Nick Woodman

Early life and education

Woodman is the son of Concepcion (née Socarras) and Dean Woodman. His father was born into a Quaker family and co-founded the investment bank Robertson Stephens; and his mother is of Hispanic descent and re-married Irwin Federman, General Partner of U.S. Venture Partners in 1992. Woodman grew up in Menlo Park, California and Atherton, California, attending the Menlo School, where he graduated in 1993. He developed his interest in surfing during high school and formed the high school's first surfing club. Woodman would sell t-shirts at high school football games to raise money for the surfing club. He earned a bachelor's degree in visual arts and a minor in creative writing from the University of California, San Diego in 1997. After school, Woodman founded two startups, both of which never fully made it off the ground. The first was a website called EmpowerAll.com, which attempted to sell electronic goods for no more than a $2 markup, and the second was Funbug, a gaming and marketing platform that gave users the chance to win cash prizes. Woodman took the lack of success from both companies personally. Nick received a $235,000 investment from his father, an investment banker in Silicon Valley, and used his parents connections to venture capital to launch his career as the head of GoPro.

Career

While on hiatus in Australia and Indonesia on a surf trip, he used a 35mm camera attached to the palm of his hand by a rubber band to try to capture his surfing activities on film. Seeing that amateur photographers like him – who wanted to capture quality action photos of their activities – had difficulties because either they could not get close enough to the action or were unable to purchase quality equipment at affordable prices, his trip became his inspiration to found GoPro. His solution was to develop a belt that would attach the camera to the body. Woodman and his future wife Jill financed the business by selling shell necklaces they bought in Bali (for $1.90) from their car along the California coast (for $60). His mother loaned him $35,000 and let him borrow her sewing machine, which he used to sew camera straps while experimenting with early designs. His dad loaned him an additional $200,000, which Woodman immediately paid back out of company sales. His desire for a camera system that could capture close up footage inspired the 'GoPro' name. The original cameras he developed were point-and-shoot 35mm film cameras which mounted to the user's wrist. Woodman would go about selling his products while using his 1971 Volkwagen Bus that he named 'The Buscuit' as his mobile home. The product has since evolved into a compact digital camera that supports WiFi, can be remotely controlled, has waterproof housing, records to a micro SD card, and is affordable to the average action sports enthusiast ($200–$400). Woodman would often act as the test engineer for their earlier products completing tasks such as attaching a GoPro to a car and driving at speeds of over 130 MPH. In 2004, he made his first big sale when a Japanese company ordered 100 cameras at a sports show. Thereafter, sales doubled every year, and in 2012, GoPro sold 2.3 million cameras. In 2005, Woodman appeared on QVC to sell his GoPro Hero. In 2004, GoPro had about $150,000 in revenue which grew to about $350,000 in 2005. In December 2012, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn purchased 8.88% of the company for $200 million which set the market value of the company at $2.25 billion making Woodman, who owned the majority of the stock, a billionaire. On June 26, 2014, GoPro went public – closing the day at $31.34 a share. In 2014, Woodman was the highest paid US chief executive, paying himself $235 million.

In 2015, GoPro formed a partnership with the NHL in which the NHL would use GoPro products to improve the viewing experience for fans. Woodman has been invited to speak at various tech conferences and in October 2015, Woodman was a guest on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and wore a GoPro camera for the entirety of the interview. Woodman is set to appear as a shark investor in the sixth season of the show Shark Tank. Woodman has invested $125,000 as of November 2015 on Shark Tank on two investments.

At the beginning of 2016, GoPro began a series of job cuts. In January of 2016, Woodman's Company cut 100 jobs, or 7% of his workforce. Later that year, in November 2016, GoPro cut an additional 15% of the GoPro workforce after attempting to branch out beyond its core business of action cameras, as the entertainment division failed to reach profitability.

In December 2016, a class action lawsuit against GoPro was announced. The complaint alleges that GoPro made false and misleading statements to investors and/or failed to disclose flaws in the Company's drones, overstating customer demand, and GoPro's public statements were materially false and misleading.

2016 proved to be a tough year for GoPro. With the many changes at and involving GoPro, including numerous job cuts, and falling stock prices, Woodman was listed as one of the year's worst CEOs. More layoffs followed in March 2017.

Awards

Philanthropy

After a successful IPO, the couple donated 5.8 million shares of GoPro stock to the Jill + Nicholas Woodman Foundation, a new fund they created at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in 2014. From 2014 to 2017, the value of the stock donated declined from $500 million to $50.3 million because of the dramatic decline in GoPro stock. Woodman was one of the biggest donors in the tech industry that year; however, it angered investors.

In March 2014, Woodman was honored for his philanthropic work with BUILD at their 5th annual gala in San Francisco.

Personal life

Woodman is married to Jill R. Scully and they have three children. They live in Woodside, California. Woodman is known as the "mad billionaire" due to his unconventional behavior and eccentricities. Woodman is a strong believer in following one's passions as a way to success stating, "I’m a big believer that when you’re pursuing your passions, your best ideas come to you. Your passions are a bit like your fingerprints: Everybody has them; everybody’s are different. One’s passions may just be a guidebook to one’s life.” In 2015, Woodman hosted an AMA on Reddit. Woodman has often cited his fear of failure as a catalyst for his success stating, "When I got out of college, I gave myself till I was 30 to invent a product. If I couldn't do it by then, I would just get a real job. And that fear – the fear of a real job – motivated me to be an entrepreneur."

In December 2015, Woodman commissioned a 180-foot yacht, estimated to cost between $35 million and $40 million. The boat, expected to be delivered in 2017, is four decks high and comes with a Jacuzzi pool, swim platform, sweeping sun decks, and dining areas.