A few months ago, my wife and I did a fitness challenge with a couple of friends where we all set a weight-loss goal and we pooled money and agreed that only those who succeed will split the pot. It was incredible how the money pushed us to stay motivated until the end, not to mention how fun the whole thing was!
Well, my wife and I are both developers, so naturally we started pondering building this into an app. The idea was that anybody would be able to create a challenge (e.g. “Run 3km every day with me for 2 weeks”), and everyone who participates would pay a buy-in ($) to join. Then everyone proves their daily activity with a photo check-in. And only those who stick to the end would split the pot. So you could actually make money if you made it to the end.
As we started building, we settled on some core concepts that we deemed to be central to the app’s identity. Here are two worth mentioning:
Keep the groups small — We knew from the start that we wanted to emulate the vibes of a small group in these group challenges. Not only are small groups best for building real connections, but they also help keep people honest; it’s much harder to cheat when you cannot blend in among hundreds of other people. We decided to cap groups at 5 people.
Prioritize self-improvement over competition — We considered adding more competition elements to the app, such as “winner takes all”. The problem is, competitions incentivize cheating, and it can also lead to user disagreements and conflicts. To uphold healthy group dynamics, we decided to avoid any explicit competition type features.
So after a few weeks of furious coding, we shipped Goalie and immediately started using it as ourselves. My wife did a book reading challenge with some random people, and I did a running challenge with my friends. Using the app ourselves was valuable for QA and testing, but more importantly it gave us confirmation that money absolutely is a great motivating force.
What are you procrastinating on? What is something you struggle to motivate yourself to do? Whatever it is, challenge yourself to conquer your goals by using Goalie. I guarantee you will experience a new kind of consistent motivation.
