BurpeeHero
Do Burpees, Level Up Your Hero
After spending more than a year on this app, I finally came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth continuing.
Gamification just isn't a great motivator for most people. People love the idea when they hear it, it sounds really cool and clever, but the novelty wears off fast and doesn't sustain people.
My activation/retention rates remained well below average no matter how many additional features I've added.
I spent a lot of time and effort learning to run Facebook ads for the app, a good skill to have.
The app is live in the App Store!
I've sent an email to our mailing list and shared the launch on twitter. I've emailed around 50 bloggers and podcasters about the launch. So far this morning we've been features in one newsletter (Morning Chalk Up, a CrossFit newsletter).
Now I'm just watching people join the in-app leaderboard and monitoring twitter. Wish me luck!
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Congrats Ben! I've been using your app in beta (with some time off here and there) and so far it's been great! Thanks for putting up with my complaints about the energy usage and not losing it with my unsolicited feedback haha ;)
Here is Ben's twitter thread if anyone wants to show it some love: https://twitter.com/bennoland/status/1290636635021832197?s=20
Good luck! I look forward to seeing how your app and your journey progresses, keep us posted!
Edit: noticed he already posted the Twitter link, haha, woops.
I've added enough to the app that it's actually pretty fun and useful. There's still many many things I want to add, but I need to get real users onboard so that I can lean on them for feedback and direction.
The launch date will be August 4. This gives me 7 weeks to polish the prepare in-app purchases and polish the current features on onboarding flow.
I invited a friend and his son to beta test the game 3 weeks ago (April 22). I then added a second wave of 4 beta testers on April 30, and a third wave (5 more) on May 7.
So far most of my testers are opening the app and playing around a bit when they first get invited, but don't come back. They've given me a few bug reports, which is helpful, but I'm concerned by the fact that they aren't engaging with the app other than the initial open. I'm taking this as a sign that something needs to change. Is it just the onboarding or the whole idea?
I've been following up with them via email. Today I asked a few of them what they need to bring them back into the app. Here's part of the email that I sent to a couple of them.
I wanted to follow up again. I noticed from the data, if I'm looking at the right account, that you haven't logged any reps since your initial trial run.
What do you think the app needs next to encourage people to log reps at least a few times per week?
Some possibilities:
- More direction (tasks/objectives)
2.Reminder notifications (your energy meter is full)- A better explanation of how to make progress?
What would work best for you?
Hopefully I get some good feedback from these emails.
A couple of weeks ago (Mar 26) I decided to post my idea on Reddit. I wasn't really planning to, but was pretty excited about the idea and wanted to see if I could convince a few other people that it was good.
I'm always hesitant to post on reddit, because I've had mixed results in the past. They tend to react pretty harshly against anything they see as spammy, and I alway tend to ride the line. When I get rejected by Reddit, it's a little hard on my psyche, which has been a little fragile lately.
I wrote a 350 word text only post explaining the idea that I was thinking of building. The response was very encouraging:
- 750+ upvotes
- 93% upvoted
- 56 email subscribers
Initially I didn't link to my landing page, but once I saw the post was doing well I double checked the rules for the subreddit and edited it in.
In addition to getting some subscribers I also had a lot of good conversations in the comments. I was able to flesh out a lot of the ideas and see some recurring concerns that people had with the idea. For example, lots of people are worried about cheating.
This was a huge confidence boost and now I'm more confident that the product has a good chance. I sent out my first update email yesterday and received a few encouraging replies.
Here's the post https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/comments/fpc1ro/thinking_of_building_an_appgame_do_burpees_level/
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Thanks for sharing! It's always difficult to share a project/idea without coming across as spammy. I think the important thing is finding an audience who will actually be interested in your idea and making sure you're providing value rather than just begging for subscribers. Looks like you nailed it!
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Can you share the Reddit link?
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oops sorry, should be there now
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I bought the domain, setup email, got the instagram and twitter handle and made a simple logo.
I made a video using hand drawn screens to demonstrate how the game would work and put it up on youtube.
I put together a very simple landing page featuring the video and an email signup form. I setup a new firebase project for hosting.
I've been working on my other app, AdiPosse for almost a year at this point. I often have other app ideas and write them in a separate trello board.
I had recently stopped going to my crossfit gym and needed to find other ways to stay fit. For the time being, I was trying to do 100 air squats 2x per week as part of my new fitness routine.
The initial idea, as I wrote it into my trello board, was an app to track and gamify air squats.
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