Interviewer: Gabie Ivanova
Interview Date: 9/28/17 Interviewee: Jasmine Leary, Project Coordinator at Crown Castle / fitness enthusiast
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Interviewee: “Lana”
Fitness Enthusiast, AIDS Lifecycle Participant, Half Marathon Runner September 25th, 2017 Conducted by: Greg Anderson Why we interviewed this person: Lana asked to remain anonymous. She is an avid fitness enthusiast who participates in many events across the bay area. We really wanted to understand this: I really wanted to understand which of our many solutions (especially around gameification) resonated with her. We learned this about the problem space: Lana uses 4 different apps for fitness: Strava, Myfitnesspal, Asics coach and Spring. The biggest problem is they each solve different problems around her fitness and dietary goals but they exist in separate spheres. She loves the idea of the abstraction layer where she can bring all the information to one place and receive personalized content and 1:1 advice. We were surprised by: One area she loved was the visualization of goals on one roadmap. If she is able to set and adjust her personalized goals with the help of professionals and advice she think it could become an obsessive app. This is certainly one of the goals around gamification. Filling in goals and receiving medals, badges, avatar decorations may not be enough reward. We may want to consider a social aspect for groups to participate together as well. Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview): She didn’t like the idea of extrinsic gameification. Zombie – Run for example seems overly complex to her and she doesn’t think that would get her to run more. As much as I like the idea I think it is a completely different solution. Perhaps we should stick to intrinsic gameification and look towards the visualized goal map being our bread and butter differentiation. I think we need to do a mockup and see if people like the idea when they actually see it. Interviewee: Ronnie Brant
Kinesiologist, Salesforce Product Specialist September 20th, 2017 Conducted by: Greg Anderson Why we interviewed this person: Ronnie is a Kinesiologist who I went to school with at University of Michigan. Now he has moved into the product space at Salesforce. He should not only have insight as a training specialist but also from the tech product side. We really wanted to understand this: What is his insight on the product idea? We are starting to come up with solutions at this point. I wanted to understand his views on how this product fits into the existing market. We learned this about the problem space: There is a ton of training and freemium apps out there. He feels that we should focus on how much content there is or how good the content is but rather the packaging and delivery. I think I want to look further at possible means of differentiation. One thing we have been discussing is intrinsic vs extrinsic gameification. Perhaps we need to find our differentiation someplace other than in our content. We were surprised by: His focus was away from content and much more towards execution and packaging. If our only plan was truth based content, I worry that we will just be another App or website. Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview): I want to focus on solution possibilities. What do amateur athletes and fitness enthusiasts want most: A simplified interface for all their current apps or perhaps a game layer on top of their current apps. September 21th 2017 - Interview #7
Interviewee: Mandar Kulkarni Conducted by: Hugo Pelland Why we interviewed this person: Mandar is a fitness enthusiast who would be a great customer for one of our tentative solutions. We really wanted to understand this: What is missing right now in terms of tools that people would like to use, but cannot find. We learned this about the problem space: There are several options that exist that I was not aware of. Mandar helped with identifying these with a simple tool: looking at Reddit threads where, for example, several alternatives to Myfitnesspal are discussed. We were surprised by: It seems that users are generally trustworthy of forums and treads they find online. In such cases, the source's credentials are not what matters as much as the credibility that the source obtained by posting and being re-posted by supporters. Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview) Consider reaching out to active forum users to get more insights into how they get information themselves in order to help others. September 24th 2017 - Interview #8 Interviewee: Isabelle Cournoyer, MD Conducted by: Hugo Pelland Why we interviewed this person: Dr. Cournoyer was my primary care doctor when I was still living in Québec, Canada. I was curious to know what she trusts as a source of information to help her better inform her patients. We really wanted to understand this: Given that the medical space is vast, complex, and hard to generalize for all, I wanted to better understand how she gets information tailored to specific patients, or groups of patients who share certain traits. We learned this about the problem space: Dr. Cournoyer offered an interesting approach to getting facts about health, fitness & diet: ask patients what they use first, and try to start from there. The idea is that patients feel comfortable using the same, or similar, resources they are already familiar with. It gives them a sense of security. In other words, what she has noticed over the years is that it's easier to suggest topics rather than specific sources. Giving specific sources should come at a later stage in the discussion according to her. We were surprised by: When asked about what sources are the most reliable, Dr. Cournoyer's instant response was: none. This was surprising and actually more of a joke, but with a point, which is that there is no single source of information that is reliable in all cases. Some scientific magazines for instance are great at certain topics, but often miss the mark on others. It was a great reminder that one should not trust just 1 source. Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview) It would be interesting to meet with more doctors. They have a lot to say about the topic! Interview #5
Diego Dias My first interview this week is a recreational athlete that wants to add some structure to his workout routine. I first brought up the idea of an individual user friendly app that integrates into other fitness apps. We both agreed that the user experience was the critical driver here. Essentially what we're creating is a all-knowing personal trainer that directs you to other apps that have the content to help you get fit. We then discussed what are some pain points for today's fitness apps and why people still preferred real trainers to apps. Perhaps the most important is the ability to take feedback in real time and adapt the prescription. For example, choosing an exercise not only based on fitness goals, but also medical history, workout duration, interests, and other variables. In addition, a certain level of personality and gamification would be necessary to create a fun experience -- e.g. unlocking levels, achievements, incentives. When we discussed incentive system, we thought about existing steps and points that other services typically use and realized that we weren't leveraging the core product enough. Using a fact based product should make someone feel smarter, and that's an interesting angle we should explore. Granting someone status increases based on their progress and putting them in a recognized position to help others would create a system of credibility as users socialize with each other. Why we interviewed this person: We wanted to focus on a more specific recreational athlete segment. We really wanted to understand this: How we can best deliver a powerful value proposition to normal recreational athletes. We learned this about the problem space: Many people wouldn't be interested if you can only work out in 3rd party apps, you need to include gym workouts and classes as well. We were surprised by: The amount of personalization that we'd have to provide and the gamification required to keep things interesting. Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview): It was interesting how the conversation tends to deviate from our core product and turn into another fitness app. We need to keep the focus on fact-driven. Interview #6 Taryn Hadfield My second interview was with a busy MBA student who has a demanding schedule. She feels that working out can be a bit boring and prefers to do it at the gym. Interestingly enough, we brainstormed how to accomplish this through 3rd party apps and both agreed there was a lot of noise out there. Several prominent fitness apps can give you some type of work out, but the user interfaces are not very adaptable and intuitive. Instead of taking our users to a 3rd party app, it should also be able to adjust and put together simple gym work out routines, log custom work outs and account for instructor led classes. The app should be very easy to use as he will be very busy and not want to spend a lot of time inputting data. We then discussed the social aspect of the app. She liked my idea of the status system and then developed on how we can help people socialize through this app. People of comparable status and fitness goals should be able to exchange information and work out together and it'd be interesting to incorporate some type of buddy system into the UI. Interactions and social features can great improve the user retention on the app and we should be exploring this area. She used to use Fitbit a lot with her friends but wished that it expanded to other forms of exercise besides walking. Why we interviewed this person: We wanted to know how people with busy schedules felt about this type of product. We really wanted to understand this: How we can get busy people more willing to dedicate their time to this app. We learned this about the problem space: A social aspect for people of the same status to talk about fitness would be a good starting point. Facilitating them to meet and work out together would then be best. We were surprised by: Some people did not want to spend time ramping up to achieve a status and instead wanted a shortcut to gain status immediately to reflect their knowledge. Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview): How we can give status quicker in a fair way. Interviewer: Gabie ivanova
Interview Date: 9/25/17 Interviewee: Lauren Au, PhD, RD | Assistant Researcher Nutrition Policy Institute University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources Interviewee: Vincent B.
Master Trainer at City Sports September 23, 2017 Conducted by: Jamie Moon Why we interviewed this person: Vincent is a master trainer who has BS in Kinesiology. He’s been training customers from weight loss and amateur athletes in helping them achieve their fitness goals. We really wanted to understand this: how would trainers feel about an app that can provide insights / facts to customers and whether this would be attractive for fitness trainers We learned this about the problem space: trainers sometimes feel threatened by all these apps that provide training guidelines and exercise routines. It’s hard for trainers to retain customers as well since once they know what works for them, they continue working out on their own and stop seeing trainers. It is definitely time consuming and requires commitment by the customers and there isn’t an incentive for them to continue except for their fitness goals. However fitness apps that provides incentives like rewards, discount codes, promotions actually provide the extra push to customers. We were surprised by: retaining customers is hard as a trainer as well. Vincent said he would use the app for himself, but would not share with his customers because the customers can just use the app and he’ll lose his customer base. The rewarding / gamification will definitely help engaging customers. He mentioned that we can think about partnering with nutrition drug distributors or stores and provide coupons to customers or even personal training opportunities with local trainers. Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview): we can start locally and get personal trainers on board for customer acquisition as well. Customer who use our app can get connected to local personal trainers. Also, we can allow them to find fitness partners in the local area. Interviewee: Brian Kim
Marketing Manager at LINE September 23, 2017 Conducted by: Jamie Moon Why we interviewed this person: Brian is a marketing manager at a chat platform that monetizes on emoticons, features, etc. He would be able to provide insights to customer retention and acquisition We really wanted to understand this: Wanted to understand how and what triggers users to pay, and what’s the most difficult part in obtaining a paid user We learned this about the problem space: it’s impossible to hit all customer segments. Need to focus on one or two customer personas to successfully monetize. “Freemium” is another way to monetize. For our product, we would need to come up with a plan for in-app purchases We were surprised by: turnover rates; less than 20% of the new customers continue to use the app. From acquisition to retention, the marketing has to dramatically change to keep customers engaged Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview): customer behavior varies so even with one or two personas we chose, we would need to dig deeper around different behaviors with these personas Interviewee: Gabie Ivanova
Interview Date: 9/23/17 Interviewee: Joel Sipe-Chen, Sr. Managing Engineer at Exponent Interviewee: Nic Vighi
Ironman Athlete September 17th, 2017 Conducted by: Greg Anderson Why we interviewed this person: Nic is very much in the world of competitive distance events. He has done multiple full ironmans and follows strict dietary guidelines. We really wanted to understand this: Nic fits into a target market segment very different from your casual triathlete or at home fitness aficionado. He would be considered an amateur athlete. I wanted to understand where his dietary regiment and training advice came from. We learned this about the problem space: Nic trusts triathlon.com and tricalifornia.com for training regiments. These are sites hosted by the official body that hosts and regulates triathlons across the state. This is another option we hadn’t really looked at, these are competitors who actually make money sponsoring events not giving training advice. His dietary advice comes from specific books or the labels of food products. It seems like more of a try and see approach. We were surprised by: His ideal system is very different from other segments. He is not looking to read content he wants an input/output based system where he can enter his goals, specifics about the race and he would get a training plan, recovery, dietary suggestions, race plan ect. This fits very well into a 1:1 advice portal but personalized advice on a large scale could become very expensive. This may be possible to do with enough upfront input though. Other interesting outcomes or learning (how this interview might change your next interview): Perhaps speaking to a triathlon coach would be interesting. If we can get the outputs he was seeking up front perhaps this system he described could be created. |
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October 2017
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