Creating a fitness community- GYMBUDDY Idea

[CosMoen]

I know ideas are worthless without action which is why I'm throwing this out there.

What do you think of a fitness community where

1. You can chat with and match up with a potential gym buddy in your area, kind of like a dating website.
2. The community will have an active blog with fresh daily articles to attract users. Even if people don't use the gym buddy service, they will still find value in my articles. I'm aiming to be more niche with fitness motivation/ humor rather than dispensing information.
3. A marketplace where personal trainers or gyms can sell their services for users who are interested.
4. Do you think it would help or hurt to put my face out there behind the brand of the fitness community? I personally don't have any credibility in the fitness world but I've done fitness modeling before so my physique is decent enough to market. I heard in the blogging world you need to put a face behind your blog in order to succeed. Is this true?
5. How else can I create value with my fitness website/community? That's the number #1 question at the moment. I don't want to create another infoproduct telling people how to get fit and build muscle because everything that can be said has already been said and rehashed to death online.

I really want to create value and want to do something in the fitness niche. Obviously success will be dependent upon execution, branding and networking. However, do you think this concept is in demand and scalable in the long run? If I proceed, I will keep a progress log here and on another forum to keep you guys updated on my journey.

 

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[Jon L]

Check out fitocracy.com Pretty much does everything you're proposing. Not that you can't do it better...

They're still not profitable, by the way...

 

[CosMoen]

Check out fitocracy.com Pretty much does everything you're proposing. Not that you can't do it better...

They're still not profitable, by the way...

My main issue with fitocracy is that they have too many things going on, too much functionality, cluttered, and it has basically become a social media platform like facebook for fitness. You don't really get a lot of fitness value out of it in my opinion. People have facebook and instagram for their ego stroking.

I want to build something more simple, more focused about tracking progress,and less cluttered. The main issue is creating value and have users keep coming back to the website. The way I have it thought out now is through the blog, and it has to be a pretty damn awesome blog to keep users coming back for more. Open to more ideas on how I can create value for users to keep coming back to the website other than the blog.

The find a gym buddy and marketplace would be a side service i would probably offer for free on the website.

Now monetization would be the next big question, but if I have enough good content and can attract a large enough audience, affiliates, ebook,and ads should bring in decent revenue down the line, no?

 

[Arty]

I know ideas are worthless without action which is why I'm throwing this out there.

I really want to create value and want to do something in the fitness niche..

I had a similar idea last year. I was going to build up a bit of a following with a blog first, then add a forum, and eventually turn it into a membership website with a free section.
It would take a lot of work.

 

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[CosMoen]

I had a similar idea last year. I was going to build up a bit of a following with a blog first, then add a forum, and eventually turn it into a membership website with a free section.
It would take a lot of work.

What service were you going to provide in your membership section?

 

[Arty]

What service were you going to provide in your membership section?

I didn't think about it too much, but I guess the forum could be part of it, so they'd be able to organize meetups only if they were members.

 

[Jon L]

My main issue with fitocracy is that they have too many things going on, too much functionality, cluttered, and it has basically become a social media platform like facebook for fitness. You don't really get a lot of fitness value out of it in my opinion. People have facebook and instagram for their ego stroking.

I want to build something more simple, more focused about tracking progress,and less cluttered. The main issue is creating value and have users keep coming back to the website. The way I have it thought out now is through the blog, and it has to be a pretty damn awesome blog to keep users coming back for more. Open to more ideas on how I can create value for users to keep coming back to the website other than the blog.

The find a gym buddy and marketplace would be a side service i would probably offer for free on the website.

Now monetization would be the next big question, but if I have enough good content and can attract a large enough audience, affiliates, ebook,and ads should bring in decent revenue down the line, no?

One thing that I have never found is an easy way to record workouts. I lift weights. All the apps I've tried have one annoying thing or another about them. Fitocracy got it mostly right, but their 'plan a workout in advance' feature is way too restrictive - it doesn't let you decide to do a few more reps or sets for a particular exercise. You have to record those sets separately as if they were part of a different exercise.

 

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[McFirewavesJr]

Hey there. I see a slight flaw in the idea itself. Most people who are not already gym regulars and decide to get into it are single and are basically looking to improve their image to attract opposite sex. The vast majority (not being gym rats) actually stop working out shortly after they get into a relationship since their prime goal has been achieved.

So I guess matching people before they even start working out would be kinda counter productive..

 

[CosMoen]

Hey there. I see a slight flaw in the idea itself. Most people who are not already gym regulars and decide to get into it are single and are basically looking to improve their image to attract opposite sex. The vast majority (not being gym rats) actually stop working out shortly after they get into a relationship since their prime goal has been achieved.

So I guess matching people before they even start working out would be kinda counter productive..

Well the goal would be to match guys with a buddy they want to workout with and somebody to keep each other accountable, not to establish a romantic relationship with. This would be a free service for the fitness community.

 

[7.62x51]

How will you get users? Sounds like you're trying to beat the McDonalds and Burger Kings who already dominate this space by coming up with a better burger.

Well the goal would be to match guys with a buddy they want to workout with and somebody to keep each other accountable, not to establish a romantic relationship with. This would be a free service for the fitness community.

Most of the people who sign up for this will be dudes. So you're going to match up dudes with other dudes so they can keep each other accountable?

I think most real "gym buddies" have a relationship that extends well outside the gym and are of a similar demographic.

I just can't wrap my head around why I'd sign up for something like this unless I was hoping to get laid from it.

 

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[BlakeIC]

Check out fitocracy.com Pretty much does everything you're proposing. Not that you can't do it better...

They're still not profitable, by the way...

Fitness this fitness that, cause there is definitely need for more fitness products

Yes annoyed

edit: Immature of me, the last week everything has been going wrong one after another

anyways the reason I feel an app like this might struggle is many gym goers I know don't really want some "workout buddy" (well in terms of weight lifting) because many people stereo type actual weight lifters and identify them as those stereotypes

 

[SEBASTlAN]

do a tinder-like app so dudes can choose gym buddies bigger than them.

 

[Perry Rico]

I had seen the same if not almost the same idea called Peak Physique. They got 10, 000 users.

My question to you now buddy is that what is your unique selling proposition. Checking your idea they seem to have a lot of features, but this is ust all feature set easy to copy. now what is the unique selling proposition of this app or website? it feels to me that you put all bunch of features and problems and trying to find 1 single solution.

My suggestion is can you do the following path:
Mission / Vision
1. explain your idea in 1 sentence
2. What is your unique selling proposition
3. What are the 3 most important thing people need to know about your idea
4. Give 5 most important benefits or feature of the app

also you mentioned you wanted to create value and dont know what that is, thats the problem, you started with tons of feature without strategy or value in mind.

 

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[CosMoen]

Instead of gym buddy, I'm thinking a simple workout tracking service would be better. Thesquatrack.com sounds promising but it's been 2 years and they still haven't launched yet. It also seem very heavy on feature which I am not sure the average gym goer need.

Would it be possible to build a simpler version of it using excel with minimal programming skills needed?

 

[Jesus]

There is bodyspace.bodybuilding.com which is part of bodybuilding.com and it is ridiculously popular and has all of that plus they sell any fitness product imaginable for much cheaper than most places.