In Step

Mann, literally 2 years ago I was on vacation when I had an idea for an iOS walking app. Watched a 9-hour SwiftUI tutorial in a single day and got straight to work. ChatGPT was basically my therapist back then. I'd talk its ear off past midnight about the app and how I'd build in the psychological hooks from "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products," going back and forth for hours.

Then vacation ended and adult life pulled me back. Between work and settling into a new house, the grind kicked my butt so hard I put the app on the back burner. Eventually forgot about it completely.

That was it. Until 3 months ago, when I got back into fitness.

I decided to take my physical health seriously, so I started walking daily in small increments. 6k steps one week. 8k the next. 10k the one after. And the deeper I got into it, the more it reminded me of the app I'd abandoned.

Here's the backstory. Something my friends and I used to do was DM each other stuff like "let's hit 10k today, champ." Daily step check-ins over WhatsApp. No app, no tracking... just two people keeping each other honest. That little ritual is what brought the app to mind in the first place. So I decided to stop sitting on it and go all in.

And when I say all in, I mean it. This thing has basically become my second job. Up till 2am, awake at 5am to work on it outside my actual job hours. A little crazy in the head? For sure. But that's how I roll — and now I want to find who else gets excited about this idea.

So, what it is:

I'm building In Step, a walking app built around a streak you share one-on-one with someone. One streak between the two of you, and it only moves forward on the days you both get your steps in. You're not racing each other — you're holding the same thread.

- Open the app and you see your person already out there: "Sam is walking right now."

- Start a live walk and your steps stack side by side into one shared total.

- No leaderboards. No coins. No strangers. Just the people you actually care about.

And this isn't a someday idea. The app is built and a small group is beta testing it right now, so launch is genuinely close.

The whole thesis is something I think a lot of people already do in their group chats without realizing it: you don't need another app telling you to move, you need someone on the other end who notices when you do.

That's the thing I'm here to find out. Was that WhatsApp ritual just me and a few friends... or do a lot of people quietly do some version of it?

If "a standing walking date you keep with your person" sounds like something you'd want, the waitlist is below. iPhone, launching very soon.

https://instep-landing.web.app

Would genuinely love this community's take — both on the idea and on whether the one-on-one angle is the right hook to lead with. 🙏