

Ask HN: What do you think of this startup idea? - ashishk

This is a half-baked idea, but it's free! If you like it, go ahead and build it. I haven't decided if I will.<p>I try to be generally healthy by doing small healthy activities. Really simple stuff. Like doing 25 pushups once in a while. Or running atleast a mile once a day (it might sound like a lot but it takes less than 10 min).<p>I also try to give myself "wellness" tasks too. Like emailing my parents a snapshot of my day.<p>The idea I had was to build a game out of this, where I could keep track of my healthy deeds (for lack of a better word) using a dead simple SMS app.<p>For example, maybe once a day, I'd get a text that suggests I do one healthy task from my pre-submitted list. I can do the task at some point that day, and text in that I completed it (honor system).<p>It might be neat to see stats for this. I.E. Which tasks I've been doing, how often...It might also be cool to get my family on it as well, so that I could make sure my Dad's staying healthy.<p>Would you use this? Would it make you more likely to complete your "healthy tasks"? Would love to hear your thoughts.
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brk
I like this idea alot, it's something I could use.

Would be particularly interesting if you could tie it in to other inputs...
IE: when the weather is bad outside (and you're likely to be stuck indoors) it
would suggest something you can do to break up the day (pushups for example).
If the weather was really nice, it might suggest you go take and submit a
scenic pic from your cellphone.

If you had a browser plug-in, it might suggest that you get up and walk for 5
minutes if you've been browsing for X consecutive minutes/hours.

I could see this evolving into a combination of a wellness app and a mental
stimulus app.

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ashishk
I'm glad you would find it useful. I like the weather and plugin ideas.

Come to think of it, would be great to have an iphone app too for subway rides
and such.

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bigsassy
Sounds like a good idea to me. Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario
Brothers, had a similar half-baked idea:

" As for the idea, my family and i have become more health-conscious in recent
years, going to the gym and tracking our weight. It becomes fun over time to
talk about these things. Simply weighing yourself doesn't make much of a game,
though, so we decided to build games around it that mesh with the concept. "

Those games were packaged together and sold as Wii Fit. Considering 20 million
copies have been sold worldwide (8+ million in the US), I'd say you're idea
could have legs.

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cmos
I've been thinking about something similar. There are a number of different
items that help make up what I would consider to be a 'good day'. (this will
vary from person to person)

1\. Exercise - Did I run or bike?

2\. Food - Did I eat healthy and moderate amounts?

3\. Budget - Did I not spend too much money?

4\. Personal work - Did I focus and spend my time wisely?

For me a 'good day' is doing well in 3 of those categories, and making up for
any lapse the following day. A 'great' day is excelling in all 4 categories.
(I get about 1-2 great days and 2-3 good days a week)

I've been thinking of building a simple pocket watch type thing that I can
enter 'good' or 'bad' for a couple different categories. It then maintains a
running balance that let's me know if I'm in the positive or negative overall,
for the day, week, and per category.

My point being, a website that let's me know if I'm 'up' or 'down' would be
cool, kinda like a highly inaccurate weight watchers, but more like 'life
watchers'.

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turtle4
Use the chain system to encourage long term behavior. Ie, each day that you do
one of the items you note, you extend its chain by one link. Each time you
miss a day, you break the chain and start over. Each day you score your chain
score, not your daily score. Once you accumulate large chains, you won't want
to break them!

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jdoe
I just take a card from the Hopper deck: <http://thehopperdeck.com/>

Anyway, I like the SMS part - it makes it accessible for people with old
mobile phones and it's very simple, too. Maybe if a competitive factor is
built in, it's a win.

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mbc
A lot of what the OP describes has already been done by <http://noscrolls.com>
for things that are of the same pattern as what's in the hopper deck. SMS
support is also included.

~~~
jdoe
nice - i'll check that one out. thanks

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Tichy
I have created a related twitter bot a while ago:
<http://twitter.com/officeworkout>

It twitters a random exercise for screen workers every 30 minutes.

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sidmitra
I think this would have been a good addition if you were able to
merge/interface this into some existing todo/task management platforms.... for
example push tasks to Remember the Milk or Google tasks when they have an API.

It would have been wonderful addition to "I want sandy", (although not sure if
they already had some auto-prioritizing feature).

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maggie
It seems like you could easily build this into idea into remember the milk, or
something similar.

Just have your 'to-do list' be all your possible wellness tasks.

~~~
sidmitra
No i think there should be some distinction between a wellness task and other
ones.

The system for example should be able to see that you're unoccupied andd have
a couple of hours free today; then suggest you some things based on stuff like
weather, mood(?).

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pstinnett
I like this idea. This really reminds me of the whole sort of "social" aspect
of traditional games that we're seeing (I'm seeing it mostly on iPhone games
but I'm sure it's happening on Xbox Live and PSN). Specifically I'm talking
about "Achievements". In traditional games it might be "Finish the first 5
levels without losing any health". In your wellness "game" it could be "Do 25
pushups for 5 days in a row". Getting this "achievement" would display on your
profile. I think Foursquare does this with "Merit Badges".

There is the problem of having everything run on the honor system though. No
way to keep people from just saying they've accomplished the task.

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callmeed
I like the idea ... I'll probably get lambasted for this, but I think it's
something that would work well built on top of Twitter. That would make it
easy to keep tabs on your family/friends, plus it might have more potential to
get viral.

My thinking is that it would work well with a game/challenge aspect to it ...
earning points, trying to keep up with a friend, beating your mile time, etc.

Good stuff ...

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wheels
This sounds somewhat similar to Pushup Fu, except theirs is competitive:

<http://www.gymfu.com/>

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Arun2009
I actually keep a blog to keep track of my fitness related activities - I call
it the Nutrex (Nutrition and Exercise) Log.

It may be useful to have an SMS app for heavy mobile users, but it wouldn't be
very valuable to me.

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izak30
Friends challenge you to quizes on facebook... why not 25 pushups. Not only
make it a stats analysis, but make it a game, offer rewards for activities,
let your friends (or trainer) put a bounty on certain activities.

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apgwoz
In someways <http://www.fitbit.com/> is similar, with the pro that it'd be
harder to cheat for some "healthy tasks," though not impossible.

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tyn
I'm sure you could take a grant from telecom providers.

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jmonegro
I actually thought of this, though without the stats. Small stuff, through
Twitter (and thus, SMS).

