Launch HN: Charge Running (YC W21) – Social running app with real-time coaching
Hi HN,

I’m Matthew Knippen, a 10 year iOS dev turned CEO for Charge Running (www.chargerunning.com). We built a mobile app that allows you to run with others from all over the world in real-time, all while being trained by a certified run coach. Think of us as Peloton for running, but way more social. You can learn more about our product here: http://www.chargerunning.com

I’m a career mobile dev that always liked hacking on things, and worked on over 60 applications ranging from photos, games, and fitness. Over the years, when I come across a problem in my life, I write code to solve it. I built a garage door opener app before it was cool, an electronic Go board, and an app to track different whiskeys I’ve tasted like “Untappd for Spirits.” Charge was born out of a much bigger personal problem:

I used to run a fair bit with my friend (and now co-founder) Rory. It was a great way to stay in shape and having someone to talk helped the time go by faster. Unfortunately, when Rory moved across the country for the military, both of us ran significantly less than we did before. I came to the conclusion running by myself… SUCKED! We were chatting about it on the phone one day knowing there had to be a better solution, and that's when we thought of Charge. I spent the weekend hacking something together, and on Monday, we tried it out.

Our first version of the app was an all white screen where it showed two things, Rory’s distance, and mine. We hopped on a phone, and used the app to have a friendly competition. A programmer vs a Navy Seal is rarely a fair challenge, and he kicked my a$$, but we LOVED it! On the backend, we utilized Firebase’s Realtime database for data, and a group phone call to manage audio. (Most of this has since been upgraded)

As any developer would want to do, we kept building on it, showing things like current pace, cadence, and more. A few friends wanted to join us, so we built support for multiple users, and listened to music while we ran. It was at this time that someone joined us that was a friend of a friend, and said “Now that I know I can run with this, I never want to run without it.”

So, we decided to turn our ugly hacked together app into an official product. When talking to our users, we found out that they wanted four things during their runs:
1. Motivation - The hardest part about going for a run is committing to do it and getting those shoes on
2. A social experience - Every other running app focuses on social after the run, not the ability to run with others in real-time.
3. Education - Most beginner runners just start running. After hearing Rory talk with them, they learned proper form and how to improve without getting injured.
4. Music - When asked what a big pain point was, users said they needed to put more work into their playlist than they spent running!

We took that information, and made a small pivot into dedicated coached classes, where a certified trainer would guide you through a specific type of workout. Each workout was effort-based, meaning whether you’re a complete beginner, or have run 25 marathons, you could join any class and fit right in.

We hired coaches (finding them by doing a bit of web scraping ) and built an audio solution with professional DJ software, allowing the coaches to change the beat of the music and auto-blend them together.

Rory and our other co-founder Julie (my sister), would host a few classes a day. I quit my job as an iOS contractor for a big company to focus on a start-up full time, at the same time my wife was 8 months pregnant with our first child. (I have the world’s most supportive wife!)

We launched, and we’re instantly overwhelmed. Apple featured us on “New Apps We Love”. MacWorld called us the “App of the Week”. We got 25K downloads, but we're still in a very early beta. We had no on-boarding. No app store video. Calling it a website would be an exaggeration. No one knew what we did, or how it worked, and we churned 99% of the users within the first week.

However, the ones that stayed lit a fire inside of us that we never knew we had. We talked to them constantly, and they defined our product roadmap. Since then, we’ve had users run over 350,000 miles in live classes, hosted a wedding day ceremony for them, and have seen people become best friends who live halfway across the world from each other. That being said, we really want to learn more, and keep iterating. We would love to hear the community's feedback and answer any questions.