Apple entering a new market is both good and bad for its competitors. While it’s bad that they now have to compete with a brand as insanely popular and valuable as Apple, that brand inevitably draws more people to the market that it’s entering. This is exactly what’s happening to the smartwatch market and, despite the Apple Watch not even being released yet, Pebble is already profiting from Apple’s entrance into the market.
The Pebble Time Kickstarter gained some momentum thanks to Apple’s special Watch event Monday. The new smartwatch from the smartwatch pioneer was drawing in funding at a rate of around $6,000 per hour on Sunday, March 8, which rose to $10,000 per hour on Monday, March 9 (when the event took place), and capped out at $16,000 per day on average during March 10, the day following Apple’s press presentation. Pebble CEO and founder Eric Migicovsky told former Y Combinator lead and investor Paul Graham that interest in Apple’s media event had a doubling impact on the rate of its ongoing crowdfunding campaign, but in fact the numbers reveal it more than doubled, and in fact almost tripled in the extended wake of the announcement.
