Show HN: Dollar Lean Club – Get and Stay Fit Starting at $1/mo | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Dollar Lean Club – Get and Stay Fit Starting at $1/mo

dollarleanclub.com

61 pointsclervius57 comments

I would invest my time reading http://darebee.com - it's free (a.k.a donationware, crowd-funded) and contains valuable exercise and nutrition information just within the reach of a click. And if you want to spend money, you can always click the donate button.

Thanks a lot for darebee !! didnt knew

Beautiful resource. KISS info, without "in your face" monetization.

Wow, that's an amazing resource. Thank you for sharing!

The 1$ price is a nice low barrier and almost makes it a convenience good, but it should be equally easy to join.

As a European, i didn't know my weight/height in imperial units which made me abort the signup process

Thank you for the feedback.

Yes, definitely incorporating the metric unit as we speak.

You couldn't type it in a google search bar where it does the conversion for you?

Do you think the average user would? Their feedback is valid regardless if they spent the time to convert the units.

Why would you continue if you know you have to convert units all the time? Makes sense to cancel since you're not a target audience.

Why cancel ordering a programming course in Hungarian if there is Google translate?

I was disappointed to see the $1 a month didn't include a meal plan. The biggest body transformations come through diet, not exercise.

What is your diet going to do to me? I am already in shape. Will your diet make me gain muscle mass, gain fat, have more energy, sleep better, induce insulin spikes, etc?

Also, don't some US states prevent people from providing physical exercise and nutritional advice without licensed professionals?

On the other hand, my disappointment was not having the Automated Accountability feature in the basic plan. I could see myself paying a small fee for that, but not $10/month - which is ~25-50% of a full membership to a real live physical fitness club around where I live.

Looks really interesting. Will there be an option to use the metric system? And how flexible are the meal plans, e.g. do they take into account my likes/ dislkies, allergies, seasonal food or dietary preferences ligh high fat/ low carb?

Thank you for the feedback. There will be an option for the metric system.

For meal plans, we calculate the users' BMI, match that up with how much weight they want to lose/gain and in how much time they want to achieve that.

Right now it takes seasonal foods into account, but not likes/dislikes, allergies.. We are working to incorporate these in the future.

So I imagine this is primarily for people who want to lose a large amount of weight, but the BMI method is going to fall apart for people who are already fit and want to cut or add weight slowly.

For example, I'm 185 @ 5'11", but I'm also sitting around 10% body fat. By BMI I'm overweight, and I imagine the calorie deficit you come up with would be wrong.

I haven't looked (seems like I have to create an account to check), but do you allow people to enter their own daily caloric goal?

Interesting enough that I'd consider it, all I want is someone to tell me what to buy. Can you change the 'extremeness' of the e.g. diet?

However the sample meal plan doesn't work, can't click anywhere despite looking like I can. Chrome latest.

Also remove that scroll smoothing thing you've got going. Extremely annoying on macOS. Enough that looking at your page made me slightly angry.

Thank you for your feedback.

The Meal plan has the shopping list so you have the "what to buy" in there. What do you mean by "extremeness"?

I've got some other feedback about the sample meal and smooth scrolling that match up with yours so definitely making those a priority.

Thanks again!

The sample meal plan (stuck on Sunday) also shows "3,500 calories total today" which doesn't really inspire confidence for weight loss :)

I meant like, set a max/min of calories you want to eat per day - and the meal plan would change accordingly.

Non-default scrolling is the worst. I won't even bother to read any more if I try to scroll, over-shoot the mark and miss what I'm trying to read entirely. I'm not going to fight your page to satisfy my mild curiousity.

Should hire a nutritionist, your concept is flawed in a few ways. First and foremost, ditch BMI or realize people will know this is bullshit. Pitching halfasses weight loss advice is downright unethical. Shame on you. If you knew how hard it was for people you would not choose to profit from it.

BMI is a flawed statistic. But the advantage of BMI is it is quick and easy to calculate, with simple measurements at home that are hard to screw up. This is why it hasn't gone away.

The main alternative that I would suggest possibly including, are methods that include waist and/or hip measurements. Some of which are believed to predict mortality better. (See aBSI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Shape_Index or waist to hip ratio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waist%E2%80%93hip_ratio).

This would involve tracking a couple of optional measurements, though. And not everyone knows how to measure accurately, so it does introduce a possible source of error.

If you know of a better statistic, feel free to chime in. :) From what I see, the most accurate methods for measuring true body fat (hydrostatic, DEXA, etc.) currently are impractical at home, and other current home methods (skin calipers, home BIA) aren't that great either (unless you know what you are doing with the calipers). I do see someone is coming out with a 3D scanner for home bodyfat measurements (https://naked.fit/), but it's pretty pricey at $700ish for the pre-order.

Woah woah woah... that's a little much. BMI is not ideal, but it's quick and easy for someone to figure out at home. It's not BS and there's no way it's unethical. It's a starting point for people and nothing more. Unless you've looked through the advice they're giving on here, what even gives you the idea to say their advice is unethical?

The biggest obstacle to getting in shape for most people is habit: breaking old ones (generally diet) and acquiring new ones (usually exercise). These kinds of services, whether it's Dollar Lean Club or a monthly gym membership, are really just a way to trick your brain into thinking you've taken action, to alleviate the negative feelings you have about your fitness. It doesn't address the problem (which subconsciously, is exactly why it's appealing).

To get started, don't worry about the specifics of the exercise program or the diet, just focus on building or breaking a specific habit. Examples:

- Do a ten-minute stretching routine every morning as soon as you get out of bed. Once it's a habit, turning it into an exercise routine won't be that hard.

- Pick a small set of healthy foods and eat some form of them before dinner every night, whether you're at home or out to eat, even if it means you're eating an extra dish. Once it's a habit, start cutting unhealthy food out.

Nice idea. Something to think about for a future feature: the ability to constrain meal plans by preparation time.

Others have also mentioned things like low carb restrictions; I'm on board with that suggestion, too.

Great start, though!

Generic pictures of flawless attractive people lacks credibility. It just shows that you are savvy enough to hire good models and photographers to sell. Where's the story?

This is an interesting project. As someone who has struggled up and down with weight at different times in my life I know having structure has been a huge benefit. Having plans that fit my needs is the most challenging and offloading that would be a huge time saver. I'd be an ideal target customer for you, but, based on the MVP today I'm not ready to buy.

Here are a few pieces of feedback/considerations:

1) 'Automated Accountability' is very unclear. Many consumers look at your pricing table first and may not read into more details. Consider A|B testing clear language around this or letting people hover over for a description?

2) I'm not 100% about the legal situation in various US states, but, in Canada for example meal plans and exercise plans should come from registered professionals (Personal Trainers, and Registered Dietitians or Registered Nutritionists). You may reduce your legal liabilities and increase consumer confidence if you have these people involved in your project even as advisers. If that is the case currently, consider making it more clear.

3) Some level of "About Us" seems crucial. In the health industry a lot of people by into the "why". What is your expertise or story that makes you the right choice for them.

For Geek Fitness (http://www.geekfitness.net/) it was personal weight loss stories.

For Jenny Craig (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Craig,_Inc.) it was Monika Lewinsky [et al] whose stories put them on the map.

For Janet Jacks (http://discoverthepoweroffood.ca/) it was helping combat her husbands diabetes.

For Joe Cross (http://www.rebootwithjoe.com/) it was reclaiming his health from weight challenges and skin issues (and making it into a great documentary).

What's your story that will connect personally with the struggles of these individuals? They need something to say "Hey, that's where I am at. If it works for them it could work for me!"

4) $6 seems low for personalized meal plans. In fact, it seems too low. Personalization is a premium product. As a consumer I'd be skeptical that anyone is spending any time validating meal plans at that price point. For $6 introduce generic meal plans for weight loss. Charge me a premium price for personalization. You make more money and I have more faith.

5) Do you account for allergies or health issues? If I am diabetic would there be too many carbs or sugars for me? It's worth thinking about. I would estimate that those who pay a premium for personalization are those under-served by automated solutions currently. Having one customer who pays $45 a month for a well personalized plan is much easier to manage than 45 $1 a month customers!

Best of luck!

I agree about #3 - right now it looks pretty faceless and doesn't have a story. In fitness we seem to need an exemplar who is fit, talks the talk and walks the walk.

The stock images of attractive skinny people don't establish the same credibility as a first person or team bio.

This is an increasing problem in advertising everywhere. If we keep using attractive skinny people in our product shots, photo shoots and marketing communication, we will push a growing disconnect between that and actual, real people. When people can't identify (which is the initial goal of using people in your communication) with the messaging, they won't think it's for them.

Fit, attractive people exist! "Actual Real" people? Do you mean chubby and out of shape? Or morbidly obese? Or what?

If you are referring to the fact that there are more fat people than skinny people, ok. Keep this in mind; that fact is not the fault of the people whom have managed to stay fit either by luck, genes, or hard work. People need to be honest with themselves and get their butts moving.

Yeah they are selling a lifestyle fix. It wouldn't be bad to get some normal people before and after photos. But the founders should be examples and they should live by their program and be an example for would-be customers.

My point was that the founders real personalities and story are absent and instead we see stock photos.

What if the founders are attractive, fit people?

Yeah I'm saying they should be... but they just shouldn't be stock images.

Man thank you very much for this feedback.

1. We started changing that up to say accountability chat-bot. Seems to be working for some.

2. The plans are created by a registered professional. I agree that this should be made more clear on the site. We actually discussed that we were going to add it, somehow that wasn't done. My fault entirely.

3. Okay, this part we didn't think through. But in my conversations with people who have joined so far, they seem to like that i'm also an active competitive bodybuilder, and so is my business partner. Sort of didn't want to make this about me and more about the users/idea.

4. It's not entirely generic. There is a quasi-algorithm that we put together that takes into account the users' weight/height, giving us a bmi and then takes into account how much weight they want to lose and in what time frame. We ended up with a couple categories from this and get the plans created separately for each category. So everyone who joins will fall into one category depending on their preferences... I DO agree very much though that it could be personalized even further and that's something we can charge a premium for.

5. Right now, we don't account for health issues/allergies. As a diabetic, you would have a hard time unless you contacted us directly (we make this easy) and we can figure something out for your. We just launched so we're actually still in the phase of figuring things out that we couldn't prioritize before.

THANK YOU!

Do the workout plans take into factor my goals? I sit at work all day, will it include stuff to undo the harm sitting does?

Your meal plan demo doesn't work correctly, all of the tabs seem to do nothing. If that's intended, you should incorporate full functionality into the demo. The meal planning would be the selling point for me and I'd like to demo the whole thing.

Slightly irrelevant: Raleway's legibility on the site is pretty poor (at least, for me).

I'm one of those people that probably overuses Raleway. It's a really nice font, but it doesn't fit everywhere and when it doesn't fit it really stands out. I'd agree that there are probably a few fonts that would work better.

Please allow the use of metric units during sign-up and for the content (receipes etc.) itself. The vast majority of people do not "speak" imperial.

Also: you might want to offer a demo login. I want to see what i get before signing up.

The vast majority of people that may buy this product might speak imperial. How do you know who the target audience is? How many recipe sites have ingredients in grams and cups/oz.?

Betty Crocker doesn't! Alton Brown? NOPE. Food Network, NAH!

"Some people don't do it" doesn't make it a bad idea.

My Cooks Illustrated cookbook gives both metric and imperial measurements, IIRC.

Does this run afoul of Dollar Shave Club's trademarks?

Please, can we stop doing scrolljacking? It's so annoying

It's nearly impossible to use on macOS due to native scroll acceleration that conflicts with that plugin.

Confirming this, it's just so difficult. It's not even snapping to areas I would expect, either.

Agreed 100%. Is there any browser extension to help with that? I can imagine it might be hard to do because `onscroll` may have legitimate uses. Maybe at least something that would disable known "smooth scrolling" JS libs.

Just as an FYI it looks like it has crashed. I get a Heroku Application Error screen at the moment.

hmmm, thank you. I will be looking into that.

I was hoping this was leeean, you know, sizurp...

site is throwing application error

Are our reps any good? ... Nah

Our reps are f*cking great.

How has no one mentioned the fact the company is called "SwoleFreaks LLC". My heart sank reading that. Come on, at least try to be professional.

I find it funny, likely it was intended

> at least try to be professional

Why? What does it matter?

I guess StalwartGentlemen was taken ... I'm not sure why the name of the company is bothering you so much, there are no "bro culture" signals anywhere.

Didn't know that all companies need to be wet blankets about everything to be good at what they do.

Disclaimer: I don't know if they're good at what they do. I just think the 'everything needs to be boring so nobody gets offended' idea is crap.

Honestly that name doesn't turn me off at all. It gets the idea across.

For me, the go to fitness resource has been http://fitnessblender.com . For non-western ppl, the western meal plans and food calorie information often does not work, not to mention differing body types. So I try to make my own based on guidelines for my build. Fitnessblender is one constant resource for workouts in that it has more than 500 workouts based on intensity, cardio/hiit/strength, upper/lower/core/total, with/without equipment etc.

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