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Today, I will discuss Gentler Streak, a Slovenian iOS and WatchOS app that helps you stay active by taking a more compassionate approach to reaching your fitness goal.
You’ve probably heard of them as they have received some recognition from Apple.
I found the team’s story inspiring. There are not many people, but they still grew remarkably.
They went from 0 revenues and users in 2021 to $1M ($400,000 of profits) revenues in September 2023 and 42,000 paying users.
Pretty impressive growth, isn’t it?
Even for indie developers, they are takeaways from their adventures. They are proof that there is no need to be a big company with a lot of resources to break records.
Without further ado, let’s dive in by coming back into 2018.
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The Idea Origins
The app idea came to life when Katarina Lotrič, CEO and co-founder of Gentler Stories (the company behind Gentler Streak), could not exercise for 6 months due to an overtraining syndrome.
Later, Andrej Mihelic, one of the co-founder, prepared a triathlon and physically burned-out.
They faced a common problem and decided to put some effort into creating an app with a private data approach, safe guidance that would not push competition (like 10,000 steps/day), and include rest seriously when needed.
They asked if there is an app that can describe the athlete's condition and, basically, tell them whether they should exercise or rest. They found nothing.
Resources & Investments
Regarding self-investment, Gentler Streak started with 110 000€ financed by the co-founders. They also received some co-financing from the EU.
Interestingly, they can be more aggressive in growing faster but don’t want to. Katarina Lotrič explained that growing faster has downsides, like risking “the health of yourself and the team.”
They prefer an organic growth approach rather than depend on external financial resources.
First App Version
The team already has a foot in the mobile app industry thanks to their experience at Lake Coloring, an app with coloring books created by independent artists that won the Apple Design Award in 2017.
From a side project, they started working full-time on it with the help of Jasna Krmelj and Luka Orešnik, both co-founders and iOS developers and shipped the first app version in September 2021.
Gentler Streak (previously named Gentler back then) first version came with a pack of features like:
- Activity Hub showing activities you’ve done within different periods (month, year, all-time)
- Workout Summary showing activity stats like time, average heart rate, …
- Hearth Rate Zone: to know how your efforts were intense for your heart
- Food Calories Burned: this makes it easy to represent what you’ve burned with a nice food emoji
- Sync with Apple Health
One of the main challenges shared by Katarina Lotrič was to deal with private and health data.
They want to serve users, not to scare or mislead them. That’s why they put a lot of effort into developing their own branding style, copywriting, and UI / UX.
One example that came to mind is calories. The app displays a value like 710kcal and shows an equivalent emoji like “🍔🍟”. It directly talks to everyone.
You may also have seen the mascot Yorhart, who acts as an assistant to help you in your workouts (funny wordplay of Your + Hearth).
It builds a relationship with users while increasing engagement and giving a branding face to Gentler Streak.
Business Model
As you probably guessed, the app uses In-App Purchase subscriptions to generate income, which is used to develop the app and, later, the Apple Watch.
Today, there are currently 3 options to gain access to premium features:
- Yearly subscription at 54.99€
- Monthly subscription at 7.99€
- Lifetime access at 199.99€
The Gentler Streak Premium gives you access to:
- Setting Status like injured, sick, or break
- Access to a library of articles from experts
- Profile personalization
- Add workout manually if you miss tracking
- Mirror activity between your Apple Watch and iPhone
Watch App Version
Good signals started to rise for the team. During the American Hearth Month in February 2022, Apple featured Gentler Streak for the Heart Month.
On February 17, 2022, the team launched the independent Apple Watch app version. It enables gathering more data during workouts or even starting one.
Here are some features of the release of the Apple Watch app:
- Real-time heart rate zone
- Track +85 activities
- Lock for water sports
- Apple Watch face that shows your Activity Path
Exponential Growth
Let’s talk about growth stats because they are impressive.
In 2022, 5,000 subscribers (paying users) grew to 15,000 in less than a month!
At this time, the team was composed of 4 people.
In November 2023, more than 42,000 users joined the premium plan with a team of 8 collaborators.
Notably, 85% of paying users had an annual subscription, 10% had lifetime access, and the rest had a monthly plan.
Thanks to a problem that the co-founders identified, the team was able to provide a solution to many users.
What is remarkable, too, is that all of the growth is purely organic and still at 10% per month.
In only one year, the team successfully created an iOS app and a watch app recognized by Apple
In May 2024, they achieved an impressive record of 50,000 subscribers to Gentler Streaks, with 1.5 million monthly visits to the app.
Recognition from Apple
One of the primary sources of traffic to Gentler Streak was the recognition from Apple.
Effectively, when the platform owner recognizes your app work, it brings a lot of recognition and authority to the app market. Especially when it is recognized several times in a row!
Apple nominated the Gentler Streak as the Apple Watch App of the Year in 2022. In only one year, the team successfully created an iOS app and a watch app recognized by Apple.
The next is the nomination for the Apple Design Awards in the visualization and graphics category 2023.
Last but not least, this year, in 2024, they are nominated in the Social Impact category.
Receiving rewards from Apple built recognition and boosts their reach to find more and more users to grow.
In Summary
Gentler Streak has grown exponentially with pure inbound marketing.
What is remarkable is that they came up with an idea to solve their own pain, develop a well-packaged solution, and gain authority and recognition, which ultimately led to users.
The team has achieved a lot, and I am sure they will have many surprises in the coming years.
What do you think about this new issue format? Should I do it more or differently, or should I stop it?
Tell me about your thoughts in the comments below 👇
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