Jason Johnson shares his journey as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, including how he successfully sold his smart lock company for millions.
Jason Johnson shares his journey as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, including how he successfully sold his smart lock company for millions. He discusses various aspects of startup life, from product development and pivoting to building relationships for acquisition.
Um it was it was building those relationships with those companies and trying to offer them something. Um whether it was for free or for pay building that relationship. >> Yeah. So so you know when when the August lock was launched it was it was the first version was I think it was $249. Um and um you know you can buy very inexpensive Bluetooth locks now. Um but it was a very premium device. It was you know was it was very Appleesque if you will. Bahar is the designer. Um, Eve, you know, Eve spares no expense on materials and craftsmanship. He knows how to design things really, really well. They sold those in in in thousands of stores, every Apple store in North America, Best Buy, Home Depot, um, even Target stores. Um, so, so yeah, August quickly became the most, you know, number one selling smart lock. Um, and we even did a video doorbell as well, but but didn't quite have the
volume of of sales that that Ring had on their video doorbells. Um, you know, August had this great growth. Um, but but our but our locks were really only limited to North America. The way that we designed the device as a as a as a really a robot that installed on the inside of your door was only compatible for locks in North America. So, so we really didn't have much growth beyond North America with that product. But the time came when we we kind of hit market saturation and I didn't even know until until a few years later how how much market share we had. And I'll talk about that in a moment. Um, so what so what I decided to do was was instead of just trying to like um just drive more sales of these devices, I actually went to my competitors cuz because at this point we had built a software stack. We had built a an access control system um that still is is is the best today of all
smart locks. Um um so I went actually went to all my competitors, Schlleg and Yale and Quickset and I offered my access control software to them for free. And this is this is kind of a crazy thing. Each time I talk to these companies, they're like, "Hey, why would you talk to us? you're you're our worst enemy. Uh and we're your worst enemy. And and B, why would you give us like the jewels of your of your technology for free? And and the answer was is because we wanted to do access control. We really wanted to to own access control and do a really good experience. Um um really help with again the vacation rentals or inhome delivery and other things you could do if you do if you if you do access control really well. But it's but this is the key to to for for your for your for your for your listeners. Um, it was it was building those relationships with those companies and trying to offer
them something. Um, whether it was for free or for pay, building the relationship, having a dialogue is what is what led to August ultimately being acquired because because all of them ended up asking if they could buy the company and and and that's what you want, right? You want you want multiple people to want to buy you and and to bid against each other. And that's exactly what happened. Um, and um and I personally ran the whole process myself. I I um I had a great C COO CFO Barack Vassan. He's he's he's a brilliant former investment banker. But but he and I we ran the process and I and I and I had these multiple companies bidding against each other um to to get to a price that my my board is very excited to uh to to