Business plan of a "daily coach" app
Tags: programming, productivity, android, mobile
Published: 2022-12-14 18:12:43

## Context of the business plan
I prepared this business plan as part of the interview process for the gamedev company. It is a fitness app for daily interaction with coaches online. I added some gamification elements to the app, which are out of MVP scope, but can be nice-to-have features to bring up the daily engagement. 

## Business idea in a nutshell
Personalized training in the gym would cost you $70/h in the US. But what benefit does it give you? Right execution of a few moves and 400-500 calories burned. How can you stay accountable with your lifestyle, sleep, nutrition and daily activity, if you only meet your coach 1-2 times a week, paying >$150 for that experience. 

What if instead, you had daily accountability with your coach online? Sharing your calories, mood, energy level, nutrition.  Small daily text/audio interaction, that would keep you accountable in front of an experienced coach. 

This coach can assign tasks to you: go for a walk, eat protein, make sit ups, do some stretching and assign exercises in app. For a coach, this is almost like a tamagotchi experience - managing 5-7 athletes simultaneously, while keeping interactions as low as 5-10 minute texting daily. 

Check out the [presentation](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1n9mwFpLOq2l03t01ozBkk__2jKiBo1kP5f8znwMeTWo/edit?usp=sharing) I prepared, highlighting the key value proposition of the app.
{% embed https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1n9mwFpLOq2l03t01ozBkk__2jKiBo1kP5f8znwMeTWo/edit?usp=sharing %}.

## Development costs estimate

It’s hard to estimate the development costs for the low-code app solution. You can check my assumptions in google sheets [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OxUuwVJw5iLuTHFRuVqDbQHa-FGuoiSI92Abi5VZHyI/edit?usp=sharing)  and on slide 8 in the [presentation](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1n9mwFpLOq2l03t01ozBkk__2jKiBo1kP5f8znwMeTWo/edit?usp=sharing). My estimates gave me an approximate cost of ($340k) for development, maintenance and promotion. This included purchase of some of the app extensions, and 50% involvement of the engineer/product manager throughout the months for development and maintenance.

{% embed https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OxUuwVJw5iLuTHFRuVqDbQHa-FGuoiSI92Abi5VZHyI/edit?usp=sharing %}. 

## Revenue gains estimate

I made calculations based on the US market and considered that a monthly subscription for a daily coach app would cost an equivalent of two personal trainings: $150/month, where an app fee is 10% from that. I did some user retention estimates in [assumption tab](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OxUuwVJw5iLuTHFRuVqDbQHa-FGuoiSI92Abi5VZHyI/edit?usp=sharing), based on the US market average in the fitness industry. This gave me an [NPV](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/032615/what-formula-calculating-net-present-value-npv.asp) of $757k for a 2-year project, with a monthly [IRR](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/irr.asp#:~:text=The%20internal%20rate%20of%20return,same%20formula%20as%20NPV%20does.) of ca. 10%. This is quite an aggressive estimate, with assumption that development and testing stages go smoothly.  

## MVP testing

Even though this business plan was only part of the interview process, it did get my attention throughout the months. I do have a feeling that MVP of the app can be built for less than $2000, if extensions are bought and proper app template used. I wanted to share an idea here and maybe gather feedback about the following two aspects: 

- If you believe that “online daily coaching”  business model has a place to be? 
- Do you have any experience of developing low-code mobile apps and what costs did it occur? 
- Can you share some low-code platforms that can help to build mobile app MVP for less than  $10,000?


Here is a [presentation](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1n9mwFpLOq2l03t01ozBkk__2jKiBo1kP5f8znwMeTWo/edit?usp=sharing) and a [financial model](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OxUuwVJw5iLuTHFRuVqDbQHa-FGuoiSI92Abi5VZHyI/edit?usp=sharing) of the idea.