Snapchat's Spectacles launched in 2016 with huge hype after Evan Spiegel turned down Facebook's $3 billion offer. The camera glasses flopped because people cared more about how they looked than the novelty of recording from their face. Snap ended up with $40 million in unsold inventory.
Remember Google Glass? Or those Snapchat camera glasses? Yeah. What happened to those? In 2016, Snapchat is everywhere. You open the app, snap a photo, and send it in one tap. No filters, just vibes. And the founder, Evan Spiegel, is the youngest billionaire in the world, turning down a $3 billion offer from Facebook. His next big bet? What if the Snapchat camera wasn't in your hand but on your face? So they launched Spectacles through vending machines. Hype is high, but when the product hit the But in the real world, it doesn't click at all. It turns out most people won't sacrifice style for tech. They weren't ready to wear a camera on their face. So Snap ends up with $40 million in unsold inventory, a rare miss for a company known for innovation.
Is SaaS really dead? Dharmesh Shah from HubSpot on AI, Vibe-Coding & the Future of Work
Agents, Metaprompting and Tech-powered Parenting with HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah
