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15 Years of Building Jefit

jefit.com

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Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#21

Post by FredPret »

oldpersonintx2 wrote: post #11

youtube is FLOODED with free fitness content, I mean, you could workout for five years and never see the same video twice its all evergreen - crunches from five years ago are just as good today everyone I know who worked as a personal trainer has moved out of the industry endless free resources out there and then the content connected to devices like Peloton etc not sure how you can make a buck in this business want…

Conversely, a tidal flood of free content, much of which is low quality, can motivate a consumer to shell out $$$ for something that's more curated, limited, and has a guaranteed lower limit on quality.

I know because I've done this many times in many contexts, with everything from fitness apps to programming courses to buying the latest fiction books. With all of these, there are multiple lifetimes' of free, good content out there, but good luck mining the nuggets out from the thick layer of slop.

Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#22

Post by maqp »

oldpersonintx2 wrote: post #11

youtube is FLOODED with free fitness content, I mean, you could workout for five years and never see the same video twice its all evergreen - crunches from five years ago are just as good today everyone I know who worked as a personal trainer has moved out of the industry endless free resources out there and then the content connected to devices like Peloton etc not sure how you can make a buck in this business want…

Jefit isn't about video tutorials, but keeping track of your progress in specific exercises, and performing correct amount of volume to progress but not over-train, a thing that becomes harder when you advance and your progress starts to slow down. At that point avoiding stagnation requires a lot more optimization and an app that can tell incremental progress in bench is more motivating than looking at the mirror and seeing very small changes. Also, for powerlifters the mirror is a poor tool since it's not about hypertrophy and body shape.

Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#23

Post by maqp »

FredPret wrote: post #21
oldpersonintx2 wrote: post #11

youtube is FLOODED with free fitness content, I mean, you could workout for five years and never see the same video twice its all evergreen - crunches from five years ago are just as good today everyone I know who worked as a personal trainer has moved out of the industry endless free resources out there and then the content connected to devices like Peloton etc not sure how you can make a buck in this business want…

Conversely, a tidal flood of free content, much of which is low quality, can motivate a consumer to shell out $$$ for something that's more curated, limited, and has a guaranteed lower limit on quality. I know because I've done this many times in many contexts, with everything from fitness apps to programming courses to buying the latest fiction books. With all of these, there are multiple lifetimes' of free, good co…

Yup, I have no idea what's the point of gazillion YouTube shorts on exercises that have perfectly good tutorials by experienced people, available already.

E.g., https://www.youtube.com/@RenaissancePeriodization/playlists has ridiculously good per-body-part demonstration playlists if you scroll down a bit.

Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#24

Post by jona777than »

It's nice to get a glimpse behind the scenes of JEfit.

I used this app when I got serious about my fitness journey around 8 years ago. I fell off from using it 4 or 5 years ago (no fault of the app.) I can honestly say, it made it really easy to stay consistent with my workouts and show up to the gym confident in my programming.

Perhaps what I love best about this story, and similar startup stories, is the purity of building something to solve a problem personally. Then when the success of that thing happens as a side effect, it seems more appropriate. Stories like this take me back to the simple joy of creating something useful.

Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#25

Post by FredPret »

maqp wrote: post #23
FredPret wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, a tidal flood of free content, much of which is low quality, can motivate a consumer to shell out $$$ for something that's more curated, limited, and has a guaranteed lower limit on quality. I know because I've done this many times in many contexts, with everything from fitness apps to programming courses to buying the latest fiction books. With all of these, there are multiple lifetimes' of free, good co…

Yup, I have no idea what's the point of gazillion YouTube shorts on exercises that have perfectly good tutorials by experienced people, available already. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/@RenaissancePeriodization/playlists has ridiculously good per-body-part demonstration playlists if you scroll down a bit.

You joke but this is exactly what I'm talking about.

This channel must have hundreds of hours of content, and I'm sure much of it is good, but I don't have hundreds of hours.

Instead, I will send hundreds of dollars to some trusted person to distill hundreds of hours into an app or something that I can use immediately.

Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#26

Post by sergiotapia »

oldpersonintx2 wrote: post #11

youtube is FLOODED with free fitness content, I mean, you could workout for five years and never see the same video twice its all evergreen - crunches from five years ago are just as good today everyone I know who worked as a personal trainer has moved out of the industry endless free resources out there and then the content connected to devices like Peloton etc not sure how you can make a buck in this business want…

> want to track your progress? look in the mirror or guesstimate

Do you lift? That's not a good way to track progress.

Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#27

Post by maqp »

FredPret wrote: post #25
maqp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I have no idea what's the point of gazillion YouTube shorts on exercises that have perfectly good tutorials by experienced people, available already. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/@RenaissancePeriodization/playlists has ridiculously good per-body-part demonstration playlists if you scroll down a bit.

You joke but this is exactly what I'm talking about. This channel must have hundreds of hours of content, and I'm sure much of it is good, but I don't have hundreds of hours. Instead, I will send hundreds of dollars to some trusted person to distill hundreds of hours into an app or something that I can use immediately.

No I did not joke. If you bother to open one of the playlists I referred to, you can find e.g. 10 rear delt exercises demonstrated in under 15 second videos with extremely good tldr advice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34gVHrkaiz0&list=PLyqKj7LwU2...

Mike Israetel who runs the channel is in the top-5 in scientific body building circles.

And you can get those same videos in their app https://rpstrength.com/pages/hypertrophy-app

Personally I'd use Jefit or Hevy over RP, but the point stands.

Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#28

Post by nemothekid »

I've been using JeFit for ~6 years (I have a lifetime premium, I think, due to buying the app in full when you could). It used to be a pretty ugly app but I've stuck with it because it was the only app that did the simple function of creating a routine with a schedule then logging your performance over time.

Re: 15 Years of Building Jefit

#29

Post by FredPret »

maqp wrote: post #27
FredPret wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You joke but this is exactly what I'm talking about. This channel must have hundreds of hours of content, and I'm sure much of it is good, but I don't have hundreds of hours. Instead, I will send hundreds of dollars to some trusted person to distill hundreds of hours into an app or something that I can use immediately.

No I did not joke. If you bother to open one of the playlists I referred to, you can find e.g. 10 rear delt exercises demonstrated in under 15 second videos with extremely good tldr advice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34gVHrkaiz0&list=PLyqKj7LwU2... Mike Israetel who runs the channel is in the top-5 in scientific body building circles. And you can get those same videos in their app https://rpstrength.com/pages/hy…

Every point you make is fair but the point still stands: you had to find this stuff first.

And if I did not know about him and typed "rear delt exercise" into Youtube, there will be an endless amount of slop before I personally would run into this guy.

I'd gladly pay for this guy's app if I were in the market for a new workout plan. My point is that free content does not eliminate the market for paid content.

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