Launch HN: Charge Running (YC W21) – Social running app with real-time coaching
I’m Matthew Knippen, a 10 year iOS dev turned CEO for Charge Running (www.chargerunning.com). We built a mobile app that allows you to run with others from all over the world in real-time, all while being trained by a certified run coach. Think of us as Peloton for running, but way more social. You can learn more about our product here: http://www.chargerunning.com
I’m a career mobile dev that always liked hacking on things, and worked on over 60 applications ranging from photos, games, and fitness. Over the years, when I come across a problem in my life, I write code to solve it. I built a garage door opener app before it was cool, an electronic Go board, and an app to track different whiskeys I’ve tasted like “Untappd for Spirits.” Charge was born out of a much bigger personal problem:
I used to run a fair bit with my friend (and now co-founder) Rory. It was a great way to stay in shape and having someone to talk helped the time go by faster. Unfortunately, when Rory moved across the country for the military, both of us ran significantly less than we did before. I came to the conclusion running by myself… SUCKED! We were chatting about it on the phone one day knowing there had to be a better solution, and that's when we thought of Charge. I spent the weekend hacking something together, and on Monday, we tried it out.
Our first version of the app was an all white screen where it showed two things, Rory’s distance, and mine. We hopped on a phone, and used the app to have a friendly competition. A programmer vs a Navy Seal is rarely a fair challenge, and he kicked my a$$, but we LOVED it! On the backend, we utilized Firebase’s Realtime database for data, and a group phone call to manage audio. (Most of this has since been upgraded)
As any developer would want to do, we kept building on it, showing things like current pace, cadence, and more. A few friends wanted to join us, so we built support for multiple users, and listened to music while we ran. It was at this time that someone joined us that was a friend of a friend, and said “Now that I know I can run with this, I never want to run without it.”
So, we decided to turn our ugly hacked together app into an official product. When talking to our users, we found out that they wanted four things during their runs: 1. Motivation - The hardest part about going for a run is committing to do it and getting those shoes on 2. A social experience - Every other running app focuses on social after the run, not the ability to run with others in real-time. 3. Education - Most beginner runners just start running. After hearing Rory talk with them, they learned proper form and how to improve without getting injured. 4. Music - When asked what a big pain point was, users said they needed to put more work into their playlist than they spent running!
We took that information, and made a small pivot into dedicated coached classes, where a certified trainer would guide you through a specific type of workout. Each workout was effort-based, meaning whether you’re a complete beginner, or have run 25 marathons, you could join any class and fit right in.
We hired coaches (finding them by doing a bit of web scraping ) and built an audio solution with professional DJ software, allowing the coaches to change the beat of the music and auto-blend them together.
Rory and our other co-founder Julie (my sister), would host a few classes a day. I quit my job as an iOS contractor for a big company to focus on a start-up full time, at the same time my wife was 8 months pregnant with our first child. (I have the world’s most supportive wife!)
We launched, and we’re instantly overwhelmed. Apple featured us on “New Apps We Love”. MacWorld called us the “App of the Week”. We got 25K downloads, but we're still in a very early beta. We had no on-boarding. No app store video. Calling it a website would be an exaggeration. No one knew what we did, or how it worked,...
62 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadBecause it is kind of hidden, I am pasting the pricing from the FAQ
A one-month subscription is $29.99 and an annual subscription is $239.99/year ($20/month). Both options give you unlimited access to every Charge Running class, as well as our weekly “Club Races”.
Because this is a live experience with a coach in your ear, there is a cost involved
For example they can talk with Coach Amy on social media, chat with Coach Rory on Clubhouse, and see Coach Justin making a funny TikTok. The relatable coaches may not be the reason that runners are coming to the app, but they're definitely a major reason into why they stay.
edit: to be honest though, it does sound like a fun app and good idea. Especially after I've gotten back into running this new year, after being out for the last 2 years from an injury I got during a half marathon, and had a hard time getting back into running. I do want to give it a try, but i have trust issues with free trials if I have to put my card in.
1) Gyms are no competition for my money because I have no interest in going.
2) I am continually relieved at how cheap running is relative to most hobbies - I just pay for shoes, some clothes (don't need many), and race fees. Personally I feel like I have plenty of headroom to give on what I'd be willing to spend on what is easily my favorite hobby, and would really consider paying for something like this (I just had a kid so I'm not doing a lot of training right now).
For comparison, I have paid ~$100 for 3-month training programs and would gladly do it again. So these prices are in line with what I'd expect to pay for a dedicated running training program.
Sure but at a gym you also get unlimited access to coach led group training _in person_, as well as unlimited access to large and expensive facilities, so it doesn't really make sense that this costs as much as a gym membership.
If you're somebody who goes for a couple runs a week to supplement their main forms of exercise I agree that this is a pretty steep price to pay.
We do offer 20 different classes each and every day. Users who purchase an annual subscription can get an entire year of content, thousands of runs for less than a pair of competition running shoes.
Even for a runner that only uses our application once a week, they pay under $5 a class for a live certified coach, curated playlists (that cost a decent amount for copyright), live streaming data and other costs.
At scale these things may become more economical, and we may be able to offer a lower price.
While class sizes may differ, right now they're definitely smaller, allowing for a lot of time per coach. That will change with time, but it's our mission to provide as much value as humanly possible to our users.
Many gyms work really hard to lock you into long-term contracts, where you need to provide adequate reason to unsubscribe. With Charge, you're not locked into something long-term, and it's much easier for you to leave. From a business perspective, this requires us to continue to provide value for our customers, which is exactly what we're trying to do.
Don't take me at my word though, I'd love to hear your feedback. Would you be willing to try it out and let me know if you found value in the coaching?
I started 1 1/2 miles 2 days per week.
I'm up to 3 miles 3 days per week.
1. I have to enter my credit card for a 7 day trial
2. then I have to email you to cancel it within 7 days. I should be able to hit a button
There should be a free trial, no credit card.
I'm usually one to get the annual subscription on services, so I would get that here, but like a gym, i can't cancel after 7 days if I don't think I'm getting value, and I think this type of service would take more than a week to know if it's valuable. $10 more per month for monthly seems steep.
I'm putting this in the perspective of Gym membership costs, idk if other people think the same way.
Maybe they will, people pay for peloton. Then again that’s essentially a cult, and the contents seems richer.
Nice idea though, I wish I had thought of it!
Although, given that the coaching isn’t personal, and not even done in a local group, how much can a competitive runner really get out of it?
Running is cheap, and I happily pay for the nice things I use to run. $200 shoes every few months, no problem. $60/year for strava to track my goals, runs, best time, and be competitive with my friends, gladly pay that.
Paying $100 for a 3 months training program in person is different than a large group virtual training program for about the same price. IMO the economy at scales should make this app much cheaper.
I guess I also just don't understand how this works as there's not really any good videos, or demos on what exactly a session looks like. On the flip side of that, to cancel the trial you have to email them
At least in tech, the biggest cost center is employee wages, it's possible that this is what's happening here, the cost of employees (coaches) is probably their biggest cost.
All of our daily classes follow a week-long progression to make sure that you are getting in a proper training cycle and avoiding overtraining. An example is if you were to join the 6AM classes each day during the week, you might have speed drills on Monday followed by a base run Tuesday, followed by a light interval run on Wednesday for recovery, etc...
Fun Fact! Olympian Jeff Galloway is starting speed work in Charge the week of March 14th. He will be taking over some of our track attack classes for speed work.
To address running form, we recently launched private coaching, where runners can work directly with one of our certified coaches to develop a specific training program catered to their current experience level and training goals. This includes an in-depth running form analysis video where we receive a video of them running, and provide a video back thats broken down piece-by-piece to give direct feedback on how to improve running form for injury prevention and overall efficiency.
With that said, we do know that some runners enjoy solo running more, so we are working on future features to track your solo runs so you can still earn upgradeable medals for weekly/monthly/overall mileage tracked in the app.
If you're someone who prefers running by themselves, this may be the best of both worlds. You can see what a live run would be like, without needing to think about the live aspect.
Regarding copyright, we keep track of each song played, and the number of people that listen. We then send this to the large music groups each quarter, and pay royalties.
On the software side, we use Djay pro, which can forward the song id along to the server for recording the data.
The one piece of feedback I'd give is that it's incredibly difficult to find pricing info on your site. I'm sure this is intentional, and maybe you want people to just sign up for a free trial and then learn how much it actually costs later, but at least for me it's a huge turnoff when any product does this.
Regarding pricing, that's definitely a fair point, and something I think we could easily change. Thank you for the feedback
Most running injuries happen because of overtraining, heel striding, wrong shoes, rigid posture, stride length, bad upper body form and dynamics
Would any of these being taken into account? Considering the sensor data is from the phone I guess not.
It would be interesting to see a video of app in action as well as how the trainers view and give feedback.
Regarding form, one of the best ways that we've found to fix it is by doing routine "form checks". During this part of a run, a coach will walk you through your posture, and make suggestions. An example would be something like this:
"Let's take a minute and look at our feet. Where is your foot hitting the ground? If it's on your heel, focus on leading on the center of your foot." They would then proceed to do the same with your arms, shoulders, back, and more.
While we can't get exact data here, we can provide runners with a way of actively thinking about these form issues.
Knowing that a coach is going to guide me, and that they see I'm signed up is great, but knowing that there's other people running at the same time make it even better.
Thank you very much for the kind words!
Congrats on your progress. This is a difficult and risky path you’ve undertaken! Having used RockMyRun early on, and the new Nike coaching, I definitely appreciate the coaching and am curious how real-time will help (yay accountability) or hinder (ugh, scheduling) me getting my runs in.
In addition, we've had requests for in-person races to offer a virtual option through Charge. This allows us to grow our user base with a unique go-to market strategy, and wouldn't be possible if we couldn't serve 50% of runners
Thank you for the kind words. Two notes for the live classes:
1. For me personally, having the runs scheduled has been one of the biggest reasons for me being successful on the platform. I plan all of my runs on Sunday nights, and they're on my calendar so I don't miss them. 2. If you can only run at another time, we do record many of the classes, and allow you to listen to them anytime you would like. You still get access to the leaderboard because we keep track on how far users have gone at different points in the run.
If you are willing to share, leaving Big Co, at this delicate time, how did you plan family health insurance?
The solution to the problem was saving up money. I built up 6 months of runway where I knew my family could go without income. We made it last 7 months, and then I found another job to pay the bills while I continued working on start-up.
After literally years of trying to do both, Charge is finally at the stage where it can pay the bills and be my sole focus, but there was way more blood sweat and tears that went into it than I would have ever dreamed.
I did it for 3 years as a contractor. It really wasn't that hard.
I was previously employed by a company in the state of Michigan, and to match the same coverage was not even possible on healthcare.gov. The closest thing was nearly double the price, and when you're going through your first pregnancy, you take a ton of other factors into account.
In hindsight we probably didn't need the advance plan that we had, but it was (and still is) a major portion of our expenses.
Well that should be expected since your employer is not longer covering part of the plans cost.
This app seems to address a need somewhere in the middle...you want metrics, accountability, and ostensibly, to get better at running. But you aren't training for a specific distance, and you aren't just wanting to get out for a casual jog.
Basically, I really want to try this out (and I will!), but I don't see myself as a long-time user of it. Unless the community aspect really does something for me that I'm not anticipating.
When training for a race, we want to offer classes that fit well into your training schedule. When you're not training and just going out for a fun run, we want to offer the most engaging experience out there.
We're still early, but that's our thought process
a lot of options these days
Since the release of iOS 13, we've built all of our new screens in SwiftUI, so we're now more than 50% on the new framework.
The Android application is in Kotlin
FWIW, I’m not the target customer for this service due to the high pricing and the fact that I’m not a runner.