Two Apps One Day
Last week was a great week. I put out Strongth Bodyweight and Strongth Stickers and both got approved by the App Store on the same day. It’s a great feeling finally seeing my hard work out there for everyone to hopefully buy. Strongth Bodyweight gives users almost an infinite amount of bodyweight workout combinations, with the best UI on Earth. Strongth Stickers is a fun iMessage pack that has all the animated gifs from Bodyweight as well as future apps.
Strongth has been on and off for about two years. The name came from a friend who kept using the word on Facebook out of irony. He probably won’t be getting a royalty check out of this.
I knew I wanted to do something fitness-related. I figured if I was going to be stuck programming something it should at least be related to a part of life that I enjoyed. I like going to the gym and I used to train martial arts.
Late 2014 I taught myself the basics of app development in a day and went for it. Three weeks later I released a very primitive weight training app for iOS. Around April 2015 I did the Android version. Please don’t look for it.
This was Version 2, completely overhauled from the WAY worse first version. I don’t think I could even find the older version’s screenshots. Don’t think I want to either.
In addition to coding and designing both apps all by myself, I ran social media ads, gave away t-shirts, and even sponsored an MMA fighter. Between my last year of college, and working multiple jobs (3 simultaneously at a point in time), Strongth was eventually put on the back burner.
2016 comes around. I graduated the December prior and I’m now working full time. For some reason I felt compelled to file for Strongth, LLC despite no real plans of relaunching. I just liked the name. I went through a ten-month stretch where I refused to work on anything software-related outside of work. My real passion is art, so I put out an adult-coloring book. I solicited forum after forum for comic book gigs. Nothing stuck. I was doing freelance illustration for pretty cheap. Going nowhere fast, I then taught myself how to paint. I even ran an unsuccessful Shopify storefront, selling prints and t-shirts of my art. Nobody wanted anything.
Despite doing all this, I would always get asked, “hey how’s that app going?”. To be honest I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it anymore. I was even considering abandoning software altogether. Kind of defeating the purpose of getting a Computer Engineering degree, right? I would always lie and say I’m relaunching soon. The irony is that the lie manifested itself. By early November I started drawing up sketches for what became Strongth Bodyweight. I wanted something far better than the last iteration of Strongth. Chromecast and watch integration, animations, accounts, sharing, etc. I knew this would take me forever by myself, so I enlisted help. I hired a few developers and a graphic designer. They were focused on everything I either didn’t feel like doing, or were repetitive enough to outsource. I have project management experience, so planning and delegating felt natural. My main focus was on the UI, UX, and how everything fit together. What would’ve taken me a month ended up taking a week and change.
Once a good-enough version of Strongth Bodyweight was done, I did Strongth Stickers all by myself later that day. I then created my website, all my social media, and waited for Apple to approve everything. Aside from posting on social media and Apple Search Ads, I’m pretty much just winging this whole marketing thing, just like how I’m winging this article. If you have a better idea, send me an email at julien@strongth.fitness :)
