[HN Gopher] 15 Years of Building Jefit
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15 Years of Building Jefit
Author : jasong
Score : 50 points
Date : 2025-07-15 07:18 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jefit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jefit.com)
| piker wrote:
| Would be good to hear more details about the journey from
| bootstrapped North Carolina house to a decent-sized team out
| west.
|
| Is Jefit profitable now? Then?
|
| What were revenues like during those times?
|
| What's the software stack?
|
| Interesting challenges (esp. from a tech perspective)?
| xnx wrote:
| Longtime Jefit user. I respect that it the enshittifiction (e.g.
| locking "volume" charts behind a subscription) has been slow
| enough to not force me to another product. I've definitely
| encountered many many bugs, but only a few that have resulted in
| partial data loss.
|
| Lots of respect with allowing data export in a simple format like
| .csv
|
| Did the "recent" exercise sort get removed?
| jfengel wrote:
| I've been using the free tier for a few years. I want very
| little out of it -- really just something to say "do these
| exercises today".
|
| The basics work well enough. I'd just as soon they didn't lock
| alternative exercises behind the paywall -- if my gym doesn't
| have a leg extension machine, what's a good alternative? It
| doesn't seem a lot to ask.
|
| I'm well aware that I get what I pay for on the free tier. But
| I worked around it by googling an alternative and just
| substituting that instead. It's good enough for my extremely
| meager purposes.
| tallanvor wrote:
| I've been using it for a long time as well, but I'm really
| tired of the constant up-sell attempts. I really just want a
| dead simple app to track my work, and I really feel like Jefit
| is moving further and further away from that.
| placardloop wrote:
| If you're on iOS, the app "Strong" is a really simple but
| great tracking app. On Android there is "FitNotes" which is a
| little bit more barebones, but still really functional. I
| have tried Jefit a few times and think it's great but ended
| up using these other ones because of their simplicity.
| BlackjackCF wrote:
| Hevy is another great and simple iOS workout tracking app
| in the same vein as Strong.
| Cyphus wrote:
| Heavyset on iOS should fit the bill perfectly. It has
| everything I want in a workout tracker (weights based on
| percentage of training max, workout calculator, Apple Health
| integration) and nothing more.
| https://www.runloop.com/heavyset
| FredPret wrote:
| If you're on iOS, consider this completely crazy idea:
|
| Apple Numbers.
|
| I started doing this with Excel, but the AN experience on
| mobile is great. You can even add simple forms.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| I stopped using the app around 2018 and went back to pencil and
| paper. Although I did like the diagrams on the movements to do,
| but once you learn them, you can't forget them. I never entered
| the data into a spreadsheet though, I didn't care about
| tracking gains. All I cared about was, what I was doing last
| week and where I am at this week.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Misspelling in the title, not their fault
| mproud wrote:
| Anyone want to fix the typo in the title? Presumably "15 Years of
| Jefit"
| cgsmith wrote:
| or 15 Years of Buildling Jefit
| q3k wrote:
| Always appreciate seeing small teams go into bare metal hosting!
|
| (judging by the photo of them in front of HE FMT2 colo racks)
| throwanem wrote:
| How many if je don't fit?
| ge96 wrote:
| What if jefit?
| oldpersonintx2 wrote:
| youtube is FLOODED with free fitness content, I mean, you could
| workout for five years and never see the same video twice
|
| its all evergreen - crunches from five years ago are just as good
| today
|
| everyone I know who worked as a personal trainer has moved out of
| the industry
|
| endless free resources out there
|
| and then the content connected to devices like Peloton etc
|
| not sure how you can make a buck in this business
|
| want to track your progress? look in the mirror or guesstimate
| FredPret wrote:
| Conversely, a tidal flood of free content, much of which is low
| quality, can motivate a consumer to shell out $$$ for something
| that's more curated, limited, and has a guaranteed lower limit
| on quality.
|
| I know because I've done this many times in many contexts, with
| everything from fitness apps to programming courses to buying
| the latest fiction books. With all of these, there are multiple
| lifetimes' of free, good content out there, but good luck
| mining the nuggets out from the thick layer of slop.
| maqp wrote:
| Yup, I have no idea what's the point of gazillion YouTube
| shorts on exercises that have perfectly good tutorials by
| experienced people, available already.
|
| E.g.,
| https://www.youtube.com/@RenaissancePeriodization/playlists
| has ridiculously good per-body-part demonstration playlists
| if you scroll down a bit.
| FredPret wrote:
| You joke but this is exactly what I'm talking about.
|
| This channel must have hundreds of hours of content, and
| I'm sure much of it is good, but I don't have hundreds of
| hours.
|
| Instead, I will send hundreds of dollars to some trusted
| person to distill hundreds of hours into an app or
| something that I can use immediately.
| maqp wrote:
| No I did not joke. If you bother to open one of the
| playlists I referred to, you can find e.g. 10 rear delt
| exercises demonstrated in under 15 second videos with
| extremely good tldr advice.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34gVHrkaiz0&list=PLyqKj7L
| wU2...
|
| Mike Israetel who runs the channel is in the top-5 in
| scientific body building circles.
|
| And you can get those same videos in their app
| https://rpstrength.com/pages/hypertrophy-app
|
| Personally I'd use Jefit or Hevy over RP, but the point
| stands.
| FredPret wrote:
| Every point you make is fair but the point still stands:
| you had to find this stuff first.
|
| And if I did not know about him and typed "rear delt
| exercise" into Youtube, there will be an endless amount
| of slop before I personally would run into this guy.
|
| I'd gladly pay for this guy's app if I were in the market
| for a new workout plan. My point is that free content
| does not eliminate the market for paid content.
| maqp wrote:
| Jefit isn't about video tutorials, but keeping track of your
| progress in specific exercises, and performing correct amount
| of volume to progress but not over-train, a thing that becomes
| harder when you advance and your progress starts to slow down.
| At that point avoiding stagnation requires a lot more
| optimization and an app that can tell incremental progress in
| bench is more motivating than looking at the mirror and seeing
| very small changes. Also, for powerlifters the mirror is a poor
| tool since it's not about hypertrophy and body shape.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| > want to track your progress? look in the mirror or
| guesstimate
|
| Do you lift? That's not a good way to track progress.
| chihuahua wrote:
| It would be interesting to hear more about why the move to
| Silicon Valley was necessary.
|
| "My team in North Carolina didn't want to relocate. If I moved,
| I'd be starting from scratch, with no team"
|
| I wonder what was the problem with the existing team working
| remote?
| reactordev wrote:
| This. The guy was sold a dream that only SV could make it.
| Totally not true. I'm sure the value of SV networking is great
| but what would that provide him? There's plenty of
| opportunities he could have pursued in his home state. Raleigh-
| Durham has a very healthy investment culture.
|
| I'm always skeptical of people who built something elsewhere
| then decided Silicon Valley is the only place they can grow.
| Sounds like someone said that to him and he just ran with it.
| With all the VC's turning him down, he could have done that on
| the east coast just as effectively.
|
| List of partners in his home state that could have been
| interested: Frontier Growth SJF
| Ventures Bessemer River Cities Capital Fund
| Wildwood
|
| Having participated in countless Startup Weeks (Boulder being
| my favorite), there's opportunity everywhere if you're willing
| to put yourself out there.
| frankdenbow wrote:
| Still a happy user of this app, thanks for sharing your journey.
| Especially love the Apple Watch app
| jona777than wrote:
| It's nice to get a glimpse behind the scenes of JEfit.
|
| I used this app when I got serious about my fitness journey
| around 8 years ago. I fell off from using it 4 or 5 years ago (no
| fault of the app.) I can honestly say, it made it really easy to
| stay consistent with my workouts and show up to the gym confident
| in my programming.
|
| Perhaps what I love best about this story, and similar startup
| stories, is the purity of building something to solve a problem
| personally. Then when the success of that thing happens as a side
| effect, it seems more appropriate. Stories like this take me back
| to the simple joy of creating something useful.
| nemothekid wrote:
| I've been using JeFit for ~6 years (I have a lifetime premium, I
| think, due to buying the app in full when you could). It used to
| be a pretty ugly app but I've stuck with it because it was the
| only app that did the simple function of creating a routine with
| a schedule then logging your performance over time.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| We need an examine.com for fitness. Too much slop out there.
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