![]() ![]() In a hail-Mary move, Migicovsky rebooted his company. ![]() Migicovsky left the program with around $300,000 total and spent all of it on manufacturing Blackberry-compatible InPulses that he couldn’t sell. But not InPulse investors were steering clear of hardware startups in those days. For almost all of the young companies in that group, the bonus was a launch pad for more significant sums from angel investors or venture capital firms. Every startup in the group received $150,000 at impossibly favorable terms. He was 25 and had already been at it for three years.Įarly in the session, the Y Combinator founders learned that they would be offered funding from investor Ron Conway and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. Still, he felt confident that his plan was a winner - to put the notifications, weather info, sports scores and other timely data (like time) on a wrist display. He had arrived from Waterloo, Ontario, with a little funding from the government and an ungainly wrist computer that worked only with the BlackBerry OS. His company, then called InPulse, might have been the only hardware startup in the bunch. I first met Migicovsky when he was a founder of one of 43 startups enrolled in the Winter 2011 session of the Y Combinator incubator. That’s something else that the biggest company in the world can’t match. What’s more, Pebble is going back to Kickstarter to launch it. Tall (6’ 6”) and male-modelish (you would cast him for a Superman sequel, set in the period between Smallville and Metropolis), the 28-year-old CEO bounded into the office with a hop in his step and his usual puppy-dog smile. For a broken man, he seemed pretty chipper. But the Pebble-ites in attendance seemed to be surprisingly calm, conducting their morning routines as if the world had not crumbled around them. I arrived early so as not to be trampled by a rush of employees seeking to divest stock options. I was even feeling a little guilty at my shameful attempt to rubberneck a promising business at just the moment when dreams turned to twisted metal. Though Pebble has since carved out a sweet niche for itself, I suspected that the shockwaves from Cupertino the previous day might have shattered the windows and upended the whiteboards in the loft-like space in central Palo Alto where Pebble was headquartered. Pebble’s big breakthrough had come two years earlier, with a record-setting Kickstarter debut. It was the day after the lavish event announcing the Apple Watch, the long-anticipated wrist computer that many observers predicted would be the end of the nice little smart-watch business called Pebble that Migicovsky had been building since 2008. I made it a point to visit Eric Migicovsky on September 10, 2014. Photo: Vivian Johnson # In the battle for your wrist, a small company thinks it can hold off the tech giants by going back to its Kickstarter roots- with a watch called Time Thanks to its broad licensing agreement, Plastic Meatball plans to continue developing and releasing new characters from the movie and other retro collectible items, including apparel and puzzles inspired by the fantasy adventure.Īll three figures are available for order directly from the Plastic Meatball e-store at a cost of $14.99 USD each.Eric Migicovsky. In deference to Time Bandit’s dark tone, the action figures are marketed for adult collectors ages 14 and up. Evil comes equipped with a gas mask, while Randall is outfitted with the Super Being’s map. Wave 1 includes three characters from the film: Evil, Randall, and Og (as a pig). The figures are mounted on retro-nostalgic packaging that includes branding and stills from the movie. Each figure is 3-3/4-inches in scale and features five points of articulation. The Time Bandits collection is modeled after and pays homage to the classic Kenner style of action figures from the 1970s and 1980s. Fans of the cult classic film, Time Bandits, directed by Terry Gilliam, can peruse a new line of officially licensed action figures from Plastic Meatball.
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