Since high school, Jake Heyen was drawn to becoming an entrepreneur.
“I would constantly keep notes on my phone of new ideas I wanted to try out,” he said. “Doing a startup sparked my curiosity because I loved the aspect of it’s off the beaten path and you have to figure things out on your own.”
In January, the recent University of Missouri-Columbia graduate started working on his first startup, Prairie Village-based Fitic, a fitness app that gives fitness influencers a platform to monetize their content and gives monthly subscribers access to a variety of on-demand workouts that can be viewed from their phone or streamed to a TV through AirPlay. The iOS app officially launched this month.
“We want to be the Patreon of fitness, with an emphasis of customization for the end user,” founder and CEO Heyen said.
Subscribers, for example, can track their workout history and create a personalized and categorized library of their favorite workouts. They also can add notes to individual workouts, such as which weights worked best for them. In the future, Heyen wants to continue adding customizable features, such as a calendar for planning a user’s specific workouts.
Although creator economy platforms such as Patreon are helping artists, podcasters and musicians monetize their content through monthly subscriptions, Heyen said he noticed a dearth of fitness-specific platforms. A bulk of fitness influencers have relied on Instagram and TikTok to build followers and share content, but Fitic can provide a more well-rounded experience and give influencers a sizable cut of monthly subscription revenue based on engagement.
“It really is about the connection that people have with influencers on social media,” he said. “Users would rather workout with influencers they really trust and feel like they have a relationship with than some random trainer on Fitbit.”
Fitic is targeting micro-level fitness influencers with 1,000 to 50,000 followers, a sweet spot that tends to produce better engagement. For now, Fitic features 15 fitness influencers and plans to add more as the app gains traction with monthly subscribers.
“We want to build a platform that gives the creator a tool to monetize their content in the most efficient and effective way possible, and at the same time, provide them the tools to better connect with their audience in more unique ways,” he said.
