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GoPro's IPO isn't about selling cameras, it's about creating a media empire
It was 2001, more than a decade before GoPro would announce its intentions to go public, and its CEO Nick Woodman was facing a very expensive failure. In just two years, he'd lost nearly $4 million of investors' money, building a social gaming startup that never took off. Unfortunately for him, he'd arrived at that particular party a little too early, and by his own admission Funbug (as it was called) was "before its time." With fingers burnt, Woodman decided to get away for a little surfing, and to figure out what he was going to do next. The answer would come during preparations for that trip. He came up with the idea for a waterproof stills camera that he could use to take close-ups of himself and his friends right in the middle of the action. The years that followed would see that humble idea spawn something of an empire.
