SAINTGITS INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

Project Phase I

Management of Creativity

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Ms. Sumina Susan Kochitty Joanne Mary George
Assistant Professor Batch A (2019-2021)
Saintgits Institute of Management

Date of Submission: 14th May 2021

Elaborate on the development of the idea behind any innovated product in
recent history.

Fitbit Inc.
Fitbit, Inc. is an American consumer electronics and fitness company headquartered
in San Francisco, California. Its production range includes activity
trackers, smartwatches, wireless-enabled wearable technology devices that measure data such as
the number of steps walked, heart rate, quality of sleep, steps climbed, and other personal metrics
involved in fitness. Before October 2007, the company was previously named Healthy Metrics
Research, Inc. While these devices appear to increase physical activities, there is little evidence
that they improve health outcomes. In 2019, Google announced its intention to buy Fitbit for
$2.1 billion. The transaction was completed in January 2021 following regulatory approvals in
the United States and Europe.
According to an IDC report published on March 10, 2020, Fitbit is considered the fifth
largest wearable company in shipments as of 2019 with a 14.8% over year
growth, behind Xiaomi and Apple. Fitbit reports to have sold more than 100 million devices and
have 28 million users.

History
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Fitbit was founded on March 26, 2007
by James Park (CEO) and Eric Friedman (CTO). On May 7, 2015, Fitbit announced it had filed
for IPO with a NYSE listing. The IPO was filed for $358 million. The company's stock began
trading with the symbol "FIT" on June 18, 2015. After Fitbit's stocks fell more than 50% in 2016,
CEO James Park announced in October that the company was undergoing a major
transformation from what he called a "consumer electronics company" to a "digital healthcare
company." In February 2018, Fitbit announced that it would be partnering with Adidas to
release an Adidas-branded Fitbit Ionic. The special edition Ionic was released on March 19,
2018.
In August 2018, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association announced a partnership with Fitbit
in which BCBS will include Fitbit's wearables and fitness trackers in its Blue365 program. Fitbit
was founded in early 2007 by James Park and Eric Friedman, who saw the potential for using
sensors in small, wearable devices. They raised $400,000 but soon realized that that wasn't
enough, so they did the rounds of potential investors with little more than a circuit board in a
wooden box.
But the idea was good, and when Fitbit addressed the TechCrunch 50 conference on 9
September 2008, Park and Friedman hoped to get 50 pre-orders, although Eric suspected the
actual number would be nearer five. In fact, in one day, they took 2,000 pre-orders.

Getting orders was the easy bit. Neither Park nor Friedman had any manufacturing
experience. As Park recalled in an interview with Jeff Clavier at the Computer History Museum.
The first tracker was pretty good, but in 2011 Fitbit improved it by adding an altimeter, a digital
clock and a stopwatch. That was the Ultra.

The following year, the Fitbit One and the Fitbit Zip were the first wireless fitness
trackers to use Bluetooth 4.0 / Bluetooth Smart, with the former tracking steps, distance, floors
climbed, calories burned and sleep patterns while the more minimalist Zip tracked steps, distance
and calories. Both devices synced to both iOS and Android phones as well as the Fitbit website.

The following year, Fitbit moved to the wrist with the Fitbit Flex and Fitbit Force, but it
wasn't entirely successful: some Force customers reported that the band was irritating their skin,
an issue that was most likely due to allergic reactions to nickel, and the product was recalled in
early 2014.

Products
In 2014, Fitbit began offering activity trackers, along with a website and a mobile
app for iOS, Android and Windows 10 Mobile This allows the trackers to sync to devices such as
mobile phones via Bluetooth, or to a Bluetooth-equipped computer running Windows or MacOS.
Users have the ability to log their food, activities, and weight, to track over time and set daily
and weekly goals for themselves for steps, calories burned and consumed, and distance walked.
The app also offers a community page where users can challenge themselves and compete
against other users. The social element anticipates an increase in motivation, and finds that users
take an average of 700 more steps per day when they have friends on the app. Users can also
choose to share their progress pictures and achievement badges. The first product released was
the Fitbit Tracker, which was released in 2014. In 2017, the company released its Fitbit
Ionic smartwatch,  and in 2018, it released a redesigned, lower-priced version of the smartwatch
called the Versa.

The Fitbit Charge 3, a wristband health and fitness tracker introduced in October 2018,
was the first device to feature an oxygen saturation (SPO2) sensor; however, as of January 2019,
it was non-functional and Fitbit did not provide an implementation timeline. The Fitbit Charge 3
comes with two different-sized bands: small and large. The small is around between 5.5–7.1
inches (14–18 cm) and the large is 7.1–8.7 inches (18–22 cm). Additionally, the screen is larger
than the Charge 2 by approximately 40%. Fitbit Charge 3 comes in two color combos: a Rose-
Gold case with a Blue Grey band and a “Graphite Aluminum” screen case with a Black band. On
December 17, 2018, Fitbit released the Fitbit OS 3.0, which included an extended dashboard,
quick logging for weight and water intake, and goal-based exercise mode. The new extended on-
device dashboard (Fitbit Today) would include more data regarding sleep, water intake and
weight. There are three versions of the Fitbit Versa, standard, Special, and Lite.

In December, 2018, Fitbit added an API and open-source tools to allow developers to
better build apps for its smartwatch products. On January 2, 2019, the company announced the
release of the Fitbit Charge 3 in India.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company
announced Fitbit Flow, a ventilator on June 3, 2020, in response to the shortages of ventilators in
medical centers and hospitals around the world which are needed to treat critically ill patients.
Production will start in June 2020 with a list price of US $5,000, which is much cheaper than
traditional ventilators. Despite getting emergency approval from the Food and Drug
Administration, the company does not consider Fitbit Flow as a drop-in replacement for
traditional ventilators. Instead, the product is meant as an alternative when more the expensive
option of traditional ventilators is not available.

Therefore, the company intends for Fitbit Flow to be used only during the current health
crisis. Fitbit also announced its 2020 Fall Lineup of smartwatches, which include the Versa 3, the
Inspire 2, and the all-new Fitbit Sense, which includes new health metrics and analysis such as
stress sensing, oxygen saturation, and skin temperature. The Sense also promises to show
changes in skin temperature to catch signs of sickness. Certain Sense, Versa, Ionic, and Charge
products support Fitbit Pay, which is a digital wallet that uses near field communication to make
payments at point of sale.

Acquisitions

On March 5, 2015, Fitbit announced that it had acquired fitness coaching app developer
Fitstar for $17.8 million. On March 12, 2016, Fitbit acquired smart credit card company Coin,
which included key personnel and intellectual property, but excluded any of Coin's hardware
products, which stopped being produced around the time of the acquisition. Fitbit shut down the
Coin Rewards and Coin Developer Program during the acquisition. Coin said that existing Coin
cards will continue to work until the battery runs out and that existing Coin cards will remain
under their one-year manufacturer's warranty. On December 6, 2016, Fitbit acquired assets
from Pebble, including key personnel, as the company decided to stop producing wearable
technology. The acquisition excludes Pebble's hardware products. On January 10, 2017, Fitbit
acquired Romania-based smartwatch startup Vector Watch SRL. Vector said that there will be no
new products with the Vector name, but that existing Vector watches will continue to work. On
February 13, 2018, Fitbit acquired US-based software startup Twine Health for an undisclosed
amount. A Fitbit spokesperson said that “nearly all” of Twine Health's employees would start
working at Fitbit. Google announced its intent to acquire Fitbit on November 1, 2019. The deal
valued Fitbit at $2.1 billion. The sale closed on January 14, 2021.

On January 6, 2020, Fitbit shareholders overwhelmingly approved of Google's

acquisition. The European Union's European Commission announced on August 4th, 2020, that
it was launching an investigation into Google's announced acquisition of Fitbit, under the EU
Merger Regulation. The commission expressed concern that this acquisition would further
entrench Google's position as the market dominant in the online advertising markets with the
augmentation of personal health and fitness data.  On December 17, 2020 the commission
announced it had approved the acquisition. The approval is conditional on full compliance with a
commitments package offered by Google. The acquisition was completed by January 14, 2021.