6 ms·

Consistent Fitness – Get Six Pack Abs in 16 Weeks

31 points by stopachka 5y ago

stopachka 5y ago
Hey HN! This is Joe (nezaj) and Stopa (stopachka). Both of us are Clojure hackers [1]. For the last few years, we’ve been on a journey to “get six pack abs”. To do this, we hired a personal trainer, created a mini-community within our friend group, and built custom tools for ourselves, to create a sort of “Datadog for our fitness”. 3 months ago, we had a realization: what if we tried to create a company that did this? A combo of a nutrition coach, personal trainer, community, and custom tools that helps you get in the best shape of your life. We weren’t experts, so we started off by launching a free cohort, and signing up 20 people. So far, folks have lost an average of 5LBs over the last 2 months. Over 43% said they’d be very disappointed if Consistent stopped to exist. It started off with an Excel spreadsheet and a Slack group. But very soon, it turned into (a) a Slack bot, (b) a mobile app, and (c) a curriculum, that progressively sets you up with the habits to reach and maintain the best shape of your life. Solutions in the space are fragmented, have poor technology, and rarely deliver. With Consistent, you get a bundled set of curriculum and tools to help you learn what you don’t know you don’t know, and make progress. The program is 4 months, and costs 799 (200 dollars each month). This is equivalent to 2 sessions with a personal trainer a month. To keep us aligned, we’re also offering a 100% money-back guarantee. If at any point you choose to leave the program (even 1 day before close), you can get your money back. There’s one catch though. We require you weigh yourself everyday, log your food everyday, and log your exercise everyday. In addition you need to send a reflection once a week as well as a shirtless progress photo. if you start missing days we’ll send you an automated follow-up. Miss those follow-ups and we’ll manually intervene. If you continue to be non-compliant, we’ll dismiss you from the program and donate your payment to the charity of our choice. This way, we only get paid if you succeed, and the money can work for you as an accountability factor. This is early stages. We want to sign up 20-25 people for the Cohort, which starts in October. If you’re interested, please let us know! [1] The story: https://consistent.fit/posts/founder-diaries/ https://consistent.fit/posts/founder-diaries/
- torstenvl 5y ago
  A majority of your current users wouldn't be disappointed if you ceased to exist? $200/month?! "Non-compliant"?!?! "Manually intervene"?!?!?! That's a hard no for me, dawg.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    Yeah jeez. 200/m for an app and a slack bot? Unless these curricula are awfully extraordinary, this is a ridiculous price.
    - nezaj 5y ago
      We use the 200/m for two reasons 1) It's a strong commitment device. At this price point we hope people really will take this seriously and be committed. 2) Stopa and I are also providing personal coaching, we'll be giving you individual attention. In the future we may remove the personal coaching aspect, and in that case we will bring down the price.
    - typon 5y ago
      I see this as a feature though. If I pay $2 for an app that helps me track fitness, I'm much more likely to lose interest. This is the same reasoning that Orange Theory uses...and seems like they're pretty successful.
    - HalcyonicStorm 5y ago
      That price point is what I pay my coach. She inputs my plan on Final Surge. I'm getting lifting, running, and biking plans. I can schedule a call, email, whatever to get her feedback. She knows me on a personal level including who I am, my history, who my training partners are, what races I want to participate in, etc. I'm not willing to pay the same price for that because I know that the service will only get more generic as there are more clients. I'm sure its great for people who want to work from home and dont know where to start and dont have a support structure.
- awb 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing! This market of virtual trainers is a huge opportunity and I hope you can make a splash in it. If it's helpful, here's some critical feedback: > For the last few years, we’ve been on a journey to “get six pack abs”. This sounds like it's taken you years to get a 6-pack which isn't too inspiring. Plus, most fitness sites showcase the before/after photos. But on your site there aren't any photos that this program actually works. > we started off by launching a free cohort, and signing up 20 people. Over 43% said they’d be very disappointed if Consistent stopped to exist. Yeah, I'd be disappointed if I was getting something for free too and it stopped being free. The bigger question is how much they'd pay to keep going with the program. Is it $200/mo? > So far, folks have lost an average of 5LBs over the last 2 months That's not a really meaningful stat without knowing their starting bodyweight and fitness. And anyone can lose weight by eating in a caloric deficit, but are they getting the 6-pack abs you're advertising? If you want to be a 6-pack abs (or muscle-building) company, I'd focus on that as your primary stat rather than weight loss. > Solutions in the space are fragmented, have poor technology, and rarely deliver I can think of a few direct competitors with good tech and good reputations: * https://mycopilot.com/ https://mycopilot.com/ ($69/mo) * https://www.future.co/ https://www.future.co/ ($149/mo) I'm not affiliated with either company, but I have used CoPilot and really enjoyed it. At $200/mo what are you offering that those companies don't? > If at any point you choose to leave the program (even 1 day before close), you can get your money back. Sounds risky to me. Why wouldn't I quit with 1 day left and get my $799 back? What value is the app to me after the last day? > We require you weigh yourself everyday, log your food everyday, and log your exercise everyday. Logging food is hard and can feel exhausting to many people. I realize that getting your caloric intake right is a huge component of fitness, but there's a huge audience that wants to get fit without it taking over their life. You're targeting an audience that is willing to make a 4-month commitment to tracking their entire food intake every day. That sounds necessary for those interested in elite athlete / model fitness, but not so necessary for the majority of athletic-inclined folks that want to get back into shape. Is your more intensely focused audience big enough? > In addition you need to send a reflection once a week as well as a shirtless progress photo. Might want to wordsmith or rethink this. "Send me a shirtless photo once a week" sounds a little creepy. There are other ways to track fitness progress like benchmarking an exercise like pushups, pullups, L-sits, etc. > If you continue to be non-compliant Might want to wordsmith this too. "Non-compliant" makes it sound like you're building a dystopian fitness app. Instead of a stick, maybe think of a carrot that you can give users that are consistent with their progress? Like a leaderboard, achievements, discounts on future products / services, etc. Good luck!
nezaj 5y ago
Joe (co-founder) here! Happy to answer any questions y'all may have :)
yodon 5y ago
FYI they are charging $799 to be in this beta
wicked_gazelle 5y ago
Cool idea :) It would be nice to see before and after results on your website so I know the program "works" before I spend $800.
- nezaj 5y ago
  Totally hear you! We're finishing up our first cohort Sep 19th and will follow-up with our current members and verify who is comfortable with their photos being shared. Will update with photos in a few weeks!
soheil 5y ago
Has anyone been able to find a free site that works in achieving the same goal?
- ranuzz 5y ago
  fitnessblender works really well. It has a paid program as well which I had used in the past for a while. Free content works really well if you are consistent :D
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    I second the recommendation.
- Dig1t 5y ago
  reddit's r/fitness community is honestly the best place IMO. There are tons of guides, plans, and advice for achieving any fitness related goal you can imagine.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Lots of websites tell you abs are made in the kitchen and show you how to do core excercises.
- awb 5y ago
  Here's the formula: 1. Eat at caloric maintenance or a slight caloric surplus to build muscle 2. Do a consistent ab workout routine 3-5x per week (free on YouTube), progressively overloading your body with more resistance through longer workouts, heavier weights or more demanding positions 3. When you want 6-pack abs, cut your caloric intake to be at a slight deficit for a few weeks and try to shred as much excess body fat as possible to let your ab muscles show Easier said than done though.
  - progre 5y ago
    Also, no alcohol, no soda. At all.
refulgentis 5y ago
Get rid of the "get six pack abs in X weeks" line - visible abs come from reducing body fat, you'd have to get me to lose 4 pounds a week to get to that point, and losing 2 lbs / week is a reasonable maximum for high effort.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sschnei8 5y ago
Wow, paying $800 to put yourself in a calorie deficit...
croes 5y ago
Is a six pack really the "Best Shape of Your Life"? MMA fighter and strongman are in pretty good shape without a six pack.
- nezaj 5y ago
  Six-pack definitely doesn't mean best shape of your life. But the habits we build throughout the program will certainly help you get in the best shape of your life. We're still pretty early and we go for the six-pack angle because 1) We wanted a six-pack ourselves so in the spirit of solving our own problems we started Consistent 2) Getting a six-pack is a pretty concrete outcome, especially when looking at before and after photos. That being said, we're also open to folks who want a body transformation!
- throwawake 5y ago
  In my opinion, six packs are not that important. Having strong muscles along with agility and control over body is what really matters.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Six pack abs are a pretty poor metric, but they’re a good motivator.
yupper32 5y ago
Most of getting a six-pack is losing weight. What value-add do you provide that counting my calories myself on a free app doesn't do? MyFitnessPal is free.
- nezaj 5y ago
  Agreed that a calorie deficit + regular exercise + good sleep + managing stress is the recipe for a six-pack -- and indeed you can do it yourself! In a similar vein, the resources to learn how to code are freely available online. Instead of going to a bootcamp, one could learn on their own (and indeed there are bootcamps that put up their whole curriculum online for free, and it's exactly the same as their paid in-person version). In practice though, it's not so easy. It takes a lot of willpower and discipline to stick with both a weight loss program and learning how to code. Being put in a structured environment, with other people working towards the same goal, and getting personalized coaching when stuck can make the difference for those who have tried in the past to do it on their own. That's what we provide!
Protostome 5y ago
Adding to earlier commenters, you may want to consider rephrasing the one liner. You are probably 20 somethings, but I am close to 40. There's no way in hell I can get six pack abs in 16 weeks. Besides, I'm not so sure that getting six pack is really a function of workouts and nutrition alone, it's also a matter of genetics.

31 points by stopachka 5y ago

Hey HN! This is Joe (nezaj) and Stopa (stopachka). Both of us are Clojure hackers [1]. For the last few years, we’ve been on a journey to “get six pack abs”. To do this, we hired a personal trainer, created a mini-community within our friend group, and built custom tools for ourselves, to create a sort of “Datadog for our fitness”. 3 months ago, we had a realization: what if we tried to create a company that did this? A combo of a nutrition coach, personal trainer, community, and custom tools that helps you get in the best shape of your life. We weren’t experts, so we started off by launching a free cohort, and signing up 20 people. So far, folks have lost an average of 5LBs over the last 2 months. Over 43% said they’d be very disappointed if Consistent stopped to exist. It started off with an Excel spreadsheet and a Slack group. But very soon, it turned into (a) a Slack bot, (b) a mobile app, and (c) a curriculum, that progressively sets you up with the habits to reach and maintain the best shape of your life. Solutions in the space are fragmented, have poor technology, and rarely deliver. With Consistent, you get a bundled set of curriculum and tools to help you learn what you don’t know you don’t know, and make progress. The program is 4 months, and costs 799 (200 dollars each month). This is equivalent to 2 sessions with a personal trainer a month. To keep us aligned, we’re also offering a 100% money-back guarantee. If at any point you choose to leave the program (even 1 day before close), you can get your money back. There’s one catch though. We require you weigh yourself everyday, log your food everyday, and log your exercise everyday. In addition you need to send a reflection once a week as well as a shirtless progress photo. if you start missing days we’ll send you an automated follow-up. Miss those follow-ups and we’ll manually intervene. If you continue to be non-compliant, we’ll dismiss you from the program and donate your payment to the charity of our choice. This way, we only get paid if you succeed, and the money can work for you as an accountability factor. This is early stages. We want to sign up 20-25 people for the Cohort, which starts in October. If you’re interested, please let us know! [1] The story: https://consistent.fit/posts/founder-diaries/ https://consistent.fit/posts/founder-diaries/

torstenvl 5y ago
A majority of your current users wouldn't be disappointed if you ceased to exist? $200/month?! "Non-compliant"?!?! "Manually intervene"?!?!?! That's a hard no for me, dawg.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  Yeah jeez. 200/m for an app and a slack bot? Unless these curricula are awfully extraordinary, this is a ridiculous price.
  - nezaj 5y ago
    We use the 200/m for two reasons 1) It's a strong commitment device. At this price point we hope people really will take this seriously and be committed. 2) Stopa and I are also providing personal coaching, we'll be giving you individual attention. In the future we may remove the personal coaching aspect, and in that case we will bring down the price.
  - typon 5y ago
    I see this as a feature though. If I pay $2 for an app that helps me track fitness, I'm much more likely to lose interest. This is the same reasoning that Orange Theory uses...and seems like they're pretty successful.
  - HalcyonicStorm 5y ago
    That price point is what I pay my coach. She inputs my plan on Final Surge. I'm getting lifting, running, and biking plans. I can schedule a call, email, whatever to get her feedback. She knows me on a personal level including who I am, my history, who my training partners are, what races I want to participate in, etc. I'm not willing to pay the same price for that because I know that the service will only get more generic as there are more clients. I'm sure its great for people who want to work from home and dont know where to start and dont have a support structure.
awb 5y ago
Thanks for sharing! This market of virtual trainers is a huge opportunity and I hope you can make a splash in it. If it's helpful, here's some critical feedback: > For the last few years, we’ve been on a journey to “get six pack abs”. This sounds like it's taken you years to get a 6-pack which isn't too inspiring. Plus, most fitness sites showcase the before/after photos. But on your site there aren't any photos that this program actually works. > we started off by launching a free cohort, and signing up 20 people. Over 43% said they’d be very disappointed if Consistent stopped to exist. Yeah, I'd be disappointed if I was getting something for free too and it stopped being free. The bigger question is how much they'd pay to keep going with the program. Is it $200/mo? > So far, folks have lost an average of 5LBs over the last 2 months That's not a really meaningful stat without knowing their starting bodyweight and fitness. And anyone can lose weight by eating in a caloric deficit, but are they getting the 6-pack abs you're advertising? If you want to be a 6-pack abs (or muscle-building) company, I'd focus on that as your primary stat rather than weight loss. > Solutions in the space are fragmented, have poor technology, and rarely deliver I can think of a few direct competitors with good tech and good reputations: * https://mycopilot.com/ https://mycopilot.com/ ($69/mo) * https://www.future.co/ https://www.future.co/ ($149/mo) I'm not affiliated with either company, but I have used CoPilot and really enjoyed it. At $200/mo what are you offering that those companies don't? > If at any point you choose to leave the program (even 1 day before close), you can get your money back. Sounds risky to me. Why wouldn't I quit with 1 day left and get my $799 back? What value is the app to me after the last day? > We require you weigh yourself everyday, log your food everyday, and log your exercise everyday. Logging food is hard and can feel exhausting to many people. I realize that getting your caloric intake right is a huge component of fitness, but there's a huge audience that wants to get fit without it taking over their life. You're targeting an audience that is willing to make a 4-month commitment to tracking their entire food intake every day. That sounds necessary for those interested in elite athlete / model fitness, but not so necessary for the majority of athletic-inclined folks that want to get back into shape. Is your more intensely focused audience big enough? > In addition you need to send a reflection once a week as well as a shirtless progress photo. Might want to wordsmith or rethink this. "Send me a shirtless photo once a week" sounds a little creepy. There are other ways to track fitness progress like benchmarking an exercise like pushups, pullups, L-sits, etc. > If you continue to be non-compliant Might want to wordsmith this too. "Non-compliant" makes it sound like you're building a dystopian fitness app. Instead of a stick, maybe think of a carrot that you can give users that are consistent with their progress? Like a leaderboard, achievements, discounts on future products / services, etc. Good luck!

nezaj 5y ago

Joe (co-founder) here! Happy to answer any questions y'all may have :)

yodon 5y ago

FYI they are charging $799 to be in this beta

wicked_gazelle 5y ago

Cool idea :) It would be nice to see before and after results on your website so I know the program "works" before I spend $800.

nezaj 5y ago
Totally hear you! We're finishing up our first cohort Sep 19th and will follow-up with our current members and verify who is comfortable with their photos being shared. Will update with photos in a few weeks!

soheil 5y ago

Has anyone been able to find a free site that works in achieving the same goal?

ranuzz 5y ago
fitnessblender works really well. It has a paid program as well which I had used in the past for a while. Free content works really well if you are consistent :D
- scrollaway 5y ago
  I second the recommendation.
Dig1t 5y ago
reddit's r/fitness community is honestly the best place IMO. There are tons of guides, plans, and advice for achieving any fitness related goal you can imagine.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
Lots of websites tell you abs are made in the kitchen and show you how to do core excercises.
awb 5y ago
Here's the formula: 1. Eat at caloric maintenance or a slight caloric surplus to build muscle 2. Do a consistent ab workout routine 3-5x per week (free on YouTube), progressively overloading your body with more resistance through longer workouts, heavier weights or more demanding positions 3. When you want 6-pack abs, cut your caloric intake to be at a slight deficit for a few weeks and try to shred as much excess body fat as possible to let your ab muscles show Easier said than done though.
- progre 5y ago
  Also, no alcohol, no soda. At all.

refulgentis 5y ago

Get rid of the "get six pack abs in X weeks" line - visible abs come from reducing body fat, you'd have to get me to lose 4 pounds a week to get to that point, and losing 2 lbs / week is a reasonable maximum for high effort.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sschnei8 5y ago

Wow, paying $800 to put yourself in a calorie deficit...

croes 5y ago

Is a six pack really the "Best Shape of Your Life"? MMA fighter and strongman are in pretty good shape without a six pack.

nezaj 5y ago
Six-pack definitely doesn't mean best shape of your life. But the habits we build throughout the program will certainly help you get in the best shape of your life. We're still pretty early and we go for the six-pack angle because 1) We wanted a six-pack ourselves so in the spirit of solving our own problems we started Consistent 2) Getting a six-pack is a pretty concrete outcome, especially when looking at before and after photos. That being said, we're also open to folks who want a body transformation!
throwawake 5y ago
In my opinion, six packs are not that important. Having strong muscles along with agility and control over body is what really matters.
ashtonkem 5y ago
Six pack abs are a pretty poor metric, but they’re a good motivator.

yupper32 5y ago

Most of getting a six-pack is losing weight. What value-add do you provide that counting my calories myself on a free app doesn't do? MyFitnessPal is free.

nezaj 5y ago
Agreed that a calorie deficit + regular exercise + good sleep + managing stress is the recipe for a six-pack -- and indeed you can do it yourself! In a similar vein, the resources to learn how to code are freely available online. Instead of going to a bootcamp, one could learn on their own (and indeed there are bootcamps that put up their whole curriculum online for free, and it's exactly the same as their paid in-person version). In practice though, it's not so easy. It takes a lot of willpower and discipline to stick with both a weight loss program and learning how to code. Being put in a structured environment, with other people working towards the same goal, and getting personalized coaching when stuck can make the difference for those who have tried in the past to do it on their own. That's what we provide!

Protostome 5y ago

Adding to earlier commenters, you may want to consider rephrasing the one liner. You are probably 20 somethings, but I am close to 40. There's no way in hell I can get six pack abs in 16 weeks. Besides, I'm not so sure that getting six pack is really a function of workouts and nutrition alone, it's also a matter of genetics.