Titin was founded by Patrick Whaley, who had the idea of starting a weighted compression gear business that would enable him to sell specialized clothing for athletes looking to take their training to the next level.
Whaley grew up as a skinny kid and vowed to wear a weighted backpack wherever he went to stimulate muscle growth.
This turned out to be a serious business venture where he strategized and devised to make his compression clothing perfect so that others may simply wear a weighted piece of clothing while undergoing resistance training.
Since weighted clothes seemed like a better option than wearing a weighted backpack all day, he began creating prototypes by the time he reached high school.
Eventually, he created weighted shirts weighing 8 pounds, which is not too heavy but enough of a challenge for most people to push themselves pretty hard.
Patrick successfully raised over 100,000 USD from a Kickstarter campaign and 1 million USD in Fundable, allowing him to kick-start his business idea and approach many professional athletes for approval.
Titin offers various weighted shirts and shorts that can be worn for resistance training to build muscle and endurance.
The weights are spread uniformly across the gear, protecting any one joint from bearing the brunt of the stress from the weight.
You can easily heat and cool gels that can be inserted into the clothes, making them something unique that most people haven’t heard of before.
Since the fitness world is constantly on the lookout for workout gear, there is a big market for Titin if it manages to capture the attention of interested parties.
The workout gear is basically catered to amateur and professional athletes, as well as regular gym-goers, military officers, and more.
After going through a mugging that almost took his life in 2009, Patrick realized that he had sped up his recovery by wearing his weighted clothing daily.
This served as motivation for him to take things up a notch with his business and execute his plans to make his products available to the wider fitness community.
He entered Shark Tank seeking 500,000 USD for a 5% stake in his company.
He began presenting his products to the sharks, who seemed eager to know what Patrick had to offer.
After demonstrating the uniform distribution of his weighted clothing, he let Robert try his shirt, which he told him had previously generated more than a million USD, leaving the sharks impressed.
Titin mainly uses Internet retailers to sell its products and earned over 600,000 USD the year before appearing on Shark Tank.
The company also receives a lot of funding from venture capitalists who are on board with Patrick’s vision.
Mark doesn’t seem to buy into Patrick’s workout gear and decides to back out of the deal.
Robert doesn’t see it catching on either and doesn’t make an offer.
Lori backs out too.
Mr. Wonderful offers 500,000 USD for a 15% stake in the company.
Daymond has trust issues and doesn’t think Patrick will utilize the money effectively, but eventually offers 500,000 USD for a 20% stake in the company.
Eventually, Patrick accepted Daymond’s offer and received the agreed-upon sum to launch his business for the masses.
Our Review of Titin
Titin negotiated a deal at Shark Tank and eventually received half a million USD for 20% equity from Daymond, bringing the company’s net worth up to 2.5 million USD.
However, despite making a great deal at Shark Tank, the company began to decline in the coming months after the episode’s air date.
Patrick’s pitch didn’t convince the sharks that Titin would manage to make significant sales in the long run, apart from Daymond John, who was on board with the mission.
Mark Cuban commented on Patrick’s idea being horrible, which drove many potential investors away from his products since Cuban’s sales results and experience speak for themselves.
Daymond was willing to look past some business errors but had hopes that the investment would lead to better inventory management, which would fix any recurring inventory problems.
Initially, many high-profile consumers began using Titin products, which seemed to be quite popular after the episode’s air date.
Patrick and Daymond made some moves to make the gear more affordable to the general public and began mass-producing the clothing.
However, the cheapest Titin products cost 250 USD, which is a lot for your regular gym enthusiast to cough up.
The company expanded its product line to include gear for young athletes with sensory issues.
Patrick was later sued for suspicions of fraud but won the case.
However, a few years after the company’s appearance on Shark Tank, the website stopped working, and the social media accounts stopped posting content, which meant it was over for the business.
Why did the business operations cease suddenly?
It was later found that Whaley had stolen technology to make his brand and became involved in scandalous charges that led to his demise.
Pros of Titin
Titin was a promising idea that could have changed many people’s lives if it had worked and was based on sound technology.
Some professional athletes had received some benefits from trying on the workout gear, which was clearly effective and affordable for certain people.
Let’s look at some of the pros of Titin as a company that sells compression products to consumers of the fitness industry.
- Titin products offer athletes a chance to take their resistance training to the next level by wearing weighted gear that allows them to push harder beyond their gym-based workout sessions.
- Weighted compression clothing helps fitness enthusiasts build more strength, muscle, and endurance while improving the body’s ability to recover quicker from grueling workouts.
- The clothing products are designed to take people’s mindsets to the next level since it is quite a hardcore approach that the vast majority of people will not even consider.
- The company’s mission seemed to be well oriented to give the fitness community what they want, and professional athletes were quick to get on board and try the products, which says a lot about the company’s values being based on proper training principles.
- Titin products are made from sound technology, and the gels inserted into the weighted compression clothing can be easily removed, cooled, and heated to utilize them properly.
Cons of Titin
Like all companies, there are certain cons that come with the products or services they sell, which don’t necessarily make it bad but can deter a few groups of people.
Let’s explore some of the cons of Titin the company and its products.
- The cheapest option for compression clothing was 250 USD, which is a lot for the vast majority of people to even consider.
- People can simply opt for weighted backpacks since they cost absolutely nothing, and you can utilize books if you don’t have access to weights.
- The company was involved in fraud, which was the major reason for its downfall, and Whaley turned out to have stolen someone else’s patented technology.
- Titin was created only for profits, which is evident by the price of the products and Whaley’s scandalous charges.
Who is Titin For?
Titin products are catered to the wider fitness community and anyone who is serious about taking their fitness training to the next level.
Although many professional athletes were the target market for Titin products, compression clothing also appeals to people with a hardcore mindset to improve the physical aspects of their lives.
The products appeal to both men and women and offer a chance for people to push themselves beyond their limits by utilizing compression clothing to maximize the benefits of strength and resistance training.
Amateur and professional athletes from all sports professions will benefit from using these products in their training programs, which is why there was much hype around the product’s official big launch.
Are There Any Alternatives?
There are many compression clothing options available in the market, but few of them are weighted, making Titin quite unique.
However, if you’re not willing to spend so much money on buying weighted clothing you might not need, you can easily just wear a weighted backpack on long walks or hikes to push yourself beyond your limits.
Our Final Thoughts
Titin could have been really successful if not for the fraudulent charges faced by Patrick Whaley, which was very disappointing news for a lot of people, including Daymond, who invested a great deal of money and trust in the business.
The products were quite popular due to their efficiency in providing athletes with the results they wanted, which was why there was a lot of potential for growth and expansion.
However, some stories are not meant to be remembered, such as Patrick Whaley’s Titin, which eventually burned to the ground due to the owner’s greed and deceitfulness.
Although we cannot say for sure how intentional the fraud was, the court decision speaks for itself, and the company will soon be forgotten by anyone who invested in its mission and showed interest in buying the products for themselves.
