From concept to design and development of a fully integrated fitness brand and global community.
Founded by a banker with a passion for cycling and inspired by his intense loathing of existing indoor training programs, the Sufferfest concept was built around harnessing a culture of positive pain. Initially, Sufferfest was just a few training videos created by leveraging footage from major cycling races and combining it with creatively painful (and effective) high intensity workouts.
To commercialize the concept into a full fledged business with a global reach, Sufferfest needed a way to make the videos more accessible, put them into a coherent program, and create a robust community ecosystem that would ensure a sustainable revenue stream.
The key to capitalizing on the opportunity was developing a Sufferfest application suite that would house both the existing videos as well as new content as it was created. The application suite needed to have native iOS, OS X, and Windows desktop versions that would enable cyclists to plug into its universe regardless of their technology.
At the same time, Sufferfest needed to aggressively grow its small cult following into a full fledged global community built around shared values, a strong social presence, and a steady stream of new and accessible content. To achieve this, the apps needed to be designed with maximum social integration, an intuitive user interface, and strong branding that emphasized the “earned not given” value in the insider cycling community while still offering low barrier-to-entry initiation for a broader customer base.
To do this, Sufferfest needed an international team that seamlessly combined Sufferfest’s existing resources with new design, development, and strategy talent. Once the initial build and growth phase was complete, a smooth transition plan would ensure sustained viability and future innovation from the Sufferfest team.
Native iOS, OS X, React, and desktop versions provided platforms for universal access and frequent content updates.
Spanning three continents, and including design, development, and strategy oriented members, the team worked to take concept to global reality.
Leveraging the “no pain, no gain” values of the hardcore cycling community, branding carefully reinforced insider exclusivity while creating clear paths for new user acquisition.
The Sufferfest app received widespread adoption in the cycling community, including tens of thousands of downloads by active users, a 4.9 rating with 800+ reviews on itunes, and “Bike App of the Year” accolades for 2017 from the likes of Bikes Etc. magazine.
Even more importantly, the Sufferfest community continued to grow through its social integration and focused brand values. Its fierce following continues to show strong social activity from dedicated users, and the Sufferfest app has spawned face-to-face communities in over 150 brick and mortar training facilities spread across six continents.
The core of the team created to incubate Sufferfest was transitioned to Sufferfest full time to ensure long term stability, and their work at Sufferfest continues to develop and innovate the entire Sufferlandia ecosystem.
10,000+ active users, 150+ training facility partners, and high social engagement metrics ensure the Sufferfest app has a lasting presence in the competitive fitness app marketplace.
With an agile global team and flexible application infrastructure, The Sufferfest was built for ongoing innovation to meet the changing demands of a dedicated cycling community.
As a result of intuitive social integration and intentional branding, Sufferfest has become a six continent global community with a dedicated user base and strong user acquisition channels.
