GoPro Founder & CEO Pens Letter Promising That “More Innovative Cameras” Are on the Way

GoPro’s Nick Woodman’s Letter

Released on the company’s website, this five-paragraph letter from founder and CEO Nick Woodman reads as sincere, heartfelt, and meant to cut directly to concerns about the company’s future—and, in particular, its future of maintaining, developing, and releasing action cameras and gear.

It’s a lot to take in, as the news of the merger could easily paint a different picture, but it’s a solid step in the right direction… if that is indeed the direction the company will stay headed.

Here’s the full letter:

To our GoPro community, fans and customers,

We understand there’s some concern about GoPro’s post-merger commitment to continue developing market leading cameras for consumers and professionals. Making amazing cameras for all of you is our core DNA and reason for being and that will never change! We’re fired up about what’s ahead for GoPro and want to share a little more about what our proposed merger with Starman means for our future.

Thanks to the improved financial strength this merger will provide, we’ll be in a much better position to innovate, invent and advance the future of consumer and professional content creation. And importantly, Starman shares our passion for the GoPro brand, developing market leading products and our commitment to your collective stoke.

We’ve accumulated more than 2500 patents over the last 24 years which tells you we’ve been busy innovating, and this merger will ensure we’re able to innovate for many more years to come. We expect this merger will make GoPro a stronger, more capable camera company than ever before.

Our goal is to become a more diversified company which can make us stronger financially, enabling GoPro to become as awesome as we (and you) want us to be. We plan to bring you more innovative cameras, smarter accessories, and more powerful software and services designed to make capturing, editing and sharing your experiences easier and more exciting than ever. We see opportunities to improve the products you already love while developing new tools and experiences that help you create, connect and share in entirely new ways.

We have so much more to do, so much more to invent, and so much more we want to bring to the GoPro community. We appreciate all of you who have been on this journey with us and we’re excited about where we’re headed. We’re going to keep doing what we do best – making the world’s highest-performance cameras and building the products, services and innovations that help you capture life’s most exciting moments. It’s what we were founded to do and it’s what we will always do. Be a HERO…GoPro.

With respect and appreciation — Nick

GoPro Founder & CEO

What the Letter Says and Doesn’t Say

What’s most interesting about this letter, for those who work in film and video and have used GoPro cameras for various uses over the years whether those be small, one-off BTS needs, or as heavy-load, rough-and-tumble action cams for high-octane adventure content, is that it does seem to say that the company will keep on in the camera space.

Which is good news, or at least could be so, for anyone intrigued by the company’s recent foray into cinema cameras with the new MISSION 1 Pro lineup.

Still, words from a CEO are one thing, but they aren’t locked into law or anything. Things could change, CEOs could change, margins could change. The best indicators of GoPro’s future will be what we see from them in the next few weeks, months, and years.