A Wearables Startup Playbook 4/12/14 - Few sectors have received as much buzz as the wearables market. From fitness bands and anklet baby monitors, to smartwatches and Google Glass, wearables are fun, cool, and cutting-edge.... In 2013, investors poured $458 million into 49 wearable company deals...Companies like Thalmic Labs, InteraXon, Soundhawk, Misfit Wearables, Fitbit, Jawbone and Rest Devices have recently raised significant rounds....Offer an opportunity for customers to join cohorts of fellow users who are embarking on the same phase of a journey (total strangers can often be more comfortable to team up and share with when you’re in the same boat together). Match them up with veteran-user mentors and provide coaches to lead the way. Not only are these types of group and individual coaching services an opportunity for a subscription upsell, but they’re also a way for your customers to elevate their standing and involvement in the user community and stay engaged by working with others. Retrofit and GoQii are some interesting examples of startups in the wearables space harnessing some of these mechanics… Read The Story
Retrofit Is The Long-Awaited, Next Big Interactive Weight Loss App 3/27/14 - Jeff Hyman introduces the groundbreaking weight loss app known as Retrofit. The app is a new mobile technology that tracks individual's daily behavior, with assisted face-to-face support with live experts who provide tips, moral support, and accountability, separating it from any other weight loss app that may or may not have already failed you. … Read The Story
Retrofit Group Harnesses Power of Fitness Tracking, Video Conferencing to Help with Weight Loss 1/23/14 - Atkins, Paleo, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and various cleanses and diets are all well-known names because they provide what people want: Help losing weight. People want the support, the guidance and the limitations to regulate what they eat, how they work out and how they can make changes to their lifestyle to improve their health, weight and appearance. Wearable technology has jumped in on this market, with fitness trackers like FitBit, Nike FuelBand and Sony SmartBand helping users track their daily activity and performance levels. However, many people still fail to lose weight after numerous diets, programs and workout schedules. Enter Retrofit Group, a new product launched to help with weight loss through a combination of hardware, software and personalized coaching sessions. The program uses Fitbit and Withings scales, an online dashboard and dedicated coaches available through video conferencing as its recipe for success. It just released out of a six-month beta, now serving 100 companies including Google and Salesforce.com… Read The Story
How Retrofit is Using GoToTraining to Help Professionals Lose Weight 1/22/14 - Today, we have a guest post from Whitney Durbin, VP of Product Development at Retrofit. … I'm proud to work at Retrofit, the personalized weight-loss program where more than 90% of our clients are losing weight. But to win the war against the obesity epidemic - nearly 66% of the American population is overweight - we must take the fight to a larger front. A good place to start is the American workplace. There are studies that show how a basic, everyday activity like sitting can negatively impact your health. Yet a sedentary corporate culture dominates. And overweight employees aren’t just putting themselves at risk. Obesity results in lowered workplace productivity as well as higher healthcare costs. … But, there is hope. … Read The Story
Customized Weight Loss Startup Retrofit Nets $5M 12/20/13 - Chicago-based Retrofit raised $5 million in a round led by Cambia Health Solutions with additional funding from Draper Fisher Jurveston. This brings the company’s total funding to $15.7 million. Cambia Health Solutions invested in Retrofit because of the company’s personalized and tech-enabled model. Other companies in Cambia Health Solutions’ portfolio include aging-in-place startup Lively, population health company Rise Health and big data analytics company GNS Healthcare. … Read The Story
Gadgets, Gizmos, Services, and Apps That I Am Thankful For By Guy Kawasaki - 11/27/13 - Retrofit - I've tried many ways to lose weight. Retrofit is the only system that’s ever worked for me. There's something magical about having to report in to various counselors about what you've eaten and how much exercise you're getting. This is especially true because my Withings scale reports my weight to Retrofit directly. … Read The Story
Behold, The Latest Craze in Fitness Apps: Real Life Coaching 11/7/13 - Quantified self? That trend is so first-half-of-2013. The hot new thing for second-half-of-2013 is real life coaches. That's because once we got ahold of that trendy data about our quantified selves, we thought, "Ok, cool. The answer to "So what?'" for companies is a lot of things. … But for regular app-users, the idea of the "quantified self” has mostly been useful in theory. In practice, a bunch of data about the way we eat, sleep walk, and burn calories, even if its packaged in a beautiful charts and graphs, doesn't necessarily add up to a whole lot. Fitness apps are aware that they need to answer "so what?." … In August, Retrofit, a weight loss program with $8 million in funding from DFJ, launched a Weight Loss Advisor Program for private lessons. … The ability to connect with highly-trained experts online is changing the weight loss landscape,” said Retrofit CEO Jeff Hyman at the time. … Read The Story
Go High Tech for Better Fitness 9/7/13 - Fit Club member Andrea Metcalf shows off some technology that will help keep you motivated at the gym and help keep track of your calories, weight loss, and more. Metcalf demonstrates how Retrofit integrates activity trackers like the Fitbit One and wi-fi scales into its weight loss program to deliver remarkable results. … Read The Story
Best Fitness Tracking Apps and Websites 8/8/13 - Staying in shape is hard and that’s why our team at MedicalRecords.com has created a list of the best mobile apps and websites to track your fitness. Use these resources to keep track of your fitness, get motivated, or find workouts with our personal fitness tracking mobile apps … Read The Story
Five Chicago Health Tech Startups Worth Watching 7/16/13 - With major healthcare changes looming nationwide, startups around Chicago are working to help hospitals and normal people adjust. No surprise, then, that healthcare startups raised more money than any other segment in 2012. … Retrofit: This two-year-old company uses data collected from Fitbits and Withings scales to help people lose at least 10 percent of their body weight—and keep it off. Initially, Retrofit targeted individuals, but last summer CEO Jeff Hyman invited corporations to take the challenge as well. With 90 percent of their clients losing weight, plus 90 percent of clients returning year after year, it seems Retrofit is doing something right. … Why healthcare? “We can do well by doing good. I believe that education & healthcare are the two biggest challenges facing our nation long-term,” Hyman says. "When you solve the obesity epidemic, you largely solve the healthcare crisis." … Read The Story
A Wearables Startup Playbook 4/12/14 - Few sectors have received as much buzz as the wearables market. From fitness bands and anklet baby monitors, to smartwatches and Google Glass, wearables are fun, cool, and cutting-edge.... In 2013, investors poured $458 million into 49 wearable company deals...Companies like Thalmic Labs, InteraXon, Soundhawk, Misfit Wearables, Fitbit, Jawbone and Rest Devices have recently raised significant rounds....Offer an opportunity for customers to join cohorts of fellow users who are embarking on the same phase of a journey (total strangers can often be more comfortable to team up and share with when you’re in the same boat together). Match them up with veteran-user mentors and provide coaches to lead the way. Not only are these types of group and individual coaching services an opportunity for a subscription upsell, but they’re also a way for your customers to elevate their standing and involvement in the user community and stay engaged by working with others. Retrofit and GoQii are some interesting examples of startups in the wearables space harnessing some of these mechanics… Read The Story
Retrofit Is The Long-Awaited, Next Big Interactive Weight Loss App 3/27/14 - Jeff Hyman introduces the groundbreaking weight loss app known as Retrofit. The app is a new mobile technology that tracks individual's daily behavior, with assisted face-to-face support with live experts who provide tips, moral support, and accountability, separating it from any other weight loss app that may or may not have already failed you. … Read The Story
Retrofit Group Harnesses Power of Fitness Tracking, Video Conferencing to Help with Weight Loss 1/23/14 - Atkins, Paleo, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and various cleanses and diets are all well-known names because they provide what people want: Help losing weight. People want the support, the guidance and the limitations to regulate what they eat, how they work out and how they can make changes to their lifestyle to improve their health, weight and appearance. Wearable technology has jumped in on this market, with fitness trackers like FitBit, Nike FuelBand and Sony SmartBand helping users track their daily activity and performance levels. However, many people still fail to lose weight after numerous diets, programs and workout schedules. Enter Retrofit Group, a new product launched to help with weight loss through a combination of hardware, software and personalized coaching sessions. The program uses Fitbit and Withings scales, an online dashboard and dedicated coaches available through video conferencing as its recipe for success. It just released out of a six-month beta, now serving 100 companies including Google and Salesforce.com… Read The Story
How Retrofit is Using GoToTraining to Help Professionals Lose Weight 1/22/14 - Today, we have a guest post from Whitney Durbin, VP of Product Development at Retrofit. … I'm proud to work at Retrofit, the personalized weight-loss program where more than 90% of our clients are losing weight. But to win the war against the obesity epidemic - nearly 66% of the American population is overweight - we must take the fight to a larger front. A good place to start is the American workplace. There are studies that show how a basic, everyday activity like sitting can negatively impact your health. Yet a sedentary corporate culture dominates. And overweight employees aren’t just putting themselves at risk. Obesity results in lowered workplace productivity as well as higher healthcare costs. … But, there is hope. … Read The Story
Customized Weight Loss Startup Retrofit Nets $5M 12/20/13 - Chicago-based Retrofit raised $5 million in a round led by Cambia Health Solutions with additional funding from Draper Fisher Jurveston. This brings the company’s total funding to $15.7 million. Cambia Health Solutions invested in Retrofit because of the company’s personalized and tech-enabled model. Other companies in Cambia Health Solutions’ portfolio include aging-in-place startup Lively, population health company Rise Health and big data analytics company GNS Healthcare. … Read The Story
Gadgets, Gizmos, Services, and Apps That I Am Thankful For By Guy Kawasaki - 11/27/13 - Retrofit - I've tried many ways to lose weight. Retrofit is the only system that’s ever worked for me. There's something magical about having to report in to various counselors about what you've eaten and how much exercise you're getting. This is especially true because my Withings scale reports my weight to Retrofit directly. … Read The Story
Behold, The Latest Craze in Fitness Apps: Real Life Coaching 11/7/13 - Quantified self? That trend is so first-half-of-2013. The hot new thing for second-half-of-2013 is real life coaches. That's because once we got ahold of that trendy data about our quantified selves, we thought, "Ok, cool. The answer to "So what?'" for companies is a lot of things. … But for regular app-users, the idea of the "quantified self” has mostly been useful in theory. In practice, a bunch of data about the way we eat, sleep walk, and burn calories, even if its packaged in a beautiful charts and graphs, doesn't necessarily add up to a whole lot. Fitness apps are aware that they need to answer "so what?." … In August, Retrofit, a weight loss program with $8 million in funding from DFJ, launched a Weight Loss Advisor Program for private lessons. … The ability to connect with highly-trained experts online is changing the weight loss landscape,” said Retrofit CEO Jeff Hyman at the time. … Read The Story
Go High Tech for Better Fitness 9/7/13 - Fit Club member Andrea Metcalf shows off some technology that will help keep you motivated at the gym and help keep track of your calories, weight loss, and more. Metcalf demonstrates how Retrofit integrates activity trackers like the Fitbit One and wi-fi scales into its weight loss program to deliver remarkable results. … Read The Story
Best Fitness Tracking Apps and Websites 8/8/13 - Staying in shape is hard and that’s why our team at MedicalRecords.com has created a list of the best mobile apps and websites to track your fitness. Use these resources to keep track of your fitness, get motivated, or find workouts with our personal fitness tracking mobile apps … Read The Story
Five Chicago Health Tech Startups Worth Watching 7/16/13 - With major healthcare changes looming nationwide, startups around Chicago are working to help hospitals and normal people adjust. No surprise, then, that healthcare startups raised more money than any other segment in 2012. … Retrofit: This two-year-old company uses data collected from Fitbits and Withings scales to help people lose at least 10 percent of their body weight—and keep it off. Initially, Retrofit targeted individuals, but last summer CEO Jeff Hyman invited corporations to take the challenge as well. With 90 percent of their clients losing weight, plus 90 percent of clients returning year after year, it seems Retrofit is doing something right. … Why healthcare? “We can do well by doing good. I believe that education & healthcare are the two biggest challenges facing our nation long-term,” Hyman says. "When you solve the obesity epidemic, you largely solve the healthcare crisis." … Read The Story