Welcome to another edition of Failsights.

We have all heard the stories of young founders “making it”, the Zuckerbergs (Facebook) and Spiegels (SnapChat) of the world. Rarely do we get to hear from the other side, the young entrepreneurs that have failed and how a failure at a young age shapes them for what’s to come.

Today, we have the journey of Michael, a 19-year-old computer science student from Germany who built a fitness app.

TLDR - At a Glance:

Startup: LevrFit.com

Product: Fitness App

Development Time: 2 years (5 months for MVP, 1.5 years refining)

Pricing Model: Freemium (€3/month for premium features)

User Acquisition: Total downloads = 2300, paying users = 1-2

Total Revenue: €10

Major Challenges:

• Lack of unique selling point

• Limited market validation

• Insufficient marketing

• Highly competitive market

Key Lessons:

• Fail fast and iterate quickly

• Get user feedback early

• Insufficient marketing

• Learn from failure

LevrFit - Training to Failure

The Origin Story

Michael has two passions: coding and fitness. Dedicated to taking care of himself, he works out 5 to 6 times a week, but he also saw an opportunity to create something that would cater to his specific needs as a lifter. One of the key ingredients to a successful start up has always been ‘solve a problem you are passionate about’ – a mantra at many start-up accelerators (ahem YC).

Well, that’s exactly what Michael set about to do. The idea wasn’t about just creating another fitness app, it was about solving a problem that Michael himself had experienced. He found that existing apps didn’t quite meet his needs as a lifter.

“I always like making things, always been into programming and I figured since I'm into fitness myself, you know it would be cool to have my own fitness app that would be tailored to my own needs in terms of lifting, no other apps were specifically designed for lifting”

Seems like a perfect combination, passion for fitness, passion for coding, and a problem to solve – what could go wrong?

The Product Vision

Michael started the project, named LevrFit, at 17 years old. He envisioned a platform that would help users create and manage workout plans, track progress with ease and adjust gym schedules flexibly.

"If you had a workout plan, say you'd workout 7 times a week and you just hit like chest today and tomorrow, you missed the day. Then you could shift the plan by one day. So it would actually match up again."

Here’s where things get crazy. 10,000 lines of code. 10,000! Michael devoted almost all the free time he had to develop the app. At 17 years old, that level of commitment is admirable. Even crazier, it took 2 years to develop the app. By his own admission, the MVP was ready in 5 months but Michael continued to refine the app and adding features for another year!

Michael tried to achieve perfection but as Churchill famously said, “perfection is the enemy of progress”. I think that sums up LevrFit. (I have to say, the Levrfit website is impressive www.levrfit.com).

The app featured a freemium model, with most features accessible for free. Premium features included ad removal and advanced scheduling which was available for a monthly subscription at about €3.

Financial Snapshot

As a solo founder, Michael bootstrapped the project. Below is a breakdown:

- Google Play Store License - €20

- Apple Developer License - €100

- MacBook - €1300

- Marketing Spend - €400

- Total Downloads - 2,000 on Google Play, 300 on App Store

- Paying users: 1-2 subscriptions, with a few cancellations during the free trial

- Total Revenue €10

Training to Failure

Despite all the efforts, LevrFit failed to gain traction. Michael’s approach to LevrFit is a common pitfall in startups, the “build it and they will come mentality”. Spending two years developing an app without seeking market validation and the lack of early user feedback meant that Michael was operating in the dark. He could not see what users wanted.

Michael goes on to say:

“I believe I made two enormous mistakes. First of all, not building an MVP quick enough and then additionally, I didn’t have a unique feature. If you search up fitness apps on your phone, you’re going to find several hundreds or thousands of fitness apps, which makes it quite difficult to actually stand out and get some attention. This was around the time when AI started to take off, right, I could have potentially hopped onto the AI hype train and got attention for the app from that”

It’s a valid point Michael makes. The fact is LevrFit did not have a unique selling point, it lacked a standout feature to differentiate it from its competitors. Leveraging the current hype of AI potentially could have gained him users who are looking for a different experience from their fitness app.

LevrFit did generate some interest, having over 2300 downloads. For a 19-year old’s first venture into the world of business and entrepreneurship, that is a solid outcome. It could be argued that he had succeeded to a certain extent, by creating an app that generated some level of interest, a milestone a lot of founders fail at.

What’s interesting is that although €400 was spent on market, a negligible amount in the grand scheme of things, it highlights the challenges of user acquisition and monetization in a competitive market. It’s also a reminder that downloads don’t necessarily translates into active users or revenue.

Lessons Learned

Despite the disappointing outcome, LevrFit provides several valuable lessons:

1. Fail Fast – LevrFit is an example of trying to perfect an app before release but had no real direction as to what needs perfecting. Michael’s biggest takeaway was the importance of rapid iteration and validation: “The biggest lesson is to fail fast. Come up with an idea, build it as quickly as possible. Spend maybe 5 to 6 weeks to come up with an awful MVP which has a feature that’s pretty cool, just as a proof of concept”.

2. Get user feedback early: Sounds obvious but a critical step a lot of start-up founders skip. Build quickly, but more importantly get the feedback quickly. Understand what users need from your app and go and build that!

3. Focus on marketing: Regardless of how good the product is, if nobody knows about it, you have zero sales. As Michael said “A mediocre product can avoid crashing and burning in terms of failure with good marketing”

4. Learn from failure: Building a successful product takes time and persistence. Michael had both and still failed. That’s okay. What’s more important is to learn from the lessons of failure. “I’m well aware that it’s going to take a long time to build something that’s self-sustaining”

Moving forward

Despite the setback, Michael’s entrepreneurial spirit remains unbroken. He’s already applied his learnings to another project, Validate-It, which he developed and launched in just 6 weeks. Whilst this project also did not achieve the success he desired, it demonstrates Michael’s commitment to failing fast and learning quickly.

Currently, Michael is working on a Pomodoro app as a fun side project, showing his ability to pivot and explore new ideas. He's also considering building an audience on YouTube, recognizing the value of having a following when launching future products.

Michael's journey with LevrFit, though ending in failure, has equipped him with invaluable experience from development and design to marketing and user acquisition. He’s learnt a lot and at such a young age with a great attitude to failure, I have no doubt in my mind he will be a great success in the future.

Founder-to-Founder Insights

At the end of each interview, founders will pose a question they’d like answered by the next founder. Our next featured founder will answer this question and, in turn, ask a new one for the subsequent founder. I hope this brings about a virtual dialogue between founders spanning different industries, experiences and challenges.

In our last case study, the founder had asked our latest guest:

What's the most surprising positive outcome that came from your business failure?

Michael responded with:

“Experience. It's mostly experience. Because even though my fitness app failed, it was such a large product that I touched upon a lot of different technologies, and I've had the ability to experience a lot of different areas of entrepreneurship."

Michael’s question for the next founder on Failsights is:

“If you do anything differently, what would you do”

Stay tuned for our next issue to see how our next founder answers this question.

Final Thoughts

Passion doesn’t necessarily translate into a good product. Passion also blinds people into believing “this will work”. If you’re passionate about a certain project, you will be biased about it, it’s part of the human psyche. It’s hard to be objective and it’s even harder to get into a mindset where you think there is a high chance of failure. To avoid sinking in copious amounts of time and money into a ‘passion’ project, validate quickly, get feedback quickly, and iterate quickly. You will find the answer if there is demand for your product and the sooner you find out, the better it is for you.

If any of you would like to follow Michael’s startup journey, you can via his:

Github Instagram LinkedIn YouTube