Vea Fitness

Vea Fitness

Summer is here, are you bikini and board-short ready? Motivation is key for getting in shape, which is why the gamification of workout activities, is getting so popular. Yes I want a beach-ready bod but the cumulative hours I need to put in to get a good result can seem daunting. Most people need to break down large objectives into smaller tasks and incentivize with rewards in order to achieve their goals. This is where Vea Fitness comes in.

Vea Fitness is the fitness app that rewards your workouts with discounts and free gear from top retailers like Saucony and New Balance, as well as local storefronts near you. Who doesn’t want a new pair of running shoes?

Jonathan Maxim, a then San Diego State University student, came up with the idea after a run in college, “I became infatuated with fitness after taking an impulsive run with my brother (after reading a book about running) that ended up being almost 15 miles. While it was unplanned, and frankly quite painful to run that far (and get lost), it was also hugely empowering when I felt that sense accomplishment from pushing myself to run (not walk) home the last half mile. I knew that fitness would be the solution so many of my own personal hurdles I was dealing with, and it could do the same for others. I knew I needed to share this inspiration and motivation.”

The hardest challenge he’s faced? “When you create a platform, you depend on both suppliers and users. Our suppliers are rewards partners. We needed them before users – but they wouldn’t join the platform without any users. Hence, we had this chicken-egg problem: you can’t get awesome brands without any traction. But you can’t get users/traction without awesome rewards/brands. So, being able to convince brands to join our platform prior to launch was incredibly difficult, and really tested my ability to communicate vision. Ultimately, we did sign Saucony as our launch partner after 4-6 months of discussions, and they began offering our users exclusive rewards for running.”

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Jonathan sees Vea Fitness being the “motivational experience for everyone who enjoys fitness or wants to get into fitness”. That means the team will begin tracking other non-distance exercises: yoga, basketball, and lifting. They’re also looking to leverage all motivational tools to better enable users: social support, good weather, awesome music, popular workout locations and personal goals to ensure that your fitness experience is holistic and continually engaging.

Vea is an intriguing and cutting edge idea, no doubt. Interested in getting involved? If you’re an iOS developer and want to join as an equity-only cofounder or have connections with PR outlets that can help tell their story, they want to talk to you! And if you like beta testing new cool products like I do, give them feedback on the current user experience! It’ll help them optimize for a round of UX enhancements in the pipeline! You can download it here.

We met Jonathan at the Next Gen Summit in New York – hear what he has to say about Ideator: “Ideator is a unified platform for organizing and benchmarking our business. We use [it] to set dates, goals and gain feedback from key stakeholders. It’s a beautiful, easy to user interface that works very well for everyone using it.”

Keep tabs on Vea Fitness by following their idea on Ideator today!