[rrose]

most gyms won't have coaching geared towards distance runners, though. Competitive distance runners are specialized enough that most fitness classes won't really give them what they're looking for.

If you're somebody who goes for a couple runs a week to supplement their main forms of exercise I agree that this is a pretty steep price to pay.

[Grustaf]

Yea I’m not saying that a running freak would get very much out of joining a gym, I’m just comparing what a gym rat gets for his 30 bucks with what their customers get, and he seems to get a helluva lot more. So it just makes me wonder if people will be happy to pay.

Maybe they will, people pay for peloton. Then again that’s essentially a cult, and the contents seems richer.

Nice idea though, I wish I had thought of it!

Although, given that the coaching isn’t personal, and not even done in a local group, how much can a competitive runner really get out of it?

[mknippen]

Great feedback. I completely understand that the price point may not be for everybody. We've done our best to keep the pricing competitive while still being able to pay our coaches fair wages. We've also tried to look at it from both our costs, and value added.

We do offer 20 different classes each and every day. Users who purchase an annual subscription can get an entire year of content, thousands of runs for less than a pair of competition running shoes.

Even for a runner that only uses our application once a week, they pay under $5 a class for a live certified coach, curated playlists (that cost a decent amount for copyright), live streaming data and other costs.

At scale these things may become more economical, and we may be able to offer a lower price.

[snug]

How do you guarantee the coach is going to give me value? As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem like a cap on the number of people in any group, there could be a dozen or a few hundred. What is the coaches value to me if I'm one of the few hundred people in a group?

[mknippen]

From a company perspective, that's our main goal. If we don't give you value, you don't say subscribed. If we do give value, we have runners that stay with us for years.

While class sizes may differ, right now they're definitely smaller, allowing for a lot of time per coach. That will change with time, but it's our mission to provide as much value as humanly possible to our users.

[Grustaf]

That’s not really an answer at all. And it’s not even true. At least when it comes to gyms they have huge numbers of people that keep paying without going.

[mknippen]

My apologies, let me clarify. We guarantee that we will provide value by offering a money-back guarantee in the first 7 days. If you don't find value, you don't need to pay.

Many gyms work really hard to lock you into long-term contracts, where you need to provide adequate reason to unsubscribe. With Charge, you're not locked into something long-term, and it's much easier for you to leave. From a business perspective, this requires us to continue to provide value for our customers, which is exactly what we're trying to do.

Don't take me at my word though, I'd love to hear your feedback. Would you be willing to try it out and let me know if you found value in the coaching?

[snug]

Again, I do like your concept, so I'm only being critical because I'd like to try, but there are two things holding me back

1. I have to enter my credit card for a 7 day trial

2. then I have to email you to cancel it within 7 days. I should be able to hit a button

There should be a free trial, no credit card.

I'm usually one to get the annual subscription on services, so I would get that here, but like a gym, i can't cancel after 7 days if I don't think I'm getting value, and I think this type of service would take more than a week to know if it's valuable. $10 more per month for monthly seems steep.

I'm putting this in the perspective of Gym membership costs, idk if other people think the same way.

[Grustaf]

I haven't been running regularly for ages, but the gyms in Denmark are closed now so I suppose there's no time like the present to pick it up again!