Five Questions With: Ata Ghofrani

Ata Ghofrani, co-founder and CEO of Quitbit, talks with Providence Business News about his company, which he started while in graduate school at Brown University with Takuji Nakano.
Ata Ghofrani, co-founder and CEO of Quitbit, talks with Providence Business News about his company, which he started while in graduate school at Brown University with Takuji Nakano.

Ata Ghofrani, co-founder and CEO of Quitbit, talks with Providence Business News about his company, which he started while in graduate school at Brown University with Takuji Nakano. Quitbit is a lighter that tracks smoking and can wirelessly connect to the Quitbit app on a phone to provide feedback to help smokers make healthier decisions.

PBN: How did you get the idea for Quitbit?
GHOFRANI:
We got the idea behind Quitbit while Kuji (chief technology officer and co-founder) and I were smoking during graduate school at Brown University. At the time I was trying to cut down my smoking and Kuji asked me how many cigarettes I smoked a day. When I realized I didn’t really know, we started brainstorming ideas to make tracking smoking easier. That’s when it came to us that a lighter is the most seamless way for a smoker to track every cigarette.
PBN: How long has the company been around (how many employees)?
GHOFRANI:
We’ve been around since September of 2013 and we’re now a team of four.
PBN: Can you explain how the technology works?
GHOFRANI:
At the base level Quitbit tracks every cigarette smoked and keeps users motivated to quit by enabling them to learn more about their smoking patterns, similar to how a scale helps people lose weight. On top of simply the tracking aspect, users can set custom plans to taper their smoking down, visualize when they smoke most during the day and interact with a community for support, which has been shown to help people quit smoking through numerous clinical studies.
PBN: What is the success rate for people who use Quitbit?
GHOFRANI:
We just launched our first large order to customers so that’s still to be determined. However speaking from personal experience, Quitbit helped me stop smoking two years ago this January.
PBN: What sort of help did you receive from Betaspring, the startup accelerator?
GHOFRANI:
Besides capital, Betaspring was there from the very beginning and helped shape our initial go-to market strategies as well as gave us connections to our first investor, Delta Dental of Rhode Island! Oh, and they really helped us shape our pitches as well.

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