As product managers, we often encounter passionate business owners facing operational challenges that technology can solve. This project involved working with my PT, a fitness business owner, to explore a custom app solution for managing his group classes after his existing platform became cost-prohibitive. This case study outlines the process, from understanding the problem to building a functional prototype and analysing the market landscape.

The Challenge: Finding an Affordable and Efficient Solution

My PT wanted an app to organise, schedule, book, and process payments for his fitness classes. His previous platform, Mindbody, had significantly increased its pricing, making it unsustainable for his business. He was looking for an alternative that could handle in-person and virtual classes of around 20 participants. While fully custom development was estimated at $10k, we aimed to explore a more rapid, cost-effective prototyping approach.

Understanding the Landscape: Market Research

Before diving into a solution, it was crucial to understand the existing market for fitness business management software. Research revealed several competitors with varying features and pricing models:

• Punchpass: Affordable and user-friendly for smaller businesses, but with limited advanced features.

• ClassFit: Flexible revenue-based pricing, but reliant on Stripe and lacking some advanced tools.

• Vibefam: Strong community features and scalability, but potentially costly for higher tiers.

• Mindbody: Comprehensive features suitable for larger businesses, but expensive for smaller operations and noted for poor customer service.

• Others: Platforms like GloFox, Exercise.com, Everfit, and Momence cater to different niches (digital-only, gym management, custom branding).

The key takeaway was that the ideal choice depends heavily on budget, business size, and specific feature needs. There seemed to be a gap between simple, affordable tools and expensive, enterprise-level platforms like Mindbody.

The Approach: Rapid Prototyping with Modern Tools

Given the need for a cost-effective and quick validation, we decided to build a prototype using a modern tech stack:

• Frontend/Builder: Lovable

• Backend/Database: Supabase

• Payments: Stripe

This allowed for the rapid development of core functionalities.

Building the Prototype: Core Features

The prototype focused on delivering essential features:

1. User Authentication: Allowing clients to sign up, log in, and manage profiles.

2. Class Scheduling & Booking: Developing APIs and database functions to handle class creation, availability checks, and user bookings. The front end was updated to display real class data and allow authenticated users to book.

3. User Management: Implementing components for users to view and manage their bookings. Protected routes ensured secure access.

4. Video Content: While initial thoughts included storage buckets, the implementation focused on linking YouTube videos rather than hosting media files directly.

5. Admin Capabilities: Although a full admin front end wasn't built, the backend included functionality for admins to manage classes, view all bookings, and manage videos. User roles could be updated directly in the database.

Design Thinking: Optimising the User Experience

The default Lovable class display used large cards, which wasn't ideal for scrolling through many classes, especially on mobile. It also included information like workout difficulty, which was less relevant for my PT’s specific HIIT-focused business.

We looked at other designs for inspiration:

• Goodlife: Offered a good weekly overview and clear availability status, but used redundant icons. Its filters for time (AM/PM) and duration were insightful.

• Google Calendar: Provided an excellent web interface for scheduled events, but wasn't designed for booking available class slots.

• Mindbody (Example): Showcased a clean list view for a specific day.

The ideal solution likely lies in a blend: perhaps a mobile-friendly, filterable list or stacked card view combined with a weekly calendar overview for desktop.

Technical Considerations & Challenges

• Payments: The initial database schema was geared towards one-time class payments. Implementing recurring subscriptions would require schema extensions and updated webhook handlers to manage subscription events (creation, updates, renewals). Integration with Stripe Checkout or Customer Portal would also be needed.

• Deployment: Considerations around separating the app from personal accounts for customer deployment would be necessary.

• Code Scalability: Using an AI-assisted tool like Lovable raises questions about code quality and long-term scalability, potentially requiring review by an engineer.

The prototype

Wondering what the prototype looks like? Take a look below.

Initial Feedback

Initial feedback highlighted practical challenges:

• Subscription Management: Handling weekly class cancellations without cancelling the recurring subscription requires a nuanced approach. Reducing notification spam for recurring bookings is also important.

• User Needs: My PT valued aesthetics (colours, pictures) but disliked website maintenance. He wanted an app (potentially linked from his Wix site), follow-along videos during sessions, and was frustrated with Wix's slow video loading and poor support. He saw potential in Lovable and valued having a human support contact.

Deeper Dive: Is There a Market Need?

The initial feedback suggested the prototype, while functional, might not be a "must-have" yet. This prompted further AI-driven research into the Canadian SaaS market for fitness trainers, specifically targeting Millennial solopreneurs.

Key Findings:

• Market: Growing but competitive, fueled by independent trainers and hybrid models. Established players exist, but trainers often use multiple tools, indicating gaps.

• Pain Points: Administrative overload from using multiple platforms, impersonal client experiences, rigid content delivery, friction with Canadian payments (Interac) and taxes, opaque pricing, lack of actionable business insights, and difficulty managing hybrid online/in-person clients.

• Opportunity: A significant opportunity exists for a truly integrated "all-in-one" platform specifically tailored for the Canadian market. Key differentiators would include seamless Interac e-Transfer/GST/HST handling, full bilingual support, integrated community features, robust hybrid scheduling, flexible content delivery, actionable analytics, and an intuitive trainer backend.

Conclusion and Next Steps

This project demonstrated the power of rapid prototyping to explore solutions for real-world business problems. While the initial prototype addressed my PT’s core need for booking and scheduling, feedback and further market research revealed a larger opportunity.

The path forward involves evolving the prototype towards a more comprehensive, Canadian-centric platform. Key next steps would include:

1. Refining the scheduling and subscription logic to handle cancellations gracefully.

2. Developing deeper integrations for Canadian payment methods (Interac) and tax considerations.

3. Building out community and engagement features.

4. Further iterating on the UI/UX based on user testing, aiming for an intuitive "all-in-one" feel.

5. Validating the code's scalability and maintainability.

By focusing on the specific unmet needs of independent Canadian fitness professionals, there's potential to build a truly valuable and differentiated product in this growing market. This project served as a valuable exploration, highlighting the importance of combining user feedback with broader market analysis to define a compelling product strategy.

This blog is based on my notes, compiled by Gemini, and edited by me. This was a project completed in March 2025.