Who Needs Kickstarter? Exercise Sensor Moov Raises $1 Million In 15 Days

When Meng Li and Nikola Hu stopped by the FORBES office to demonstrate their wearable sensors last month, Hu spent much of the interview punching the air and running in place. A laptop placed on the table graphed the speed and form of his punches, benchmarking his performance against that of a professional trainer who yelled out encouragement from the screen. (The training video was prerecorded.)

Panting, he then turned to running. He stomped the ground like a child with his heels as a Siri-like voice encouraged him to soften the landing of his feet and speed up his cadence. The robotic voice, he assured me, would sound more human in the final release. As Hu improved his form, the voice responded in kind. 'Good job,' it said, with robotic enthusiasm.

Li and Hu, along with their cofounder Tony Yuan, comprise the team behind Moov, a disc-shaped wearable sensor that attaches to the body via a wristwatch-like strap. While devices like the Jawbone Up and Fitbit track step counts and sleeping hours, Moov is more finely-tuned. The device can give qualitative feedback about the form of different exercises, including golf swings, yoga poses and weight training. Eventually, the founders hope to cover nearly every exercise imaginable.

They opened up their custom-built site for pre-orders on February 27th. Fifteen days later, they've sold nearly 20,000 units, or about $1 million worth of product. One Moov sensor, along with a charger, wristband and ankle band, sells for $69.95. It will retail for nearly double, at $120. (The company recently raised the pre-order price by $10.)

At first glance, the Moov seems like a shoo-in for a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter. But the team decided that a custom-built site better served their business. 'We have more control this way,' says Li. 'This is the first time customers interact with our brand and our product. We want to control that.'

This choice also gives them the ability to collect money immediately rather than wait for a Kickstarter campaign to close. Yuan flew to Shenzen to meet up with manufacturing partners the day Moov passed its initial goal of $40,000. The company can now move quickly to scale production as orders pour in. Pre-order customers will get their sensors in July according to the team.

Now overseeing a 10-person team based in Mountain View, Li, Hu and Yuan met at Microsoft Asia in Beijing. Li and Hu, who handle press for the company, still speak with heavy Chinese accents but the team's heritage gives them a distinct advantage in working with Chinese manufacturers. Yuan, who managed the manufacturing process for the Nokia Lumia 720, has deep relationships with electronics makers in the country. Li previously worked as an industrial designer in Beijing before diving into human-computer interaction at Microsoft. She heads design while Hu, who worked as an iOS engineer at Apple, takes care of the software.

During our interview, Li and Hu waxed about the sensor's potential for virtual personal training and ridding the world of easily preventable injuries caused by bad form. A software development kit for outside developers is due for release sometime this year.

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