homes. And you basically, we talked about this, huh? Plus. But you keep going. Oh, go ahead. 10 million plus homes. I don't let, I don't want to cap us out. You're in over 10 million homes. Yes. Well, well, over. Let me show you how big my chakalongwais, you just tell us the number. I can't tell you the number. It's well over. Well, over. Get it, guys. Well, over 10 million homes. And, but honestly, seriously, the, the impact that you heard, it's a cultural thing. It's like, it doesn't just make me feel safe. You have such incredible, you just change how people live lives. And also people show stuff online and, and some of the stuff is very dramatic. Like you go to sleep and you're like, I'm the shit. Like how do you feel with your wife, with your kids, when the fires happen, we came out with a new product called Firewatch, which alerts now people in these fire areas. It also helps you turn your, you can turn your ring camera on and feed it back to the fire departments of the command centers to help with that. There was just a fire in L.A. and a family got the alert. They didn't actually know it was happening. They were able to get out and the house burned down. And so they credited like a big part of how they got out fast and were able to get their things to the ring alert. That is to the, like, take away all the competitive stuff and I kind of joke and yes, I, I, I do have that chip, but like, that is why we're here. Like that's the stuff that, like, you say, like, that's when you go to sleep at night, you're like, I mean, if we save one person's life, if we help one person's family, like, it doesn't, the 10 million plus, yes, I, it is really cool, the, the, the size that it is, but it really, it does come down to one person and we have a thing where we find dogs now. You know, there's a search party, which if a dog is missing in a neighborhood, you can post it. We find it and we help them over one dog a day is united and I reunite with their family. I just, you know, it's like, we just did one of those would be amazing. I was going to be my last question because it's so powerful and dramatic, your personal story with a palisade's fire where the garage ring was conceived, burnt down on the fires. And instead of just commiserating, you did something about it and you built this really incredible initiative to help, hopefully, provide a job where you help reduce the likelihood of more of those. Well, I mean, I stayed in the palisades. I stayed in the fire and helped put out a bunch of it around my neighborhood and. By the way, Joe, our producer was telling me that he was hooked to the data that was, well, that's watch duty, which is this, this app that did it. But while I'm in the fire, I'm realizing the firemen and these heroes, but they don't know where to go. It's like everyone in the command centers. I mean, this is like, there's a fog of war. There's like, we had over 10,000 cameras in the palisades just in that area. We would have been able to give them more accurate intelligence around it. Now, I'm not saying it would have stopped what happened, but if you just had been able to save one house, by the way, like I'd be happy saving one house. And so we now have this in called fire watch, which is what helped this family and is now out there. And, you know, I don't think it's going to stop fires, but if we can minimize the damage, I mean, I saw what happened. The palisades was just, I mean, it was wiped off of the earth. And so if we could just help that a little bit, I mean, the families and the impact of that is, so besides the financial, besides people died in the fire, but just the impact is just ongoing. If you're honestly a very good dude, but in spite of that, I'm still going to torture you. We're going to move to the next segment, the next segment is called the Mexican Inquisition. Have you ever heard of a Tokas machine? No, but I'm them. A Tokas machine is this weird Mexican thing. It never crossed my mind as a child that we are weird, but you, I turn it on and you hold it here. Why? Okay, this is not, I'm already like, it's like, the guy is doing this already scared of it. I'm like, this is not good. This is not good. This is not good. You're going to hold it. Okay, that's good. I won't torture you too much. Okay, which one of my hold? You hold both. You're an inventor. You should know. You need both sides. I was trying to get myself out of that. He said zero right now. Okay. But I'll gradually. Can I hold it like a little bit loose? I'm going to tell you, Andrew Yang said a record. Do you want to beat him on the record? I do not want to beat him. I'm going to ask you a few questions and you need to answer them. And if you don't answer them to my satisfaction, I'll just, you know, we'll just laugh at this and stuff. Okay. Keep going. All right. Anyone died with the Tokas machine? Only three people these morning, but other than that, we're fine. Name an unsung hero who helped you get here. Sky Dayton. So Sky is a, he started Earthlink and he's been a mentor to mine. A lot of mentor, I've had a lot of people that helped me. Sky has been someone who's helped me like from day one and then still to this day. All right. I don't think that that was a good answer. So I'm not going to increase it too much. But you can start. I don't know if you feel, do you feel it tingled? I know. We'll tingle. Why does a question I should have asked you? The one to go on is really how the mission helped to, to, to, that is really what created the world's largest home security company was sticking to this mission. And that was, I think, the unique thing. If we didn't have that, we would have just been out, like, lost making product and I think it could have maybe even a slight successful company, but not, not the impact of what ringed it. Because ring is really, it's like a multi-generational. You guys agree? He kind of already answered it and hands were going to shock the fuck out of him. Just the tiny bit. Yeah, just it. Okay. Yeah. Feeling that? You're not quite at one yet. Okay. Who would you love to invite? Let's go up to. The machine goes up to nine and we're only going to go to four. Unless you miss behavior. Who would you love to invite to a dinner party? Someone who's alive? James Dyson. So I've always, you know, Dyson, what he built, the brand, what it stands for, how he's sort of done it. I just, he's someone, he's like my mentor that I've never met. Tell me one more sentence, why, because I don't know any of that. You walk into a store and you see something with Dyson on it, you know it's the best product that they did. Really? I think so, yeah. Oh, yeah. You feel it or no? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A historical figure you wish you could have launched with. Henry Ford. You know, I mean, what what Henry Ford did in every single way from not only the car, but how he invented every single thing along it. And if you go to the Ford Museum, which is in Detroit, I think anyone who goes to Detroit, you have to go to the Henry Ford Museum. It is the most incredible place. Okay. I'm going to give you a big shot because he was kind of a nante semi to him. I'm just not just. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Oh, okay. What's one thing that broke you and eventually helped build you? Christmas Eve Eve, we were shipping doorbots, we realized they were all broken. We literally almost died. It's a bit of a longer story for this, but that coming out of that, that was like one of those things that like you hit like fully hit the wall in the end. And I made it through by just being like calm and going just piece by piece by piece. And by Christmas Eve, we had it fixed and we were back to back. Is it one of those whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Did you come out stronger for a month? 100% stronger. And I also came out stronger of how to deal with like every, you know, every time you hit a wall like that and you make it through, you learn kind of how to stay calm and do that. I think that that's the. The red level one only. I'm going to give you to 1.5. You're going to be going to be going to London. You feel it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is something you've changed your mind on over the last year. So ring mission to make neighborhood safer. With AI, there's so much more that cameras can do. So we launched an app store to allow people to build things like the number one app right now in the app store is to watch birds from your ring and to get told what the birds are. I love that. So now we're letting other developers do it. I think it is expanding ring out, not ring the company, but allowing rings to be used for all sorts of other things because when AI, we can see everything. So genus said you can handle more level three now. That's a show. You're at three.
What drives you? - Ring is making Nebrit safer. You know, I really, I do still think we, with AI, I think there's so much more we can do. I do think we've had a major impact on crime globally. I think we're making it so that it is not a profitable business to be in crime. And I just want to-- - I really feel that you're having that. That's it. - I do think we have that. - I feel bad because you should not be-- - No, I think it's a lot more than that. - But we running out of time. - Okay. - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. - This doesn't kill me, okay? - Close your hand properly, don't you? - Huh. (laughing) - What was your first job? - My first job was shoveling crap out of horse stalls. - For real? - Yeah, for real. - Oh man, I feel like we should reduce the peat, but we running out of time. So the guy who shovels crap can do this. - You're at three. We can stop or you can experience four. - Keep going. - We run out of questions. - I just want to make sure you understand. If I go to four, you're gonna not be able to take off but then you will. So ready? - Okay. - Oh God. - You're at four. - Okay. - Yeah, I'm there. - You wanna keep going? - Sure. - We might have a record here. - Are you sure? - Yeah, why not? - You're at 4.5. - Yeah, I'm just up there, yeah. - You wanna be-- - It's under yang? - Let's see, there you go. - He's at 4.5. You're now at the world record. - Go, are you sure? - Oh God. - You're at 5. - That's a king taste. - I think we're gonna stop. You look like Jim Carrey. He looks like Jim Carrey. - Do you have more questions? - No, no, no, we're gonna step here. Let somebody catch up with you, holy cow. You can't even move your arms. Are you taking this to your house with your wife? I'm gonna be like-- - No, no, no, this is gonna stay here with you. - All right, last segment with you. - But that was probably, I bet you that was like a 10. I mean, that really hurt though. That was like-- - I think we got, what did you say? 4.5 or 5, I think? - You got two five. - You got five. - You will have the Builder Break. - If someone goes above me, I'm coming back. I'm just gonna keep going, I don't care. - This was a great conversation. I have one last super fast segment. Build or break, is it something you're for or against? And you're gonna look quick like, I think. Build or break, smart fridges. - Build. - Build or break, Kevin O'Leary. - Break. (laughing) - I love you, Kevin. - I love you, sir. - Build or break, Shaq's business advice. - Oh, build. - Build or break, Richard Branson's business advice. If he's given you an amazing guy build. He's one of the most amazing humans in the planet. - But he's giving you advice. He's just a, but he's also a great human. Like, and that was the most important thing was, he's an authentic human. He's one of the greatest human beings on the planet. I love Richard Branson. - Build or break, Super Bowl commercials. (laughing) - Build. Bell and wire must be. - Build and it almost broke me. So we did a Super Bowl commercial. Got a little controversial. Because we probably should have done a better job explaining exactly how something worked. We had 30 seconds. It ended up being, I think, okay at the end it was for our dog search party. - Build or break, a mission to start Takarie in an abandoned gas station. - Well, build, but I think it broke. - Yeah, Chef Alex Carasco, wherever you are. - Yeah, we-- - Yeah, well, we-- - Such a genius. - Oh, genius. - It was amazing. - It was real food. We had a great time and I think it closed. - Yeah, I think it did. - Jamie, this was so fun, you were amazing. Thank you. - Thanks for having me, thank you. - We want you to become a builder with us. So subscribe to Build or Break Now and leave us a comment through our review. We're trying to build a movement and you can be part of it by hitting the notification bell and telling us what you think about this episode and by telling all your friends to watch too. Thank you.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Jamie Seminoff invented Ring after solving a simple problem—being unable to hear his doorbell—by creating a Wi-Fi-enabled doorbell that connected to his phone.
Early on, he faced financial strain, debt, and skepticism, ordering 30,000 units without the funds to pay for them, nearly bankrupting himself.
Despite initial rejection on Shark Tank, where he passed on a deal from Mr. Wonderful, the episode became a turning point that boosted visibility and trust in his product.
The product’s success began with a focus on convenience, gradually evolving into a trusted home security tool after a real-life incident where a crime was prevented using the device.
Ring’s growth was driven by rapid iteration, rebranding from "Doorbot" to "Ring," and a focus on brand, product, and customer experience over patents.
Jamie’s mindset as an inventor is rooted in problem-solving, curiosity, and resilience, shaped by early experiences in his garage and a deep-seated desire to prove himself.
He successfully launched multiple products, including the floodlight camera and Sidewalk, which enables long-range IoT connectivity and AI integration.
Despite working at Amazon, where large-scale processes can be overwhelming, Jamie maintains a culture of innovation by protecting his time and vision as an inventor.
Summary:
Jamie Seminoff, the founder of Ring, began his journey with a simple idea: a Wi-Fi doorbell that would notify him when someone knocked. Working in his garage, he built a prototype that his wife said made her feel safer at home—a key shift from a novelty to a meaningful product. Despite facing financial ruin, skepticism, and rejection on Shark Tank, where he declined a $700,000 offer from Mr.
Wonderful, he persisted. The product’s success grew from early adopters to a global phenomenon, fueled by real-world impact, such as preventing a crime through live video footage. Ring evolved from "Doorbot" to a trusted brand by focusing on user experience, not just technology.
Jamie emphasizes that true innovation comes from solving real problems and staying dedicated, even when it’s hard. He later expanded into new products like the floodlight camera and Sidewalk, which enables smart home IoT connectivity. Though he has worked at Amazon’s innovative culture, he maintains his entrepreneurial edge by protecting his time and vision.
His story highlights the power of resilience, adaptability, and believing in a product’s potential—despite early setbacks—proving that failure is not a dead end, but a stepping stone to breakthrough success.
FAQs
Jamie was inspired by his wife’s feedback that the doorbell made him feel safer at home. He realized that a Wi-Fi doorbell, which could send alerts to a phone, was a modern upgrade to a traditional doorbell, solving a real problem in home security.
Jamie pre-sold the product and used the revenue to fund development, but faced significant debt. He had to order 30,000 units without enough money to pay for them, and at one point, he was personally bankrupt, highlighting the financial risks early-stage inventors face.
Jamie passed on Mr. Wonderful’s offer because he believed in the long-term potential of his product and business. He prioritized building a sustainable brand and product over immediate financial gain, which ultimately helped Ring grow stronger.
Initially marketed as a convenience feature, Ring evolved into a safety tool after a real-life incident where a person used the camera to see a threat and call police, proving its value in crime prevention and neighborhood safety.
The name 'Ring' was chosen because it's simple, intuitive, and directly relates to the product’s function—ringing a doorbell. This clear connection helped consumers understand and trust the product from the start.
No, Jamie didn’t have patents, which meant he had to build a strong brand and market presence to protect his product. He focused on product quality, customer experience, and rapid innovation to gain market dominance.
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