OnePlus Model

A New Approach of Business

In case you don’t know, OnePlus is a Chinese startup company that created an enormous amount of noise in the smartphone industry. They created a smartphone is looks good, feels good at a very, very affordable price, the deal is good enough to make people beg to buy one.

Pete Lau, CEO of OnePlus, is a former OPPO employee. OPPO is a renowned company that created several premium phones in recent years which directly competes with big players in the market such as Samsung, HTC, Sony, etc. Last year (late 2013), Pete quit the company and created a new company called OnePlus, which focuses not only on providing a premium smartphone hardware but also at a low price with extremely customizable software.

The OnePlus One is definitely a dream come true for many tech enthusiast like me. The closest best phone with great hardware and customizable software that we could get before are nexus phones and phones from other Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, another great company which I loved so much, however there are always compromises coming with those products. We all hope that the OnePlus One really comes with no compromise.

Though there are many negative messages and ideas spreading around the Internet regarding how the company handles the overwhelming demand of the phone, they still try their best to explain all the reasons behind their business model, such as their “Smash The Past” marketing campaign, the invitation system, etc. They really listen closely to what their (potential) customers say, then they fine tune their model along with the new opinions and ideas provided by the customers on their forum. They also provide transparency and keep updating the public regarding what the company is doing exactly to meet the market demand.

The public should understand supply chain is a very complicated process and is highly unpredictable, especially for a startup, like OnePlus, with no bargaining power, no capital and no backup. Some might think OPPO is backing them up, however let’s leave that in another argument and assume OnePlus is a real startup on their own.

What I really appreciate is the company’s vision and mission, most businesses have an primary and ultimate goal of maximizing profit. This company does not put making maximum profit as their top priority at the very beginning, instead after reviews from current users, the company really tried their best to provide the best smartphone hardware and software experience to their users. That’s the reason why I’ll get my hands on the One once it’s available to the public.

Many companies claim their goal is to improves people’s lives, blah blah blah. However, it’s always obvious most of them are trying to earn the most from the customers by different strategies, such as selling phones with different compromises even the cost won’t be affected much at all. Customers nowadays are intelligent enough to identify whether companies are providing the best to them, and I think OnePlus is the very first company that really tries to do so, at least at this very moment.

If you are waiting for a new smartphone but don’t know what to get, research more about the OnePlus One, most likely you won’t regret.