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Design a high tech gym.

  • Related to Product Design
  • For Platform PM
  Google
  Meta
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Answers (2)

Clarify:

  1. In person gym or virtual like Peloton? (in person)
  2. Any constaints? (No)
  3. Can I assume US (Yes)
User: A high-tech gym will attract people into technology, and more well off since it’s likely more expensive. Additionally, these are probably more likely goingt to be found in denser technologically more advanced areas like SF, NY, LA, Seattle, etc.
  1. Young working adults with good paying jobs
  2. Families where the parents want an efficient workout
  3. Families with parents and kids can both workout/ stay busy
I’m going to focus on user group 1 because I believe that this group will be the largest user segment.
Pain points in existing gym usage:
  1. Hard to track workout/progress
  2. Signing into the gym isn’t always super quick
  3. Really hard to know how crowded it is
  4. Can’t know if my gym buddies are at the gym without manual communication
  5. Hard to remember what classes are going on right now
I think we can solve multiple of these, but I’m going to prioritize the pain points based on how big of a pain point they are. This is something in real life I would be doing a lot of user interviews and surveys to gather what I think is the actual biggest pain point.
3, 4, 1, 5, 2. I essentially in my head did a matrix with (number of users who have this problem, magnitude of problem, any existing solutions that make this better) to determine this order.

Goal/product vision: Help young working adults who are into tech understand the crowd at the gym without having to be at the gym

Solutions:
  1. A camera that’s at the gym that people can see from their mobile app, similar to nest. Can double as a security camera.
    1. This is really creepy and probably has privacy/ security issues
  2. Show the number of people at the gym on a mobile app by having people sign out when they’re gone from the gym too.
    1. Allow people to become friends and allow them to see other’s gym presence
    2. I can even imagine a push notification
      1. “Daniel is at the gym” or maybe more anonymized like “1 of your friends is at the gym”
  3. Have weight sensors to understand the number of people at the gym approximately
    1. Can maybe be pretty accurate because it can know when 80-400 lbs change, that probably means a person. Has to be careful with this as a gym is a very heavy place already so this is probably not worthwhile.
  4. Fingerprint to use any machine/ go in/out of any door. This gives mobile app people the ability to see who’s at which machine, reserve a machine, see how many people playing basketball, etc.
    1. This is really really annoying for the end user.
    2. Allow people to become friends and allow them to see other’s gym presence
  5. Have users sign in from their phone in the gym, track their location inside the gym, give mobile app users the ability to see heatmaps of where people are at the gym from their mobile phone
    1. People can maybe use each other’s phones to get into the gym. We can maybe prevent this by FaceID verification to be able to enter the gym with your phone. Unique phone key, etc.
    2. Would heavily test this because I can imagine some people may not want to be tracked, even if it’s just at the gym. I don’t think this will be a big issue personally, becuase of the benefit you get as a user.
    3. Allow people to become friends and allow them to see other’s gym presence
Going back to the goal/product vision, I would build option 5 since I think it does it the best, but I’d be careful of number of people who sneak into the gym. I also think, it feels the most high tech and makes users feel like the gym is advanced and it’s a good feeling for people who are into tech to have.
Success Metrics:
  • Revenue
  • Number of mobile app installs/ number of active users (or subscribed users)
  • DAU/ WAU/MAU
  • # of sessions/ gym visits per user
  • # of people sneaking into the gym due to entry method
    • Measured by # of people that were caught (probably very underreported)
  • # of active friends added
  • Push notification
  • # of users who request to opt out of being tracked at the gym

Recap

I would focus on solving the problem of not knowing how crowded the gym is/ who I know is there. To do so, I would track people’s locations when they’re geo-fenced inside the gym. I would then show this info as a # + heatmap to end users (anonymizing who’s there) so that they can see who is there and where they’re at (if I care about basketball only, I don’t care how crowded the pool is for example). I will also allow friends to mutually add each other which gives them the consent to know when one  another is at the gym, with the ability to take that privilege about yourself away from anyone.

1. Clarifying the question:

  1. Is this a gym targetted for commercial gyms (24, LA Fitness, Equinox) or for companies (Facebook, Google, LinkedIn)?
    • Commercial Gyms
  2. What is the company’s target and metrics?
    • Increase user engagement and user acuqisition to attract and retain more customers
  3. Are we looking at a specific demographic age and region or do you want me to define it?
    • Define it
2. Provide Customer Segments and Assume USA Region.
  1. Ages 6-18 – Younger kids and students must attend the gym with their parent guardians (swimming, work out, sauna)
  2. Ages 19 – 65 – Younger adults and especially this generation now a days want to be healthy, fit, and look good
  3. Ages 65 – 80+ (Assume on average 80 life expectancy) – Elders attend the gym to stay active
3. I would like to prioritize focusing this high tech gym for the younger generation/millenials (19 – 65) because
  1. They are Tech Savvy
  2. Based on attending the gym, majority of the customers are ages 19 – 65
  3. Kids ages 6 – 18 can go to the gym with their parents in the age 19 – 65 bucket, so we can include both markets
  4. We can talk about creating new high tech equipment for elders after prioritizing ages 19 – 65 group
4. Goal: Creating a high tech gym for commercial gyms for ages 19 – 65 group in the US and focus on attracting and retaining customers.
5. A few pain points for these customers attending the gym
  1. Rush Hour
    • Gym is normally very busy after school and work (3pm – 8pm) and customers get discouraged
  2. Not enough equipment
    • Customers have to wait to use the equipment, which will waste time and ruin routine
  3. Dirty
    • Equipment and floor is filthy and no one cleans
6. I would like to prioritize #2 because #1 can be a short term fix once we focus on #2 to make the equipments optimal. #3 is a short term fix by hiring additional resources to clean the premises and equipment or implement an irobot cleaner.
7. To create a High Tech gym I am thinking of a few solutions that can improve the overall efficiency of gym equipments
  1. Create one machine per muscle group (Example: Chest group (Incline, Flat, and Decline) or Shoulders, Back, Biceps/Triceps)
    • Algorithim Coded – No physical weights, but you can press the screen to choose how much weight you want, so this does not waste time when changing weights and/or working with a partner.
    • Music to connect to earphones
    • Speeds up the process for each individual and this may reduce rush hour times as well
    • Efficient process and decreases wait times and routines
    • Increases the get in and get out mentality
    • Creates better work out routines
  2. If we have more time and resources/budget for the long term solution, I’m thinking of creating the same machine mentioned above, but for all muscle group. I’m visioning 100 idividual machines with a time limit of 1 hour that allows you to workout any parts of the body.
8. Metrics
  1. Customer feedback
  2. Retention rate of the gym
  3. DAU and MAU of the gym and machine
  4. Gym sign ups/referrals
9. Conclusion: To design a high tech gym in the US for commercial gym purposes, I would build X # of machine for individual use that can focus on all muscle groups. This can create a better workout routine, reduce time at the gym, reduce wait times and rush hours, and a new way to work out opposed to a traditional add or reduce weight machines per workout.