Happy Sunday!
Welcome back to Founders Feature, a weekly newsletter all about the journeys of young startup founders.
For this week's edition, I interviewed Nastassia Ponomarenko, Founder of Corecircle, a social fitness and workout tracking app based in the US.
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Here’s what Corecircle is all about:
🏠 The Basics
The Problem:
Most people use the notes app to track their workouts. If it's not the notes app, then it's either pen and paper, spreadsheets, or people say they “track the workouts in their head,” - for most people, that just doesn’t work. You end up hitting a plateau because you don’t fully know what weight, reps and sets you were using previously. Additionally, fitness is inherently social, people like to talk about it and post about their progress, but there is no vertical social platform that focuses exclusively on fitness.
The Solution:
Corecircle is a social fitness app where people create workouts, connect with other fitness enthusiasts, and document their fitness journeys in public. Our goal is to bring the fitness community together on one platform.
The Team:
I was born and raised in the Bay Area, and I’ve been obsessed with fitness from the age of 15. I started documenting my fitness journey on Youtube, became a creator, and launched a fitness apparel brand at 18 years old. I did enroll in college but dropped out after two days. I then started working on a networking app for Gen Z, Connectful, before working on Corecircle. We’re a small but speedy team of 5 people!
🚀 The Journey
How did you come up with your startup/solution?
I was working on my previous startup called Connectful, a networking app for Gen Z, and it wasn’t going so well. I learned many lessons from that experience, but essentially, I just didn’t test the product before launching. I built out a fully fledged app in the beginning, and also didn’t consider the market size enough at the start. There simply aren't that many Gen Z entrepreneurs looking for an app to network on. I had a conversation with my dad about my learnings at the time, and he jokingly said that I should start a fitness app - because fitness was my passion.
Initially, I laughed it off, thinking that’s not something I could or would do, but over time I thought more about the idea of an inherently social fitness app, with the community at its core. I knew the fitness community inside out, because I had been in fitness since the age of 15, and at some point, I sat down and planned out the entire concept for the app, and it just felt so right.
Why is this the right time for this problem to be solved?
The hashtag “fitness” on Tiktok has 170+ billion views, and it’s growing at 1-2B views per week. The videos under that hashtag are primarily posted by Gen Z. Gen Z is dominating the fitness space - even the CEO of Planet Fitness stated that this generation took out the most gym memberships. It’s the perfect market and the perfect time to build a great social fitness app.
What is a recent success you are proud of?
We recently surpassed 200k users, which was a great milestone to reach. We have plenty of work to do on improving the product, but it was a nice recognition of the hard work we've put in so far.
What is a recent challenge you have faced?
Focus is something I struggle with at times. There are always a lot of exciting things we have planned for the future, but at the same time there are also plenty of things that just need to get done in the short term. Finding balance and learning where to focus my time and prioritise can be quite challenging. It’s always a bit of a trade-off between the things that are the most exciting to do, and the tasks that just need to get done in the now to drive the business forward on the day to day.
What do you wish you knew before you started and is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight?
It took me far too long to understand the power of people. For quite a few years after moving from home, I spent almost no time at all connecting with like-minded people. And when I tried to fundraise for Connectful, I realised for the first time what a difference it can make to have people around you with similar experiences. It took me that experience to truly understand the importance of a network, but now I’m lucky to have an amazing group of people around me, whom I can turn to with pretty much any question.
🧠 The Lessons
What is the best advice you have been given recently?
My good friend told me that, “Becoming a successful entrepreneur is a marathon, not a sprint.”
What advice would you give to other young founders?
Educate yourself on the fundraising process before going out to fundraise. There are so many good books out there, and plenty of people who will be more than happy to share their experiences. There are tips and tricks you absolutely should know. I would specifically recommend Ryan Breslow's book "Fundraising".
What is the biggest lesson you have learned so far?
Build an MVP first. I learned this the hard way with Connectful. Try to distance yourself from the solution you have in mind, and go out and test that idea first. It’ll change the entire process.
✨ The Inspiration
Who inspires you?
Kapil Gupata and Naval Ravikant. Both are incredibly anti-bullshit which is so refreshing in our society.
What book do you think everyone should read?
Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harrari
Your dad must not be bright at all himself if he is telling you to startup another app with no technical skills. Coders eat people like you alive.