How Insta360 Outpaced GoPro in the Action Camera Market

Consumer electronics is arguably the most competitive market in the world with its unforgiving business model, heavy funding requirements, and endless disruption. Every vertical is dominated by legacy players or conglomerates. And even titans like Microsoft and Sony must fight every year to maintain market share. It's a fast-moving landscape where winners don't stay on top long, new markets emerge as fast as they disappear, and disruption comes from all sides. The combination of hardware and software makes the consumer electronics business a juggernaut with gross margins that are typically half of that of SAS companies. With lower profits, transient winners, and fragile modes, it's no

wonder that most of the headlines, talent, and investment in the tech industry has flowed towards consumer software rather than consumer electronics in the past 20 years. But when you nail timing, hardware, and software, the impact is revolutionary. You can create a new market like Apple did with smartphones, Bose with noise cancellation headphones, HP with home printers, and Dell with direct to consumer PCs. These products were game changers and transformed their companies into global category defining powerhouses. With the creation of a new market, the challengers quickly follow and they cater to those who are priced out by the new leader. In smartphones, Samsung and Xiaomi make up number two and number three. In televisions, LG and

Sony chase after Samsung. and handhelds. Steam and Asus have emerged, hoping to gain ground on Nintendo. Evolution is critical in consumer electronics. No company is immune to disruption. IBM invented the smartphone in the '90s, but it was Nokia and BlackBerry who dominated in the 2000s before being toppled by Apple and Samsung. HP's billiondoll printer empire has crumbled from e signatures and stronger direct competition. Bose's market share has eroded since the mid2010s with the entry of Sony, Apple, and Sonos. and Dell today is a distant third behind Lenovo and HP. In this sector, if you stop innovating, you'll be disrupted. Through the 2000s, consumer pointand-shoot cameras were a booming category led by

legacy Japanese giants like Canon and Nikon until smartphones. Cameras today have become every smartphone's greatest selling point. When we look at the iPhone, Pixel, or Galaxy launches, the camera segment alone makes up half of every kynote. Apple, Google, and Samsung have each invested billions to make their smartphone cameras not just easy to use, but also powerful enough to outclass traditional variants. In response, Nikon, Canon, and Sony have retreated to their professional niches, while the smaller players like Kodak and Olympus have exited the consumer camera market entirely. By the mid2010s, the notion that there could be a new standalone camera company was unthinkable until the emergence of

GoPro. GoPro looked to be that next revolutionary market maker. They had created and cornered the action camera market in a way that neither smartphones nor DSLRs could touch. But as we covered a year ago, GoPro is nearing extinction. Innovation has slowed, product has stagnated, sales have plummeted, losses have soared, and shares have cratered. Business has gotten so bad that the company has now paywalled their editing software just to keep the lights on. As GoPro collapsed, analysts and experts around the world wrote off action cameras. Anyone who wanted one already had bought one. It was a dying market, a niche that was so small that not even the company that had created it could

survive. Even if you create the market, you are not entitled to its future. Business is about choosing your battles and starting a camera company today is asking for punishment. You'd be crushed on one end by the trillion dollar titans and Apple and Samsung or smushed on the other by the entrenched old guard of Nikon and Canon. What's left in the middle are these niches like action cameras that look too small and too volatile to ever sustain a billiondoll business. But Insta 360 has done the impossible in what many presume to be a dead market. Today, they're the youngest, most profitable, and fastest growing camera maker in the world, surpassing GoPro, Nikon, and Canon. In 10 years, Insta3

has grown from a dorm room idea into a 10 billion powerhouse as the category leader in 360 cameras. While you can manipulate hype with software, you can't do the same with hardware. Insta3 in the past 5 years has built a powerful moat between smartphones and professional cameras, earning a claim from Wired, CES, New York Times, and Japan's Good Design Award. Their cameras are sold at Apple stores, Best Buys, and Costos all around the world, have been endorsed by internet stars like Casey Neistat and Corridor Digital, and support use cases that extend far beyond extreme sports. In the past 40 years, there have only been two camera manufacturers to have IPOed, and one of them is Insta3. While

startups today chase headlines, Insta3 has stayed quietly product first with soft-spoken founders who have done less than a handful of media appearances. They were not the first nor the most well-unded. How did they succeed where others failed? What did they bring to the table? And how did they create opportunity when everyone else saw none? To understand how this tiny startup grew to a global10 billion leader in just 10 years, we asked for and were granted access inside the company to learn about their unique journey, business strategies, and market insight. In this modern MBA original, we're going boots

on the ground to understand the rise of Insta 360, how startups can topple giants, and how product can only be emote with humility. What does the future hold in business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. Tune in any news program and you'll get pundits talking about equities, interest rates, and inflation. One week they'll talk about how it's going up and then say it's going down in the next. Could someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 42,000 businesses have futurep proofed their business with Netswuite by Oracle, the

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because of the dependence on hardware. Even if you charge for the software, growth still starts and ends from getting your hardware in the hands of more and more users. Whether you're high-end or low-end, it's still all about moving as many units as possible. In consumer electronics today, products are generally released in generations where every generation introduces new features and improvements to entice new users and to convince existing ones to upgrade. Under this model, consumer electronics have a short lifespan as each product peaks at launch but depreciates once it's replaced by the next generation. Every category has its own tempo. Apple, Google, Samsung have annual releases for smartphones.

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo launch consoles every 4 to 7 years, and Nikon, Sony, and Canon generally take 2 to three for cameras. Companies must carefully discount previous generations in order to clear out outdated inventory without tanking their own market while still making the new generation so compelling that customers don't end up bargain hunting for the older models. And since full price sales drive the highest growth and profits, every generation needs to land at launch. It's a tricky line to walk. Every new generation creates the greatest opportunity for growth, but it also devalues the previous. So on one hand you accelerate the commoditization of your own products while trying to

surpass the status quo on the other because R&D costs are front-loaded and manufacturing takes time. The only way to generate ROI is to ultimately get products out the door. But the more frequent the release cycle, the less time you have for R&D and the harder it is to innovate. Yet sinking more time and money into R&D is no guarantee of innovation as all products eventually reach their ceiling. When that happens, the only way to reignite growth is to create and to deliver the next breakthrough before anyone else does. Nintendo is one of the only companies in history to achieve this in every generation. Starting with the Game Boy in the '90s, the DS in the early 2000s,

the Wii in the late 2000s, and then the Switch in the late 2010s. GoPro's failure to get this loop right was the main reason behind its collapse. Through the 2010s, they launched a whopping nine generations and 20 different models in 10 years. GoPro believed that because they created the market, they could set the tempo. But what happened was the opposite. The market got flooded with too many models, improvements between generations became trivial, and the use case never evolved beyond extreme sports. There was no reason to ever buy the latest generation at full price. The truth is that this is a challenge that everyone in the industry faces, and it's exactly why consumer electronic

companies aggressively diversify at scale. Apple, Dell, HP, and Dyson use the profits from their flagship products to quickly expand to adjacent categories and services. Given all the variables across manufacturing and research, it's risky to bet the entire fate of a company on getting a single product release right year after year. This is why Samsung and LG eventually expanded from consumer electronics to home appliances and vice versa for Toshiba and Panasonic. It's safer to spread investment across more and more categories than it is to concentrate on one or a few. This has been the industry playbook for over a century. Even the legacy camera makers followed the same strategy. Nikon started in the 1910s

making optics for the military. Funded by the government contracts, they eventually expanded to civilian cameras. They struck gold in the 1950s and pioneered the modular SLR system. Even as the new leader in film cameras, Nikon continued to diversify into other emerging niches like laboratory microscopes, precision instruments for semiconductors, and digital cameras. While the iPhone has taken billions away, Nikon today is as diversified as ever. Cameras contribute just a third of the overall business. Semiconductors account for another third, while healthcare and industrial make up the rest. Their big bet today for growth is metal 3D printing. nothing at all to do with cameras. Canon got their breakthrough in the 1940s, undercutting

the rangefinder camera market leader by 40% and then used those profits to branch out into other categories. Today, printers are Canon's core business and account for over 50% of revenue. Cameras contribute less than a quarter of sales, while industrial and MRI machines make up the rest. Like Nikon, Canon is now betting on enterprise manufacturing where the revenue is stable, growth is not tied to upgrades, and the market isn't shrinking like cameras or printers. Diversification is not greed, it's survival. Kodak learned this the hard way. From the 1950s through the 1990s, they were the global leader in film and photo printing, but they refused to embrace digital photography out of fear of disturbing their golden

goose. As the smartphone and digital photos went mainstream, Kodak's entire business became obsolete. With no other revenue streams to fall back on, they went bankrupt. If Nikon or Canon had sold just cameras, they most likely would not have survived the smartphone disruption. GoPro tried to diversify, but took things in the wrong direction. They burned millions trying to reinvent themselves as a media business, rushed to catch the flavor of the month with a failed drone, and refused to partner with other consumer electronic startups. By the time GoPro finally refocused on hardware, it had already squandered its capital, momentum, and credibility, thus opening the door for Insta3 to take its

place as the new leader. No one creates a world-changing mass market product out the gate. Even Apple needed decades of groundwork starting from the Macintosh all the way to the iPod to get to the iPhone. No startup can afford to chase the mass market or pull off that level of innovation from day one. You begin in a niche, ideally one that's so small that it's ignored by the incumbents, or it's so new that no leader has been established yet. Your aim is to deliver a breakout product in performance or price, or maybe both. Then with this traction, you can either double down on the belief that your niche will eventually blossom into a mass market like semiconductors or printers. Your startup will become more dominant, but

on the flip side, your R&D can end up tunnel vision, and it may take years, even decades before the market really grows. You can try to accelerate the market like GoPro did with aggressive marketing, rapid releases, and deep discounting, but ultimately the business will only go as far as the market can sustain. The other option is to use your cash flow and expertise to expand into an adjacent niche, take leadership there, and then evaluate each market as they grow. This path carries greater risk, but the upside is that you're following markets rather than forcing them, and you're not banking everything on getting one single thing right. you can potentially spot bigger opportunities for innovation and

understand user needs across categories that would not otherwise be visible from a single vantage point. The latter is how Insta 360 started. In the early 2010s, 360° video was an emerging green field niche. At the time, virtual reality was hyped as the next big thing in tech. 360 video rode these tailwinds. It was seen as a revolutionary medium, one where viewers were no longer confined to a frame watching from the outside, but instead placed directly inside the scene and free to look in any direction just like in real life. The potential in theory was huge. Video production could break away from the traditionally rigid composed director-driven shots and towards more immersive viewer-based visuals. Because

there were no headsets or controllers involved, 360 video was regarded as a crucial stepping stone to mass market VR. But creating 360 videos was complicated. Since there was nothing out of the box that supported 360 video, early adopters had to do everything themselves. They built homemade multi- camera rigs and then manually stitched all the footage themselves. But issues like synchronization, spatial audio, warping, and blending only made production more difficult. By 2015, YouTube and Facebook supported playback for 360 video, and brands like Nike, Disney, and Nat Geo tried their hand at this new media. But even with platform buyin, 360 video was ultimately too primitive for professionals and out of

reach for the average consumer. It was a tiny niche that was accessible for only the most technical, well-funded studios and agencies. Canon was reluctant to take chances, while the tech giants like Facebook and Samsung only had eyes for the bigger opportunity in VR headsets. Rico, LG, and Nikon jumped in, but they all kept their bets tight, resulting in barebones software and hardware products that did very little to innovate or to grow the market. At the time, JK was a college student. He attended a concert and he realized that if he had been able to record it in 360, he could relive the moments just as he had experienced in person. While most believed that the technology would be limited to VR or

commercial use, JK saw a natural fit for everyday folks like himself who wanted to capture moments without stepping away from the experience. But 360 videos had to be easy to make and no one had been able to solve this problem end to end from hardware to software. As a computer science student, he started with what he knew, writing code in his dorm room to live stream university lessons. His ability to chip away at the software gave him confidence, but he needed funding to tackle the hardware side. A year later, he founded Insta3 in pursuit of this vision and brought on Max to help with the business side. But success was not a straight shot. Within their first year, JK and the team had

developed the first ever real-time live stitching algorithm. But while they slowly improved the post-production experience through software, shooting still demanded a true modern hardware solution. Insta3's first product, the Nano, was the smallest and cheapest 360 camera ever made as a plug-and-play accessory for the iPhone. Footage could be stitched in real time, edited on a mobile app, and could also be live streamed without cables, transfers, or extra devices. The Nano was perceived as a breakthrough, winning headlines, awards, and even praised from Steve Waznjak. But commercially, it was a flop. The Nano was a solution looking for a problem. It was too basic for

professionals with real production needs and too niche for casual consumers. When the novelty wore off, so did Nano sales. To make matters worse, the VR bubble burst just a year later. And as that faded, so did interest in 360 video. The tiny niche shrunk even further as Nikon, LG, and Kodak exited the field. In a time where everyone else was pulling back, Insta3 stuck around. We thought 360 video was a big market. Unfortunately, it wasn't, at least not then. Because VR was so hot in 2015 to 2016, people assumed 360 cameras were a natural fit as VR capture devices. But it didn't pan out. So, we shifted to

real existing niche markets to generate income and to build our skill set. Because we were entering unfamiliar markets and had no prior experience, we had to learn everything from scratch. Tech, customer needs, and ecosystems. Getting people to trust a new brand is also tough. If retailers already carry GoPro or DJI, why would they make room for us? But we found one key. Build a product that solves real user problems better than anything else. That unlocks everything. The Nano proved that they could hang with the best. The real challenge was not execution, but direction. Instead of building what they imagined people would want in the future, they focused on building

products that people needed right now. JK and Max realized that they had been too fixated on trying to convince people on the value of 360 video as a format. Technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself. And despite the marketwide contraction, there were still people trying to get value out of their nanos in the real world. When we had the Insta360 Nano, we were active in a space that had a lot of competition with big players. When I started, we opened just a simple Facebook group, which now grew to hundreds of thousands of users. But through deep observation what these guys been doing what how they used our

products and you know we saw people using it for skiing even though it was completely shaky was kind of not useful footage at this time but it helped us to get inspiration about what this camera could be aimed for. Nothing about the product had been engineered for action sports. It wasn't waterproof. It didn't have swappable batteries and it couldn't be mounted. Yet, it was these skiers, cyclists, and athletes that turned out to be the Nano's most loyal adopters. They were all fed up with GoPros. With a 360 camera, they could remain in the experience, capture everything in one take, and then pick the best angles in post-prouction. The freedom they gained outweighed the cost

of the clunky software and unreliable hardware. On the heels of this insight, Insta3 came into its own. Shedding its early identity as a gadget startup and going allin on the ambition of becoming a modern camera manufacturer. Its R&D strategy evolved as the team shifted away from evangelizing the 360 video format in itself for the general public and towards developing specific tools that could simplify production for video creators. By 2017, Insta 360 had channeled these insights into a breakthrough proof of concept. The one launched with a workflow focus of shoot first, point later. While GoPro and Rico continued to chase hardware differentiation and high-end professionals with their 360 cameras, Insta3 designed for everyday consumers.

For JK, long-term adoption was far more important than short-term profit. He had conviction that the greatest value ad was in software, not hardware. At the time, it was a contrarian bet. Even at their prime, legacy manufacturers like Nikon and Canon had always exclusively focused on capture, streamlining hardware into fewer buttons and pushing lenses to new heights. But they always left it up to users to piece together post-prouction on their own. Across the industry, the hardware was getting better, but the actual software experience remained primitive. A lot of camera brands need to make sure that the hardware part is exceptionally done and then they focus on software. JK and the

founding team, their strength was actually the software engineering side. So we came from Nanching to Shenzhen to get that hardware expertise. So we had like kind of I think a little bit of reverse development compared to other camera brands with 360 on the one hand you have the benefit of capturing the whole spherical image but on the other hand there's a difficulty to reframe that footage or to actually make use of all that data. So in this way software was always a driving force for our products for our user experience to advance. We collected a lot of data. We interviewed a lot of action camera users and we found that the most common response was that I love using these cameras, but I don't know what to do

with my content after I'm done capturing it. So, what ended up happening is more than 70% of users who use an action camera to record their family memories, their vacations, their normal everyday life stories, they had all of their content sitting on a hard drive collecting dust in their garage. And we came at it from a completely different angle. We said, "How do we actually empower people to more easily create their content and edit it and share it?" JK and Max believe that users shouldn't have to be adrenaline junkies, extreme athletes, or editing wizards to get value out of a camera. So, while the other camera makers continue to chase hardware specs as their big innovations,

Insta3 deviated to invest in software. The one at launch was not only two times cheaper than the GoPro Fusion and $50 more than the Samsung Gear, but also shipped with a slew of software innovations. While GoPro, Rico, and Samsung offloaded editing onto users just like the legacy manufacturers, Insta3 made editing part of the product. The One pioneered a new standard with mobile first editing and refframing out of the box. Users could scrub through the raw footage, pick the best shots, and export the finished clips in 2D all on their phones. They no longer needed to wait until after the shoot, or to separately budget hundreds of hours learning various professional editors just to produce a single quality clip.

Their other software breakthrough was the viral invisible selfie stick. For the first time ever, individuals could pull off these thirdperson shots without drones or extra camera operators. The One was an immediate hit, doubling Insta3's revenue in what many had presumed to be a shrinking niche. With momentum finally on their side, they fast followed with the X1 in 2018. Like the iPhone had been for smartphones and the Wii had been for consoles, the X1 was that gamecher, transforming Insta 360 into a global category defining powerhouse. The X1 launched with cuttingedge software like real-time stabilization and slow motion capabilities that had previously only been achievable with high-end gimbals

and intensive desktop post-processing. Like the invisible selfie stick and refframing, these features were industry first. 7 years later, GoPro and Rico even today are still unable to catch up to Insta 360's software feature set. There were also strides in hardware between the generations with removable batteries, slim candy bar design, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth support. Consumers began to understand that the true value in 360 video was not necessarily the format, but how it reinvented the workflow from traditional cameras and smartphones. With the X1, Insta 360 achieved the breakout product that every consumer electronic startup dreams of. Sales tripled in a year, and Apple and Best

Buy scrambled to carry the X1 in their stores. While Insta3 climbed, their rivals started to fall behind. GoPro's R&D struggles, failed diversification, and stagnant releases only helped fuel Insta3's growth. Even though it was looking like a one-horse race, JK and Max couldn't rest. The X1 had become the face of the company, and it needed to be reinforced. LG, Samsung, and Nikon were all watching from the sidelines to gauge the possibility of re-entry. Thus, the more ground Insta3 gained in the space, the faster they had to move to stay ahead. They turned the X1 into the company's flagship with each generation bringing greater improvements in battery, lenses, audio, and editing.

Between 2018 and 2024, Insta3 released five generations of the X series alongside nextG features like object tracking, and horizon lock. In comparison, GoPro in the same period launched only one generation with no updates since 2019 and Rico launched only three with no updates since 2022. Insta 360 today is the market leader, holding a 67% market share with GoPro at 9% and Rico at 12%. In the 7 years since the X1, the startup has grown from $80 million in sales to nearly a billion with record margins as a modern camera manufacturer. The Breakthrough X series has been the workhorse, accounting for over 50% of sales every year. Even though the product is now on its fifth generation in 6 years, there's zero

signs of slowdown. Unit volume is the main metric used to evaluate consumer hardware companies, and Insta 360 sells more of its flagship X series than any other product in its portfolio with an average unit volume growth of 50% per year in the past four years. However, unit volume is a function of price, meaning that companies can manipulate higher unit volume through aggressive discounting to make the numbers look bigger. But that's not the case here, as the average selling price for the X series has increased 17% in 4 years alongside these record highs in unit volume. In contrast, GoPro slashed its average selling price by 10%, yet its unit volume still plunged 30% over the

same period. However, the true measure of a category leading product is global market fit. The X series accounts for over 50% of Insta3 sales in every major market in the UK and Germany to the US and Japan. While most startups would ride this single hit to a fast IPO, just like what GoPro did, Insta3 once again went against the grain, refusing to play it safe or to settle for a quick exit. Many markets can support a lot of players. We often say that the first and second place fight it out and in the end the third place player gets wiped out.

Often companies in third place and below just follow, watching what the top two are doing, picking up whatever is left and doing that part. But we don't want to be the third place player. If you aim for first or second, you'll face fierce competition. When you're first, the second wants to take you down. When you're second, the first is guarding against you. It's exhausting, but we believe in it because we didn't choose to make cameras as a way to make money. There are plenty of more profitable businesses than cameras. We chose to make cameras, but the reason we still care about making money is because we needed to keep investing in R&D.

The X series will slump one day. It's just the life cycle of all consumer electronics. Something new and better will come along, and if you want to stay on top, you have to be the one to deliver it. As a result, JK and Max chose to hunker down and reinvest the profits from the X series to expand. But this wasn't diversification like the legacy camera makers who deliberately pursued completely unrelated enterprise markets for the sole purpose of shareholder value. Today, Insta3 remains consumer first. Professional cameras like the Titan and the Pro contribute just 1% of sales and make up even less of the total unit volume. There's only so many studios with a budget for top-of-the-line VR productions and state-of-the-art 360 cameras. As a

result, 87% of revenue flows through consumer cameras and the remaining 13% on accessories. Despite passing up this enterprise diversification, the company hasn't missed out. If anything, the consumer focus has only worked in its favor. Insta3 today in fundamentals is not just another GoPro. It's the most profitable camera manufacturer in the world with overall operating margins exceeding those of Canon and Nikon despite their B2B diversification. Even if we separate it out just by their camera business, Insta3 still outperforms. Since 2018, the company has launched 15 new products across five distinct product lines, excluding its flagship X series, and Pro cameras. They've entered

five new categories: action cameras, wearable cameras, webcams, gimbals, and drone accessories. But technical innovation is no guarantee of commercial success. There was the 1R series, which was the first ever modular two-in-one action camera where users could swap lenses to shoot in 4K or 360 on the fly, but it was too complex for the everyday graband-oot consumer and too narrow for the professional market. Unit volumes remain low, and the product struggled to generate meaningful sales. Then there was the Sphere, the first ever consumer-grade Snap-on 360 camera rig for drones. It brought the trademark stabilization, reframing, and invisible selfie stick to aerial footage. But the design couldn't be reliably scaled

across drone models. Still, misses like these have never discouraged JK. As Insta3 has scaled, he's discovered that in some ways, life is only harder at the top. When you're a startup, you fight for survival. When you're a leader, you're fighting to stay on top even as your rivals copy your every move and you're still pressured to develop that next breakthrough before your current one runs out of steam. For a consumer electronics company to operate well, the first thing is to make great products and solid technology. For cameras, that means excelling in optics, sensors, software, image tuning, AI, etc. Suppose one day you've built an amazing product. But if customers don't know your brand or what problems your

product solves, you won't see good sales. So marketing and sales are also very important. Once you're selling worldwide, customers will run into problems. If their camera breaks, can you help them quickly? Can you provide support or repairs? That tests your service capabilities. So consumer electronics companies have to be good at many things. It's like a wooden barrel. Any weak plank limits how much water it can hold. That's the nature of this industry. Now, when we go on the offensive, we're entering a market where we didn't have presence before. As long as we make a product better than the others, even if the rest, like marketing or service, isn't perfect, we can still earn some rewards. That's our delta, our

incremental gain. But if you're defending, then you have to do everything well. You can't afford to let anyone overtake you. If your product is about the same as your competitors, but their marketing is better, then you'll lose some market share or revenue. So, to avoid that, your marketing has to be just as strong. And maybe your competitor's product and marketing are on par with yours, but their customer service is better. Then you also have to level up your service. It's like this. If we're attacking, it's like sticking a knife into someone else's barrel to get a bit of water. It might work, but if we're the ones being attacked, then we have to make sure every single plank in

our own barrel is tight. No cracks that others can exploit with their knives. That's clearly a much harder job. While Canon and Nikon lost their consumer camera business to smartphones, there was another factor in their decline. For years, they refused to embrace mirrorless cameras, believing that their multi-billion dollar DSLR empires and ecosystems were invincible. That complacency and unwillingness to even experiment in the early 2010s set Canon and Nikon back years. Their late start ended up giving Sony the opening to establish itself as the new leader. Whether it's GoPro and cameras or Intel and CPUs or Nokia and cell phones, the lesson is the same. Product can only be a moat with humility. Just because you

made the market today doesn't entitle you to its future. For JK, there is no world where Insta 360 can afford to rest. In a sector where leaders get toppled every decade, the only path to survival is innovation. First, every large market starts small. But whether a niche grows depends on how hard players try to grow it. We never assume a market is capped. We test first. Three ways we try to grow a niche. One, solve more user problems. If complaints are common, then demands not being met. Fixing that unlocks more adoption. Two, refine use cases. Some potential users don't realize the value until the form factor or price improves. For example, traditional action cameras

are too bulky for runners or cyclists. That's why we built the Go. lightweight, unobtrusive, and opens up new use cases. Three, lower the barrier to entry through innovation and cost reduction. We used to require these big, expensive 360 camera rigs made from multiple cameras, but now you could get the same kind of results with our $400 camera that anyone can use. So, yes, markets aren't infinitely scalable, but we believe most niches are expandable if you work at it. Also, new technologies like AI can change the game. Maybe someone didn't use an action cam because

battery life was bad or the editing was too complex. AI might now solve that. So, we believe markets and products both have variables and there's a lot still to explore. Of course, some niches will always be bigger than others. Selfies and family videos have more demand than extreme sports. That's a fact. So, we also explore those broader use cases, either by adapting existing products or creating new ones. Insta 360's portfolio is a testament to that philosophy. The Sphere and the 1 RS did not hit the mark, but other products have propelled Insta3 closer to the billiondoll mark in sales, a milestone that the company never would have reached on the X series alone. The Go is the company's second

fastest growing product. Weighing just 20 g, the Go features hands-free tapandgo passive recording. It enables never-before-seen POVs and has become the go-to for viral parent and pet creators. As consumers have trended towards authenticity over adventure, sales volume for the go have grown in tandem. Unit volume has quadrupled in three years and today contributes over 15% of sales. Yet, the company's fastest growing product is its latest, the Ace. As GoPro stumbles, more and more of their users are jumping ship, and Insta3 is going for the crown. The Ace Pro is Insta 360's first traditional unibody single lens action camera. It is what we call a GoPro killer. We have the biggest sensor that's ever been put into

an action camera. It's a one over 1.3 inch sensor. It has the highest resolution that's available in any action camera. It can record up to 8K. It has a large flip-up screen that's touch enabled that enables uh simple, easy vlogging or self-capture. We can replace the lenses on the Ace Pro 2. It has the world's leading AI software. So, once you're done capturing your content, our software will automatically edit everything for you. It has magnetic quick release mounts that make it easy to take on and off. It's the world's best performing action camera in low light, something that action cameras

have notoriously struggled with across the board because of the small sensor size. But we've also built in an AI chip directly into the camera that does things like real-time in camera image optimization, noise reduction, everything that you need to get a perfectly crisp image out of the camera without needing to post-process. And that's that's the key for uh for mainstream consumers. The Ace has grown 85% in sales volume from 40,000 units in its debut to a quarter of a million the year after. Together, the Go and the Ace contribute 25% of company sales. By measure of unit volume, Insta 360 has already surpassed Nikon, but still has yet to reach GoPro and Canon. But unit volume alone can be misleading. GoPro

sells millions of cameras, but they lose tens of dollars on every camera that they sell. Nikon and Canon generate the most with hundreds to thousands of dollars in operating profit per camera sold. And Insta3 sits in the middle with tens of dollars in profit per camera sold. GoPro's business is driven more by shelf presence and impulse gifting, as the vast majority of its products are sold every year through retail. In contrast, Insta3 has built its business evenly across both channels with a 50/50 split between online and offline. We're able to push out three to four major firmware updates on a product every single year. So, the product that you start with and the product that you end

with is a completely different animal. And that's why a lot of people love us is because you don't need to upgrade your camera every year. We don't save software updates for new hardware like some of our competitors do. There's a whole slew of features inside of our mobile app that will turn you into a professional editor. Anybody that's familiar with After Effects, you know that it's a really powerful software that allows you to create these CG effects, but you need a lot of experience in order to know how to use that. We've created a mini version of that in our app that allows you to create effects like cloning, sky replacements, cool transitions, match cuts, all these things that would require a professional skill set, we now

automate through our mobile app. And those are all free, too. Markets change and there's another bigger opportunity for those who keep building. We visited Insta3's HQ the week after their IPO. Besides unreleased products, there was nothing we filmed or asked that was ever off limits. While most founders and execs would be out celebrating, JK and Max were in office working the same hours and meetings as everyone else. To them, going public is not the end of the journey, but the beginning of greater possibilities. Take portrait mode on smartphones. It's improved, but it still doesn't match the bokeh and natural depth of a mirrorless camera. There's still room for quality.

Second, even with a good camera, most people don't know how to take great photos. They don't know composition, color grading, or how to capture a vibe. That's an opportunity for product and software to help. Third, if you're traveling with your family, there's often no one to shoot the video or photo. You can ask a stranger for a picture, but video, that's impossible without a photographer. That's a huge opportunity. Apple and Samsung haven't solved that. But the demand is real. That's where our products come in. So, yes, our business is hard. You need to invent the product, win the customer, and get them to buy again when you launch new versions. That's where R&D comes in. You can't market your way out

of a weak product. And you can't avoid R&D if you want to keep growing. It's not optional. Yes, profits are important because they validate your efficiency and give you resources to solve the next problem. But the order matters. First, solve real problems, then prove it through commercial success and reinvest from there. If someone gave us a blank check, like a university grant, I'd love to just focus on R&D. But without commercial validation, R&D can become wasteful so we stay rooted in reality. With Facebook, DJI, and Xiaomi all moving into cameras, JK only sees more competition, not less, for Insta3 in the near future. In consumer electronics, the most dangerous game to be is in a

price war, where the only innovation is seeing who can sell the same product for the lowest price without going out of business. This is what has happened in TVs, monitors, keyboards, and even robot vacuums where the products have become so mature and homogeneous that consumers are buying solely on cost. To avoid this, innovation can't be incremental. Rather than a conventional 30%, 50% of all of Insta3's employees today work in R&D and have a direct hand in developing hardware or software. At a scale of 3,000 plus employees, innovation now must be systemic rather than a roll of the dice.

Big companies can stay hungry. Look at Tesla, Amazon. Many of them are huge but still intense. We want to be that kind of company. It comes down to building teams of people who are passionate not just about money but about growth, learning, and challenge. You can't motivate everyone, but you can focus on motivating the 400 or so people who lead teams, and they'll pass that down. Real innovation isn't just about JK having an idea and executing it. It's about creating an environment where everyone is empowered to take risks and turn ideas into real things. Second, to build an innovative company, you need people to grow. And adults don't grow by being told what to do. They grow by making

decisions and taking responsibility. When they get it right, they gain confidence. When they get it wrong, they learn through failure. If I make all the decisions, they don't get that experience. I'm ultimately accountable, but I shouldn't be the one making every micro decision. Third, I don't believe the best decisions always come from me. Good decisions require solid logic and lots of information. When others go through the process themselves, they often come up with better solutions than I would, and it helps them grow. It's like investing. If you're using your own money, your decisions are sharper. If others make all your investment calls, you don't really learn. That's how

people grow. Jake has never forgotten what it took for Insta 360 to survive. But innovation isn't dreamt up on a whiteboard. True insight, just like from the Nano days, comes from being in the field and listening, observing, and recognizing what users need. With offices in Berlin, Tokyo, Shenzen, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles, Insta 360 hosts events worldwide, but they're not for marketing, but for R&D, good ideas can come from anywhere, and no community is ever too niche. Motorcyclists for years have struggled to find the right angle with their traditional action camera that will help people at home understand what the experience is of riding a bike.

We've now become synonymous with motorcycleycling and we probably have 15 custom accessories for the motorcycleycling industry. We've created software features like GPS and stat overlays so you can track your rides. We do the same thing for other verticals like mountain biking and diving and travel. The list goes on and on. So we have specific teams that look after those key verticals and their job is to engage with the end users, collect feedback, understand what their needs are and then communicate that to our product team and our engineers so that they build those features out in future iterations. Instead of stepping up their own R&D, GoPro chose lawsuits accusing Insta3 of exploiting their technology.

It's a strange claim to make and the latest in a series of questionable decisions from GoPro's leadership. If GoPro had been the first to market with these innovations, then Insta3 would not have had the opportunity to grow to where it is today, and GoPro wouldn't be struggling as badly either. 14 months in, the International Trade Commission has reached the same conclusion. They ruled that there was not only no infringement, but that GoPro's tech patents in themselves were invalid. The only valid complaint was a design patent. But design patents are generally drawn broadly and only protect the appearance of a product. And no one's buying cameras based on how they look.

For JK, this ruling has only reaffirmed his core belief that innovation trumps all. And 10 years in, he's as driven as when he first started. He's not looking at yachts, stomping around the office with an entourage, and making grand entrances into meetings. The only decoration in his office is a fish tank, but instead of exotic trophy fish, it's stocked with cheap 50 cent minnows, a reminder of humility and his own beginnings. I want to accomplish two things in the next 5 to 10 years. The first build a product line with annual shipments of 10 million units. Like how Sony invented the Walkman or Apple invented the iPod.

Even the iPad counts. No one proved people needed an iPad in addition to a Mac and an iPhone. But Apple made it happen and it became a sizable market. Tens of millions of units. We're talking about products that changed the world. And that's one of my goals. Today we're far from that, but it's a very clear goal of mine. The second thing is we want to build a truly innovative company. Not just technically innovative, but one that inspires others. Whether it's in product, technology, or marketing, we want people to say, "Oh, I didn't realize it could be done that way."

What excites him is not money, but the pursuit and the thrill of capturing the unseen and building the unimaginable. Whether it's the flight of an eagle or a satellite orbiting outer space, JK is still an engineer at heart, and he comes alive in the field. Today, he's testing the world's first ever drone that shoots an AK 360, fits in your palm, and weighs just 249 g. It's the newest product from a new drone brand incubated by the company. Like the X1 before, the anti-gravity A1 is designed to redefine the workflows for enthusiasts and first timers. Users don't need to be master pilots or to spend extra time after the shoot editing the drone out of their shots. With no joysticks or complex

manuals, you just point and press with a single motion controller to fly where you want. With 360deree head tracking and live streaming goggles, you can see every angle even while flying in a completely different direction. With camera lenses at the top and the bottom rather than in the front, it utilizes Insta 360's trademark shoot first, frame later approach and invisible selfie stick effect. It's all the lessons and imaging tech from the X series applied into the complex, clunky, fragmented world of consumer drones. To go from a dorm room idea to the world's fastest growing and most profitable camera maker in 10 years isn't luck, it's perseverance and execution. In an era where startups have become cash grabs,

where founders love the spotlight more than their own companies, and innovation means doing the least amount of work for the most money, Insta 360 is a breath of fresh air. Very few companies and founders today recognize how damaging the modern short-term shareholder first quartertoquarter mentality is. And that recognition alone sets Insta3 apart. Innovation is what's kept them alive, taken them to the top, and will be the only thing that keeps them there. Stop innovating and they'll lose everything they've built. Think too small and they'll miss the future. This simple truth has shaped not only the founders, but has been woven into the DNA of Insta 360, its people, and its products. The

rise of Insta 360 is a modern case study of how a startup can topple giants while humility is actually the most important prerequisite to innovation and how business is won by those who build and adapt. In 10 years, they've done the impossible, thriving as a consumer camera manufacturer in the age of smartphones, rising to become a category leader and redefining the future of video for the next generation of adventurers, creators, and consumers.