Why I quit the startup I quit my job for in only 2 months
Then COVID hit... so I quit my job.
In June I quit being a Director of Product Management to go full-time on kettle.fit. In August I quit working on Kettle. Here’s why:
Kettle was to be Shopify for personal trainers + content delivery. A user subscribes to a workout plan, the trainer sends it monthly. Kettle takes a cut. Easy. Simple. Straightforward.
Before quitting my day job, I had started development and done a customer interview with my trainer (shout out to Bekah at Brave Endeavors). I learned she had cobbled together Squarespace, a subscription payment provider, and an email service provider plus was using Word to make workout plans and private YouTube videos for tutorials. Great! I’ve found a pain - setting this all up is hard, brittle, and technical and a typical trainer without Bekah’s determination probably would have given up.
I also did some light market research. In a quick evening, I found dozens of other trainers with similar offerings to Bekah with similarly cobbled together websites, plus a couple of competitors - True Coach and Train Heroic.
With an identified problem and an established market, I figured I could build a prelaunch list, get an MVP together for a beta program, and be off and running.
Then COVID hit. Suddenly gyms are closed, trainers are out of work, everyone is trying to figure out how to workout from home. Perfect for Kettle so I quit my day job.
I registered a domain, set up email, and built a marketing site (hugo + tailwind) in 2 weeks (I could have gone faster but I also learned a bunch by building in email automation, Cloudinary and Stripe).
At the same time, I started emailing the trainers I had found that had established businesses to set up 10-15 minute calls to talk through their business (traffic sources, income level, tech stack, etc.). 10 reach outs. 0 responses.
Here’s an example of the type of email I sent.
Hi X,
I’m working on a better platform to connect trainers and clients online. I found your program which looks like a great fit for (describe their niche). I’d greatly appreciate 10-15 minutes of your time to learn more about your business since it’s one of the best-marketed ones I’ve found. In return, I’d be happy to pay your standard training rate or make a donation to charity. I’m available at (a specific time in the next couple of days) or whenever is convenient for you.
Kind regards,
Brendan
I tested a few tactics, offering to pay for time, flattery, appeal for compassion but still no response.
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Usually, with a cold email like this that’s well-targeted, I’d expect to get 1 or 2 calls, which then lead to a couple of warm intros to more calls and we’re off and running. But no, zero response.
Time to change up the market, rather than look at established online training businesses, I wanted to talk to trainers that might be able to make money with Kettle. Fitness influencers. They have a distribution channel and it would be great exposure for Kettle, a potential viral marketing loop.
I spent a day deep-diving through fitness Instagram and YouTube to make a list of potential customers with these criteria: certified trainer, available contact info, a mix of higher and lower follower count, and some clearly selling their own products and services already and some not.
The next day I sent emails. 2 responses. 2 scheduled calls. 2 no shows. 2 reschedules. 2 no shows. Conclusion: this group isn’t that into me. Low enthusiasm = low willingness to pay, high churn. Not a business I want to be in.
Third attempt: find out of work trainers that want to train online. Now I have a distribution problem. If this is the market I want to attack, finding customers is going to be problem #1. Paid acquisition is probably going to be the first channel and I don’t want to invest unless I know that’s going to work. So I set up a test.
I ran the following Facebook Ad for 3 weeks with a $100 budget. It sent users to the Kettle website with the goal of a sign up for early access.
12 people signed up for early access. My cost per email collected was $8.33. The ad was shown to 4,021 people. All of the completed registrations came through Instagram. 9 were through stories and 3 through the feed.
To each registration I sent the following:
Hi X!
Thank you for signing up to get early access to Kettle! I'm Brendan, the founder and developer of Kettle. Right now, I'm working hard to shape Kettle into the perfect online training tool.
You can help me! I want to talk to you about how Kettle can help you provide online personal training so that it's amazing when we set up your storefront. If you're willing to, please reply with a simple "Let's chat" and we'll go from there.
I'll be in touch from time to time with online training tips and updates on when to expect access.
Kind regards,
Brendan
Two of the 13 responded to set up a meeting. Neither ever responded after that.
At this point, I had to admit that Kettle was not resonating with those I had reached. I had no Enthusiasts, no earlier adopters, no Zealots. Continuing meant signing up for:
A market with an ill-defined target customer. If I could find trainers eager to use Kettle, how could I segment and target and market to more like them?
Potentially low ARPU. If Kettle made money by taking a cut of sales, there’s the potential for huge numbers of low revenue customers with high support demands. I didn’t like the odds for a path to mid-range ARPU ($100-$1000/month).
A long path to default alive state. I wouldn’t start getting revenue when I signed a trainer. The trainer would then need to market their product. Getting to $10K MRR would be a very long journey.
I quit Kettle. It’s ok. It wasn’t the right idea at the right time for me.