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Would love to hear from the FitFu founders what went "wrong... - what was different from their expectations - what were the challenges - and why they weren't

Would love to hear from the FitFu founders what went "wrong... - what was different from their expectations - what were the challenges - and why they weren't able to overcome the challenges they faced

JofArnold 14y ago
That's a long one! Ok, I'll try my best. Expectations --- Our previous "GymFu" apps were moderately successful and we surveyed hundreds of our existing users to spec FitFu. Good customer development, right? Well, maybe. But what we should have looked at was route-to-market and better validated the UVP. The big problem was that we thought there was an opportunity creating a fitness app for more casual users. There probably is, but a couple of problems quickly emerge: 1) To make serious money, you have to have epic margins (e.g. WiiFit) which you can use for customer acquisition. 2) People in the casual space are less responsive to the idea of subscriptions. Our theory was that the casual users would assist in spreading the app virally to attract the serious ones. In retrospect this was really dumb. We really really should have figured out the route-to-market thing earlier.
JofArnold 14y ago
Challenges --- I can't be transparent about all of these, but I'd say they were split into a few sections: personal challenges; user acquisition; crappy market/model choice; code/complexity. On the personal challenges front, both Benjie and I were pounded by one major unfortunate event after another (deaths, illness and so forth) right from the start of YC through to this year. It's hard not to get drained by that, especially when you need to grind hard on a startup. From a user acquisition perspective, as I've mentioned elsewhere we didn't really allow ourselves enough margin to do this well. We tried everything from ads (we managed to hustle a free ad placement with millions of page views) to buying users on TapJoy (as it used to be) to social/viral to GameCenter to App Store SEO. Nothing worked well enough to be long-term sustainable and profitable. You could argue we had poor product-market fit, but that's hard to say. Market choice. P90X, WiiFit, exercise DVDs - those become $1b markets. CrossFit is a $1b company. Fitness apps... not so much. We should have chosen a market that was easier to reach and monetize but that's not where our passion was at the time. Code. Man was this app complex. Absolute nightmare to test and maintain. You know what works better than this app? The NHS "Couch to 5k" podcasts. Low tech with good marketing utterly trounces fancy high tech stuff.
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  > P90X, WiiFit, exercise DVDs - those become $1b markets. Massive margin on buy-once items + insane marketing budgets = $$$. Even Billy Blanks Jr is having a hard time with his DVDs (http://www.meettheblanks.com/ http://www.meettheblanks.com/, watch the Shark Tank episode if you haven't already). Fitness is fickle. > CrossFit is a $1b company. Gyms make so much money because they hard sell you to commit, then you sign a contract you can't get out of.
  - JofArnold 14y ago
    This ^. Your reply is way more succinct than mine - thanks.
  - JofArnold 14y ago
    I'll add that the gyms one is slightly subtle. It's not just about the contracts locking you in (those are becoming less common) but it's that in the eyes of many gym-goers the membership buys them an opportunity to get fit. They perceive value in holding a membership. They are also afraid to let it go because they would have to face facts about their commitment.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - dkarl 14y ago
    I know this is ridiculously off-topic, but Crossfit doesn't work at all like that. To the best of my knowledge, Crossfit doesn't even sell contracts to people who haven't graduated from the six week intro class, which is a serious reality check for people who prefer to keep exercise in the realm of fantasy. Thus, they weed out the best potential absentee customers before they can even buy a contract. My instructor emails me when I skip class and then gives me shit about it (in a good-natured way, of course) when I show up for the next one. Gyms love people who don't show up. They only care who pays and who doesn't. At Crossfit, they get grouchy if you pay and don't show up. They literally complain about free money! It's unfair to lump them in with the big box gyms whose business model depends on people not getting what they paid for. It's true that my current facility requires a one-year contract to get the very best rates, which was a shock since my previous Crossfit facility only had one-month and three-month contracts, but that's nothing compared to big box gyms selling five-year memberships, offering guaranteed low monthly fees for a big one-time "lifetime membership" fee, and making it ridiculously hard to cancel recurring payments. Also, there's zero sales pressure on contracts. I've never spoken to anyone affiliated with Crossfit except the instructors, and I've never spoken to them about money except when signing up at a new facility. A better summary for how Crossfit makes their money would be charging high prices and being the dominant brand in a market they created.
JofArnold 14y ago
Why not overcome... --- This is a short one; why flog a dead horse when you could be chasing much large opportunities? We started FitFu expecting - based on numbers we wanted to believe - that it could be a $1b opportunity. But that was very naive and I'm convinced now that there's few if any fitness apps that can achieve that. I hope to be prove wrong of course as I know a lot of hard working startups and friends in this space and I want them to do well. Ultimately, I'm not interested in a small exit or a lifestyle business. Even the money doesn't motivate me. I'll settle for nothing less than a home run :)
JofArnold 14y ago
CONCLUSION --- Always do a Lean Canvas!

JofArnold 14y ago

That's a long one! Ok, I'll try my best. Expectations --- Our previous "GymFu" apps were moderately successful and we surveyed hundreds of our existing users to spec FitFu. Good customer development, right? Well, maybe. But what we should have looked at was route-to-market and better validated the UVP. The big problem was that we thought there was an opportunity creating a fitness app for more casual users. There probably is, but a couple of problems quickly emerge: 1) To make serious money, you have to have epic margins (e.g. WiiFit) which you can use for customer acquisition. 2) People in the casual space are less responsive to the idea of subscriptions. Our theory was that the casual users would assist in spreading the app virally to attract the serious ones. In retrospect this was really dumb. We really really should have figured out the route-to-market thing earlier.

JofArnold 14y ago

Challenges --- I can't be transparent about all of these, but I'd say they were split into a few sections: personal challenges; user acquisition; crappy market/model choice; code/complexity. On the personal challenges front, both Benjie and I were pounded by one major unfortunate event after another (deaths, illness and so forth) right from the start of YC through to this year. It's hard not to get drained by that, especially when you need to grind hard on a startup. From a user acquisition perspective, as I've mentioned elsewhere we didn't really allow ourselves enough margin to do this well. We tried everything from ads (we managed to hustle a free ad placement with millions of page views) to buying users on TapJoy (as it used to be) to social/viral to GameCenter to App Store SEO. Nothing worked well enough to be long-term sustainable and profitable. You could argue we had poor product-market fit, but that's hard to say. Market choice. P90X, WiiFit, exercise DVDs - those become $1b markets. CrossFit is a $1b company. Fitness apps... not so much. We should have chosen a market that was easier to reach and monetize but that's not where our passion was at the time. Code. Man was this app complex. Absolute nightmare to test and maintain. You know what works better than this app? The NHS "Couch to 5k" podcasts. Low tech with good marketing utterly trounces fancy high tech stuff.

Domenic_S 14y ago
> P90X, WiiFit, exercise DVDs - those become $1b markets. Massive margin on buy-once items + insane marketing budgets = $$$. Even Billy Blanks Jr is having a hard time with his DVDs (http://www.meettheblanks.com/ http://www.meettheblanks.com/, watch the Shark Tank episode if you haven't already). Fitness is fickle. > CrossFit is a $1b company. Gyms make so much money because they hard sell you to commit, then you sign a contract you can't get out of.
- JofArnold 14y ago
  This ^. Your reply is way more succinct than mine - thanks.
- JofArnold 14y ago
  I'll add that the gyms one is slightly subtle. It's not just about the contracts locking you in (those are becoming less common) but it's that in the eyes of many gym-goers the membership buys them an opportunity to get fit. They perceive value in holding a membership. They are also afraid to let it go because they would have to face facts about their commitment.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- dkarl 14y ago
  I know this is ridiculously off-topic, but Crossfit doesn't work at all like that. To the best of my knowledge, Crossfit doesn't even sell contracts to people who haven't graduated from the six week intro class, which is a serious reality check for people who prefer to keep exercise in the realm of fantasy. Thus, they weed out the best potential absentee customers before they can even buy a contract. My instructor emails me when I skip class and then gives me shit about it (in a good-natured way, of course) when I show up for the next one. Gyms love people who don't show up. They only care who pays and who doesn't. At Crossfit, they get grouchy if you pay and don't show up. They literally complain about free money! It's unfair to lump them in with the big box gyms whose business model depends on people not getting what they paid for. It's true that my current facility requires a one-year contract to get the very best rates, which was a shock since my previous Crossfit facility only had one-month and three-month contracts, but that's nothing compared to big box gyms selling five-year memberships, offering guaranteed low monthly fees for a big one-time "lifetime membership" fee, and making it ridiculously hard to cancel recurring payments. Also, there's zero sales pressure on contracts. I've never spoken to anyone affiliated with Crossfit except the instructors, and I've never spoken to them about money except when signing up at a new facility. A better summary for how Crossfit makes their money would be charging high prices and being the dominant brand in a market they created.

JofArnold 14y ago

Why not overcome... --- This is a short one; why flog a dead horse when you could be chasing much large opportunities? We started FitFu expecting - based on numbers we wanted to believe - that it could be a $1b opportunity. But that was very naive and I'm convinced now that there's few if any fitness apps that can achieve that. I hope to be prove wrong of course as I know a lot of hard working startups and friends in this space and I want them to do well. Ultimately, I'm not interested in a small exit or a lifestyle business. Even the money doesn't motivate me. I'll settle for nothing less than a home run :)

JofArnold 14y ago

CONCLUSION --- Always do a Lean Canvas!