Focus
Preventative health is a vast space spanning diet, movement, sleep, mental health, and social connections; and there are many solutions in the space. Dozens of apps, clinical solutions, professional services (nutritionists & personal trainers), retail solutions (gyms, sports centers, health clinics, spas, etc.), and hardware solutions (fitness trackers & monitoring devices) exist. As I was looking across this landscape, I spent time thinking about where I should start.
I have decided to start with diet and aim to build Hobbes as the world's best diet coach. Why diet?
- Everyone eats. Not everyone works out or meditates regularly. So, it has broad applicability. It is also easier to change something you already do, than to start a new habit.
- It is a software solution. We don't really have hardware that can automatically monitor what you have eaten, so it has to be a software solution - which can be built with low upfront investment.
- Diet has significant impact on health. Most experts believe that changing your diet has the biggest impact to overall wellness - more than exercise or sleep. Of course, the best option is to combine all three. Changes in diet can show results quickly, thus helping with building a reinforcing habit.
- Over a billion people use diet tracking apps, and no one is happy with their apps. We understand the value of a healthy diet, so over a billion of us have downloaded various diet tracking apps. Yet, 90% of us stop using these apps within 2 weeks. There are several reasons - tracking is cumbersome, the apps are not engaging enough, we don't see results quickly enough, etc. This shows that there is an opportunity to build an app that stands out in this mess.
- There is an arch nemesis. MyFitnessPal is the biggest health app on the planet (if we leave out the health services from Google and Apple). Over 200 million people have downloaded and used the app. What started as a plucky upstart 20 years ago, is now owned by a private equity firm who is intent on extracting as much value from it as they can. Going up against a Goliath in the space will be fun - even if I fail!
I've just begun development of Hobbes and plan to start testing with a few users in a couple of months, with the launch of the first version by August. If you know anything about software development, you know that plans are always too optimistic :)
What do you think about my focus area? Let me know if you feel I'm making a mistake.