Micro Fitness

Micro Fitness is Ready

Stage 1 of 3 Complete

The Gist

• Access the Web App at https://lift.microbytes.io/.
• The APK is available at https://get.microbytes.io/.
• The Play Store app is under review and coming soon
• iOS is coming soon
• New Prices
• New Features and Improvements
• Exercise Database coming soon

The long-awaited Micro Fitness workout tracker is finally here. Start your next workout using our web app at https://lift.microbytes.io/.

The Android app is currently under review by the Play Store. We expect it to be released within 2 weeks. So stay tuned for that, too.

If you can't wait, you can download the APK directly from us at https://get.microbytes.io/.

We're working on a few more features before releasing it on the iOS App Store — but that’s coming up very soon as well.

Additions and Improvements

Add up to 26 Weeks per program

The previous version had an 8-week program limit. For advanced lifters, that's just not enough. Instead of creating a new program for each mesocycle, we've increased the week limit to 26. That way, you can transition between your training phases without breaking the wrong kind of sweat.

Pound to Kilogram Unit Conversion

Have you ever found yourself in a new gym only to discover that the barbell plates are in a different unit than what you're used to? Of course, instead of leaving, your discipline compels you to keep your calculator app handy and perform the conversion throughout your workout. Now you can drop that workflow like a deadlift PR.

Micro Fitness has always converted your sets between kg and lb. Now with our latest update, you can manually convert your equipment and reference weights with ease.

Switch between metric and imperial units at any time and stay focused on your workout.

New Prices and Subscription pauses.

We have new prices for Micro Fitness.

If you have already subscribed to the previous version of Micro Fitness, your bill will not change. Your price will be grandfathered in.

Also, we get it. Life can be a bit unpredictable, so if you need to pause your subscription for any reason, you can do so at any time. Whether you're taking time off for an injury or on an extended vacation, stop the clock until you're ready for your next set.

What's Next

Minimal Exercise Database

Our next task is to add an exercise database of common exercises. While it's nice to boast about the freedom and flexibility of BYOE (bring your own exercises), we've taken your feedback to heart and have decided to implement the feature. Our goal is to save you time while preserving the notion that you are the exercise authority.

We want to shorten the time it takes from downloading the app to getting under the barbell.

Import

We want Micro Fitness to be the last workout tracker you'll ever use. To facilitate the transition, we're working on a way to import your data from your last tracker.

Send an email with your exported data attached and we'll drop it into your account.

Do that, and we'll give you a 2-month credit towards your subscription.

Thank you

Thanks for taking the time to read this. It's been a long journey to get here, and we're happy you've decided to join us.

We hope this iteration serves you well. If you need anything, please reach out via the links below.

Email::
[email protected]

Join our Micro Discord::
https://discord.gg/8XqkPQSwFJ

Twitter::
https://twitter.com/trymicro

TLDR:

• Read "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey Morre
• Look up "Diffusion of Innovations"
• Blog Post: The PWA Elephant in the Room
• Shareability is part of the product.
• JustFitness.io is coming to iOS and Android

Until very recently, I was trapped in a reality marble. Not literally, of course, but a metaphoric one constructed of my assumptions. I assumed that every potential customer viewed technology in the same manner as I. I knew from day one that JustFitness.io would need an Android application to succeed, but I assumed a Progressive Web App would be enough. How hard could it be? Just teach your users how they work, and everything should be fine. Right?. Wrong. Mostly. But not for the reasons I initially suspected.

In the book “Crossing the Chasm,” author Geoffrey Morre details how technology users react and adopt innovation. To summarize, he segments technology adopters into five distinct categories. Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards. This grouping of people comes from the Diffusion of Innovations. I won’t go into further detail, but I highly recommend checking out the book and looking further into the theory.

We all may have different motivations for being here on IndieHackers. Some of us are trying to build the next groundbreaking product. Others are attempting to quit our day jobs through “ramen profitability.” And a sizeable amount of us are simply trying out a few ideas to see what sticks. In any case, I think this customer segmentation model would lead to better decision-making in terms of growth and marketing.

Concerning JustFitness.io, I’ve concluded that all of its current subscribers are in the Innovators category. Why?

1. They didn’t mind installing a PWA workout tracker, given the rigid expectations of its category.

2. They send me detailed bug reports signaling that they are invested in the solution.

3. Their feature requests fit the company’s vision of a workout tracker where the individual comes first.

4. They’re very forgiving of JustFitness.io’s issues and shortcomings. See The PWA Elephant in the Room blog post for details.

So what does this all mean? First, it means that the app is not yet ready for the people who signed up and never returned. Second, it means that JustFitness.io cannot yet deliver on the promise of a seamless, intuitive, well-designed, cross-platform workout tracker for experienced lifters. And Finally, it means that I should focus my efforts on improving the product so that the innovators can share and recommend the app to their peers with 0 friction.

“Is it in the app store?” is the most common question I get. I don’t mind explaining PWAs and teaching others how they work. But JustFitness.io’s customers should not have to bear that responsibility. Shareability is part of the product. This rant can be much longer, but I’ll cut it here. JustFitness.io will arrive on the App and Play Store very soon. At this time, all that remains to do are the fulfillment of the marketplace requirements.

TLDR:

• Customer support that does not scale.
• The Last-Mover advantage.
• Honesty and transparency.

***
Today is a day for celebration. JustFitness.io has finally got its first five subscribers. Three signups for the yearly commitment and 2 for monthly. I know it's not much, and B2C is tough, but it's a start. I am proud to have made my first $100 outside of an employer and, more importantly, in a creative pursuit.

Here's what I've learned and confirmed.
***

Customer support that does not scale

Since JustFitness.io is a solo venture, I can do things that do not scale with its customer base.

I am in constant communication with everyone who reaches out to me. For instance, one person reached out with roughly two pages of feedback. We went over each item line by line. I offered to speak and share my screen via Discord to streamline the process. Now, we exchange emails at least twice a week.

Another person, who was going to wait for his trial to end, recently sent me this:

Man, your dedication and quick responses are phenomenal!
I was thinking about postponing my subscription until I used up all the free sessions, but after your amazing response, that subscription fee is well-deserved. Thank you for all the hard work!
You've got yourself a happy subscriber :D

In this reddit post, he provided a bit of feedback about a recent update. One feature was not fully functional, and another was removed without forethought. I addressed him about the concern as soon as I saw it got to work and replied again once I pushed the update. This occurred within an hour.

I'm well aware that these sorts of feedback loops will not be possible once JustFitness.io's customer base grows, but the lesson here is listening and talking to as many people as often as possible.

***

Last Mover Advantage

I recently learned of the Last-Movers Advantage. Oh, look, another fitness app. What sets your app apart from all the others? And why would I pay for yours when there are a ton of free apps out there?

I hear this at least once a week. These used to be uncomfortable questions. Now they're my favorite. Because I've spent the last 2.5 years tearing apart every fitness app I could find to understand what works and what doesn't. What features need an iteration, and what has the market already perfected.

For example, rest timers are mandatory. JustFitness may have missed out on a few subscribers for missing such a critical component. It was a feature requested by everyone who reached out.

A complete show-stopper without it.

They were right.

Furthermore, being the "last mover" has allowed for iteration. The entire reason this app exists is to solve the Desktop to Mobile integration problem. I can only think of 3 web applications that attempt, and none of them use a Trello/Kanban board. After getting the board to work, the immediate next step was to learn how to communicate with a server and other devices in real-time.

Here's a bit of user feedback on that note.

• First and foremost: desktop navigation! This is my absolute favorite as it has been a sticking point in most of the other apps I used; I find it way easier to create and modify the programs on the desktop than on the mobile.
• The text-based way sets/reps are set up is simply genius! and ties neatly with desktop editing.

I could have copied my competitors and called it a day, but I had already been exposed to a better way. How could I not take on the challenge? These are the sort of responses that made those long nights after work worth it.

Side note: I'm sure drag and drop and syncing with a database in realtime is probably trivial to most of you reading this, but to me, back then, it was far above my skill level. These were required features from the start and refused to ship without them, so I had to figure it out.

** **

Transparency and Honesty

I admit it. Every day I learn something new. I didn't know the first thing about web development when I got started. Heck, I just figured out automated testing two weeks ago. I have no desire to present myself as some guru when I am thoroughly unqualified. Check my earlier milestone posts or the landing page feedback requests I've riddled across this site. I’m mostly asking questions.

I regularly posted and engaged on Twitter. I briefly experimented with giving fitness advice in an attempt to build an audience. Though you'd see these recommendations or books and articles, none of these actions and behaviors led to sales.

Why? Because I wasn’t honest with myself. I don't use social media in my personal life, but I'll drop what I'm doing if you're up for a chat. I am unqualified to give fitness advice; But If you've met me in person, you'd know that I'm only fit because I consistently follow the directions of people who’ve been teaching others their entire lives. Anything I’d have to say on the subject would just be parroting them.

Finally, I have no desire to become a public figure.
If you can find and extract value from JustFtiness.io; Then that is far more important to me than whether you know my name.

The people I’ve spoken with thus far are well aware of these notions. I believe the sales came from that level of honesty.

Let me know how I can make JustFitness.io work for you. If it doesn't meet your requirements, reach out. We'll bridge the gap!

** **

I know that one day I'll have to step out of the Technician's role, but until then, I'm going to continue the enjoy the hell of a roller-coaster this ride has been thus far. $5 a month means 400 subscribers for ramen-profitability. It's going to be tough, and I have to learn marketing. But if the last 2.5 years have taught me anything, I have more time than lessons to learn. I'll figure it out.

Thank you.

I've Finally updated JustFitness.io.
Last year I launched and nothing happened.
No customers. No users outside of friends and family. Nada.

It was a humbling experience. The UX was terrible, the colors were bland, the price was way too high for what I was offering, and there were far too many bugs and inefficiencies to count. To top it all off; the application was completely unusable on iOS. Good grief.

I kept my head down and worked through the issues.
I just finished reading Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup By Rob Walling.

He mentioned the 3 components of a successful business.
Product.
Market.
Execution.

Well I've already built the product. I know I should have spoken to customers before writing the first line of code. But I cannot cry over spilled milk. At the end of the day I've built a workout tracking app that I am proud of.

Next steps:

• Email my mailing list about the update.

Wish me luck. Thanks for reading.

Analytics allows for the ability to view website traffic in real time. This morning someone completed the registration funnel. But I noticed that they followed the same patterns and my last 5 signups. They didn't navigate the other pages. Odd.

I checked the database and found that they hadn't created any exercises, workouts, programs, and hadn't even initiated a freestyle workout session. Also odd and now worrying.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the registration was not complete on the back-end. As far as the database was concerned, these users did not exist.

I attempted to register a dummy user in production and was greeted with the following error: "An unexpected error has occurred." Go figure. [insert 'this is fine' house fire meme]

Without going into the technical details, the issue has been resolved.

Quick Question.
Should I reach out to those users via email acknowledging my mistake and to notify them of the resolution ?

Conversion Rate, Bounce Rate, Funnel?

Prior to today I had no idea what those terms were. It seems like I'm learning about everything in the wrong order. Of course I should have had analytics up and running before launching right? Unfortunately I had not heard of it until someone commented asked me about my conversion rate.

I spent the previous day wrapping my head around analytics. It's purpose, importance, proper implementation and testing, fitting all of this new knowledge into my app.

Today I completed the Beginner Analytics Course offered by one of the Big 5. Very informative. Some time next week, I'll put this knowledge to good use.

On the bright side, given the nature of this application and the state of the planet (COVID-19 Lockdown). 90% of all gyms are closed, disposable income is scarce, and (seemingly) no one is looking for the luxury of a personal fitness tracking app. Now is the perfect time to learn as much as I can in preparation for the opening of the world economies. Maybe even find potential die hard customers with a home-gym.

Next steps:
Set up proper analytic goals and funnels.
Complete the advanced course.

Since this projects inception, I gathered emails in person as I traveled the country for work. The IH podcast emphasized speaking with potential clients so that's what I did from day one. I know it's not a lot and I realize that the vast majority won't convert to paying customers, but I'll take it as a win.

Next step: Continue Testing.

I discovered that the release GymTools.io did not prepare me for the depth to knowledge I needed for Just Fitness. Everything I had up to this point was local. I needed to find a way to use the app at the gym. I cannot spin up a server at home because my only way of internet access is through my phone. (Preparing to become a Digital Nomad ). I'm going to have to put it out to the world in a restricted state.

Problem: I need to test it in the wild.

Solutions:

1. Landing Page
2. Login
3. VPS
4. Managed Database