Ask HN: What Went Wrong at SilentCircle and Blackphone
The company had a great founder-market fit (PGP inventor Phil Zimmermann, Apple's Jon Callas [0]), and raised $130MM in funding to pull off the Blackphone [1], built on SilentOS based on Android [2]. I could totally see a need for privacy oriented offering in the space (esp since Apple's PR is getting all serious about it). They weren't too soon to the market either (2015/16)?
From your perspective, what could have gone wrong?
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20160309214229/https://www.silentcircle.com/our-story/
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160312085934/https://www.silentcircle.com/products-and-solutions/devices/
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160312090048/https://www.silentcircle.com/products-and-solutions/devices/silent-os/
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2 comments
| 8 points
| on HN
)
-People don't value privacy as much - outside of a niche.
-Building hardware companies is hard. Its harder when you're competing against big brands like Apple and Google. Its really really hard when you're trying to displace something as personal as a smartphone.
-There were key strengths missing in design, branding and marketing which counts for a lot.
Something thats less ambitious might have succeeded, but this seemed like an all or nothing play.