Back to the drawing board.

I recently released an iOS fitness app built around a pretty simple idea. It connected your training, nutrition, recovery, and health data so an AI-based coach could look at everything together and help you make better decisions in the gym.

In theory, I thought the idea was great. I still do. I also think the actual product was useful.

The problem was that it blended in with all of the other fitness apps already out there.

I spent a lot of time trying to optimize the marketing and explain what made it different, but I kept coming back to the same issue. At the end of the day, it was still another fitness app asking someone to download it, sign up, and start using another interface.

I think there is a lot of fatigue around that, especially in fitness where there are already apps for basically everything.

So I’m not really changing the core idea. I’m changing the distribution channel.

The new product I’m working on will still act as a fitness coach and still connect the same types of data, but the primary interface will be iMessage.

My thinking is that as AI keeps getting better, people may actually start downloading fewer apps. Instead, they’ll expect products to work through interfaces they already use every day.

Messaging is great for conversations, questions, check-ins, reminders, and coaching. Then when something needs a little more interaction, like logging a workout or looking through a program, the conversation can open a small web-based interface for that specific task.

I have no idea yet if that thesis is right, but that’s what I’m going to build around and document here.

Day 0.

Day 0 of building an iMessage-based fitness coach