Ask HN: What do you need to launch your side project? Anything HN can do to help?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13680516

by meesterdude • 9 years ago

8 10 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm working on an open source fitness platform. Think Github/Gitlab, but for fitness enthusiasts.

Basically, a training program is kind of like a repository that can be edited and improved by the community. Same with individual exercises.

Now, this ends up being much more difficult to implement than you would think at first glance. I already have the basic application structure laid out in what I believe to be a maintainable and extensible manner.

My mission statement is as follows:

"To create a self-curating community that demystifies physical fitness and makes information on fitness freely available."

One of the use cases I have envisioned is a user being able to declare that they are following a program. The user can then record their numbers for each individual set/session. The user can then view their progress in the form of various graphs and other visualizations. I believe this feature is important because I believe that many fitness beginners have a difficult time taking notice of their progress and become discouraged.

I don't necessarily have any technical questions. I would just like some feedback from fitness beginners and long time fitness enthusiasts. specifically:

- Have you used a fitness tracking app before? What did you like about it? Where could it have been improved?

- Does it matter to you if an app is browser only with a good mobile ui? Do you prefer web apps or native apps for tracking fitness/calories/etc?

- Have you tried to improve your fitness before and failed? If so, what was the reason you became discouraged?

- What kind of search/filtering functionality do you think would be most helpful for you to find a fitness program that suits your needs?

- The application itself is open source. There is no subscription/membership fee. No monthly subscriptions. Do you think an application like this one could subsist off of donations alone?

- Any other feedback?

Thanks for reading this, and if anyone wants to help, you can view the repository here: https://github.com/FFX01/fithub2

tpett2• 9 years ago

I would love to see this executed well so here are my scrambled thoughts on this. I have been lifting for around 5 years with a powerlifting focus and have used various program specific Excel sheets found online, Strong on iOS, Progression on Android, and thesquatrack.com back when it first entered beta(3 years ago maybe).

- I hate Excel sheets and using them on mobile has always been a pain.

- Strong was fine, the UI/UX was incredible. It was just lacking something to tie me to it and I'm not sure if I ever figured out what that was.

- Progression is the only one I have tried since moving to Android recently. I hated it. The UI was just alright and it forced a timer on me that stuck around even when the app was in the background and I never found a way to turn off that feature so I uninstalled. There wasn't much data analysis as far as I could tell.

- thesquatrack.com was by far the best I have ever used and seen. I stopped using it because there were a few instances of reliability issues and I just never came back to it. It has not been in active development for at least the last two years. The website was mostly mobile friendly and the UI was nothing fancy but it was good enough. It had a good range of exercises available. Exercise input was simplistic but powerful - having the option to input individual sets or batch them was nice. I really liked the rep max tracking and how it was noted on completing every workout. The graphs were great for analyzing almost everything. It had a decent program feature with maybe 10 programs. It had integration with LoseIt! for nutrition tracking but I use MyFitnessPal and apparently the dev was never able to get access to their API, so I have no input on that feature. It would be a nice integration if done correctly especially if used for graphs and analysis. It had a social media aspect which was cool.

- I never paid for thesquatrack, there were no paid features at the time I joined but once they were added I think it was for a subscription fee which was quite pricey. I don't think I paid for Progression but I did pay for Strong. I would gladly pay an up front cost for membership to a hosted instance of something like you're describing even if it is open source.

- I think a web app really limits your discoverability. I don't think I would've ever found thesquatrack.com if I didn't see the few reddit posts about it but Strong and Progression were easy to find as they were on app store charts.

scriptkiddy2• 9 years ago

This is great info! Definitely gave me some stuff to think about.

I think I'll check out thesquatrack.com for some ideas.

Regarding your point about native vs web apps: I have never built a native app before. That said, I'm sure it can't be all that difficult. I have built my back end to be fully decoupled from the front end and work entirely through an API. Shouldn't be too difficult to get the data onto a mobile device. Something new to learn I guess. I have also heard about "native" apps; where the app is "installed" on the device, but it really just opens up a windowless browser.

Thank you!

bsvalley• 9 years ago

I need $1 million dollars in seed money.

Lordarminius• 9 years ago

malux85• 9 years ago

Me too, I have a finished product (Deep Learning Platform), paying customers, but I am struggling to scale it on my own.

bbcbasic• 9 years ago

What crop are you planning to sew?

kidlogic• 9 years ago

A Google Forms/Typeform + zapier + Mailchimp to send valuable information to new signups in exchange for their contact information

auggiewestbound• 9 years ago

JotForm does the trick as well.

Ask HN: What do you need to launch your side project? Anything HN can do to help?

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