How OnePlus Came To Enter The Top 5 Premium Smartphone Brands #scottsthoughts

Welcome to success story the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business HubSpot podcast network hosts act as on demand mentors to entrepreneurs startups and scale ups through practical tips and inspirational stories listen learning grow with a HubSpot podcast network at HubSpot.com slash podcast network today. I am going to break down the story of one plus how in just a few short years with a dream and $300 they became a premium smartphone brand that compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung globally. I'm going to walk through their origin story. I'm going to speak about the founders where they came from as well as some of the strategies that they've used to become a top premium smartphone brand. And now compete with Apple and Samsung on a global scale. This is a business case study. This is one plus's growth story. So let's be honest. You don't have to be big to make a big splash. This has been a common theme and startups. The story of one plus is no different. This one plus is an electronics company that started in 2013 with $300 and a dream. And it sounds like the typical startup story, but one plus took it a step further and is now one of the most notable premium smartphone brands in the world. One plus saw an enormous opportunity in the high priced premium smartphone market. They created a high end smartphone with no compromises and started by offering their device at half the price of other premium smartphones. They adopted the slogan never settle, which is still used today by all the handsets that they produced indicating that they would never settle for less when it came to the quality of their products. So just take a second and think about that. They were putting out the premium products top grade top shelf. Never settle is their slogan yet they're selling them at half price. They went from zero to hero in a matter of a year and became the fastest growing Android device company. But let's pause there. Let's take it back to the early days, early years. Let's talk about the founders. Where do they come from? So the story of one plus starts in 2008 and 2008 the founder Pete Lau who was the co-founder of one plus left his job in Google's engineering department to start op-o electronics. It began as an ODM or original design manufacturing that primarily made devices for other brands in China and eventually founded its own company one plus. One plus was also co-founded by Carl Pay and is a subsidiary of BBK electronics along with Vivo Realme and IQ OO. The first ever product they brought to market was dubbed the flagship killer, meaning that it was the killer of all other brands flagship premium top of the line phone. They called it the one. The company wanted to make a statement they wanted to attract the attention of tech buffs and professionals looking to buy smartphones in high-end markets like North America and Europe. And obviously if we fast forward to today the strategy were because now they are one of the premium smartphone brands but how do they actually get there. So how did one plus become who they are today they had a great concept they put it a great product but even though the phone was not available worldwide people still took notice so what made them different. Let's break down the components of the one plus strategy that truly contributed to the company's success. So first was the affordability of the phone. I touched on this briefly but one of the main features that made one plus so unique was its ability to offer high-end specs at a much lower price point than any other smart phones out there especially with the feature sets that these phones had. Users were impressed with the quality of the photos it produced and its sleek design as well as the fact that it was just a well-built well-manufactured felt good in your hand device. And besides it had all of the features of all the other premium flagship model smartphones it was being offered at half the price compared to all other of smartphones and that became a central selling point for potential customers. So they hit the market with a great product they didn't just try and win on price but then they also won on price. So remember you will never win a market over by introducing a shitty product at a shitty price or lower price people will eventually still want a premium offering. But if you can find a way to navigate the margin that is the other company's profit margin by introducing a premium product and then reducing that price maybe you take less profit margin on that sale but that is an opportunity for you to win over the market. This is the same strategy that Amazon did by the way. Jeff Bezos is famous for quoting and I may misquote slightly but it's along the lines of your profit margin is my opportunity. So Jeff Bezos took a quality premium product to market aka the same product that other people were selling with the same features or to the same standard and what he was doing was he was taking less profit margin. Okay fine you're not going to make as much money on every single sale but you dominate the market that way. The second thing that really pushed one plus to the top along with the great value they lowered the price point they still offered a premium product is social media. Well actually let's bring it back they had a ton of really creative marketing strategies they are very well known for unique advertising tactics such as social media viral gorilla marketing they created a lot of word of mouth buzz around the product. And that's also of course helped with their success so let's talk about some of their marketing strategies so social media was one they were very active on social media from the get go they constantly should use but upcoming products features releases they created contests with giveaways for fans like free tickets to concerts they did things that maybe some smartphone companies were doing but they doubled down on these things and they were really generous to their customers they created a community and an incredibly loyal fan base they also kept launching marketing campaigns. So one of the campaigns they launched was called smash the past where selected participants were asked to destroy their existing phones while being recorded to buy a one plus smartphone for only a dollar no other company did this this was viral this was shock value and this was highly shareable entertaining content on top of that it got people to convert to the one plus phone earlier on in their business life cycle they also created an invitation system where someone would need to have an invitation so they created I've spoken about FOMO a lot but the someone had to have an invitation to buy one of their phones this helped them manage a massive demand for their phones and gave their brand an exclusive vibe you see this with a lot of luxury retailers another thing that they did another campaign that they ran was VR or virtual reality events so they opted for a virtual reality launch event and this also placed them on the map as the world's first virtual reality shopping experience. So let's just break let's just recap quickly they had a viral social campaign they had a smash the past where it's a shock value they built in FOMO and exclusivity and then they also leveraged emerging trends and technologies with virtual reality another marketing strategy they used and you've seen this a lot I've spoken about these types of programs a lot were brand ambassadors and partnerships so India is one of the countries that contributed to the majority of one plus sales the company collaborated with well known singers and actors in India to endorse their smartphones so this is influencer marketing 101 they also worked with famous ambassadors such as Robert Downey Jr. and brands like Hasselblad this further help boost sales for the company so if you can find an influencer that really has a connection with your target market it definitely helps and keep in mind I want to point out something so they used influencer marketing plus you know all the other things they just mentioned but they didn't just use one of these things they tried and tested and they used a multitude of different strategies to bring a product to market. So one thing that I'm not a huge fan of is when somebody says oh influencer marketing works or oh creating FOMO or exclusivity around a product works or oh let's do some sort of viral ad campaign or something along those lines all of those work in marketing a lot of stuff works it's about finding the right mix it's about trying different things and testing and then just doubling down on the things that have the best result and that's they did very well. Now beyond marketing something that they did well as a company not marketing related but still very important was to focus on user feedback they any company that is successful you'll notice a common thread again I feel like I'm just putting myself on on repeat with some of these past case studies but any company that's truly successful you'll notice that they have an obsession with customer feedback and they find a way to build customer feedback into their communication cadence with customers or into their product updates or into the product. I've spoken about some products that actually have customer feedback built into the software but OnePlus had an excellent track record of listening to customer feedback OnePlus was always looking for ways to improve their smartphones they regularly sent out updates that fixed various bugs on their smartphones and improve the overall experience based on direct feedback from their customers they did not wait for a major release if there was a problem they fixed it ASAP they were response they were proactive rather they were not reactive they want their devices to be known as a premium quality phone being on par with iPhones or Samsung but at a much lower price point and they achieved that by making sure that if there was anything that could potentially go wrong with their phones they were on it they also focused on the continuous upgrading of their phone features so not just fixing the problems or just being very engaged and building a feedback loop with their community they were always upgrading features so they had top of the line everything so they continue perfecting their products adding new features like fingerprint readers or USB C ports and later models in addition in 2016 OnePlus started producing phones designed specifically for virtual reality something that nobody else was doing building on top of existing technology found in the most high-end devices such as Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR headsets the latest model from OnePlus this was released in 2021 is called the Nord 2 and it has a unique feature called smart skin that automatically adjusts the phone settings to suit your current needs they also have pioneered next generation 5G in countries such as UK and Finland so they are trying to be the market leaders in new features they are not trying to copy what the next iPhone puts out into the market or the next Samsung device puts out into the market they are trying to lead the way and come up with features that other companies haven't even explored yet so in closing what can we learn from one plus is rise to fame incredible success such a short period of time well number one build a solid customer base it takes time and patience to build up your loyal customers who will help you stay afloat even if something goes wrong the company has been through multiple controversies over the past few years they could have brought them down however they could resolve these issues quickly because of that customer that loyal customer base and that feedback loop that they created to constantly communicate with customers and that's why they continue on an upward slope today that's why they continue on an upward trend and that is why they're still competing as one of the top premium smartphone brands second will be listen to your customers so of course to build a loyal customer base you have to listen to your customers these always have to be open about their development their product roadmap listen to feedback of those who have purchased the product one plus engages with its consumers through social media they're highly active it helps them build a strong community around the brand itself even before they launch other initiatives and again because there was some controversies and there was some problems with the phones having that loyal community plus having that feedback loop built into your company so you're always listening to your customers does nothing but help you rectify problems quickly and then of course that leads to long term success and of course loyalty and community that you need to have with with your customers if you want to if you want to succeed as a company in 2021 build relationships with influential people and companies so work together collaborate this is something that one plus did as well so they work together with a lot of partner companies they were also working with influencers on social media partnering up for events or marketing strategies sharing sales channels by joining forces as a startup you give yourself access to a bigger audience that will bring more value to your business so you don't have to go at it alone you can find lots of partners vendors through business development influencer channels there's a million and one types of partnerships that you can strike up as a brand as a startup so leverage those so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel and then the last lesson would be be unique but not too weird so the key here is balance so try and stand out from the crowd without going too far so one plus has successfully developed a unique brand but it is not seen as too much of an outlier by most of its customers it is easy to attract new customers because they have some unique features but it's also easy to retain those that have bought previous versions of their device because they don't look outwards and they don't see one plus as something that is too far from what the other options other smartphone options are so they're unique but they're not so unique that they're going to turn somebody off if they've only ever used an iPhone or a Samsung or any other smartphone device so it includes in one plus started from the bottom built its way up very quickly the company is now a top competitor in a very short period of time in comparison to the other players in smartphones in phones and they are selling premium smartphones around the globe one plus is a prime example of how brands should pay close attention to what their customers actually want and if they do that then they can massively expedite their growth by observing what the market needs and drawing ideas from the customers one plus became one of the companies to beat they have accomplished something spectacular in an extremely short period of time and it will be exciting to see how they compete with the behemoths of the smartphone industry in the next few years