> What martial arts do you teach if you don't mind me asking? My cofounder and I are martial arts enthusiasts (we mostly train BJJ and Muay Thai)
Same! I teach BJJ and I have another instructor that teaches 'Fitness Kickboxing' as well as traditional Muay Thai. I agree that how this platform could apply to our martial arts isn't immediately obvious. However, post-lockdown, some interesting things happened. Paulo and Joao Miyao started upping their online presence and using Twitch to stream drilling sessions and answer questions. I feel like if they had a platform, they would have been able to monetize their efforts more to teach online private lessons. Most notably, Jon Thomas (@jonthomasbjj on IG), has been teaching online seminars and private lessons that he has advertised through IG. I definitely think there is a need for everyday people to get taught by high-level competitors and athletes in our domain, BJJ. I do think your platform is probably better suited to other fitness related activities rather than BJJ. However, during lockdown, this would have been gold. And I still think that some platform that connects everyday people to high level athletes for 1-on-1 or small group lessons would be amazing.
> I've spent a lot of time thinking about pain points for traditional martial arts schools and applications of our platform. Unfortunately haven't had too many good ideas though; our platform feels more straightforwardly applicable to reducing friction and improving engagement in online group fitness classes (yoga, cardio kickboxing, etc.)
My intuition is that there are all kinds of fitness influencers with large followings on Instagram, TikTok, and platforms like that. They are all trying to find ways of monetizing their audience. A really good platform that allows them to run online group fitness classes would be great. Ultimately, their dream is to have a large audience, be respected, and make money while growing and leveraging their audience. How can this platform help that? Ultimately I think these are the types of things that the landing page should allude to or try to sell. This could be monetized in two ways: 1) the influencer pays a monthly fee to use the platform 2) the client pays to access the influencer's content and live classes (platform takes a cut).
As I type all this out, once you imagine a particular type of audience (lets say influencers) it becomes clear that they need more tools than just 'rooms' to do what they need to do. You might say well handling all of those payment things and providing a content platform is beyond the scope of what you are trying to do with your platform. But the more you put yourself in the shoes of the customer, the more specific that platform needs to become to not only offer them value, but also the motivation to pay for and use it. This is why I think the landing page needs to speak to someone, whoever you all decide that is. Because then you will end up focusing on the benefits of what your platform can do for them rather than focusing on how to use the platform from a technical perspective. Through this, you might also uncover the additional features the platform needs to have so that people can actually use it.
Interesting technology I think it is super cool and the implementation looks good.
Some feedback:
1) I would really like to stress that you should be including and focusing on _why_ more than the what. The whole time reading the landing page I was wonder _why_ this exists and what problem it would solve. It is better to speak to someone than to speak to no one.
2) Use a higher quality video. I think some of the other comments are focused on the fact that you are a guy in shorts in a video. It would tell a more interesting story to give a demo of at least one situation or several situations where this would be useful. I would get a lot more out of this video if you staged a group fitness class or 1-on-1 training. This would give me a reason _why_ this exists but with relevant context. If the video was higher quality and it was a fitness setting I don't think anyone would care that you were in shorts
3) Interface Controls section. This section is confusing because the user cannot see the interface just the gestures. It would be better to give off a list of features and benefits rather than going into _how_ you use a feature with the specific gestures. Too much complexity when people haven't bought into the concept yet. Which reminds me, you should focus on selling the concept more than telling me step-by-step how to use it.
4) More controls from phone. This section is a relief because controlling everything using gestures _sounds_ exhausting. Maybe it isn't. But this should be more emphasized than the specific gestures. Controlling everything from my phone seems more intuitive for most people. And having the gestures for an interruption free experience seems like a nice to have.
5) Have you had a yoga or fitness instructor try this yet? Have you all done a live demo with them to validate the problem? Not saying you haven't, but if you have those are probably the best screenshots or video clips to show. If you have done them why aren't you showing us that. If you haven't done them, what are you waiting for?
I run a martial arts school and we have fitness classes. We also do private and group sessions. I can definitely see the use, but you gotta sell it. What is the dream you are selling for us? How is this better than in-person classes? Is it worse? Is it worse but makes us safe from COVID? Is it the next revolutionary way to bring fitness classes online in our new environment? Can influencers use this to monetize their audience?
Same! I teach BJJ and I have another instructor that teaches 'Fitness Kickboxing' as well as traditional Muay Thai. I agree that how this platform could apply to our martial arts isn't immediately obvious. However, post-lockdown, some interesting things happened. Paulo and Joao Miyao started upping their online presence and using Twitch to stream drilling sessions and answer questions. I feel like if they had a platform, they would have been able to monetize their efforts more to teach online private lessons. Most notably, Jon Thomas (@jonthomasbjj on IG), has been teaching online seminars and private lessons that he has advertised through IG. I definitely think there is a need for everyday people to get taught by high-level competitors and athletes in our domain, BJJ. I do think your platform is probably better suited to other fitness related activities rather than BJJ. However, during lockdown, this would have been gold. And I still think that some platform that connects everyday people to high level athletes for 1-on-1 or small group lessons would be amazing.
> I've spent a lot of time thinking about pain points for traditional martial arts schools and applications of our platform. Unfortunately haven't had too many good ideas though; our platform feels more straightforwardly applicable to reducing friction and improving engagement in online group fitness classes (yoga, cardio kickboxing, etc.)
My intuition is that there are all kinds of fitness influencers with large followings on Instagram, TikTok, and platforms like that. They are all trying to find ways of monetizing their audience. A really good platform that allows them to run online group fitness classes would be great. Ultimately, their dream is to have a large audience, be respected, and make money while growing and leveraging their audience. How can this platform help that? Ultimately I think these are the types of things that the landing page should allude to or try to sell. This could be monetized in two ways: 1) the influencer pays a monthly fee to use the platform 2) the client pays to access the influencer's content and live classes (platform takes a cut).
As I type all this out, once you imagine a particular type of audience (lets say influencers) it becomes clear that they need more tools than just 'rooms' to do what they need to do. You might say well handling all of those payment things and providing a content platform is beyond the scope of what you are trying to do with your platform. But the more you put yourself in the shoes of the customer, the more specific that platform needs to become to not only offer them value, but also the motivation to pay for and use it. This is why I think the landing page needs to speak to someone, whoever you all decide that is. Because then you will end up focusing on the benefits of what your platform can do for them rather than focusing on how to use the platform from a technical perspective. Through this, you might also uncover the additional features the platform needs to have so that people can actually use it.