I got 7 out of 8 strangers to do burpees with me at the gym. Here's what that taught me about building products

The first person I asked looked at me like I'd broken some unspoken rule. Which, to be fair, I had.

This is a London residential gym. People walk in with their headphones and don't say hi to anyone for years. I have a neighbour I saw there for three years before I asked her name. There's an invisible social contract — you don't bother people.

So when I walked up mid-session and said "I'm about to do 5 rounds of burpees — want to join?" I fully expected a polite no and awkward silence for the rest of my membership.

She said yes.

Over the next few weeks, I asked 8 people total. Some I'd never spoken to. Others I'd nodded at in passing. One is a good friend. Not everyone said yes the first time — most were hesitant. A few needed to see me do it with others first. But every single able-bodied person said yes eventually.

7 out of 8. An 87.5% conversion rate on the exercise everyone hates most.

Who says yes to this?

Here's what surprised me: the people who said yes fastest were women in their 40s and up. Not the young guys trying to prove something. Not the competitive lifters. The people you'd assume would be most uncomfortable with a random ask were the ones most open to it — I'm still scratching my head about this one.

Most people hesitated. They'd glance around. Look at their phone. You could see them running the social calculus — is this weird? Am I allowed to say yes to this? But once they did, something shifted.

There's one woman especially. She said yes the first time I asked, and now we have a standing deal: every time we see each other at the gym, we do burpees together. No planning, no texting. Just — you're here, I'm here, let's suffer. That's the contract. And she holds me to it.

Suffering is the icebreaker. By round 3, people start letting their guard down — "why am I doing this," "this hurts." By round 5, you're fist-bumping.

The WHO calls loneliness a global health threat. The US Surgeon General says it's an epidemic. But you don't see it at the gym — everyone looks focused, busy, fine. These people were already there. Already willing to suffer. They just needed an invitation — specific, low-stakes, right now — and they said yes.

Most people won't initiate connection. But they're waiting for it.

The part nobody talks about

Here's what happened next: the effect faded.

The first week after a group session, people would nod, say hi, maybe chat for a minute. Two weeks later, the headphones were back in. The eye contact stopped. The invisible contract reasserted itself.

I heard from one person that the burpee sessions genuinely changed her experience at the gym. Made it feel like a place she belonged. But I could also see it slipping away in real time — the warmth cooling back to default London politeness.

That hit harder than the 87.5% number. It told me the demand is real — but the problem isn't just getting people to connect. It's making it stick.

What I'm building from this

I've spent months building software. Landing pages, onboarding flows, email automations. Busy work that felt like progress.

My highest conversion rate? Walking up to someone and asking them to do something together. No funnel. No A/B test. Just a direct ask with a clear, low-commitment offer.

If you can't convert people face-to-face with a simple ask, your app won't either. The app should make something that already works easier to repeat — not try to manufacture demand that doesn't exist.

That's what I'm trying to do with One True Tribe. The idea is simple: make it easy for people to find and create these moments — spontaneous, shared, physical — without needing someone like me to walk up and ask every time. The burpee experiment proved the demand. Now I'm building the thing that keeps it from fading.

I don't have it all figured out. Two things still keep me up at night:

How do you make the connection last? The standing burpee deal I have with one person works because it's built on a simple, repeatable contract between two humans. No app needed. But for everyone else, the warmth decayed within weeks. Something needs to maintain the rhythm.

And how does it become a business? I can get strangers to do burpees. That's a party trick, not a revenue model. The connection is real, the demand is real, but I haven't cracked what people would actually pay for. The moment itself? The repetition? The structure that keeps it from fading?

If this resonates — if you've ever wanted to connect with people around you but didn't know how to start — (onetruetribe.com). It's early. I'm building it in the open. And I'd love for you to be part of it.