Our story
David and Tony met at a business conference in Las Vegas in 2014. After a few months of long distance communication (David lives on the East Coast, Tony lives in the West), they decided to team up and bring a product to market that would help Americans get and stay physically active.
Tony is in his late 30’s and over the years has struggled with his weight. He works from home and Taco Bell and soda were the mainstay of his diet. Facing “40 years old” made Tony want to try to get back into shape. On January 1st, 2015 Tony stepped on the kitchen scale and was shocked to find he weighed a bit more than 210 pounds. It became his new year’s resolution to somehow get back to a healthy weight for his age/height. He spent the next few months researching online about how to lose weight AND get healthy again. He didn’t have the time to go to the gym on a daily basis. He didn’t have the knowledge on how to eat super healthy nor did he have the money to invest in expensive exercise equipment. He decided to go back to basics: Eating sensible portions, cutting out the fast food and getting enough exercise on a daily basis. The food part was a no-brainer and at the end of the 1st month he had lost 5lbs by cutting out fast food and cooking his own meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The exercise part was going to be a bit more challenging.
A few more weeks of research gave him a bright idea: “All I need to do is expend more energy than I’m taking in and the weight will naturally fall off until I’m at the weight I should be.” The U.S. Department of Health recommends each American walk a bare minimum of 10,000 steps per day. In the evening time, Tony realized he had enough time to walk around the block. So with his $800 smart phone (with pedometer) in hand, he set off to figure out what 10,000 paces was. 20 minutes after leaving his house, he pulled out his smartphone, only to drop it on the ground….luckily it did not shatter, but it scared him enough to realize he probably needed a pedometer that was designed for this kind of thing.
A quick email to David realized that there was a need in America for a low cost pedometer that did as it was advertised. Hopping on Amazon.com, Tony bought a $10 pedometer that looked cheap enough where if it broke, it wouldn’t matter. It lasted about 1 week before it fell apart (literally). Putting their heads together, Tony and David decided to build a pedometer that was durable, didn’t require a NASA scientist to program and wouldn’t break after using it on a daily basis for months on end.
The PaceKeeper 3D Pedometer was born (on paper). It took them a few more months to find a manufacturer who could build the kind of pedometer they were looking for, with the functionality that they needed. Fast forward to December of 2015 and their creation is now for sale in their store on Amazon. They chose Amazon because it was the smart thing to do. They didn’t have to deal with shipping, processing credit cards and taking orders. Amazon does all of that for them. They could then spend their time focusing on customer service and improving upon an already great product.
Footnote: As of December 2015, Tony is down to a healthy 174 pounds and credits his weight loss to eating right and being more active on a daily basis. His goal for 2016 is to be able to run at least 5 miles a day without getting winded/tired.