Future – Personalized Fitness
Delivered November 28, 2019. Contributor: Joseph M.
Goals
To find information on the Future fitness app. Information to be searched for includes how the service is going, what users are saying about the service, number of users and subscribers, and how their operations work.
Early Findings
Future
- Future is a personal training service that connects users with real-life human trainer who "build personalized workout plans and message users throughout the day to make sure they are doing them."
- Future appears to only be available on IOS, but the company does note that they have Android support on their roadmap. The service is compatible with Iphone, Ipad, Ipod Touch and Apple Watch.
- Future charges users $150 per month, which translates to around $5 per day. According to the company, this is a bargain when compared to the $150 per hour paid to personal trainers.
- On the Apple Store, Future has a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars. This rating is the average rating from 310 user ratings.
- Users choose one of the goals highlighted above so that they can be matched to a coach that fits their fitness goals.
- Future's beta tests were impressive with 95% of users sticking with the service for 3 months and 85% of users continuing with their training sessions for 6 months.
- Future's potential is evident in the investor backing the service attracted including an "$8.5 million Series A funding led by Kleiner Perkins with partner Mamoon Hamid joining the board, building on its $3 million seed." Other investment backers of the service include Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, and Caffeinated Capital.
How Future Works
- A new user's journey starts when a user visits the Future website and selects from a list of exercise goals so as to be matched to a coach on the platform. The fitness goals available on the website are: get leaner, get stronger, get active again, reduce pain or injury, improve cardio or speed, and improve sports performance.
- Throughout the onboarding process, Future uses the money spent by users to offer what feels like a luxury app experience. After signup, users can then pick from a number of expert trainers that are matched to their needs.
- Users can then do a 15-minute video chat with their selected trainer to get acquainted and create a workout plan. Future then sends a welcome kit to users that comprises of an Apple Watch and a water bottle.
- The trainer will then deliver a week’s worth of personalized daily routines that come with video instructions for each exercise. The app will then "provide audio cues (and optional music) to guide users through the workouts while the trainer chimes in with personalized pointers and motivation via pre-recorded voice clips."
- The trainers also proactively check in with users to ensure they are going to the gym and following the workouts. The Apple Watch is used to track a user's progress and identify any patterns of procrastination or flaking out.
- From available information, it appears Future connects users to external fitness experts that have years of experience in the fitness industry.
Additional Information
- A potential competitor to Future was identified in research as FitMyTime.
Proposed next steps:
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Our initial hour of research pointed to the availability of information in regard to the Future fitness service. We thus recommend completing research in three research blocks so as to address the questions posed about future including how the service is going, how Future's operations work, what users are saying about the service in regard to user experience, number of users and subscribers, who the team behind the service are and what people behind the company are saying about the service i.e. what have they learnt? what is the key to making their service work?
Additionally, we also recommend research to look into any indications of revenue or other financial indicators for Future and identify 2-3 of Future's true competitors and complete a competitive landscape for them where we will provide a company overview, business model, subscription fees, number of users, competitive advantage, and reasons why the company was identified as a competitor of Future.