FIRST LOOK AT THE NIKE+ FUEL LAB IN SAN FRANCISCO
- "Today, Nike opens its Nike+ Fuel Lab in San Francisco, a collaborative work and testing space in the city's SOMA neighborhood designed for selected partner companies to develop products that integrate the NikeFuel system for tracking and measuring activity."
- "The Fuel Lab grew out of last year's Nike+ Accelerator, in which 10 startups were given $20,000 and the opportunity to work in Portland for three months to develop apps and products connected to the Nike+ platform...The inaugural partners include running app RunKeeper, cycling and running tracking platform Strava, and weight loss app MyFitnessPal."
Takeaway From McGough:
Nike has only about 10% market share in the fitness tracker segment. Part of the problem is that fuel points, the key metric for the FuelBand, are meaningless outside of the Nike+ platform. In order to make the device more applicable to the general public, Nike is partnering with established fitness platforms in other core competencies to develop a broader based product. This should help Nike+ reach a wider audience and allow Nike to gain better consumer insight from the + data mine.
Editor's Note: This is a complimentary research excerpt from Hedgeye Retail Sector Head Brian McGough. Follow McGough on Twitter @HedgeyeRetail.
