GOQii

Recently, i came across a US based fitness tracking app called GOQii, which is rapidly expanding in China and India. It combines a wearable technology (own wristband) with an accompanying app and a personal instructor who structures a fitness regime for each individual subscriber and follows up on it through chats, telephone calls and v-con.

What is great though, is that the service and app is also compatible with competing wearable fitness technology devices like Fitbit, Jawbone and Misfit; so it effectively takes the hardware out of the equation, and encourages adoption by a greater number of people.

More importantly, GOQii is taking a shot at the most common problem faced by fitness apps worldwide, that after some amount of use by new enthusiasts, they are abandoned, that most people lose interest eventually. They are trying to get around this by doing two things:

1. Charging money (3 month subscription: Rs 3,999; 6 month: Rs 6,999; 12 month: Rs 11,999) so you might feel compelled to utilize the package which you have paid for without dropping out i.e. in Indian terms: "paisa vasool karna" (similar to a gym membership)
2. Providing a coach who will push, motivate and guide you (at a much cheaper rate than a personal trainer at the gym or outside)

Some gaps and challenges are still abound:

1. Need: For a fitness oriented person, who is driven and dedicated enough, the push, motivation and guidance of a personal trainer is immaterial, hence one may just use a free app like Strava, Runkeeper or Nike+  to track activities
2. Community: A major motivation factor for me, within Strava, is the community. The ability to follow rides and runs of friends and relatives, to like and comment, and interact with others within the app (similar to a Facebook feed, but for fitness) The GOQii community is currently an unknown factor
3. Portability: Having used Strava for the last three years, my history of activities and total kms run and cycled is a major moat which prevents me from switching to another app. If GOQii were to allow its import to their app, and sync activity history and usage between various apps, they would also take the moat out of the equation; while at the same time providing their personal coaches with a database of fitness history, much like providing a medical history to a new doctor
4. Marketplace and Network Effects: Apart from offering their own fitness trainers (who provide assurance of service quality) GOQii has also pivoted into a marketplace for trainers, where trainers need to be certified by GOQii before offering their services to subscribers. Alternately, it could gradually move to any user uploading their training routine, for others to follow, with the possibility of being rated by user feedback or number of followers. Charges could be pre-defined or auctioned, much like an an Uber for fitness, with GOQii purely being a medium for connecting fitness oriented folks, and retaining a part of the fees as their margin, and looking at alternate sources of income like advertising for fitness related apparel and accessories.

In conclusion, our lifestyle nowadays involves long periods of physical inactivity during the day, positioned at a laptop or a desktop, coupled with unhealthy eating habits, and elevated levels of stress on an everyday basis. I am a big proponent of allocating some time everyday for physical activity, either before or after work, be it something as simple as a half an hour walk in the nearby park.

It is really nice to see the technology and internet oriented support, apps and communities mushrooming around fitness, and catering to the growing mass of newbies and athletes alike, on their path towards a long term healthy routine and lifestyle.

References and additional information:

1. GOQii recently secured some funding, and here is a complete review of the product and service itself by the good folks at NDTV Gadgets
2. More on network effects here and here, by Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures. I am a fan of his investment philosophy, and if such opportunities were to emerge for a retail investor in India, i would go long on these scrips
3. I have used Strava for tracking my runs and rides over the last 3 years, and my Strava profile can be found here. It has been with me through 4 half marathons over this period, and through the ongoing preparation for a full marathon early next year

'What' Lies in Store

Its been more than a year since Whatsapp entered my life, and is such an inherent part of it now, i wonder how people passed their time in the pre-Whatsapp era.

For the uninitiated, 

Whatsapp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages using the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia. 

Created by ex-Yahoo! employees, Brian Acton and Yan Koum, Whatsapp is a nifty little app which allows one - to - one as well as group chats, with a maximum group size of 50. It also has (most importantly) nil advertising on its interface. Here's why, explained by the creators themselves. Its free for a year and costing $0.99 p.a. thereafter (on all platforms, since 17th July). (Incidentally, the creators were so kind as to extend my free usage by another year. Thanks Brian and Yan!) 

So, what Whatsapp has done basically is eliminated sms usage, much to the chagrin of telecom companies and other instant messaging apps like iMessage, Blackberry Messenger, Gtalk and Facebook Chat. Staying in touch with friends abroad is a breeze, creating groups for different friend circles encompassing people in locations all over India and abroad is now possible, and various activities can be coordinated now, that would require several phone calls or mass messages before. 

By the way, it is also a bit distracting. And by a bit, i mean a lot. The ease of forwards and broadcast messages has made jokes and memes repetitive and an utter nuisance throughout the day. I have actually taken to switching off internet services while at work nowadays and checking in every hour or two (which saves a surprising amount of battery charge) to reduce the pings and the overwhelming desire to reply to each one (there is also a mute option within the app for silencing specific groups)

Over the last couple of months, some amazing numbers have been revealed by the company. It recently surpassed 250 million active users worldwide (greater than twitter) and now handles 27 billion messages per day. It is quite a feat for an app or software to spread all over the world and gain mass acceptance so rapidly, especially one that has no formal advertising or promotion expense (just word of mouth) What is it that has made Whatsapp so attractive and an instant hit? What gives it the edge over competitors? (WeChat from China has tried very hard, with voice messages and Lionel Messi in tow, and Whatsapp has responded by incorporating voice messages in its latest version)

So, what lies in store for this behemoth going forward? Thus far they seem intent on not monetizing user data and information, and offering unlimited usage. What other sources of revenue are possible from this user base? Will they turn to social networking and gaming? Or will they offer corporate solutions by defining a whole suite of <chat-email-calender-task manager> for mobile and desktop devices, all integrated into one? Only time will tell. Until then, keep sending those forwards in. Cheers.