Hardware Podcasts

Fitbit: James Park

How I Built This · 27 Apr 2020 · 1h 04m

What this episode covers

James Park, co-founder of Fitbit, explains how the Nintendo Wii’s motion-sensing technology inspired him and co-founder Eric Friedman to create a wearable fitness tracker. Park details the early struggles of prototyping with a balsa wood box and circuit boards, and the critical hardware failure where a display cable interfered with the antenna, which was temporarily fixed with toilet paper before being solved with rubber spacers. He discusses the company's rapid growth, the competitive threat from the Apple Watch, and the strategic pivot from hardware sales to a health and behavior-change service model, culminating in the acquisition by Google.

Most relevant to

founders before launch, early-stage companies, companies scaling up and large enterprises

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
CNet, Google, Nike, Jawbone
Products
Fitbit, Nintendo Wii, Apple Watch
Also
Eric Friedman

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