Connecting gym goers: Gym-O

Short Summary

Just like you, I am a regular visitor to the gym, unless you don't, but fret not, everything starts with a first step. I am Kean Wei, 23 this year and graduating chemical engineering soon (yay). And, I have great passion in meeting new people, especially those doing sports!

My thought was "Why just workout alone when we can meet new friends in the gym? Why not socialize and create new opportunities?". For a regular gym goer, 2 hours per day in the gym could have been better if it's filled with chatter, and this could turn into something great, say friendship, business or love! Hence, great efforts have been harnessed from different people to create Gym-O. A mobile app consisting of a gym buddy matching system which acts as a social platform and also suit for finding personal trainers.

Why are we here? To be specific, there is insufficient funding for team expansion, partnership and branding purposes, which we will appreciate your slightest contribution through PitchIN.

What We Need & What You Get

Gym-O will require a RM30,000 fund for a sustainable development over a six-months period. One third of the fund raised would be used to build the mobile app, where money is used to hire developers and designers. Another RM10,000 would be used for hiring media team to increase brand exposure. Remaining RM10,000 would be utilized for partnering up with numerous gyms and sport brand vendors. If abovementioned plannings are unable to proceed accordingly, remaining funds would be used to hold in-house gym events in selected gyms to boost communication between gym members, and still connecting the gym community.

With all risks and time consuming process, yet, the Gym-O team has the purest passion in connecting gym-goers! Therefore, we really need your help!

The Impact

Fitness awareness has been seen to increase noticeably in Malaysia, where numbers of gym goers increase exponentially, however, the community is deemed isolated. Unfortunately, there is no exclusive platform that allows gym goers to exchange insights or gain extra knowledge regarding gym routines, diet plans and exercise methods. Gym-O will be a one-stop app that allow users to chat with other gym goers and plan workouts together. Moreover, experienced users can opt to apply for “personal trainer/ coach” account and provide help to those in need of advices, meanwhile earning an income. User privacy and safety will be of utmost importance, hence, the chatting system will be guarded with authentication system and two users must approve before they can start interacting.

Gym-O is currently pioneering in Bandar Sunway area, and surveys have been set up in Sungym by introducing students as the first batch of user. Numerous constructive feedbacks have been suggested, however we require a larger team to engineer the features, hence your help would be greatly appreciated!

Risks & Challenges

More often than not, many user-matching apps are labelled as dating apps and have bad reputation in the current society. Despite that, the Gym-O team promises to produce a healthy-cultured app by heavily relating the app features with gym and fitness topics.

Moreover, the local culture in Malaysia has always been conservative where such apps are hard to be accepted and often face rejections. With that, Gym-O plans to collaborate with renown sport brands and fitness centres to encourage users that the app is genuine and promotes societal fitness awareness.

Fund Usage

Our Strategy and Approximated Timeline

Short Term: (3 months)

• To launch iOS and Android apps - beta version.
• User acquisition by inviting pioneer testers from participating existing survey.

Mid Term: (3 month)

• Review on beta tester feedbacks and utilize acquired data to pitch for angel fundings.
• Similarly, a fraction of fundings will be used for hiring developers and designers.
• While another fraction of fundings will be used for branding and advertisement purposes to increase exposure.
• Advertisement: Focus on partnership agreement with local gyms for mutual advertisement purpose (they provide membership discount while we promote their gym).
• Advertisement: Search for sports brands to be our advertisee to provide items (e-voucher for sportswear, supplements and equipment)
• Branding: Hire media team to promote app and increase exposure in society.
• The goal is to retain as many user as possible.

Long Term: (In the future)

• Seek for improvement opportunities and additional features to retain users.
• Aim to be a renown social platform for people that have fitness awareness.

Other Ways You Can Help

It would be greatly appreciated for you to spread the words around about Gym-O, and if interested to know more about us please contact [email protected]. (We are students and we don't bite.)