How we raised capital one month after launching | Hacker News Reader

How we raised capital one month after launching

8fit.com

71 pointsmichokest27 comments

They say each app install costs 30c, 10% of installs are active users, and in June 13% of active users were paying members - so the total customer acquisition cost was $23 for each customer paying $4/mo. They expect the percentage of paying people will double in the coming months, although no indication of why that would be the case or what the expected attrition rates are (fitness clientele is notoriously flaky). Unfortunately I couldn't find any Twitter chatter about 8fit so it's hard to gauge the sentiment of the initial 10k users.

Look like a smart investment into a strong founding team, rather than the product itself at this stage (not suggesting that the product cannot stand on it's own merit - only that the "team" slide was the most impressive part to me).

Yeah I got the same feeling when I read it. The investment is clearly in the team and not the initial metrics.

I just launched a fitness app about a month ago and every single metric I have is better than theirs, yet I'm not overly pleased. It had more than double their download rate, more than double their conversion to subscription, and significantly more (though still not meaningful) revenue. The thought of raising 6 figures based on this seems bizarre and absurd. Perhaps if I wanted to (I don't really) we could raise some for it, but the thought hadn't even crossed my mind.

Exactly. How do you raise a funding round after 1 month? Easy - just launch a successfully funded start-up first.

I'm not mad at them or anything but it is probably the #1 reason for them successfully raising money at this stage. Seems misleading not to have that front and center.

Did the article mention if the investors were the same as earlier projects or not? Not that it really matters, the fact that they successfully built a 50m startup is likely enough to get 200k from a lot of people.

Taking a look at your app, it seems a little disingenuous to tell people they can see the same results without a gym membership. Maybe a complete beginner will see the same results for a few weeks, but after that there's no way.

Also, fitness advice I can trust and nutrition plans that work? Why should I trust you guys over anyone who has an actual background in exercise physiology or nutrition? Do you have any evidence that your nutrition plans are better than premade ones online? I'm blown away that people give Soylent so much crap, but they're following the same principles as apps like this (an "if it fits your macros" approach) but do it with consistency and accuracy that a meal plan could never achieve.

It looks like you're off to a strong start, and I wish you the best of luck, but the app so far looks like it's strongly overselling/under-delivering which can be pretty offputting.

8fit is currently erroring out for me, but you don't need a gym to get where you want to get.

Not all non-gym bodyweight routines will work, but there are a few that use progressive overload and changing leverages to keep things "hard". This is what builds muscle, and if you're doing it regularly and eating well, you can shed fat (either through bulk/cut cycles or at the same time, albeit more slowly). For instance, see the beginner routine on Fitloop: https://fitloop.co/routines/bwf-beginner-routine

(I should probably mention that I'm assuming a lot here: specifically, this applies if you're looking to replicate a weightlifting-centric routine.)

Hey Steve, 8fit cofounder here.

It's really not a matter of whether or not you have a gym membership, it's a matter of the actual exercise you do. You can have a gym membership but if you spend your time doing the wrong things you won't get the results you're after. I myself go to the gym, as well as performing bodyweight exercises. They're clearly different, and we're not suggesting otherwise. However the bodyweight exercises are often more convenient for people with busy schedules, or who travel a lot.

As for the nutritional aspect, we're not inventing anything new, and we don't have any magic formulas. We're just helping people improve their health understanding the effects of the things they eat. It's not a fashionable diet, and it's not rocket science. It's pretty much standard healthy living.

So, to get a little but off the whole deck/fundraising thing - but how do you compare yourselves to say, Fitocracy. I just started using Fitocracy, and am really enjoying it so far. As much as I hate the word, the "gamification" elements are truly effective - definitely push me to want to workout more and climb up that point ladder.

Other than that - the app looks solid, and nice n simple. My only feedback is the tagline "for people who hate fitness". I am not a massive fan of fitness (hence why I am interested in these apps), but want to become someone that DOESN'T hate fitness - isn't that the entire goal of your company?

Congrats on raising the round and a great execution so far though :)

Fitocracy's great as well! But they're more centered in tracking and gamifying.

We take a different "just tell me what to do" approach. Users sign up, enter their stats and choose a goal: strength, weight loss, etc. With that, we generate workouts and plans to help them get there.

We also offer meal plans and personal coaching, because the human aspect matters a lot. That's why I believe most "fitness tracking" startups will fail... people are looking for a plan, not for a pretty dashboard.

I'm about to head down the survey route to help validate an idea. Did you target the respondents? Did you use a paid survey service?

We simple used Google Docs and pretended the product existed. Here's the original survey:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18Se8QtvIKrGPWd8HEN4ILZz3Yyp...

How did you get people to complete this survey? Google, Facebook Ads?

I posted ads on craiglist advertising free coaching

Inspiring post! Thank you!

Your numbers look truly amazing, low CPI and high conversion rate to paying users.

Do you mind sharing what's your sustainability/breakeven point in terms of monthly paying users? :) I guess it is around 25000, which you should be able to reach pretty soon assuming a 50% split marketing/product for the fresh funding.

Best of luck to you.

Glad you found it useful! I think it's working because the market is huge (everybody has a "fitness" problem) and it's such a simple product.

Our expenses are at $10k with a 3 people team, some freelancers and a $2k/mo marketing budget. We plan to break even in half a year, if things go right.

My goal so far has been to keep us profitable, as in +revenue and -expenses.

Hi, Im working on a fitness app (IOS) with a unique revenue model. Lets' talk sometime.

What do you typically spend the $2k/month marketing budget on? Is it mostly online advertising?

We're putting it on Facebook mobile ads at the moment.

What's the plan for the 200k? Are you throwing it all into marketing? Are you paying yourselves a salary?

We are a three people team of founders. Two of us live cheaply while traveling, so we keep it very lean, and one of us is living off his savings.

Here's the breakdown of expenses:

- $5.000/mo for paychecks - $2.000/mo for marketing - $800/mo for freelancers - $500/mo for software and hosting - $500/mo for operational expenses - A 10-20% margin for things that come up

At a $10k/mo burn rate currently, and being on track to make $1k on our first month, we only plan to go as low as $100k in our bank's balance.

We are being extremely cautious and saving money for future projects, because we want to avoid raising funds in a need.

What is the cost per user for hosting?

From my experience with my previous startup, we'd be able to comfortably support 50k actives without exceeding $10k a month in infrastructure.

So, I just downloaded the app, and I would love to know how you managed to get this app approved by Apple. In app subscription not using Apple's IAP? It seems to me this won't last long if you ever get a competent reviewer. Either that or I'm missing something?

If PG sees your chart without y-axis label on the top of the post, you're dead man :) What is it?

Haha, I left it out on purpose! It's the number of signups :)

Is the ios app meant to work ? I just get a white screen

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