Birth of Paxira, a Cycling App
First of all, what is Paxira?
In short, it is an app with rich social and gaming experience that runs on real-life cycling. We just launched an early version of the app on Android to test out the cycling tracking feature. You can download it here.
You may have questions running on your mind, and we’ve done so much research and worked on ideas for so long and have answers for all your questions. However, this article is about our story. We kindly ask you to be patient and stay tuned for further articles ♥
Story of Paxira
baran oğuz and I met in our freshman year of college in Istanbul, Turkey. We both studied Software Engineering, and we quickly became friends as we worked on school projects together and attended the same student clubs. We have always wanted to be entrepreneurs and to create something together that would be useful not only to us but also others. During that time, I also started to cycle more often. I wanted to track my activities so I tried all the apps available in the app store. There was always something missing in the app, be it the awkward interface, the unreliable tracker, limited features, or the endless ads. The biggest problem, however, was that although these apps allowed me to record my activities, they never really motivated me to cycle more often. After switching from one fitness tracking app to another, I exhausted my options. I realized that other people might face the same problem, and I could solve this problem by developing a fitness tracker app myself.
The Start
I was inspired and energized by the idea, so I discussed my idea with Baran and the idea became a project. Through our discussions, our goals became clearer — we’d like to make the best cycling tracker with gamified features to motivate users. To validate our idea, we did tons of research about fitness tracking apps; we also consulted our friends and cycling groups. The support and excitement we received from them were inspirational to say the least. We were very grateful for their encouragement, and we knew that the best way to show our appreciation would be to develop a great product for them.
We got an office to start the development. And by an office, I mean a little space from my grandparents that used to be a nail salon. We painted the walls, cleaned the room, and furnished it. We technically lived in that space, as we would code for 15 hours every day. We also befriended our neighbors and the doorman while we were there. We would help fix their computers (because they assumed that software engineers were experts in this), and assist their children with homework. We also had a cat staying with us, and we named her Paxi!
The Beta
After 5 months of work, we released the beta version of Paxira in March 2015 with basic features of activity tracking, weather forecast, and team structure; as well as core gamification features, like achievements, challenges, and the Pax point system. Later, we promoted Paxira on different platforms and watched our user base grow steadily. We didn’t really want to grow the user base hugely, though, given that we were still in the testing phase. With time, we saw people starting to create their own teams on the app and tracking their cycling activities. Furthermore, our inboxes were full of positive feedback, which excited and motivated us to work even harder. Meanwhile, we started to build rapport with our users and we could not be more proud of our work. At that period, we had around 80% retention rate for 2 months according to analytics, which is incredible for an app that is in testing phase!
The Turn
Despite the initial success of the beta version, the path of Paxira took a downturn. Due to a radical family decision, I had to go to New York for almost 6 months, during which time I, unfortunately, did not have time to work on Paxira. Baran took a full-time job in the meantime. We were both so busy that we were not able to work on Paxira on a regular basis, and thus the development was paused. Not being able to continue working on Paxira made me feel wrecked, frustrated, and sad. Knowing that we were also disappointing our users with the lack of feature updates only made it worse. It was a difficult period of time for me, as it felt like I was losing something I loved.
The New Era
Even though we had to pause working on Paxira, we never lost our passion. Paxira was still something we thought about every day; we were into it. In November 2015, with our schedule stabilized, we decided to resume working on Paxira. Anyi Sun, who I met in New York, also joined our team to take care of business development. With her being a part of the team, we are able to focus on creating a better product while growing the business.
Therefore, this time, we are more experienced with even more passion. We are excited to bring a new look to the app, as well as more exciting features. Stay tuned!
Want to test out an early version of the new Paxira? Download the app here.
