I have been working on what’s now called Fitness Tracker for over seven years. The very first incarnation of what would become Fitness Tracker was a really simple tabata timer/tracker that kept growing and growing.
Fitness Tracker was just for me for the longest time. But a few years ago when I realized it might be worth commercializing, I bought a domain…and sat on it. You see, I buy a lot of domains and always have several ideas and consulting contracts on the go. But finally in December 2024, I decided to build a desktop application so that I could make Fitness Tracker truly private.
And then the 78 solutions method started to kick in. The biggest problem was building the application, but I had to start finding users too. I validated the idea before, but there’s a big difference between saying you would buy something and actually paying for it. My first step was to recruit an amazing group of beta users.
With that done, I got the beta version out and while that was testing, I got to work on a website. Beta testing was challenging to say the least but I started a rewrite and then problems and solutions began to present themselves. One problem was that I was implementing the workout planner and needed a data source for exercises. Luckily, I have been acquiring exercises since the beginning of Fitness Tracker. I have collected more than 800 exercises as well as information on anatomy and nutrition.
With all that information, I thought why not put it all online? It was all structured so it took a lot of python to make it human readable. The website itself came together really quickly and my design skills have gotten functional enough to actually be happy with what I have put out.
One joy of being into testing is that I sure have a lot of stuff to fire at new websites. Siteimp proved invaluable and my new accessibility standards proved very useful as well. The website is fast and highly optimized which is a good thing…it has nearly 1000 pages in total.
And launch.
It feels amazing - the sense of accomplishment is palpable but so is the sense of responsibility. The website is live and now I need to launch an application worthy of it. The website has a few issues that I will be fixing over the next few days, but nothing too serious - Siteimp proved invaluable. Building forms with formimp was a breeze - it takes me less than three minutes to set up a contact form now.
And launch.
The first launch was almost thirty years ago. My Dad invested, my Auntie took on a lot of responsibility as both cheerleader and mentor and I got the virtual showhome prototype out. It felt amazing - the sense of accomplishment was palpable but I failed to deliver on my responsibility.
I failed.
But I learned and with that learning comes a new set of launch procedures. Launch is never a thing, nothing is ever a thing. There are just problems and solutions. 78 of them a year.
Finally, while I was working on fitnesstracker.ca, I thought of all the people out there who are like me over seven years ago when I got out of the hospital. They’re just starting a journey and they’re still too scared to look in the rearview because it’s damned scary.
You can do it, I’m cheering for you.