From broke and burned out as a PM, to launching my SaaS and optimizing my health
In 2020, I hit rock bottom as a PM: broke, severely burned out, and completely out of shape.
Today, I’ve completely flipped the script. I paid off my debt, landed senior product roles, and built the best physique of my life.
The biggest lesson? Stop trying to change your environment (jobs, roles or cities/countries) and start changing your internal systems. Your health and energy are your ultimate leverage as a founder. Less energy always equals poor execution.
This exact journey inspired me to build two things for busy tech professionals:
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ProductFitCoach: Mentorship to help tech pros regain focus and performance without burning out.
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FitDots: A SaaS for flash, flexible workouts that seamlessly sync with a busy calendar.
I just put together a raw, 8-minute video breaking down the exact mistakes I made, how I applied product frameworks to my own health, and how to avoid the tech burnout trap.
👉 Watch the video here:
https://youtu.be/I95tEddDOLo?si=3VsDWubfFPr5U060
Are you balancing the startup hustle with your physical health right now?
Let’s chat in the comments!
Nice angle. For busy tech people, I think the hard part is not motivation, it is reducing the number of choices when the day is already overloaded.
If I were validating FitDots, I would test onboarding around a very small promise: "give me your calendar reality and I will pick the next sane workout slot." Then measure whether people come back because the product removed decision friction, not because they wanted another tracker.
The best wedge might be calendar-aware recovery and movement for people who live in back-to-back meetings. That is specific enough to test without making it feel like a generic fitness app.
Cognitive overload is for sure one of those important constraints when you are dealing with tech. This is where FitDots jumps in, together with the idea and the flexibility to adjust your workouts in real-time to the time you actually have, hehe. Change from 45-to-15 min anytime in real-time.
ATM, I'm not aiming at complicated or deep fitness, but to a functional and a "make-it-happen" approach, for people who struggle to keep up. So I totally agree with your angle about measuring wether if people came back due to removing decision fatigue...
Though, I was also exploring at the same time, a no-calendar-dependant version to open the product to a wider scope/target. What do you think?
With regards other constraints for people in tech, that is why I started the coaching program.
Thanks for your inputs, JohnMadison! Really straight to the point.
The strongest part here is the founder-health angle, not just the workout angle.
Busy tech people usually do not fail health because they lack another routine. They fail because their calendar, energy, focus, and execution rhythm are all fighting each other. So the more interesting position is “performance recovery for builders and tech professionals,” not just flexible workouts.
I’d be careful with the naming if you plan to make this feel bigger than a small fitness side project. FitDots is friendly, but it may read more like a lightweight workout app than a serious performance and energy system for people building under pressure.
Auryxa .com would fit that broader direction better if you want the product to feel more premium, polished, and trust-heavy around health, energy, and founder performance. The product can still stay simple, but the brand should make it feel like a serious health-performance layer for busy professionals, not just another quick workout tool.
Hey aryan_sinh, thanks for the note. There's a whole meaning and research to the FitDots name. How would you think auryxa .com would fit better or make more sense?
Fair question.
I would not say FitDots is wrong if there is real research behind it. The gap is more about market perception.
FitDots explains the workout mechanic well: small flexible fitness blocks that fit into a busy day. That is clear.
But the bigger story you wrote is not only workouts. It is founder energy, burnout recovery, execution rhythm, focus, and rebuilding performance under pressure. That feels more premium and trust-heavy than a lightweight workout app.
That is where Auryxa would fit better. It sounds less like “quick workouts” and more like a broader performance-health brand that could hold coaching, recovery, routines, energy systems, and a serious product layer for busy tech professionals.
So I would only consider Auryxa if the real direction is bigger than FitDots as a workout SaaS.
If FitDots is staying narrow, keep it. If you are seriously building a founder-performance platform, then Auryxa is worth discussing before the brand gets locked deeper.
Noted your comment. Thanks for the point of view.
Makes sense.
I would not overthink it if FitDots is staying mainly as the current workout product.
The only reason I brought up Auryxa is because the category you described feels like it could stretch beyond workouts into founder energy, recovery, focus, and performance health. That is a much bigger brand frame.
So I’d treat it simply:
If FitDots is the final direction, stay focused and keep building.
If Auryxa feels like a serious possible upgrade for the broader version, it is worth discussing privately before more users, pages, and product language get locked around FitDots.
Either way, the main decision is whether you’re building a workout app or a premium performance-health layer for tech professionals.
Hey aryan_sinh, thanks again for the angle. With regards the broader side of the things, I have a coaching program which covers most of the points you mention: https://productfitcoach.com/
FitDots is just one leg of this whole ecosystem. So your vision is noted, just with another name: ProductFitCoach.
Gotta feeling this is pretty aligned with your vision...