Price is just too expensive to justify for a new company product.
Should have did what oneplus did. Start cheap to build a brand. Then increase price over time.
They do that, they get stuck in the same hole OnePlus is in, where increasing price over time becomes a PR hit and having any compromises at all kills product sales.
Plus OnePlus was able to do that because they're literally just a subsidy of Oppo. They've just gone to great lengths to try to hide that fact. A startup on their own wouldn't be able to drive down manufacturing prices enough to have a low sticker price unless they're piggybacking off of a bigger supply chain like OnePlus is.