Had I been IPO'd, I would be in your top 5 right
now. Top 5 % right now. So like, what's up guys?
Hi listeners, welcome to Ascent, the podcast
spotlighting newcomers and trailblazers. The
fastest -raising companies redefining industries
across Asia. We're Linda and Pam, two friends
obsessed with tech and new businesses based in
Asia. Every day we witness incredible stories
of growth and innovation here. Stories that inspire
us, surprise us, and deserve to be heard. In
our first season, we're unpacking Asia's most
exciting emerging trends. from tech disruptors
to all sorts of innovative startups in Asia.
This is Ascent. Let's explore the future, one
story at a time. Why did we select this topic
in the first place? I forgot exactly why we selected
it. I think we did the ranking. But I think it
was brought on my radar when the IPO announcement
happened. So contacts, they were applying for
IPO. 2020 almost five years ago and then uh finally
on february 27th 2025 there was an announcement
that it was approved they're still not on the
market yet but it's finally approved and it's
probably one of the longest ipo approvals for
the shanghai stock exchange right it has been
yeah yeah it's been a very long time yeah what's
your reason what was uh for those of you who
are listening to this for the first time actually
we had already recorded a previous episode and
We were a little too ambitious on the first topic.
It was electric vehicle in China, and it was
way too broad. We had basically researched more
than five companies. And finally, after the thorough
exhaustion of doing research over 100 hours,
we decided not to do it. We decided it's too
much. Can we focus on maybe one smaller company
with a very specific... focus that perhaps we
both know of and we both enjoy the product and,
you know, with a relatively shorter history and
voila, here we go. Insta360 becomes the easy
target for that. Yeah. Much, much simpler. Yeah.
Much easier. Niche market. Much easier. Um, yeah.
Cool. Okay. So why don't we start with, um, who
started this company? Exactly. Okay. The CEO
of the company. Yeah. So the guy started programming
when he was in his fifth grade of elementary
school. And so my research got me to the story
where he was playing a video game and he was
really bored. He thinks that the video games
is like created by other people. So he wanted
to create stuff of his own. So he started like
teaching himself learning. And bear in mind,
he's born in 1991. So like fifth grade would
have been. what like 2000 early 2000 right and
back then there's not that much stuff on the
internet there's not like youtube tutorials about
programming so he just somehow learned html and
stuff himself and made a website so you can kind
of tell like he was that genius from as a kid
But I think more of the stories actually happened
in his university years. He made the news a couple
of times, right? Yeah. Have you came across anything?
It's almost impossible to not look at what he
has done during his undergrad time. And also,
like, if you want to remember his name, it's
a little complicated in Chinese. It's called
Jingkang if you want to remember that. But let's
just shorten it for JK. JK. Yeah, I think he
goes by JK Liu. JK Liu. So JK, right? He has
done a series of very, as you have left in the
note early on, Mark Zuckerberg -oriented things.
He is like the Chinese Zuckerberg. Feels that
way, right? Feels that way, yeah. So he went
to Nanjing University, studied software development.
And by sophomore year, he has made his first
app, which is a sort of a face aggregator. Yes.
So he overlaid thousands of faces from each department.
for boys and for girls. And so that experiment
went viral. That's very social media oriented,
just like popular faces from each department,
like those for studying computer science versus
the boys and girls look from like maybe a social
science department. But one thing about the average
face of each department, do you know how he got
the photos? Well, I am not entirely sure. But
if there's any source, I'm guessing that maybe
he has gotten it from Renren .com. It's not.
No. He hacked the school. Oh, no. He hacked the
administrative account of the school. Oh, my
God. To get the 7 ,000 student ID photos. And
he didn't get caught. So there's another story
about how he almost got... He almost got expelled
from school from stealing or hacking the admin
account. I think for another purpose. He's a
troublemaker. He's definitely not one of those,
like, I'm going to attend school and listen to
the teacher. And the other thing I find really
interesting is... he made this viral himself
by posting the blog and title it i stole over
7 000 student photos and created the average
face for each department so like he wants It
feels like he wants that publicity and he created
that himself. Yeah. So one of the few engineers
who mastered both engineering, coding, and marketing
at the same time. Exactly. And this is so true
with Insta360 and how they do the marketing nowadays.
Yeah. On top of that, okay, this may have been
rumored, but I have collected this information
from various sources that he has also made another
dating app, like sort of an online calling app.
You can download the app. You can use the app.
And so the two people's image will show on the
app. Everyone is blurred out. But as you continue
the conversation, the guy's photo will start
to... Oh, I remember this one. You remember this.
Will start to sort of consolidate and then you
can see more. And it is completely up to the
girl whether she wants to continue that conversation.
And throughout this process, the girl's image
stays blurred. I love this guy. I love this idea.
I mean, feminist, yes. Like Tinder, take note.
Yeah. Also on top of the troublemaker topic.
You may have also came across this. So towards
his later undergrad life, he decoded, he reversed
engineered sounds from a phone. Yes. And then
he resolved, he basically reversed engineer Zhou
Hongyi, which is a very large tech company's
CEO's phone number, just by watching the television.
And his phone number, the sound of it was...
played in the television in the tv in the news
and he recorded it and he was able to through
various experiments and he could i honestly don't
know how difficult it is seems like all of the
sounds sounds pretty similar to me but but then
he then called and then he then posted yeah uh
later uh posted that oh well stop calling me
he released the phone number yeah yeah he was
like please don't release the phone number oh
and then this also got uh lee kaifu's attention
as well And then Li Kaifu posted on Weibo that,
oh, like, you're clearly a very talented software
engineer. Do you may want to come work with me?
And so he posted there. Yeah. And he rejected
that offer. But interestingly, on how this whole,
like, phone number story. So he also, as the
marketing PR person himself, wrote the blog.
how did I use dial tone to extract She Who's
Chairman's phone number? And he, in the blog
post, he actually explained exactly how he did
it. So he recorded the sound. He actually put
a visual of that sound on the blog. And then
he actually circled, like, what does it mean?
Like, what kind of hertz is it to combine the
dial tone into a nine or a one or two? So he
kind of explained that. And then he, I think
out of the 11 digits, blacked out six four five
or six of the digits so that people don't like
know the actual number but he like gave out the
other one and he gave out the methodology so
it's really easy to replicate wow so it's nothing
like he mentioned that it's nothing super complex
right as long as you get the recording and it's
a standard kind of dial tone sound but the fact
that he open extracted and got it out and like
actually called the guy and before he called
the guy i think he searched up on the internet
this phone number to make sure that it is and
I don't know back then I guess like you can tell
you can look up a phone number and it'll say
it's a China mobile number and it's from Beijing
so he guessed that it's probably the right guy
and he called it right yeah wow and he hung up
because he was like oh is this Mr. Joe Mr. Joe's
like I'm in a meeting what's up and then he's
like oh wrong number sorry Prank. Prank. Prank.
But yeah, just like a very interesting person,
right? Like in your third year of university.
And he saw the, and I don't know if this is accurate,
but he saw the TV show where the dial tone was
heard during his last day as an intern in Tencent
where he's like, you know, I got nothing else
to do other than watching a Youku video. He got
bored. Yeah, he got bored. Oh boy. And then he
extracted this out and he's like, I got to do
something. Wow, geez. Later, did we know that
a board engineer created a great company? Of
course. It's another story for a lot of companies
these days. For a lot of Silicon Valley. So I
think there's at least 10 of these semi -startup
-y things. He did while he was in university.
Ooh, you're going to love this. This is the one
that I love the most. But besides the deciphering
the cell phone number, he kind of started a ad
company. And the ad company that he started is
called AddX. Oh no, what? But hear it out. It's
not the ad platform that we're using these days.
But it was early 2000. I was like, did Google
buy him out? No, not this one. And so he loves
watching videos. And he loves watching streaming
services in general. And so one day he came,
he just had an idea. What if... When you're streaming
the video, ad can be placed within the videos
and then you have like in -stream ads. Doesn't
it sound very familiar? Yeah. And then this predates
YouTube advertisement. This absolutely predates
that. So when he was in college. which is like
maybe 2010 -ish, 2012, he had already came up
with this idea and started a company, started
programming for it. And it is an automated ad
slotting system that puts advertisement in the
streaming videos. And the company itself is called
AdX. And this is just so ahead of its time. This
is the product that we're selling these days.
And he had that idea. some 15, 20 years ago.
This is when video streaming was kind of a thing,
but not like ads were definitely not really on
it? No, not at all. Because there's not enough
live stream or content that's going on. There
first has to be enough, I guess the penetration
goes on, and then you sort of commercialize all
of the streaming. Was it too early so that he
ended up not continuing? Exactly. Okay. Exactly.
So he had thought of the idea, which is a brilliant
idea, but it was just a little too early for
the market at that time. Wow. So he discontinued.
Yeah. Yeah. And then he's bored again. He started
watching, he was actually on YouTube and he saw
a panel video on YouTube, right? Like, yeah.
Yeah. There was some Australian panel YouTube
video. Right. And he was inspired to... Well,
I think two things, two takeaways from that.
Like, he was quite inspired by how it looks because
that's kind of new. And then he somehow figured
that the hardware cost is really high, so there's
an opportunity if we develop that in China somehow.
Yeah, which is the second question I'm about
to ask you, which is, JK sounds like... Someone
who has a lot of experience in software development.
That's what he studied. Yes. Then why did he
start a hardware company? Yeah, no idea. So here's
my guess. Here's my guess. It was a bit of luck.
Obviously, that video inspired him. But he was
going through... He was kind of a serial entrepreneur
at that time, right? So he was just going through
projects over projects over projects. And somehow
this one worked. But the ones he worked on before,
there are software -only non -hardware projects.
Those just never kicked off. So I think before
he started the precursor of Insta360, he was
doing live streaming. He was doing university
class live streaming and some events. And so
he got into the live streaming industry, and
he probably played around with cameras, but there's
also a lot of software involved that didn't work
out, which is why he kind of pivoted to this
one. This one worked out, and that's why he went
into hardware. But one of the things I think
is an advantage for someone of his background
is that even with a hardware product as your
main product, the software component is still
what makes insta360 special because so in my
personal experience i came across their product
first in 2022 and i was a gopro user i was a
gopro max user you were yeah oh well i mean but
i didn't know okay hold on and your first product
is gopro max yes okay Okay, you can go on. And
it was the Insta360 equivalent, right? Right,
right. It is the fisheye, the 360 -degree camera.
Exactly. And so the story is I was snowboarding
with someone else, and one of us had a GoPro,
and the other one had an Insta360, and that's
the first time I saw it. And then we were exporting
the videos, and it took me three hours to do
the export, the cut, the stitch, everything.
And you have to get it into a format that is,
like, landscape kind of video going from the
360 video so i had to like get the keyframes
and everything and then i just everything took
i mean i wasn't experienced everything took me
three hours to export a very non -edited video
oh boy right the other guy took like 10 minutes
yeah it's like everything's automated let me
auto cut for you oh what do you like does it
look good right And I think I attribute my surprise
element to how good the editing is. Because GoPro
also does auto editing. I think his software
background actually has something to do with
how good that editing element is. And that was
how I was sold, basically. Absolutely. Yeah.
So that was a digression from your original question.
No, no, but it's a great experience. I think
most of the people who has heard of Insta360
probably is also a GoPro or some sort of sports
fan or action camera kind of fan. But think about
this. By the time that he had wanted to start
Insta360, none of his previous ventures were
really that successful. He did something. Nothing
to sustain him to the next level or get funding,
I think. Exactly. So by that point, maybe there
is free -flowing money in the market, but he
hasn't really done anything that can really lock
him down on the pathway of, oh, you're going
to make this. So if anyone wants to fund him,
that seems pretty risky at that point. But some
people still decided to fund him. was lucky enough
that by the end of his undergrad and also right
after he graduated, he had participated in a
lot of entrepreneur camps. And he is very lucky
to have met one of his early investors, also
probably later a mentor and someone who means
so much for Insta360's entire growth. And that
guy is called Li Feng from IDG. So IDG actually
funded the first $1 million for Insta360. And
the guy, Feng, had met him in a camp and saw
him with great execution power and has a lot
of software skills and decided to fund him. But
when he was sort of making the prototype for
the 360 camera, he was basically carrying a ball
-shaped camera. It's like a Pokemon Go ball kind
of thing. Yeah, I saw the prototype. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Oh, it's so... It's yellow. Yeah, it is
like, it's so raw, right? It's like everything
all stitched together, but like in a very engineering,
there's a lot of glue. It's a prototype. It's
a prototype. And it falls apart on the train
that is heading to, on the way to the investor.
And like on its way, it falls apart and then
you have to stitch it back together again and
it passes. But like there was a video of him
recollecting that memory saying that like you
always need to be aware of that the product that
you create is a durable thing. And if it falls
apart, then you lose the opportunity of the investor.
But anyways. There's actually so many scenarios
in the first year or two where this could have
been. also a dead adventure like a vinter yeah
that could have worked out imagine if he didn't
manage to fix that prototype on time absolutely
for the investor pitch or you know his first
product he said wasn't as successful as he hoped
it would be yeah so um yeah so a lot of things
made the venture despite not having hardware
background successful yeah and You mentioned
the other thing about his early success and early
fundings, which is he's family, right? Like he's
dad. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So before he got that, I
think this is before he got that IDG angel around
investment, he did have to put up his own money
for prototyping and for the initial development
of the idea. And he managed to get together 300
,000 RMB, which is... 50K? Yeah, 50K USD himself.
And half of that is through his past ventures,
which is amazing for like a uni grad. And then
the other half is supplemented by his dad, who
is also an entrepreneur. Wow, like growing up
in a family of entrepreneurs. Exactly. And then
that got him started and that enabled the series
of funding afterwards. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So
at this point, what has he tried? He has mastered
the skill set of picture collaging. He has streamed
online courses. He had done video advertising.
He watched and it got inspired by the panel clip
online. And he wants to try the hardware company.
And can I just add a little blurb about the hardware
itself? Okay. He started off. Very particularly,
he wanted to create a 360 panel camera. That
was his very original idea because he sees this
will be the future of a lot of content creating.
So the prototype that he has created also falling
apart on the train was what we call today a VR
or an immersive camera. So that camera, it still
exists and it's still very much in the Insta360
offerings right now. But it is more on the VR
and professional line of things. So they primarily
have two line of products. One is for the more
like VR pro users. And the other one is just
for everyday people who are like us. And then
the everyday one, he started off by creating
360 degree cameras, slightly different from the
sports camera that he created later on. And for
the 360 camera that he had created, the market
size for that is much smaller, actually much
smaller than the sport camera market cap. So
one thing to note. And it's about less than half
of the size of that. The reason that he started
creating a 360 -degree camera is because he wanted
a mass market product. He wanted people... to
be able to shoot more freely. And then with software,
edit it to the way that he, she, or them will
like. So I guess that's the beginning of it.
And later on, towards the end of 2022, actually
2022 was the first time that he had created an
actual hard sports camera that looks like GoPro,
which is called the Ace Pro. sports camera not
a 360 sports camera but just a sports camera
itself yeah uh there there are two lines one
is the the insta 360 one x and the other one
is the the ace and ace pro series and that's
the sort of the gopro hero alike cameras yeah
yeah i think he wanted to do more vr stuff in
the beginning yeah and that's why he did the
360 panoramic camera and then I think the whole
niche thing also worked out for them because
you have to focus on one thing before the other.
But now that they've penetrated that market almost,
they surpassed GoPro, I think. And they can now
think about different product lines. And so I
guess to expand a little bit on that, why did
he pick a 360 -degree camera to start the business,
not a sports camera? He started the company in
2015. And by that time... Not only did GoPro
already exist here for a long time, GoPro is
already public at that time. GoPro started in
2002 by a guy, a surfer called Nick Woodman.
And he's a pure surfer, loves the ocean. And
then the reason that he created that camera is
because he wants a shot with the ocean when he's
surfing. Makes sense. Yeah, and by 2014, the
company's already public. Made a ton of money.
And 2015, here comes Insta360. So if they want
to compete on the sports camera lane, there is
someone very strong that is already in that pathway.
So perhaps it could be very costly to go head
to head in that competition. So I guess maybe
he is very good at capturing users' need. He
knows that people are struggling with software.
Exactly the problem that you have described.
So that's when he decided, oh, like, what if
I... created a much lighter version of that and
make it available for the mass market and with
a lot better software would people buy that yeah
and the result was great yeah so so the story
i heard is that he started with just vr camera
um but then he couldn't find like a really good
use case because he didn't tie the whole action
sport and vr together yet and so after the initial
year They actually had a product called Nano.
Yes. That's the first product. That's the first
product. And he would later on call it a failure
because he went to shows and stuff with it and
people were really impressed by how... small
of a gadget it is and its ability to do 360 filming
but then that's really the early adopters and
the enthusiasts absolutely so soon after like
after a month or two the sales begin to dwindle
and he's like okay what do we do with it we can't
we don't know who the market is yeah we can't
educate the user that takes too long so he through
a facebook fan group started identifying where
should this product go next interesting and then
he realized a lot of the early adopters of the
initial 360 camera or sports enthusiasts. And
that's how he got into this, oh, maybe there's
a GoPro competition. New PMF. Yeah. So he's like,
so GoPro is doing sports, right? It's targeting
sport users, but it doesn't do 360. But then
like Samsung and Ricoh, or I don't know if it's
called Ricoh. It's Ricoh. Okay. So Ricoh are
doing 360, but they haven't really found the
sports connection. Right. So he's like, okay,
well, there's a niche there. I think if we just.
go into this maybe there's something maybe there's
something but you're right about nano nano is
one of those creations where they they very much
created nano around iphone right right yes and
that's such a highlight for that product it's
kind of a plug and play i don't know if anyone
has seen an actual nano before but if you go
on to to watch the video of that like and you
can see how like in 2025 you feel like it's pretty
vintage right it's kind of a attach on like there's
a little plug and you just like insert on your
phone and your phone immediately becomes a 360
degree camera. And the best part to Nano isn't
really the hardware itself. It's the software.
It's the software exactly and solves the problem
that you just described. A little basics of how
360 camera works is it is called a double fisheye
camera. A fisheye is normally 180 degree. So
double fisheye is when you stitch two 180 degree
pictures together. And then the hardware, like
you can always put two fisheyes like next to
each other. But what makes the software good
and what GoPro doesn't have at the time is GoPro
only takes a photo. the editing or the blending
of the photo is going to be offline and somewhere
else. So GoPro doesn't take care of that. And
this is what JK discovered. And he's like, oh,
why don't I just create something, if there's
an app that allows people to, with the attachment
of the hardware on the iPhone, immediately takes
the shot, immediately stitches the photos together,
and immediately brings it to Instagram, and bam.
and it kind of works out at the beginning. It
was a hit in a CES in 2016 but like you said
the sales didn't sustain. Is Nano a good product?
It's a cool creation but 2016 wasn't the year
that everyone is so educated about what this
kind of photography is. So more to be discovered.
I think later on they realized that sports and
360 is a good combination. But with an iPhone
plug -in, it's not like you bring your iPhone.
and it's a plug -in to snowboarding or to surfing
and that kind of stuff. So then later on, they
have to adopt it to the user. And I think that's
what Insta360 is really good at, which is identifying
really pain points of the user and spend tons
of money in R &D to figure it out. And usually
the users will pay the bill because you solve
their pain point, whether it's stitching, which...
Probably less people, I think there might be
marketing issues in the beginning as well as
people knows about it. But yeah, like eventually
if you, and he said, if you do this repeatedly
over and over again, finding existing markets
that are big enough, figure out the pain point
and just do it better than everyone else. True.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, also I, because of
this particular research, I had an opportunity
to reach out to a friend. who is an MIT graduate
like you, and who also currently works for a
hardware company that starts with an A. And he
is a lens engineer for this company. Hardware
company that starts with an A. Okay. And so I
was asking him, right, for a camera consumer
electronics product, what makes it good? There
has to be the hardware bit and the software bit.
That makes a consumer electronics good. And then
the hardware bit, if it's a camera, two things
are the defining factors. One is the lenses itself.
And two is the sensor. The better the lens, the
better function of the camera that it can be
at a lower light setting. So like, for example,
at night, does it capture well? In a camera design,
the lens and the sensor are the... basically
accounts for about half of the price of the entire
camera itself. And those determined how good
of a photo you can actually take. So that's the
hardware bit. And on the software bit, you then
have to think about, well, obviously, there's
the customer pain points. And in the meantime,
if it's a 360 -degree camera, then how well can
you blend the photos? together like can you stitch
it up very seamlessly and especially for a sports
camera stabilization is very important right
like you can't be can't be like on a on a bicycle
yeah apparently they have like a shaking thing
at the development center and they just like
shake the thing no matter how you shake it it's
going to be well yeah so so so there's that so
the software the computational photography uh
balances out the the missing part on the sensor
and on the lenses. Because you can't always buy
the most expensive ones. Okay, so it's a package.
If one is not as good, you use the other to compare.
Exactly. And consumers are not willing to pay
for an extremely good lens or sensor, right?
They're expensive. They can be expensive. They
can be really expensive if you buy the Sony ones,
right? If you bring the cost down and use the
right ones and then... bring up the photography
level with your software then you can achieve
a balance and then you can you're able to deliver
something that is very handy everyone can afford
uh but at a very good quality so that's their
thinking which is brilliant like i love it like
all software engineers like computer science
folks consider going into hardware as your potential
business and you have this advantage yeah yeah
exactly all right so so there he is um Couple
years down the line of making Insta360 camera.
First product is Nano. Second product is Insta360
Air. And I don't know if you have ever seen that
very cute little camera before. It is a little
ball -shaped camera. Also a plug -and -play.
And then you just plug it onto your phone. It's
like a little ball -shaped thing. And it captures
360 -degree photos for you. But the only thing
that bugs me is that it's round. It looks very
chunky, and they're no longer selling it. For
good reason. Yeah, and I think the engineers
probably also realized that reason. It's not
like a very smooth attachment. It could fall
off any time. So there's only air, and then they
abandoned that. They no longer create air anymore.
Right after Insta360 Air comes two things. In
2017, they published one product. on the professional
line of things and one on the consumer level
of things. The professional one is a VR camera.
It's called Insta360 Pro. And the consumer level
product is called the Insta360 One. And One is
the one that we see right now. It's the slim,
long, black. That's the one I was talking about,
yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's kind of their
all -time favorite product. But it was the first
edition of that. It wasn't perfect. And judging
by how often they're upgrading their products,
it really does look like that they're putting
so much effort into their R &D. They update Insta360
One almost every year. Almost every year. And
on the only year that they're not updating Insta360
One, they create new products. So in 2018...
they updated into 360 one i'm just gonna call
it one it's like two wordy one had a new version
1x and that's also when they started uh this
new sort of photo taking strategy called bullet
time uh a bullet time is it the one you swing
yes like a rope around you and it feels like
you're having okay i love it it's crazy it's
when you create a hardware and jk is such a fun
person he has this Like, I'm just going to try
new things and I want to create a camera like
no one created this before. And not only did
he create the camera, he also created new ways
of playing around with this camera, which is
bullet time. And so the rope is also actually
an Insta360 product as well because it doesn't...
fall apart and oh they have to the rope is an
accessory they can buy on it's a designated rope
it can't just be any rope for safety reasons
i thought it was just i can just use my belt
or whatever and like tie it to the camera yeah
i really i really like their speaking of this
uh i really like their accessories They recently
had this like no drone, no problem campaign.
I don't know if you've seen it. So the accessory
is a three meter long camera stick basically.
So when you hold the 360 and it's three meter
long, it feels like a drone photo. Oh, that's
why it says no drone, no problem. No problem,
yeah. Oh, wow. I think it's called no drone,
no problem, or no drone, no something. Beautiful.
Yeah, and they have creators that does behind
-the -scenes videos to teach people how these
work, and they actually pay the creators kind
of like your ECPM kind of impression kind of
thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you get YouTube
Shorts or Instagram real impressions, you get
paid. Yeah. Yeah, it's way later on. They interact
with those who play around with the camera a
lot. Like, if you're a fun creator, if you're
a thing, I'm going to pay you money for doing
that. Yeah, like swing a thing around yourself
and see how that works. Did you see the part
where they got an eagle? Oh, that is my favorite
part. They have mounted this camera to show how
good the camera is with stabilization and how
light it is. putting it on eagle, put it on dogs,
put it on a lot of animals, and it kind of became
a tradition. And it's a great video. I loved
it. Yeah. So apparently, I heard this in another
podcast, actually. So in the employee either
WhatsApp or WeChat group, they have this emoji
of JK, and it says, like, protects jk's dreams
so if he has if he has a wish list or whatever
his his his employees are like okay can we do
this ego thing can we do this you know ridiculous
thing that he just asked us this is the best
employee employer relationship i know like yeah
and he seems to be a good guy with a lot of crazy
ideas yeah yeah but he also so i so i think he
said this in an interview he would like only
sleep for three four hours that's impossible
and then if he If he gets, in the beginning,
in the beginning, like maybe series A or B, but
then when he gets really frustrated or tired,
he will go watch Insta360 videos to cheer him
up. Oh. Yeah. That's why he's creative for the
brand. He just loves the product so much. It's
real love. Yeah, it's real love. Do you know
what product they developed after that? It can't
always be the same thing. There has to be something
new. Something in the consumer area. Yes, something
in the consumer area. Like not the regular sports
camera, not 360? It is wide angle. It is wide
angle. It is not 360, but it's wide angle. If
you're the hardware product manager, then after...
You can always upgrade to the same camera, of
course. You can always bring it to a next generation.
But what other things would you try? Wide angle.
Yeah. Non -sport use. It can be sports use. Okay,
you're gonna have to tell me. Okay, in 2019,
they created a new camera. And I bet you have
seen this one before. It is so small. It is the
size of a thumb. Oh, the finger thing. Exactly.
It is the size of a thumb. What's it called?
It's called Go. Okay. Yes. And in 2019, that's
the only year that they did not upgrade any new
product on the One series that they decided that
they're going to take a break. Go was produced
and is a very small camera. But if you think
about a camera that small, the first problem
that you think of is how do I hold this thing?
It can be attached, but the battery life is also
very low. So it is a wide -angle camera, but
it's not like the all -time favorite. Two years
after 2019 when it was first published. The second
generation of Go was updated. And that's when
there is a magnetic clip. You can clip it right
in front of you. And it's a wide angle. It records
everything that's in front of you. And yeah,
so that's on the Go camera. And the Ace and Ace
Pro cameras are also... wide -angle cameras.
They're not exactly 360 degree camera. So I think
by what 2019 -18 is when they started looking
at other product lines, right? So that's only
four years into really like mass production.
Yeah, and four years after mass production, they
are expanding to very different SKUs. They also
developed a modular Insta360 ONE RS. with with
leica in the meantime so gopro is also updating
but after sort of careful comparison between
the gopro product updates versus the instant
360 updates do you know how many new products
products that gopro launch like in between 2015
and 2025 like one or two yeah okay we were am
i on the low end no no actually you're right
they only updated uh so in terms of the number
of different skus They almost didn't do any update.
Yeah. So GoPro Max was first launched in 2019.
So the camera, the first camera, the camera in
your series that was created in 2019. And then
the second update is going to come up in 2026.
So the second generation of GoPro Max hasn't
even existed yet. Yeah. And they killed the desktop.
Yeah. Product. Right. And they do have a flagship
product called GoPro Hero, which is just the
box. right the original and that camera updates
every single year but it's just the updated version
of the existing camera they're not creating anything
like the software updates they're not doing the
hardware small changes oh okay yeah okay yeah
while insta publish or like release I'm on 10
different SKUs. Yeah. They have a drone camera
called Sphere. They have, like for conference
meeting, they have Insta360 Link. They also have
Gimbal. And if you like diving, they also have
like diving fit cameras. And on the professional
kind of line of things, they also have like the
Pro, the Titan. And they have also abandoned
products before. There is one camera published
a long time ago, 2019. It's called Insta360 Evo,
which is a sort of a... VR camera for families,
not for professionals. They tried so many things.
This is like two very different strategies that
you pointed out, like GoPro, because GoPro's
strategy, going back to EV, but this is like,
you know how Tesla has like four models in total,
that's their line, right? and GoPro is going
to have a few models, a handful of models, whereas
the Chinese counterparts are just really, they're
just all in with just different SKUs. Your average
EV is like 30, 40 SKUs with minor tweaks or different
target audiences, whereas Insta360 is similar
in that perspective. Just very different ways
of how companies are looking at this. Like, oh,
the Insta360 is kind of like, we're willing to
risk that maybe a few of our SKUs won't work
out, but we're just going to hit you with everything.
Exactly, yeah. That's exactly what they did.
Like, a few things doesn't work out. And I guess
for the hardware engineers who are out there...
I think this points to a very clear direction
of where you should be coming to try new things
and work. Maybe come to China. Yeah. There would
be a lot of new opportunities. There's also,
I think, I mean, we didn't talk about how his
company is based in Shenzhen, so the cost of
development is probably a lot lower over there.
It's kind of the hub of electronics manufacturing,
right? Absolutely. Yeah, it is. So he can just,
like, if they have an idea, someone can pick
up something next door and, like, run with a
prototype the day after yeah yeah they're interesting
because we both had raised these questions early
on and i'd like to hear your thoughts on it which
is now that you have like you're clearly very
good at designing products you're clearly very
good at launching different line of products
why did you not stay in china i i know The answer
from JK. You shall speak. But no, I want to hear
what your thought is. I may be very biased. I
do think if you're targeting consumer electronics,
and especially if you want sports niche groups
to be able to buy, your audience are 100 % overseas.
Your audience are mostly not in China. Right.
And also given that it was 2015 through 2020,
this is a time when the overseas market is already
mature and, you know, have lots to offer, and
CES is always there, is ready, and when the sports
interest group in China has just started. Like,
I can say confidently the sports interest group
in China is starting as of now. It's not even,
like, large yet. Yeah, most people learned snowboarding,
like, three years ago. Well, exactly. That's
why you see so many amateurs on a ski resort.
Yeah, but the groups are much bigger and more
diverse overseas. So if you're developing a product,
launch it on Indiegogo, launch it on Kickstarter.
There will be people looking at it and they won't
want to buy it overseas. Yeah, I think that's
one of the reasons, even if you look at the market
share right now, US and EMEA are the majority
of their users. The one thing they've quoted,
and this is from JK himself and one of the head
of marketing, is actually fear. Oh, fear? Yeah,
which is very surprising, right? Fear or love?
Fear of competition within domestic Chinese borders.
So if you're developing a hardware in Shenzhen
and competing within China, if you list on Taobao,
if you list on JD, right? Imagine the competition.
That sounds stressful already. And imagine the
cost war that's going on with every single other
segment of consumer electronic or EV. There's
a cost war going on everywhere in China because
it's a manufacturing hub, right? But then when
you market abroad, the competition drastically
changes. So out of fear that they decided to
start with overseas on the get -go, So it wasn't,
you know, let's try to test it with China. It's
like, let's try to test it with everyone, expand
our potential users as much as possible so that
if one country doesn't work out, and they're
in, what, 100, 200 countries now. So if one country
doesn't work out, we're diversifying. And that's
the reason why they've decided to go with this
in the beginning. Yeah. competition yeah it is
quite amazing because insta 360 i definitely
have heard of it overseas for the first time
then i i think many many years afterwards i have
may may have like friends brought it up like
somewhere skiing like or it was definitely i
picked it up overseas first before i heard of
it in china oh yeah i'm the opposite but oh really
yeah oh because you used it In China, in a Chinese
ski resort? Yeah. Okay, in 2022. Yeah, I've not
heard of it overseas. And then they have actually
sponsored the video photography for a lot of
major conferences in China. Oh, yeah. Right?
Yeah. But it's just, that's kind of how, like...
I don't ski that much, to be honest. I can't
fake it. So I want to know how popular they are
in the Chinese ski resort. They were doing non
-sports events, right? They were at CCTV, like...
They were doing a lot of indoor activities with
the VR cameras, right? The annual two sessions.
And, oh, also, like, during COVID time, the broadcasting
of that hospital being put together. Oh, that
was Insta360. That was Insta360. So on this note,
I think overall they're just really good with
partnerships. One of the core reasons why I think
they really made it abroad was because they had
their eyes on the Apple distribution partnership
very, very early on. They're one of the first,
I think if not the first 360 -degree camera for
sure, but maybe one of the first Chinese companies.
to have Apple's stamp of approval. And once you
have that, distributing globally is no issue
because Apple's known for just being very strict
on all the QAs and everything, right? And they
obviously had to go through at least a year of
back and forth to make sure Apple's happy with
their product. But once they had that, it's like
instantly you're open to 100 different countries.
Distributors would be happy to carry your product.
And up until this point, I have only heard of
two brands who have made successful collaborations.
Those are Chinese brands. One is Insta360. One
is Anker. That's it. And guess what? I think
they're the top two electronics brands that is
going from China to abroad. Yeah. In terms of
sales. Right. Find the right partnership. That
is so crucial for them, I guess, making the channel
sales early on. They also had some interesting
collaboration with Google before. So there was
a year, I think it was 2015. That's probably
when the Google Street View. Oh, yeah, that makes
sense. Yeah, that's that's Google Street View
was probably one of the first like immersive
photography project. Also, very large scale.
It was like. everywhere in the world right it's
uh for i guess google street view for those of
you who doesn't know what it is it's like a google
maps project right right where they give people
who sign up i don't know how exactly how it works
but you carry like a 360 degree camera either
on your car on yourself and then you walk around
right and then you'll capture that's that's how
you get the street views in google maps right
right and they use They probably used more than
Insta360. Yes, they probably had a lot of suppliers
at the time, but Insta360 was the perfect hardware
for them. Yes. And Google Street View definitely
featured a lot of Insta360 pictures on the early
days. And then they partnered with Red Bull,
which is an obvious choice, with all the extreme
sports. Right. I heard they partnered with Formula
One, but I haven't found any information. Okay,
so you are going to love this because there is
a video. I discovered that video. GoPro also
partnered with Formula One as well. And GoPro
had a video with Daniel Ricciardo. And it was
just Daniel Ricciardo driving the car very casually.
I need to see this video. And, you know, showing
everyone around the neighborhood. And it's very
soothing. It's not like driving an F1. It's very
stressful. But they're definitely targeting the
fans. You can see from the GoPro. channel strategy
that they have featured all the motorsports like
ski like skydiving paragliding in the water diving
like whatever it is that we're going to feature
the best athletes in the world i do have to say
like from a channel management point of view
gopro has a more captivating channel like then
thing the instant doesn't mean insta360 is not
doing a good job with all their Partnership relationship.
So what we're gonna say is so for f1 For Ferrari,
you can say it. Okay They actually put a camera
on a Ferrari car who's the driver Yes That's
right. And where did he where was the car in
Monaco? Yes. Oh my god. You're right. Yeah, so
You think I'm better deals. Okay. So I think
they're pretty on point like for the, for the
choice of, you know, because Monaco is a difficult
place to drive in. Like for those who are watching
F1. Yeah. And they, they captured, it was kind
of a, just the hot lap that Charlotte Glirk is
taking you and you see like how fast it is and
it's not shaky. It's not shaky at all. Of course.
Yeah. And cause with the flow state stabilization
technology. Yeah. But you can see that you're
trying to get some attention from the F1 fans.
Wait, this is GoPro. Yeah. This is Insta360.
Insta360 found Ferrari. Yeah. And GoPro found
Ricciardo. Okay, so competition there. Yeah.
Yeah. And Insta360 also created some of my favorite
commercials. And it is not the... Unfortunately,
it's not the F1 ones. They do have... a, it's
not Paralympics, but it was a, uh, it was a athlete,
uh, called Evan Lalane suffering from lower body
paralysis and Insta360 featured him, uh, trying
to, you know, like going from being able to walk
and do everything to, oh, I'm on a wheelchair
every day right now, but I want to skate. I really
want to skate. So it was a makeshift, um, sort
of wheelchair skate that he was on and then he
put a camera on it, he put an Insta360 on it
and it just sounds so impossible like when you
when you're watching that like very short commercial
at the beginning and it ends with like him being
able to travel anywhere fluidly And with the
camera just following him anywhere. And with
Insta360 finally puts the word on it. Think both.
I'm crying right now. I can't do it. It was so
great. It was a very good commercial. It is.
So I guess both companies are just targeting
different athletes. But the same idea. You get
the athletes who already have a pretty big following
to look at the videos. And then they realize,
oh, this camera is cool. This angle is cool.
I want to get the... The gadget. Yeah, the gadget.
Which one of the partnerships or brand ambassadors
that you like the most with Insta360? I actually
haven't done too much research. The one that's
really famous I heard about is Will Smith. Well,
yeah. And yes, but... But obviously nowadays,
now that you told me about Formula One, Ferrari.
There is one that you may actually know and like.
So an American professional snowboarder and a
skateboarder. He is a five -time Olympian and
a three -time Olympic medalist in half -pipe
snowboarding. Oh, oh, oh, oh, Sean White. Yes,
Sean White. So Sean White is actually probably
the most influential sort of celebrity slash
athlete that they've worked with. And Sean White
really liked using Insta360 as well. He took
it everywhere. And in fact, there was a Sean
White kit at Insta360. it's not like just the
poles like that you can you can you can hold
up it's a strap like you can wear it and then
you can put the camera just like right right
at the center of your chest and then you can
just like do your thing and just be stable and
then just go on the ski snowboarding slopes i'm
gonna look this up right after i'm just a huge
fan of shantelight i don't skateboard but or
or snowboarding but yeah But he's great. No,
no, none of us can do halfpipe. But we like watching.
I can do halfpipe rolling. Not so much snowboarding.
I can roll my back and roll down the halfpipe.
Get on my back and just like fly. Cool. So very
good use of celebrities and influencers for marketing
on both sides. Yeah, on both sides. And it's
not that there is not competition. There is always
competition. GoPro is always there. And in fact,
today, if people are looking for very durable,
stable sports cameras, a lot of people will still
buy GoPro. The market share is still okay. But
you do see Insta360's innovation is getting a
lot more market share than before, and it's growing
very rapidly because of how fast they innovate.
So basically, they started off, Really making
revenue 2016, I want to say. It says 30 million
in 2018. And by 2020, it's 1 .120. 120 million
US dollars. And that's when they filed the prospectus
or the registration. And in 2021, that's 1 .8,
right? So like 50 % growth year over year, not
bad. 2022 it's really good yeah but wait for
it um guess what 2024 which is uh like four years
later so 750 750 million which is compared to
when they filed the ipo to today to last year
uh it's What, five something times? Yeah. More
than five times. More than five times in four
years. Yeah. And the two years in between, they
claim that they double, almost double every year,
2021, 2022, 2023. By last year, I think is when
they reached kind of 60, 70 % market share in
the 360 kind of panoramic camera market, right?
They're still not. they're still not on the top.
I don't know if they're second or third in the
action sports camera, but they're the first in
360. And so at this pace, and this year their
anticipated growth is another, say, 40 % -ish,
right? Remain the same speed. So at this pace,
whereas if you compare it to GoPro, which is,
I guess it's kind of incumbent's issue, if they
continue at this pace, they might be able to
get a majority share in the action market, in
the action camera market very soon. So it is
a pretty big threat. To GoPro. To GoPro and to
DJI, who's also in the industry. And I think,
yeah, if I'm getting this number correct, they
might already have 80 % market share in 360 -degree
cameras. Right, that sounds about right. Yeah.
Very large player on the 360 -degree camera,
and sports camera also getting more attention
here. I don't know if you checked the most recent
stock price for the GoPro. It's not looking very
great. And I can imagine this probably reflects
how much they're selling, like in terms of their
sheer volume of cameras that are selling. But
actually, so one thing to know, GoPro is still
making more revenue. Yeah, true, true, true.
I think GoPro is almost, not double, but like
one point something times the revenue of Insta360.
But the profitability, actually in 2023, I think
they reported a loss. Can you imagine like GoPro,
a company that started in 2002, is struggling.
And DJI maybe we'll cover in a different session.
Like, that is a vastly complicated company that
we have to dissect some other time. Exactly.
With so many different products. Exactly. Yeah.
When JK say, we don't want to compete in China,
this is the company that he's talking about.
He doesn't want to compete with those people.
Yeah, of course. DJI, yeah. Yeah, and they're
both in Shenzhen. Oh, are they? Yeah, they're
both specializing in, like, some sort of... But
DJI started way before them, right? Yes, DJI
started way before them. But they specialized
in drones. Yes. Like not the same kind. They
not only specialize in drone, they probably own
the drone market globally at this stage. Yes.
Different topic. So what other interesting things
have you captured in the prospectus? Other than
the fact that it took them four years, there's
also kind of a media fiasco. Like he went on
Weibo. You know that he went on Weibo to accuse
the regulatory commission saying that, guys,
it's been four years. Hello? Should I look elsewhere?
Because at that point, his company already grew
so much, right? And I guess we didn't cover this
before. When he applied, he actually didn't apply
for the Shanghai Stock Exchange main board. He
applied for the Star board, which is the kind
of the newer tech, the new tech, lower requirements.
And at that point, he already satisfied every
requirement on profitability, on growth, on everything,
on R &D spending. It's not because of requirement
that they... temporarily halted their IPO. It's
because of a potential insider question, right?
That they didn't report on time. But there's
different, you know, different sides have different
stories. But basically, he said, you know, when
I filed this request to IPO, I already satisfied
your requirements. four, five years later, I
more than satisfy your requirement. Except by
a lot. Yeah, in fact, had I been IPO'd, I would
be in your top five right now. Exactly. Top 5
% right now. So, like, what's up, guys? There's,
like, Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. That's,
you know, they can also take my money. So, are
you going to take my money? So, shortly after
this whole, like, media outlet on Weibo, They
actually got a response. I don't know if it's
because of this. But he got a response. But a
few months later, they announced that, okay,
we have approved. Yeah. So that's... Anything
interesting you've... Well, so about the rapid
growth that they were able to achieve after 2020,
according to the declared market share, it seems
that... The China one, China market was very
fast growing, like internally. They may have
started outside, but the China market is right
now accounts for about half of the sales for
them as well. And it's still growing. Wow. And
followed by the U .S. and there's also Europe.
In fact, I think they are doing really well in
some of the countries that... Chinese consumer
electronics brands are just not able to achieve
the same results like the US and Europe. So,
you know, like I think there's just more people
like who are out there with sports and athletic
equipment use. Yeah. Like who are in those markets.
I mean, I also attribute it to them thinking
about the global market early because I think
they started expanding. As soon as the company
set up, they started setting up overseas entities.
And the first few years, they're actually not
doing that well because they need to hire locally.
They need to figure out as a Chinese company
with only folks. And he never studied abroad
or anything, right? Which is crazy. His founding
team never did. So establishing a U .S. company
and selling your products and really resonating
with the U .S. audience is actually quite difficult.
for five years to work on this, it's when, you
know, 2019, 2020 hit that they managed to pull
this off. Yeah. And can I just tell something
from my personal experience? So I was in CES
in 2000, last year, so 2024. How'd you get the
ticket? It was work that I get the ticket. So
out of the 4 ,000 -some attendee brands who were
there, about a quarter of them are from China.
And so Insta360 was one of the very few brands
who actually have a very international crew at
the stand. But the other brands are not doing
the same. The other brands mostly have Chinese
representing them. I guess on the internationalization
of the brand, you can't just sell your brands
to the market. You actually have to have a relatively
international crew to be able to be a global
company, to be able to have all the interesting
audiences so another takeaway and also like if
you look at the on the prospectus uh at the back
of the list with all the company uh sort of partnerships
you do see a lot of like non -Chinese names yeah
it's listed which is pretty rare yeah yeah they
they go out of the way to to do these collaborations
and some of the shareholders are also non -Chinese
as well why do we think Insta360 ascended or
maybe ascended yeah I've listed a few though
Okay, so the first one, obviously, is that he's
a genius and he doesn't need to sleep. Physically
better. But no, from the very beginning of this
show, we talked about his early ventures. So
you know this guy is going somewhere, right?
Like the amount of ventures or the amount of
entrepreneurship stuff he did. even before graduating
from university. So anecdotally, it says for
the first six months that they're developing
a product, he does like the team sleeps three
to four hours a day. And the first, the series
A and series B, it was told that they signed
both contracts with the investors on Chinese
New Year's Eve. And living in China, you know,
nobody works on Chinese New Year's Eve, right?
For them to sign two contracts in two different
years. It means that I'm working hard. Work ethics.
Exactly. That's entrepreneurship, work ethics.
Yeah. What's number one? What's your number one?
Well, I'm going to go back to the very cliche
kind of the right person at the right time just
happened to be doing the right thing. I think
he's the right person. When you look at his video,
there was a very short video of him. after he
graduated from college on YouTube. And he didn't
even start Insta360 at that time. But you can
just see something in his eyes that is different.
The way that he talks is so composed. It's so
calm. And he is probably just 18 or 19 tops.
But the thing that he says about like building
a startup sounds like as if he has been through
decades of business, like how he wanted it. you
know, trust people, what kind of products that
he wants to build. It just, like... You have
a belief. He's very sophisticated. And he has
a belief, for sure. So there's that. Like, he
just oozes a different vibe than a lot of other
people. And he's not doing this very lightly.
He has an intention of doing it as well. Yeah.
So that's number one. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And to
add to your point, actually, I think his co -founder,
who actually did the live streaming business
with him, said that, you know, this guy is...
Someone you're willing to follow. Because you
have that charisma. You have that leadership.
The determination. And the ideas. So my second
one is actually. I attribute the success of Insta360
these days. To the fact that they've decided
back in 2015, 2016. To have global market as
their user base. Rather than the domestic market.
And having that. ambition having that decision
makes a big difference target globally yeah if
he has started in china not sure if he can survive
yeah yeah not sure if i could survive and also
not sure if he would get the market share that
he has today yeah yeah for sure um i guess my
second point is he had no hardware experience
and i think he may have went through a thinking
process of, he likes content, like obviously
he likes watching videos and he likes the content
and he somehow maybe projects the future of camera
and of our eyes, how we'll be posting things
on social media will not be very 2D. So he wanted
to create a tool for people to use to make better
photography possible. So I think that was a very
bold move. And because he was in China, the ability,
he was able to realize that in Shenzhen at a
relatively reasonable cost, that the product
can be created. So it is a bold move. But with
all the resources and the conditions with Shenzhen,
everything was made possible. So right move on
him. So I agree with half of that. So the Shenzhen
part I agree with. The fact that he is at the
cost center, lower cost of production. I'm not
sure if it was that bold of a move. maybe in
the first two years while they're figuring out
the market. But by the time they realize that
I'm going to compete with GoPro MAX, I'm going
to do this 360 and target the sports enthusiasts.
At that point, I feel like the market is there.
He knows the market is there and that's why he
went in. It's not going in blind anymore. It's
more calculated than you think. Obviously, there's
still a risk of how can I get my brand out versus
an established brand. DJI at that point also
has a fair presence. How do I compete against
these giants? How do I compete against Samsung?
But the target audience is definitely already
there. Third point, which is... actually just
partnerships in general because i think it's
just leveraging other folks um he he knows i
guess how to approach or like the company basically
made some right decisions in terms of yes apple
is really hard to partner with as a hardware
company they're quite stringent um And so they
probably spend a lot of cost in terms of developing
the product for Apple. Because I think there's
a story around how Nano, because of the 3 .5
millimeter jack, has to actually release itself
when it's hit with a 10KG force or something.
Something along that lines, right? So it's like
Apple, I need to make sure you... All my products
satisfy this criteria. And for any hardware producers
to make that, it's difficult. They have to tailor
toward that one need. And it probably took them
a few months. I'm just guessing it probably took
them a while to satisfy that one criteria. And
I'm guessing Apple probably had a couple. So
for them to actually go through with this takes
a lot of determination. Yeah. But this makes
so much sense, right? Because... You want to
be making friends that can potentially uplift
you. Partnerships that can make you go up. Especially
business partnerships. You don't want to be making
a friend that's with its impact or with its awareness
much lower than you. If that's the case, then
you want someone that is much larger than you.
And Apple, even though everyone knows that this
is the hardest friend to make, but they still
try to make it, shows determination and ends
up having the great partnership and ends up...
lifting them to such a good sales record for
the first couple of years. So it's definitely
worth it. Yeah, so that determination to get
the right partnerships. Yeah, I agree. And my
third one, as you have already mentioned before,
it's at the right place. Like, starting in China,
make it in China, but sell it overseas. That's
a great plan. And at the right time, too, because
2016 is when VR was a thing. Yeah. google glasses
not glasses the cardboard right um and like what's
it called the dream like daydream daydream that
was the name um and there's also a lot of investors
like that was before the chinese investment funding
dried up yeah that was the high time of vc investment
exactly so so timing is also very important yeah
without idg and without lee feng like who was
like, the mastermind behind, like, behind all
of their growth and giving them money. Like,
this wouldn't have happened. And one thing about
Li Feng, he's very interesting. Maybe there will
be, like, in the future episodes, maybe we'll
mention him again. He had invested in a lot of
companies before. Give me some names. Sanji Songshu.
Oh! Yeah, he invested in that, which is a...
Well, that's very different. It's a nut snack
company. It's not tech at all. Yeah, it's not
tech. Macadamia, like, nuts. Nuts, basically
nuts. And he invested in Bilibili. Okay. Yeah.
He has invested in Unity. Oh, gaming. Yeah. He
has invested in that. And he has also invested
in Coinbase. And he has also invested in Didap,
which is a carpooling app that started with two
Googlers. They used to work for Google. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah, everything comes in full circle.
I know. It's like the first thing you should
know around that time if you need investments.
Yeah, for sure. Wow. If you are also interested
in Insta360 and you have heard of their stories
before, feel free to leave us messages or comments.
But it's been a very fun process researching
for the company. Definitely. And if we got anything
wrong, please just... Let us know because obviously
this is all internet research. So yeah, let us
know and we'll correct it next episode.