E1129: Ring Founder Jamie Siminoff on launching the Always Home Cam, billion-dollar acquisition

Check out Ring: https://ring.com

FOLLOW Jamie: https://twitter.com/jamiesiminoff

FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis

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Show notes:

0:00 Start

1:18 Jason intros Jamie Siminoff & they discuss his prior inventions & projects

5:28 Jamie pitching Jason on the product that led to Ring: the "POP Charger" & Jason's less than enthusiastic response

8:43 Origin story of Doorbot - Ring's widely panned predecessor

11:13 Klaviyo - Get started with a free trial at https://www.klaviyo.com/twist

12:24 Jamie's despair of being in the Doorbot death spiral, overcoming a bad product, how Shark Tank helped

16:54 How building difficult products that people want to exist can lead to exponential gains despite early poor reviews & how great early reviews could be a negative signal

21:02 First crime that Ring helped solve

23:29 Silicon Valley Bank - For over 35 years SVB has helped thousands of tech and life science companies plan for the future. Learn more at https://SVB.com/next

24:35 Jamie describes Ring's new indoor autonomous drone: the Always Home Cam

29:07 Does LiDAR play into the Always Home Cam, what new features could we expect?

34:16 Odoo - Get your first app free & $1000 off your first implementation pack at https://odoo.com/twist

35:53 Would Ring have gone public via SPAC had they not been acquired by Amazon? Jamie tells the Amazon acquisition story, how Mark Suster helped save the company

41:02 Why Amazon is one of the best companies to be acquired by, getting brought back by Shark Tank as a guest Shark

46:42 Jamie on what makes great products

51:43 Ring privacy, anonymous video request feature, facial recognition & more

1:00:28 Interesting hardware tech coming down the pipeline, if AR glasses will work, Jamie as an Angel investor, pandemic as an accelerant

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