Hola! π
This report summarizes my process in finding a problem, solving it, building a solution, and my rough plan for marketing it. I hope you can apply lessons to your business or buy the product if you think it'll help.
If you're not interested in the product, there's a lot of business/marketing breakdowns and some landing page analysis that I hope you find helpful.
This is my first consumer product launch. I've done financial analysis and consulting, but mostly B2B.
NOTE: I included lots of links but none are affiliate links.
I kinda worked out in the past, but never stuck with anything long enough to reach my goal of 200 lbs. at 10-12% body fat (I'm 5' 11").
That changed when I joined Orange Theory Fitness, or OTF. If you show up 3-4 times a week with a decent diet, you will get lean and ripped.
I hit my body fat goal but wasn't lifting heavy lifting enough weights to efficiently pack on muscle. So I lifted on my own starting with Stronglifts and am now doing an adjusted program 4-5x/week (I'll release my detailed workout and nutrition plan in a Notion doc in the next few days).
Number 2. was BIG. Planning to workout tomorrow is great - scheduling a behavior ahead of time does make people follow through more (see "implementation intention" in James Clear's Atomic Habits), but...
I felt like π© paying to NOT do what I SHOULD be doing.
Fast forward to earlier this year β©
I stopped doing OTF and I wasn't going to the gym enough. Of course I knew I should, I just didn't.
I got sick of my lack of progress and remembered thought back to OTF - specifically what made me get my butt to the gym. BUT I no longer lived near an OTF and LOVE lifting on my own.
π€ So I thought about what I could do to recreate those (dis)incentives at OTF.
Personally, I know I'll stop skipping workouts if I had financial downside AND some social consequence for skipping.
The idea was rough, but my gut told me something was there. I just needed to figure out what the solution was.
Simplified Problem: I don't exercise enough.
Problem Reframing: The problem is NOT having the "perfect" workout plan, diet, etc. It's lack of CONSISTENCY in executing the plan.
Existing Solutions:
Go from "Going to the gym is hard" to "NOT going to the gym hurts!"
Do this by increasing downside of failure through:
To do that, users set a weekly workout goal and stake money that they'll reach it 80% of weeks. They also invite friends and family, or spotters, to follow their progress and optionally stake money, too.
I don't want to explain too much here because it's described on the website. Please check it out and let me know if it's unclear.
One thing to note is this based on activity and not outcome. Going to the gym is a win, even if you take it easy (OTF called easy days "blue days" and the coach would go easy on you).
I needed to remember that while I think about how the product works and how cool it is, my users don't care. At all. They want to know what it'll do for them. Ideally as fast and easy as possible.
Part of helping them see what it does is identifying the real problem, which is different than most fitness products.
Most fitness products sell the same thing:
Spotter sells the execution of those plans/things.
First, I tried to make an SMS-based fitness tracking app using Twilio and a couple other SMS services. This ended up being tough to connect texts with user management along with many other things I couldn't figure out.
Then, I used Glide. This worked. It logs workouts, tracks progress, and I use Gmass to send weekly progress emails.
It's pretty awesome, but I'll need to build a native app eventually.
*Note: Optimizing images for the site was a mess even though it shouldn't have been. Here's what I ended up doing:
I have no idea if I needed to use both Compressor and Convertio. Please comment if you do. Also, do you use WEBP or stick with JPG and PNG?
None of this matters if nobody hears about it.
So I need to get the word out. I can start with non-scalable things and then figure out how to do it at scale later (credit to Paul Graham, of course).
There is some virality baked into the product:
But hoping this works isn't a plan, so I'll have some work to do as detailed further down.
I started with only a one year plan because it would give the best results. I think this would have been a mistake because a full year can be intimidating - just look what happened in 2020 to people's fitness plans! π₯
So I added three and six month options, which actually made pricing easier.
Three months is $29, six is $49, and twelve is $79.
I think it's underpriced and will probably raise prices to something like $49, $79, and $99.
The one tricky thing with this product is that there are two prices in a way. First, the fee I mentioned above. Second, the amount you stake on yourself.
I used Webflow.
I've used Wordpress before but I almost barfed thinking about it π€’
I also considered Umso, Dorik, Builder, and a few other builders, but went with Webflow because I'm pretty good at it and it can grow with the business.
The first thing I did was look to other sites for style inspiration and content.
Most landing pages are the same. The tricky part is communicating clearly, concisely, and figuring out your tone.
Julian Shapiro's guide gives you a basic layout, although I think it's geared towards B2B businesses.
Check out Marketing Examples and Land-book for web design inspiration. Special thanks π to SavvyCal, Buy Me a Coffee, and Podia et al. I'm forgetting.
Here is a public Notion doc of my breakdown of Buy Me a Coffee and Podia.
You're looking at the launch plan.
I'm posting on a handful of online communities I'm active in.
I'm not on social media so I'm limited here.
One thing I'm almost certainly messing up is starting with a hot market. By that I mean people who are looking for a way to help them exercise, not start a business or do computer stuff like us π
Here's a helpful quote from Justin Jackson that I'll think about for more market research. How to figure out if you have a good market:
Who are the people that might be interested in what I've built?
How many of them are there?
How much momentum is there for this type of product right now?
Please let me know if you think this is a good idea or have resources on how to do this.
(I've done more competitive analysis, customer and product development, and market research, but I've saved some of it exclusively for a business school I'm part of. Sorry π€·πΌββοΈ)
I'm a horrible planner.
My goal was launching in 2 weeks and it's been 2 months. I don't think this is bad, but having those expectations did stress me out.
DON'T START FROM SCRATCH IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
I'd be far behind if I didn't use a Webflow template and look at hundreds of other landing pages for inspiration.
Writing is hard π
I can explain this problem and product to someone in 30 seconds, but doing it with copy took me a long time and many revisions.
I've heard this a million times, but "Solve your own problem" can work IF the solution can be productized.
I have a table in Notion where dump problems I encounter. It's connected to business ideas and has over 50 entries. I highly recommend this. It gets me thinking creatively, I look back on good ideas and the horrible ones that don't matter at all.
It makes me sad that so many people are unhealthy. Today's environment is stacked against people - food companies and advertisers sell unhealthy but tasty fake food, we sit in front of our computers all day, environmental toxins, etc.
Exercise can be the keystone habit that leads to all sorts of personal improvement.
It gave me more energy, better mood, better sleep, more confidence, made some gym buddies, and way more.
If Spotter gets traction, I can see it becoming a big part of my life's mission. Being a small part of people's life transformation by getting fit is very fulfilling to me. There are millions out there and I'll try to help as many of them as I can.
Sincerely,
Karl Larson
Spotter