
Fitbit Raises $43 Million - williwu
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/fitbit-43m/
======
kyro
People are wondering why they'd need to raise so much at this point, so I'll
throw in my guess:

The consumer health wearables market is one that exploded recently, but is now
at a standstill. We have several companies (Jawbone, Nike, Fitbit) who have
been selling well-designed slightly-advanced pedometers for the last few
years, and others (eg Basis) that are scheduled to ship similar products very
soon. There's been little innovation in this space, but the market is still
enormous, and there's a ton of money to be made.

Now considering that the current products are more or less equal, the company
that will win in the end is the one that can 1) first get to market with a new
innovative product, 2) brand it effectively to appeal to a wider audience, and
3) develop an ecosystem around the product that leads to customer lock-in.

With these points in mind, it may make the $43 million funding round more
sensible. Although one could argue that Nike has the R&D resources to out-
innovate its competitors, giving them point 1, Fitbit has also been in this
game for a long time. Where FitBit is currently winning is their market and
ecosystem. They're marketing to a large segment of the population who just
wants to develop healthy and happy living, so they push features like calorie
logging and sleep tracking -- features that Nike's products lack. Nike's
Fuelband, on the other hand, is geared towards a smaller more athletic market.
As for ecosystem, Fibit also offers the Aria scale, which can keep track of an
entire family's weights, and a whole line of Fitbit trackers geared towards
various lifestyles. And for Jawbone, well, they may have the R&D strength to
innovate (I don't know), but they haven't been in this game long enough to get
a foothold on a segment of the market, or to develop any sort of ecosystem
around their product. At this point, there is no other company that's
marketing to a wider audience and that offers both the variety in product as
well as complementary offerings than Fitbit.

My guess is that investors see that Fitbit is best-positioned to win this race
and needed the cash injection to break the stalemate it's currently in with
its competitors.

~~~
auvrw
> the company that will win in the end is the one that can ... develop an
> ecosystem around the product that leads to customer lock-in.

but where should the lines of that ecosystem (for all kinds of custom consumer
hardware, from thermostats to pedometers to ...) be drawn? fitbit is
definitely making room at the lower end for apps
<[https://www.fitbit.com/apps>](https://www.fitbit.com/apps>), but it appears
<dev.fitbit.com> they want data to go directly from their hardware to their
servers before anyone else's code can touch it.

as a developer, of course, it would be nice to get as close to the hardware as
possible. i mean, there's no point in releasing the firmware for hardware like
this or that nest thermostat since you probably can't even reprogram the
things once they're off the line, but could it make (business) sense to have
3rd-party software talk directly to some of these smart appliances, wearable
devices, and the like?

there was an interesting comment on the post about amazon buying the
washington post, the gist of which was that business strategy is sometimes
more about betting on some particular future and preparing for it rather than
trying to build an entire future unilaterally. for amazon, the example was
ubiquitous tablets; for google ubiquitous internet .... both of which are
looking like pretty safe bets. but not everyone can buy into the table where
they're gambling on this whole "internet-thing" panning out or not, so let's
say you were going to wager on wearable fitness devices taking off. (final
flog of the metaphor) where would you place ㅛyour chips?

~~~
bluedino
>> it appears <dev.fitbit.com> they want data to go directly from their
hardware to their servers before anyone else's code can touch it.

The way Fitbit works is they push the data down to you whenever it's updated
by the device or user.

>> as a developer, of course, it would be nice to get as close to the hardware
as possible.

In our case it wasn't desired at all - all we want from the device is the
data, which we get from the site. Building wellness products where it's so
much easier to have the device automatically upload the phone app (bluetooth
transfer) or USB dongle on the users PC. Half your problem is getting people
to log into a site every day to record their activity.

Other vendors such as Pebble require the developer to hit an API for the data
and their site can be down for days at a time, without so much as a peep out
of them. You think as a company they'd want to treat developers better...

------
nhangen
How much have they raised so far? According Crunchbase, around 96 million.
[http://www.crunchbase.com/company/fitbit](http://www.crunchbase.com/company/fitbit)

This means they need to exit at a 'cool billion' or IPO in order to provide
the return their investors are seeking.

I think Fitbit is cool, but 1b for a product that has no demonstrable
uniqueness would scare the hell out of me as a founder.

I'd love to know why they went for so much.

~~~
andrewljohnson
You say they are not unique, yet cite no competitors. Do you know of any,
without googling for it even?

~~~
akl
Jawbone has a competing product, and even Samsung Galaxy S4's latest phone
includes some of the functionality (ie: a pedometer) people look to Fitbit
for.

My anecdotal experiences with GS4 vs my Fitbit One shows the Fitbit One to be
superior, but I'm more likely to forget my Fitbit than I am to forget my
phone.

~~~
rickyc091
iPhone has an app called Moves which is remarkably accurate
([http://www.moves-app.com/](http://www.moves-app.com/)). I'm getting fairly
similar results from my jawbone. I believe the discrepancy is due to the fact
that I don't have the phone on me when I'm at home.

~~~
mahyarm
Moves eats your battery quite a bit.

------
andrewljohnson
Gave my dad a fit bit. He now exercises much more.

That's why they are in business.

~~~
grinich
This is such a perfect comment. You completely sum up their business in 11
words.

In the future, I hope they partner with hospitals/medicare to provide fitbits
for free. There's immense savings in preventative medicine.

A lot of people don't see the potential for movement trackers beyond counting
steps. By looking at the data, you can identify when a person is beginning to
get sick or weak before they even feel symptoms.

One such startup working on the data problem:
[http://ginger.io/](http://ginger.io/)

~~~
eitally
I'm sure my company is not alone in offering a wellness program with
incentives that include reduced health insurance premiums for
increased/consistent physical activity and preventive care. How do they know
you performed physical activity -- they issue you a pedometer or allow you to
connect your Garmin/MapMyFitness/Fitbit/MyFitnessPal/etc account to the
program. It's brilliant, and the $0-75/mo employees can save on insurance is a
strong motivator, as is the $50/mo gym reimbursement (as long as you connect
your account to the wellness system and visit at least 4x/mo), and other
perks.

What I would really like to see is an open standard for data formatting,
similar to the IPC 2547 CAM-X series of standards for industrial equipment
output, so it'd be easy for 1) developers and 2) consumers to shop around
without worrying about losing their historical activity information. As you
mention, this is a serious consideration for everyone, and it's incredibly
annoying to feel locked in just because you can't get your data out (or even
better, out and then into the next system). A personal example: I really like
Runtastic and I have a couple hundred miles logged over the last few months.
However, it's a European company and not nearly as popular in the US as
Endomondo, Runkeeper, MapMyFitness and a few others. This means I'm missing
out on the social aspect, which itself is a motivator. I'd like to try out
some other apps, but I can't import my Runtastic data. Argh. (Runtastic is
really great, btw.)

~~~
ethanhunt_
> How do they know you performed physical activity -- they issue you a
> pedometer or allow you to connect your
> Garmin/MapMyFitness/Fitbit/MyFitnessPal/etc account to the program. It's
> brilliant, and the $0-75/mo employees can save on insurance is a strong
> motivator

I don't like it, and would not participate. Why should someone who is fit and
healthy have to carry a tracking chip to avoid a $75/mo fee? Aside from the
privacy concern, anyone with 5 minutes to devote to the problem can beat the
system.

------
jug6ernaut
Maybe my understanding of a "Startup" is wrong, can someone explain to me how
a company founded in 2007 is still considered a startup?

~~~
chcleaves
Agreed - I once worked for a startup that had been around for 9 years -
definitely defeats the purpose. I can't figure out how they raised that much
with all the other competitors in the market with much bigger brand awareness
- i.e. Nike's fuelband - yes the products differ but in theory do the same.

~~~
druiid
As another person commented, I know far more people with Fitbit's than any
other device. They kind of hit a lot of sweet-spots with their product. I do
however also know a couple people with the Nike product.

From there down I expect the competitors for those two split the remaining
market-share up into tiny bits.

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ckluis
I have a fitbit and enjoy it. I'd easily buy a second bracelet if it measured
pulse or blood pressure periodically throughout the day.

Quantified self FTW.

~~~
epoxyhockey
_if it measured pulse or blood pressure periodically_

I'm with you on this suggestion. Though, I would really get excited if a
device like this could somehow gather metrics from the blood stream without
needing direct access. Pie in the sky, I know.

If pedometers get people to exercise more, I wonder how a real-time
cholesterol monitor would change peoples' eating behavior?

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tehwalrus
I'd love a device like this, but until it understands that cycling is not
driving mode, it's pointless for me.

(I think I heard about someone tying it to his shoe when cycling; I'd be
interested to know if that kind of thing actually works.)

~~~
AlwaysBCoding
The fitbit one came with this velcro sleep wristband.
[http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/10/fitbit...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/10/fitbit-
ultra-wristband.jpg)

When I want to ride, I take my fitbit out and put it into the velcro band and
tie it around my ankle. It works surprisingly well, registering approximately
each pedal stroke as a step. I register around 8,000 steps for a 15-mile bike
ride. Since a 15 mile ride is a lot more exercise than 8,000 steps, I'll also
mark in the app that I went cycling, and that's that.

~~~
001sky
This is a helluva hackjob, tho...seems like a market opportunity...

~~~
tehwalrus
I agree, a good workaround, but there's an opportunity to get all the fitness
geeks who cycle in on the act!

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Raphmedia
Got myself a Fitbit this month.

Makes me take so much walks. All I want is to fill those 5 little stars to
have it rumble on my wrist as if I had a level.

...

Fitness too.

But levels, really. I'm grinding so much.

------
ececconi
I hope that they use this money to fuel the development of new innovative
products. I have a Fitbit One and want to see this company succeed. It seems
like Fitbit and Jawbone are going head to head trying to out dazzle and out
create each other.

------
beefxq
Bubble 2.0

~~~
pearjuice
Life is a bubble too. Who gives?

------
munaf
Hope they use this to invest in customer service. I've been infinite-looped on
their automated support line three times.

------
showwebgl
If you don't have your fitibit yet, get a 3D preview here!
[https://sketchfab.com/show/rtKMNxtTBPh5dA70gdt81nxipgx](https://sketchfab.com/show/rtKMNxtTBPh5dA70gdt81nxipgx)

