You have to have been an avid follower of the mobile scene several years ago to remember a company called Essential. This company was co-founded by Andy Rubin, a former Google man and one of the co-founders of Android Inc. (which was eventually bought by Google and became the Android we all know and love).
With that kind of pedigree, it’s no surprise that there was a lot of hype around this new smartphone company. Spoiler alert: the company’s first phone didn’t do well and the company fell apart. In an attempt to salvage things, several former employees formed OSOM Products. However, it looks like OSOM really isn’t doing awesome right now.
OSOM Managed To Make A Smartphone, But It Seems Internal Company Issues Might Mark Its End
OSOM, which stands for “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”, is a company that was founded in 2020 by former Essential employees. Jason Keats, the former Head of R&D and “Chief Hooligan” of Essential, founded OSOM and brought along several Essential employees to enjoy the ride (pun intended, as you’ll soon see). OSOM has been able to release one phone, the Saga, in partnership with Solana, but that might be the last one.
Mary Stone Ross, the company’s former Chief Privacy Officer, has filed a lawsuit against the company, and the reasons why are particularly interesting. According to her, Keats has been behind a lot of financial mismanagement of the company’s funds, and the lawsuit is her attempt to bring that to light. However, the allegations are pretty notable.
For one, it is said that Keats used the company’s money to buy two Lamborghinis, to fund his racing hobby, and to pay a salary to his racing partner — get the pun now? — as well as for other expenses such as paying his mortgage or buying first-class plane tickets. It is assumed that the former Head of Finance at OSOM might have resigned as a result of this.
It’d be one thing if this was just an internal mess, but it seems that the company might actually be teetering on the edge of financial ruin as a result of this. This could potentially be the end for OSOM.
Essential Tried To Be Different When Different Wasn’t Needed
Since you can’t talk about OSOM without mentioning Essential, I think it’d be nice if I went over what made Essential so different and the seeming reasons for the company’s failure.
The Essential PH-1 was the company’s flagship device — and only device. It was launched in 2017, with a $699 price tag. However, that was problematic considering Samsung’s Galaxy S8 started at $750 and the Essential certainly didn’t seem to offer enough for consumers to take a bet on it at that price. The device’s availability woes didn’t help either.
A big part of its value proposition was its modular design but the company only released one compatible accessory throughout its lifetime — a 360 camera. Ultimately, the company tried to be too different at too high a price point to be able to survive. OnePlus and Nothing were able to make it because they simply offered a lot of value without trying to reinvent the wheel and I think budding manufacturers need to take note.
