THE CATEGORY WITH NO KING
Bluetooth speakers have Sonos.
Digital cameras have GoPro.
Robot vacuums have Roomba.
But can you think of any company that has a strong brand presence in the projector space?
Unless you’re actively shopping for one, you probably can’t name a projector brand.
There are a few reasons for this — projectors grew out of education and enterprise, not lifestyle. They were mainly sold to schools, businesses, and churches.
The B2B nature of these transactions didn’t necessitate a strong brand that consumers could instantly recognize. But speakers, cameras, and vacuums largely started the same way, and when they seeped into the hands of consumers - strong brands emerged.
Yet despite years of consumer adoption, no brand has taken the top spot.
I met Paul Crandell, a man who believes those days are numbered.
Crandell is the founder of US-based projector brand Lumi, and he may be the right person to build the category’s first dominant brand.
TWO ICONIC BRANDS UNDER HIS BELT
Crandell is a brand-building specialist, but he started from humble beginnings. Early in his career he worked as a door-to-door salesman selling artwork to businesses to liven up their spaces.
Door-to-door sales isn’t what you think of as brand-building, but the foundations are there. He learned over time what motivates people to buy - and would parlay that skill into his future marketing roles.
Crandell’s breakout moment came in the late 90s when he joined Red Bull as one of its first North America employees.
Fun fact - Red Bull originated in Thailand. An Austrian entrepreneur discovered it on a business trip to help with his jet lag and reformulated it for Western markets.
Crandell served as Director of Sports Marketing and over the course of his 9 year tenure Red Bull established itself as the clear market leader in the energy drink space.
He then moved on to become CMO of GoPro. GoPro had momentum, but under Crandell it grew from $64M to $2B in revenue (31× growth).
Paul Crandell, former GoPro CMO and founder of Lumi
BACKING IDEAS WITHOUT A SPREADSHEET
In both cases, Crandell wasn’t employee #10,000 whose impact on the company would be a rounding error. He was an early contributor that changed the trajectory of these businesses.
As a marketer myself, I have a little more insight into these things than the average person, and I asked Crandell what he did differently to achieve the success he had.
His answer was music to my ears.
“I backed ideas that didn’t have a clear ROI”
This is a departure from probably 95%+ of marketers, so let me explain.
Marketing is acutely analytical. Every brand figures out how much sales comes out from putting $1 into various marketing channels.
If $1 spent on Facebook ads spits out $6 in sales, that’s a 6x ROI (return-on-investment).
But you don’t build a cult brand by running Facebook ads. You need to do cool shit like RedBull - sponsor a supersonic free-fall from space or organize a stunt where a pilot switches planes mid-air.
It doesn’t have to be to that extreme level, but the point is you can’t build a brand just by running cookie-cutter ads on Facebook.
This is an open secret, yet few act on it. It comes down to the simple fact that marketers are afraid.
CMOs are asked to justify every dollar: what drove sales, and where is the data?
The problem with marketing stunts, is that there is no direct ROI tied to them. The marketers at Red Bull can’t tell you how many additional cans they sold because of the crazy plane-switching stunt.
That CMO has to walk into the CEOs office and shrug his shoulders when asked what his ROI is. At senior levels, failing to prove impact can cost you your job.
Because of that, many won’t greenlight projects if they don’t have a clear way to measure ROI.
I can tell you from experience that this happens time and time again. Brands ask for bold ideas - then kill them out of fear.
To do really cool brand-building stunts, you need to have buy-in from the top. And because Crandell is the founder & CEO of Lumi, they have that built in from Day 1.
I got my hands on the Lumi Max to test it out, and I’m really impressed. Product review video here if you want to check it out.
THE UPSIDE OF OWNING THE PROJECTOR CATEGORY
Some investments require deep analysis. Others hinge on a simple observation - and if it’s right, the upside is enormous.
Crandell’s startup Lumi may fit that build. Most consumer categories have 1–2 dominant brands.
The projector space has 0.
And it’s not due to lack of size, the home/consumer projector market is expected to reach $10B globally by 2030.
If Lumi can take that position, what’s the value of that company?
$500M → niche success
$1–2B → category leader
$5B+ → mainstream adoption
Right now, Lumi is raising on Wefunder at a $16M valuation ($12M for early bird terms). If that thesis proves true - that Lumi becomes the category leader - the upside is significant.
Of course there is so much more that goes into it - understanding the competitive landscape, digging into their distribution network, exploring their product roadmap - the list goes on.
I won’t cover all of that here - but if there’s interest, I will!
By the way, Lumi is hosting a webinar on February 25th, hosted by Paul Crandell. Reserve your spot here if you’d like to listen in!
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