Fitbit

“34,642,772. That is how many steps James has tracked since he first put on that balsa wood Fitbit prototype, at least as of this recording. That's about 15,430 miles, or 24,832 kilometers.”

“And so we got off stage, and by the end of the day, we had about 2000 pre-orders.”

“I think By the summertime, we had about 25,000 pre-orders at a hundred dollars per unit.”

“I think the primary reason is You know, cause we had baked in this social element, this community element into it from the very beginning. It ended up being a very viral product. so one family member would get it and to really realize the potential, you know,…”

“If you looked at the Apple Watch that was announced at that time, I think everyone will admit, maybe even Apple, that it was a product that didn't quite know what it was supposed to be used for. So, with the launch of the first Apple Watch, I don't really thin…”

“Well, it was a category, but it wasn't something that we had realized. So we used this database from the government that was like thousands of different activities that people would do. And so it was an option. We just didn't think people would log in.”

“That, that was the prototype, and actually that was what we had demoed when we first announced the company. That was the prototype that was actually being used at the announcement.”

“As a private company, Despite challenges, your valuation doesn't change very often. It only changes when you raise money, which could happen once a year, once every two years. So if you hit a bump in the road, your employees don't really feel it. We had a prod…”

“I remember, you know, we had a spreadsheet of target VCs. I think there are 40 names that we put on that list. And literally we went to number 40 before we were able to raise money.”

“I think we were trying to shoot for a gross margin of about 50%. So we're targeting You know, the full cost of the product, including shipping, et cetera, being no more than 50 dollars. So that's what we're targeting.”

“In a period, in a very short period of time, our tracker business fell by eight hundred million dollars in, in revenue. And, you know, at the time, at our peak, we were doing about 2.1 billion. In revenue. So, we had an eight hundred million dollar hold.”

“One of the things, though, is that they weren't something that people would want to use or to wear. They were very big. They were pretty ugly. They look like medical devices.”

“The wearables industry, just to say it, is a market that's been plagued by engagement, which is to say someone buys a Fitbit, and then three weeks or three months later, it's in a drawer.”

“I didn't think that steps answered anything about the strain recovery equation that we talked about before, which is to say that How much, you know, stress you're actually putting on your body is a different question than how much you've moved your arm.”