Title: Hey HN! I’m Andy, founder of Aviron (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;avironactive.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;avironactive.com&#x2F;</a>). We make a high-intensity version of Peloton for rowing, with competitive games, live races and strength programs. Our content puts a focus on HIIT (high intensity interval training) due to its physical and cognitive benefits.<p>I feel like sometimes this pisses the hardcore rowers off but I’m not a rower, I’m a tech guy. I also think fitness is important and have been working out all of my adult life. Before Aviron, I worked full time and long hours so I did a lot of my thinking during late night gym sessions. Like many people I avoided the rower because not only did I not enjoy cardio but damn that machine was hard and boring. There was a moment at some point in 2016 when I realized I could do something with this. The connected fitness market in the US at that time was small but growing rapidly.<p>Aviron is a rowing machine because it’s the most efficient and effective workout you can have in a short amount of time on one machine. The rowing motion is low impact, engages 85% of muscles, is very difficult and as a result can also be boring. This makes the rowing machine an ideal ‘candidate’ to pair with the gaming-inspired, competitive content I began thinking about in 2016.<p>The research was telling me there was a definite potential market niche I could fill but what I didn&#x27;t know was that no manufacturer would speak to me. I probably called and emailed 50 manufacturers. I eventually kickstarted a few conversations and finally a relationship, by flying to Taiwan, connecting with a local who could translate, and knocking on doors in person. It sounds reasonable in hindsight but the process to finalizing a production contract start to finish took me a full year. A year of trying to understand the manufacturing landscape, developing relationships and convincing potential suppliers that I would eventually be worth their time.<p>Ultimately my key takeaway is that Taiwanese manufacturing relationships are just that - relationships. Manufacturers are looking for long-term trusting partnerships and they are much less motivated by money than my initial assumption. I’m reminded of this constantly - this month alone I have received emails re: product delays twice - and I stupidly tried to throw money at the problem, in the process offending the Taiwan team by implying they would work harder if money was on the table.<p>Finding and building a solid relationship with a production partner was challenging but I would give it a 7&#x2F;10 relative to the hurdles that came later. The manufacturer had no experience or interest in getting the machine to work along with our custom android touchscreen. As much as I see myself as a “tech guy”, I don’t have an engineering degree. My dad does and so does my brother but I went the business degree route. Long story short, figuring out the details of making these two pieces work together was a nightmare. Again, in hindsight, it’s kind of cool - I understand my machine inside and out; I’m confident I could take it apart down to the screws and put it back together. I can also work comfortably with an oscilloscope and understand how most of the components work on a typical fitness equipment circuit board - there was a lot of circuit board soldering trial and error at one point.<p>I knew that I was taking on a lot with a software and hardware venture but what nobody tells you is how many miles you’re going to drive and fly when you’re taking on hardware. During our slow tip-toe pivot from B2B to B2C sales, we discovered home customers would find 10x the problems a gym would. There was a week in 2019 I drove to a customer’s home 6 hours away multiple times a week for nearly a month. Each trip I thought we had found the solution; the ride back was crushing. This was one of many problems we faced.<p>I’m happy to be able to say the bugs are mostly worked out! Our customers navigate a 22” touchscreen to browse 250ish content options - like my favorite and the first game we ever developed - Last Hope, an end-of-the-world inspired game where you’re being chased by zombies. As your row to escape the Ai will benchmark your fitness output and adjust the zombies’ speed to maintain a challenging pace for your fitness level.<p>The content for Aviron was developed with strength training and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) in mind. For example, one of our 6 workouts categories is “Pros vs. Joes”, a program that allows you to compete against pre-recorded Olympians and professional athletes in a race.<p>Our customers are fitness enthusiasts who don’t enjoy long cardio workouts and crave the competitive and challenging pace of activities like CrossFit and F45, at home - especially throughout Covid. HIIT workouts tend to be shorter, have been proven to improve cognitive ability and help slow the aging process via preservation of DNA.<p>To me, the dual cognitive and physical benefits were really key. I began to work out in my teens, physically I felt better and my self esteem improved. Cognitively, I went from dealing with undiagnosed ADHD and struggling my way through school to slowly noticing an improvement. People told me I was “growing out of” ADHD - which is probably partially true - but something clicked when I was researching fitness programming for Aviron. Learning about HIIT and it’s (data proven) benefits, I started to realize that my commitment to consistent and challenging physical fitness had likely paid a large part in my “growing out it” as well.<p>Currently, we have bootstrapped Aviron to a good place; we’ve sold nearly a thousand rowers to gyms, hotels, schools and even Nike headquarters as well as homes. Or churn rate is &lt;1% and our customers are telling us they’re happy. And they’re paying their membership every month so we believe them. :)<p>We are continually working on Aviron to improve the software, content and customer experience so if you have a chance please check us out and let me know what you think. I’m excited to hear from the community. I’ll be hanging out in the comments all day.
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