Having a TV is something that we can’t imagine living without, but not so long ago, TVs cost an arm and leg, so many couldn’t really afford to buy one.

The TV market was desperate for a change - that’s when William Wang shone as bright as Sirius A on a mission to help anyone afford a TV at home.

Moved by the life he used to live in Hawaii, learning all about the usefulness of TV sets, William started his own TV company. Together with Laynie Newsome and Ken Lowe, he created Vizio, a company that soon turned into the change people were waiting for.

But who is William Wang, and what’s the key ingredient for his success? Keep on reading and get all the deets.

Starting from Scratch

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, William Wang wanted to become a successful architect and live a decent life, but destiny had a better plan for him. His family moved to Hawaii, United States when he was 12, to move again two years later to sunny California.

William was only 14 when he started thinking about his future and tracing his life path. Knowing that engineering was a more profitable industry than architecture, he attended the State University of Southern California, and in 1986, he earned himself a degree in Electrical Engineering.

William didn’t waste his time, and he started a business from scratch, metaphorically speaking. The architecture bug was still inside of him, so he started building houses in Newport Beach.

Opening Doors

Soon, William got a job in the computer industry, which motivated him to establish his own company. He is thankful to his parents for moving to the U.S. because that opened doors for his career and the possibility of founding a company.

Inspired by Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the impressive American lifestyle, William jumped into the world of entrepreneurship.

At 26, William started a company and then a few more, but unfortunately, he didn’t have the skills and knowledge to manage his startups effectively. Three years later, William became a millionaire, but soon he started losing his fortune because of a lack of experience in entrepreneurship.

Life changed in 2000, and he had liquidated all of his companies.

From Zero to Hero

The same year, 2000, William survived the plane crash of the Singapore Airlines Flight 006, and the only thing he suffered was poisoning with carbon monoxide.

This tragedy that took 80 lives allowed William to restructure his thoughts as well as his entire life. He had closed down all of his companies within two years, before stepping into the extensive television market, ruled by giants like Sony and Samsung.

In 2001, the prominent Gateway Inc. proposed to William to team up and help the company put together a solid TV plan. Gateway's chairperson, Ted Waitt, was a former customer of William at MAG, one of William’s former companies, and it wasn’t long before Ted turned into William’s mentor.

William’s team assisted Gateway put together a 42-inch plasma TV system, priced at $2999. TVs like that usually cost close to $6000. Soon after, William made his debut in the TV manufacturing business, but this time with his own company.

The Vizio story started in 2002 as V Inc. with Ken Lowe and Laynie Newsome on the board, geared up with $600,000. William’s idea was to ensure high quality at low prices for all customers, offering incomparable customer support, which will make his tactic lucrative through exceptionally lean operations.

Soon after, William realized that V Inc. was difficult to pronounce and renamed the firm to VIZIO Inc. It was the name the company chose for its plasma TVs.

The moment Vizio TVs hit the store shelves, people flooded the premises to get cheap television sets. The concept of Vizio for offering a crystal-clear flat screen for a price as low as $499 threw a shadow on its rivals. Thanks to Vizio, TV prices began tumbling down and went at the same price as a typical computer monitor.

Today, Vizio is one of the heftiest vendors of LCD HDTVs in the area of North America, making a multibillion-dollar revenue.

You Are Watching Vizio, and Vizio Is Watching You

However, not everything was as clear as Vizio’s TV screens. In 2015, Vizio was related to a scandal because ProPublica revealed that Vizio was hunting down info about what customers were watching on their TVs and distributing that data with advertisers.

The New Jersey General Attorney's office and the Federal Trade Commission opened investigations about the claims. Even though Vizio didn’t fold and spent $2.2 million to settle down charges, it later paid $17 million for a class action court case settlement.

William says that Vizio has never collected data secretly and that the company utilized a typical opt-in strategy similar to gathering online info related to user preference. William also added that the Federal Trade Commission sought after creating a higher standard for privacy for TVs and that Vizio worked hard to provide the simplest, easiest to understand consumer info sharing opt-in anywhere.

Vizio Getting Strategic

Vizio is a successful company that generates massive revenue from advertising and free content, attaining a share of subscription sales to the most common services, including Netflix, when customers register on their SmartCast TVs.

Market and revenue analyst at Parks Associates research company, Paul Erickson, pointed out that Vizio’s biggest plus in trying to attract advertisers is that it’s a prevalent brand that is dominant on the market and present in most of the homes in the USA.

In the ruthless TV-manufacturing industry, Samsung, the giant, controls the game, but Vizio is constantly among the top-three sellers.

Growth Is in the Streaming

Vizio made its first attempt to go public back in 2015. At that time, Vizio amassed bigger profits due to the higher prices they offered for the TVs.

In 2016, the firm pulled its IPO after China’s LeEco made an offer to purchase it for $2 billion. However, the contract fell apart in 2017 because of regulatory complexities. The following year, Vizio offered its stakes to promising Taiwanese business partners, Innolux and Foxconn. A quick scan of Vizio’s financials makes it obvious why the firm’s future depends on streaming. Device income rose by 8% in 2020 and reached $1.9 billion, but it remains lower than the total revenue in 2010. In the meantime, Vizio’s flowing business, or also known as Platform+, experienced rapid growth of 134%, or $85.9 million.

Although Vizio’s platform business grew by just 7%, it generated a whopping 38% of Vizio’s profit, enabling the firm to multiply its net revenue for the year.

2021 is a significant year for VIZIO as it finally succeeded in making its public debut after its second attempt at an IPO. Vizio had a not-so-impressive debut the moment it started trading in March 2021 with its stock opening about 17% below its IPO price, which was $21. Since March, Vizio’s stock price has risen, reaching an outstanding $28.23 at the beginning of May. Still, share prices have dropped down since then, and at the beginning of December, the price was $19.74, and today it is $18.91.

Vizio: an American Success Story

Today, Vizio is headquartered in Irvine, California with Willian as its founder and CEO.

Vizio has become a highly motivational American success story. The company that started with just 3 employees, turned into a household name with over 400 employees.

Fending competitors like Sonos, Hisense, Toshiba, and Sony have made Vizio a sought-after TV brand for every American home.

Life in the USA for William Wang was a starting point for what he has done in his life so far. He understood the power of TV the moment he was exposed to the American culture.

The part that no one could talk to him in Hawaii due to the language barrier, pushed William to listen to the TV set. He learned English from some of the TV shows, such as The Six Million Dollar Man and Charlie's Angels, which is probably why young William became drawn to making TVs affordable for every home.

Maybe next time you watch your favorite show on Netflix it would be on a Vizio smart TV.