If you build it they will come
I thought it best to let my readers know what I am going to create and why I have made this particular choice.
As I mentioned before I would like it to combine my areas of interest in some way to keep it enjoyable, that list included :-
• Computers
• Self Improvement
• Mountain Biking
• Camping/Bushcraft
• Nutrition/Fitness
• Business
My choice will include a little something from all of them, I will be building an online application that will allow me to manage my health and fitness, something I have a keen interest in.
Diet tracking software is in no way new and it’s very saturated so why bother?
Well to answer that I have to look at my biggest competitor namely www.fitday.com, they provide an excellent service, have over 2.2 million registered users and it’s not going to be easy to knock them off the top spot.
A fitness app is in a verticle market, it maybe saturated , however there are over 5.5 billion people connected to the Internet and how many of them are happy with their appearance? Exactly
What I have found with other applications though is that it is so difficult to keep track of what exercise you do, and what food your eating. It like all the others promises to be the holy grail of fat loss and will give you a beach body by using it.
No, my web app will be different, it will be for the people who are serious about their health, know that a tool can’t do it for them and hard work is needed for them to obtain their goals. Both in terms of diet and exercise.
With my application will be easy to track information but it won’t try to do everything everyone else’s does with every feature and every gizmo. It will do exactly what it says on the tin and it will do it very very well.
Unfortunatly I can’t talk about all the things I intend to include in my app at this stage. Not because I don’t want you my readers to know, I just realise that it’s going to take me about 6 months to get release 1.0 out of the door; way too much time for my competitors to take my ideas.
My current mood: optimistic 
Posted to Nutrition, WebApp
7 Comments »
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I wish you good luck!
Comment by Peter — August 31, 2007 #
I think you should take a look at http://sparkpeople.com too. Kinda interesting, free and advertising supported too.
Comment by Tim — August 31, 2007 #
Thanks Peter.
Thanks Tim, I will check it out, I haven’t seen this one before, http://www.diettv.com/ is another one I have seen which is interesting too.
Comment by Tony — August 31, 2007 #
Um… sure that link is right? that one just looks like a really awful exploitation site with loads of ads for diet pills.
Comment by Tim — August 31, 2007 #
My mistake Tim, I have updated the link.
Comment by Tony — August 31, 2007 #
Good luck tony!
My wife was using a site like that to track her diet. So there’s definitely a market.
If you’re going the webapp route & use python, I’m releasing my recurring billing/subscription backend as opensource next week.
Comment by Starr — August 31, 2007 #
Thank you Starr.
Can I ask why your wife quit using it and if it worked out for her? A bit cheeky but it’s all useful info if you don’t mind
I will certainly have a look at your billing subscription system. I am still torn between my preferred platform at this minute.
Comment by Tony — August 31, 2007 #