Is this enough Validation ?

[contratodo]

Background

At the end of last year, I realized there was no way for me to quantitatively know how much progress I made at the gym, or how much weight I lifted. The current status quo for tracking workouts is to manually log them in an app or booklet. There are some cool startups trying to solve this problem using phone cameras.

Solution

I came up with an idea for a device that can accurately detect how much weight is being lifted (on a barbell) and count the number of reps. This device is designed to be "set and forget". After the initial setup on the barbell, no other action is needed from the user other than routine charging. The device will discreetly track all the work being done on a barbell and transfer this data to the app. The analogy I like to give is "An advanced odometer for your gym", it's always there in the background while you drive and you can track everything: Mileage, Miles Per Gallon, Total Distance Driven e.t.c. This opens a new door for strength workout tracking.

Target Market

• Home / Garage Gym Owners
• Boutique Gyms / Personal Trainers
• Athletic Training Facilities.
• Potentially commercial gyms if the idea takes off.

Revenue Model

Hardware device sales, combined with app subscription for advanced features. We plan to make the basic app free to facilitate early adoption. We could potentially charge business customers a subscription fee for additional features.

Progress

We have built a working hardware prototype to validate that our smart weight detection works.

Now comes the hard part

I have done some validation, but I'm not completely sure how to interpret the results. They seem a bit lukewarm to me.

User Interviews

I spoke to about 5 gym owners/personal trainers in my area (mom-test approach). The feedback seemed okay, they are not exactly throwing money at me but they showed genuine interest and agreed that this would be a good addition for boutique gyms / personal trainers who need to differentiate themselves from their competition, while providing their clients with actionable insights.

Landing Page / Facebook Ads / Waitlist

I created a landing page with a waitlist and ran some Facebook/Instagram ads to guage interest.

Would appreciate any feedback on the landing page ( hound . fit ). P.S: not selling / promoting anything at the moment.

I made the Instagram ad with some good quality photo renderings and added some text to describe the product. I used a Shop Now button as the call to action on the ad.

Here are the results from the Ad Campaign:

• Total Spend (3 days): $53
• Impressions: 3449, Reach: 2949
• CTR: 4.29
• Link Clinks: 133
• CPC: 0.36
• Number of waitlist signups: 6
  

To summarize, I paid 40 cents per link click and $9 for each email signup. The results don't look very good.

Financial Projection:

I did a rough cost estimate and I would need about $40,000 to go to market. This includes initial inventory cost, $5000 ad spend, $5000 video budget, $5000 animation e.t.c. I made sure to leave a lot of margin in this estimate, so the actual cost should be lower.

My plan is to start by selling the device at break-even price or even a small loss. Once we reach a small critical mass, I will introduce subscription-based app features.

The goal is to build a product company that could breakeven for a few years and be potentially acquired by a larger gym equipment company or sports brand.

Questions

1. I don't have a lot of experience with running SEO campaigns. The result seems low. One caveat is that most of the 6 email signups were from personal trainers which partially validates the result of my user interviews. What insight, if any, can I draw from this limited SEO campaign?
2. Is this enough validation? I've been working on this for about 3 months and I need to either double down or move on. I'm very bullish on the idea but I want to let the market/demand guide me.

Option A: Idea validated, go full throttle.

Option B: Weak market demand, take it behind the barn.

Option C: Need to do more validation.

Thanks for reading my long rant!

Hardware is fun

 

[davemalyon]

@contratodo Hey, yah it's a fine idea. The challenge with commercialization, is you're basically deploying an enterprise grade application.

As you keep going, you'll realize you need data storage, maybe compute power to analyze the incoming data in real time, so you'll also need network security into the device, and then however the application and services, interface with whatever, how I say it may not matter, more security.

It's a great idea. Gyms may want to understand how technology leads to user retention. If that's the business problem you're passionate about solving, what's wrong with Orange Theory? Don't they have heart rate monitors? Isn't this a great model?

Why can't you find a way to duplicate that model?

 

[contratodo]

@davemalyon Thanks for the comment,
I don’t think there is a big need to analyze the data in real time. Just like an odometer, you are not really gazing at it all the time.

But yea there needs to be some more architecture planning for the large commercial gym environments. But for now my main target is the home/garage gym users. It seems like an easier sell.

 

[davemalyon]

@contratodo Yah, there's I forgot the name. There's already some consumer AI apps, B2C or even social-to-consumer might be more reasonable.

The benefits of these, are you get to post cool shit online, and see what people say about it.

 

[strivingforgodsglory]

@contratodo have you gone on something like bodybuilding.com and just asked the potential customers if they want this or not? seems like it would be pretty simple to validate with customer interviews

 

[intheboat]

@strivingforgodsglory Was about to say the same. Talking to a user is very different than interpreting waitlist clickthrough rate.

 

[stevengal]

@contratodo Option C. Five interviews is a good start, but given where you are, more will be essential.

Before going into another round, take your guesses on where adoption is most likely and test with those users.

What B2B user groups seem likely? CrossFit gym owners? What B2B users?

Crafting the right questions will be essential. Just showing the solution isn’t a reliable way to predict adoption, in both ways: people might not immediately understand the need, and seem lukewarm; people might also say yes too readily.

Explore the “problem” you’re solving or progress your product enables. How do people currently track weight lifted? How do they feel about this? Is it working for them? What other kinds of tracking are they doing? I know a lot of lifters use apps or even notepads.

I do coaching on startup idea validation, happy to chat more if that’d be helpful.

 

[stevengal]

Sorry, I see you started with gym owners and trainers. You might then explore just regular consumers. What’s your hypothesis on who would go crazy for something like this? Powerlifters? Crossfitters?

Also I would (by way of encouragement) not read too much into your feelings about people’s reactions. Innovations are often dismissed at the beginning. What you need to understand is how much of a need you’re addressing… and for many people needs are under the surface.

 

[contratodo]

@stevengal Yea that makes sense. I tried the get some feedback from the homegym sub Reddit. And it echoed your hypothesis, most people liked it but a few people didn’t really see the need.

 

[stevengal]

@contratodo That’s one potential user bucket: home gym folks. But there have to be so many others. Maybe home gym folks have the ability to have their laptop open. They can write on their own whiteboard. But public gym-goers don’t have these luxuries.

Create some hypothetical user buckets and then talk to people in each one. Focus more on the problem and progress they’re trying to make. Don’t show them your solution right away.

Also, ditch Reddit, especially for a physical product. In my experience, written descriptions are way too abstract. People would never have purchased an iphone if all they heard was "small touchscreen computer that fits in your pocket."

 

[starlight1]

@contratodo

Validate in the Normal Ways​

they showed genuine interest

This sounds like a trap. People say and do all kinds of things to be polite, virtually none of which converts to sales. Even if they're being genuine - which is not likely - they're trying to predict how they will feel and act in a year or two in response to vague descriptions of a product that doesn't yet exist, with vast unknowns about price, quality, safety, regulations, liability, design, customer feedback, usability, reliability, technical issues, etc.

Standard validation rules apply. To surface their true feelings:

1. Ask the people you speak to for immediate deposit payment in exchange for a discount.
2. Ask them for immediate referrals to their boss, customers, colleagues, friends, families, etc.
3. Ask them for time, such as every Wednesday evening for a month, to help you develop the product.

Responses to those requests will validate or invalidate what you're doing.

Also, have you seen Metric Mate? It was also on Shark Tank on YouTube. What do you think about it?

 

[contratodo]

@starlight1 Metric Mate looks good. It doesn't provide the weight detection which I believe is a big deal.

 

[starlight1]

@contratodo Have any customers or users proven that tracking such weight is a big deal to them?

What do Metric Mate users do and how do they feel about the weight detection not being part of the product?

 

[contratodo]

@starlight1 I don’t think metric mate has shipped. I found their indiegogo page and it seems their crowdfunding is still in progress.

Also counting reps and velocity doesn’t really tell the full story without the weights.

 

[starlight1]

@contratodo

Also counting reps and velocity doesn’t really tell the full story without the weights.

How important is this feature to customers and users? And how do you know?