How to Win in a Crowded Tech Market: WITHit's Global Strategy

When Phil Grandinetti sold books door to door during the summers in college, he had no idea that he'd eventually help lead a global company known for its Apple Watch bands.

Created with Grandinetti's college roommate David Nelson and Bill Devaney (not his roommate), WITHit is a company you've probably never heard of. But you've likely seen their products in Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macy's, and online.

The company formed in 2004 making booklights sold in Borders and Barnes and Noble. The Las Vegas-based WITHit designs tech accessories for wearable tech, too, for Apple, Samsung, Garmin, and Fitbit wearables.

This is a pretty crowded space, as you might imagine, with tons of competition. WITHit, though, has built their company by focusing on quality gear for far less than the brand name stuff.

Part of the success has been the ability to be in the right place at the right time (they were already in the Fitbit band business when Apple Watch launched), but also in having more than 36 patents across the US and International locations for development and production of its products.

Back to the book lights. When Grandinetti met with Target buyers early on to sell them booklights, he realized that his then-company was selling poorly-designed items. When the head broke off in the Target buyer's hands, Grandinetti knew he had to create a better one.

"We hired a graphic designer and an engineer to put together the best book light you can make in the market," he told LIfewire during a video call. "We spent $25,000 and got utility and design patents on it. All this in just part time venture."

The team ended up selling 7 million book and e-reader lights via wholesale over the next nine years. This is how the team that became WITHit got into the consumer product space.

Once they found success with that previous wholesale company, they parlayed their expertise into their own company: WITHit. Early on, success wasn't guaranteed, but the co-founders persisted, meeting with companies like Target to get their booklights (and eventually phone cases and watch bands) into valuable shelf space at the retailer.

"Bill and I had a meeting at Barnes Noble, and we went to New York City," said Grandinetti. "We both stayed together in a hotel called The Pod, which is a low-end hotel with bunk beds. It was the cheapest hotel we could find. We had no budget or marketing dollars or anything like that. The bathrooms and the showers were in the hallway. We were trying to just save money any way we could and try to get some traction."

The team impressed Barnes and Noble enough to carry their products. The bookseller is a big customer for WITHit today, as well, carrying various licensed booklights, e-reader covers, and more.

Eventually, Grandinetti and his team connected with French Bull designer Jackie Shapiro to make phone cases, a perhaps even more crowded market space. It was the fun, vibrant patterns of French Bull that ended up getting products into AT&T, Target, and Best Buy, he said.

It was also likely that Grandinetti's years of experience in the sales world, working with the big retailers, helped. Those relationships got him in the door. The products—quality gear at affordable prices—did the rest of the work.

They started making FitBit watchbands when that device was first released and added bands for Apple Watch when that wearable came on the scene, Grandinetti said.

"We first started selling [bands for] the Fitbit Flex at the end of 2014," he said. It was co-partner Bill Devaney who saw the first Fitbit and realized that the reviews of Fitbit's watchbands were awful.

"They were cracking, they were fading in sunlight, the way they hooked was a peg that you pushed in; there wasn't a normal watch buckle," he said.

WITHit decided to make its own watchband of better material (cooking-grade silicone) that worked like a typical watch band and included fun patterns, like the ones from French Bull. The Fitbit bands also fit either size of the wearable, a one-size-fits-all approach. Target sold them, giving retailers more space to sell more gear since they didn't have to stock two sizes (one per each Fitbit size).

"For buyers, that space is golden," he said. "It's about [wall] peg productivity. If you can take two pegs and get the same productivity as one peg, the buyers get interested real fast."

Now, WITHit has smartwatch accessories for all the top brands like Apple, Samsung, Fitbit, and Garmin. They still sell reading lights and magnifiers, too, along with Apple-focused accessories like cases for your AirPods and AirTags, lanyards, and more.

Their watch bands aren't the cheap stuff you'll find at the bottom of the barrel, either, but they don't cost as much as bands and accessories from places like Apple. The Tactical Nylon Strap for Apple Watch that I'm wearing, for example, is similar in look and feel to Apple's Sport Loop band, which costs $50. WITHit's runs a more affordable $30 and feels of similar quality.

Quality accessories for less is WITHit's strategy, and it appears to be working. The team, said Grandinetti, is poised to expand into Asia, the Pacific, and Europe soon, and they continue to add more licensed products to their line-up, like Wrangler and Lee Jeans.

WITHit has quite a few design and utility patents for tech wearables, Grandinetti said.

"We're making a very quality product with a good fit and finish to it at a really great price point," he told us. "And we will continue to do that [while we] elevate the brand."

Update 7/26/24: Removed revenue figures from paragraph 4 and Key Features on request.