>Without some sort of web+mobile experience, you are way behind everyone else that is established in the space (runkeeper, runtastic, strava, mapmyrun).
perhaps, but I'm not convinced the web features are that exciting or necessary for success. (Note that I make apps for a living, but I don't need 1 app to carry all of the weight. It would be nice to have a huge success that turns into something more, but it isn't required)
>The competitors are well-funded and start-uppy
Yeah that sucks. I agree.
>The app ends up being a demo because of the restriction on number of runs, while the competitors offer something fully functional, including Vima's paid features, for free. Is this going to work?
I have no idea honestly, but I've had success with this style of limitation in the past. I STRONGLY considered no limits, but I wanted to do it this way to start. I can remove the limits later and only make people happy. Can't start with no limits and go back easily.
Also, I hate banner ads. So ugly. So not useful. With no limit I'd really have to put ads in it. which may happen, but I'd love for this to work. It's an experiment.
>The name is probably bad - take it from the guy who likes greek mythology for names. If it's a running app, you might as well say so. Runtastic, Runkeeper, MapMyRun - there's a theme here.
Possibly, but you've also got Strava and Endomondo as counterpoints
>I don't consider this an "MVP" for a running app.
I think that's pretty harsh. We are obviously competing against mapmy and runkeeper etc, but that doesn't mean we have to make the same app. I believe that there is a market for a simpler version that does the basics (time, distance, maps, etc.) with an easier to use interface. We have some more advanced features planned, like interval training and more charts etc, but the idea we were going for was the simplicity. Now, the monetization strategy was an entirely new experiment that may or may not work. It's a lot cheaper than the competitors options, but as you pointed out doesn't do as much.