“A sound mind in a sound body is a secret to success,” is what the CEO of Korean health tech startup Viktor Jung found out when he started working out regularly. However, he found it challenging to keep track of his workout plans manually and wished for an efficient app. It led Viktor to build an app – the BurnFit app.
BurnFit is a workout planning and analysis app that helps users achieve their fitness goals through comprehensive workout planning and detailed analysis after every workout. Bunnit launched the official English version of BurnFit on February 21st, 2022.
Viktor Jung is looking forward to a promising future with BurnFit app that will make workouts enjoyable. He talks with AsiaTechDaily about his fitness story, startup, aspirations, and the right attitude to work.
Tell us what motivated you to start the company and an app on fitness?
I’ve loved sports since childhood. Especially, ball games like baseball, soccer, and basketball were my favorites. I joined the soccer club in college, and one day, I suffered a serious back injury during a game. At that time, I started weight training as a form of rehabilitation and treatment for my back injury. I began to enjoy the concept of being healthier and stronger through training. That was the start of my love affair with weight training.
As there was no time to work out in the gym after joining my first company, I looked for the most efficient way to gain the result with minimal effort. The method I discovered was to make a plan before each workout, record my performance, and review it when I got home. It was pretty effective, but I didn’t have any software or apps to help with this process. So, I did what others did. I wrote my logs by hand and used Google calendar to track my workouts. I believed that someday, there would be an app that would solve this problem. But I couldn’t find one until I made BurnFit. That was the birth of BurnFit.
Can you share more details about your app and was there any previous product pivot story to the current product?
We’re currently developing an app service called BurnFit. It’s a mobile workout journal application that helps users efficiently get results from weight lifting. The key to BurnFit is that users can log their workouts easily and intuitively. We created BurnFit because we believe a workout journal is the most crucial tool for weight training. If you don’t know how much you’ve worked out in the past, you’ll end up working out the same way every time. Moreover, it’s easy to only focus on individual exercises when planning what workout to do. You go through a similar process when you study or work, right? The same mechanism can be applied to weight training.
Before BurnFit, we planned to launch nutrition supplement recommendations and subscription services. We thought that opportunities would come as nutrition market regulations eased. But while developing and testing the service with minimum value Product(MVP), we questioned whether we needed this service ourselves. Did we have a passion for changing the market with our service? The answer was ‘no’ to both questions, so we pivoted to BurnFit. We’re convinced it will make an impact—and it’s a project we all love.
Pivoting wasn’t tricky because our mission and vision hadn’t changed. Our motto was to create a service that helps people to healthier and more positive lives and it’s still our motto with Burnfit.
What strategy helped you attract users and grow your company from the start to now?
In the beginning, we focused on satisfying target users in the niche market. In our case, we tried to provide relevant functions to gym-goers. We analyzed their behavior, determined their pain points, and assessed their needs. We realized that our initial market pool was small, so we obsessed over our engagement with users. As a result, word of mouth spread throughout weight training communities. People downloaded the app without any paid marketing. Since our “inch wide, mile deep” strategy appears to have been successful, we’ve stuck with it.
What do most startups get wrong about marketing in general?
Almost all startups, including ourselves, start their ventures with big dreams. As a result, it seems most startups tend to swing too big, trying to achieve great success in a short period.
Some spend too much on their marketing budget without verifying the product. Or they conduct large-scale promotions without a large enough user base. I know performing a step-by-step market analysis and creating a product for a small number of people seems time-consuming at first. But I’m convinced it’s the fastest way to become successful in the end.
How did you handle the COVID-19 outbreak situation for your company’s survival in the future?
COVID-19 has given us more time to focus on ourselves and our surroundings. As a result, more people have expressed interest in self-development. In addition, more people enjoy sharing their experiences and supporting each other online.
Since BurnFit is a weight training-related service, most of our users are passionate about self-development. We want to connect people with positive energy, allowing them to have more fun and enjoy weightlifting through our platform. Once we establish ourselves as a platform where users with positive energy come together to develop and share experiences, we can establish a unique brand identity, even if worse times come after COVID-19.
How do you keep yourself motivated every day?
Creating a service that I’m excited about using myself is the most significant factor. It motivates me and provides me with passion and energy every day. Getting positive feedback every day is also a huge source of energy that brings me into the office to get down to work.
What are the top- three life Lessons that you want your (future) sons and daughters to know?
First, “a sound mind in a sound body. “It is essential to take good care of your body for deep and creative thinking. Second, there is no unnecessary experience. Regardless of the subject, get in and enjoy it if you are interested in something. Third, always treat your work with an attitude of learning. You can always learn something from anyone, anywhere, anytime.
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