Hello everyone, here is a letter from the founders about what to expect in 2024!
Dear Friends,
We’re spending the first few days in a new office space here in Seattle as we count down the last few days of 2023. Big life changes like this are a great time to sit down and reflect on where we are and where we’re going, so please allow us to imagine you sitting with us in this unfamiliar conference room to do just that.
First, we want to express our appreciation for you as a Wyze user. THANK YOU for trusting us and for allowing us to to continue on our mission to make great technology accessible to everyone. It’s been six years, and we’ve made incredible progress! There are more than 10M people in our Wyze family now, which is truly hard to believe. It’s been the journey of a lifetime despite all the challenges of building high-quality hardware and software at scale, but we still have so much energy and passion to continue building this movement with all of you.
At this time last year, we told you 2023 would be “The Year of the Camera.” Over the last 12 months, our small team launched five new cameras and released 89 app and firmware updates for cameras that fixed bugs, improved reliability, and added cool new features. We also added new ways to listen to and implement feedback from users. Of course, there’s always more work to be done, but the Wyze team put in so much hard work this year, and we’re proud of the results we delivered.
If we were to pick a theme for 2024, it’s tempting to call it “Year of the Camera v2.” We have some unique cameras coming next year that we’re excited to show you! But new cameras alone aren’t enough to satisfy our 2024 ambitions.
Since the beginning, Wyze has mostly innovated on supply chain and driving down prices of products that were already in the market. Low prices have been and always will be a core feature at Wyze. But next year, more than anything, we want to invent new products that don’t yet exist.
In 2024, we will focus harder than ever on building camera AI 2.0. AI that adds significant value, ease, and automation to your life. It’s hard to make specific promises about our ability to deliver new product experiences that still need to be invented. Still, we’ve made great progress and are excited to get your feedback. With your input, we will make rapid iterations to our models and together we will democratize AI applications in the smart home.
We’ll share one more monumental goal for 2024. Over the last six years Wyze has seen unbelievable growth, but that growth consumed a lot of cash from investors and bankers. In 2023, we became more efficient and reduced our cash burn significantly. In 2024, we believe we can officially break even and be fully cash flow positive for the first time ever. Instead of taking new money from investors, we can invest cash from operations back into the company to continue to fuel growth and improve user experience.
What will that mean for you as a Wyze user? Being cash flow positive means freedom. It allows us to grow and operate the business the way we want to without additional influence from outsiders. It allows us to be more aggressive in pricing decisions and fun with our marketing. It allows us to explore more unique products like we used to in the early days. Being a sustainable company will enable us to operate in ways we never have been able to before, and we can’t wait to see how that freedom feels. It’s been a challenging transition, but we’re so grateful you’ve stuck with us through it all. We’re almost there!
We love you Wyze users, thank you for everything.
Happy New Year!
Wyze Founders,
Yun Zhang
Dave Crosby
Dongsheng Song