
There’s a Lift for that - rkudeshi
http://blog.lift.do/post/30458629307/theres-a-lift-for-that
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positr0n
This is a beautiful app. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I don't see
how on earth it could support 7 full time employees and 3 co-founders [1]. Are
they just hoping for an acqui-hire?

[1] <http://blog.lift.do/post/24988178079/join-the-lift-team>

~~~
tonystubblebine
We're four people now and would like to grow to seven total. I think the
underlying numbers justify it, otherwise we'd be staying put.

Obviously, the app reflects a lot of our own tastes about how we think social
software should be done (start simple) and what we think is fun (positive,
simple). But we also run a lot of Lean Startup techniques, which means we are
testing, measuring, surveying, interviewing, etc like crazy just to validate
our ideas and create a constant feedback loop for what our intuition is
telling us (constantly informed intuition).

The first time I read The Lean Startup book I thought the metrics could really
drive a lot of your decisions. They don't usually. They mostly reflect a lot
of noise. But every now and then they highlight some signal that you're
missing.

The big surprise signal for us is that we hadn't realized how prominent and
effective casual self-tracking is across all levels of society. This isn't
just something new invented by quantified self. Consider the cultural impact
of fifty years of Weight Watchers. So we ended up seeing crazy high retention
and qualitative feedback way before we expected (like at the point where you
could track but not see your history).

And we spent a couple of months validating that with different cohorts. For
example we were suspicious that our friends & family were skewing the results
high so we went looking for more mainstream people. Turns out our friends are
total slackers and were the worst performing cohort we looked at.

We had been thinking that we would have to pull off some real magic (like
making willpower obsolete) in order for this to work. But now we're finding a
lot of people who are psyched for a simple utility that also happens to have a
bit of built in support and works for practically any goal you could ever
think of. It's been amazing to walk into work every day and get new success
stories. Really fun.

There's still a ton of challenges ahead and things we need to prove are
possible. But everyone on the current hiring roadmap is about either proving
something new or moving faster toward things we're already trying to prove.

FWIW, I don't think anyone in the company is acqui-hire inclined. We've been
mostly backed by Obvious, which is three ex-Twitter founders/execs. It would
be hard to get them excited about that sort of payday. My last company was a
great lifestyle business (profitable, supported a bicoastal life, only
required 1/day of work/week), so I know what leisure is and I know it was
boring. My co-founder is the same way. We just want to work on something
meaningful--which is exactly what we feel like we're doing right now.

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dantiberian
I've been using the Lift beta for a couple of months and it is an excellent
example of positive behaviour design. There are no gimmicks or gamification in
the app, just positive reinforcement when you're using it.

It has helped me exercise more, do pushups, tidy the house and many other
things because I intrinsically wanted to achieve those goals.

On a side note, I just did BJ Fogg's one week free habit forming course
<http://tinyhabits.com>. It goes hand in hand with what Lift is trying to
accomplish.

~~~
tonystubblebine
Cool. I love BJ and did his bootcamp last summer. We use his B=MAT model all
the time to describe Lift and the world of behavior change.

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raju
I tried Lift out, and though it does seem that there it has a place for a some
audiences, unfortunately I am not one of them. A few gripes (I understand that
Lift.do just released, so some of these concerns may be premature)

1\. It's binary - in that you workout or you don't, you sleep 8 hours or you
don't. My needs are a bit different - I want to be able to log _how much_ I do
of something. For e.g. drinking water - I want to track that I drink enough
water. The only solution I had was to use a habit titled "Drink 8 glasses of
water" - For me, that doesn't work (I have to keep count of how many glasses
of water I drank in the day). I want to "check in" every time I do something -
if it's a workout, then a check-in a day suffices - if I want to sleep 8 hours
but only manage 7, well, there's no way to manage that.

2\. Export functionality - I want to export my data out of Lift.

The only app I have come across that let's me do this right is Dayta (free for
iOS) - Unfortunately it has not seen any movement lately but it's very close
to what I need. What Dayta does not get right is

1\. No defaults. If I don't make an entry for a day, it does not assume 0

2\. Only numeric data - For e.g Workout (in my case) is either a 1 or a 0 - It
would be nice to have a Boolean switch

3\. Dayta exports nicely - to CSV via email. I export on a month to month
basis which means I usually go back in and have to delete the entries for the
past month. Dayta gives you no way to "bulk delete" - You have to swipe each
entry and delete.

4\. Lift.do gets this right - Notes on a check-in. After a workout I want to
know how I felt. Perhaps I did not hit the 6 mile marker - Was I sick? Or
injured? Or just being lazy?

Along with all this it would be nice to

1\. Plot a habit that has a scheduled interval. For e.g workout every other
day (Perhaps a reminder or a gentle nudge)

2\. Identify habits you aren't doing so well at.

I am currently using a mix of apps to track my progress - Momento (Journal
app), Dayta, and Fitocracy (to log workouts in detail).

FWIW, Lift.do is a gorgeous app. I really like the way it looks, feels and
works. The social element is a nice touch too.

Good luck guys. I am keeping an eye on you - Perhaps soon I will change my
mind.

[Updated to add a 4th point and for some clarification]

~~~
dantiberian
Give it a go anyway. I had the same thoughts as you when I first started using
it but after using the beta for a few months, the binary classification is
freeing rather than restricting.

~~~
tonystubblebine
+1 for export. It's coming.

~~~
raju
Good to know. I will keep an eye out out for it.

On a completely unrelated note I am really liking your blog :) Keep up the
good work.

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alecdibble
One big suggestion is to have an easy link from the blog to the main site. I
know it gets said many times on here, but it is a very big turnoff.

As far as the app goes, I really enjoy the design. I also really like the
concept and hope it works successfully for me

Edit: You really need to be more detailed about how the friends process works.
I assume it only works with Twitter at this point because the app wanted to
access my account. However, there is nothing on the website (that I could
find) about how this worked. I would highly recommend creating a less awkward
friending mechanism. As of now, the community aspect is useless to me because
I don't want to spam my email list with invites.

~~~
pearkes
I've been using the app for a few months. I found that most of my 'props' came
from complete strangers.

Though it's also cool to see what your friends are doing and working on - the
community (right now) is very supportive.

Basically - friends not required.

~~~
dantiberian
It's kinda neat to be able to encourage random strangers. I find it nice to
get an email saying "So and so gave you props for doing pushups".

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ymfy
I liked Daytum (<http://daytum.com>). It's too bad Feltron got acquihired by
Facebook.

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ktusznio
The design of Lift is gorgeous. Congrats on creating such a beautiful app.

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nevster
There seems to be a minor bug of some sort in the habit list.

I've been using <http://dontbreakthechain.com/> so I added 6 of the habits
I've got on there. Now lift is only displaying 2 of my habits on the home
screen. If I click on my name at the bottom it shows the stat graphs for all
6.

Ah, ok, I quit the app and killed it, restarted it and now they're back.

~~~
tonystubblebine
Sorry about that. Each mew version has had a lot of networking improvements.
We just submitted an upgraded version to the App Store review process today,
so you should have a closer-to-rock-solid version in about a week.

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kranner
I've been using this since yesterday. I can't seem to be able to make an entry
for today in the 'Weigh yourself' category (though this worked yesterday). I
touch the big tick-mark button, it goes to the selected state, does a network
action and goes back to the unselected state. I've tried several times, re-
installed the app, removed and re-added the 'Weigh yourself' habit: no luck.

Could this be timestamp-related? It's 7.58 AM local time and I'm in GMT +5.30.

~~~
tonystubblebine
Send an email to feedback@lift.do. We'll get you sorted out.

~~~
kranner
Hm, when I re-added the category in question after having 'removed habit' on
it once, I noticed it updated my data for the past correctly.

Do you delete checkin data for users who specifically remove certain habits?

Edit: I understand that all checkins are public.

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muhuk
I am using <http://www.habitualist.com> and it is quite good. Doesn't have a
mobile app yet.

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risratorn
Really nice app ... I've been using Daily Deeds
(<http://www.spoonjuice.com/iphone/dailydeeds/>) for the same purpose for some
time now and it really helped me out keeping on top of my habits I want to
change.

The social aspect might be the big differentiator for Lift, checking it out!

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stevenkovar
I've become fascinated with tracking my own lifestyle data to see where bad
habits lie and where I can make room for good ones. This looks like it will
pair well with <http://evr.st>, whenever it launches. Lift for forming habits,
and Everest for guiding you to accomplish that One Big Thing.

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krmmalik
The itunes link seems to throw me out of the app store for some reason and
searching the app store manually yields me no results.

Shame. Conceptually your app is exactly what i'm looking for. It's the
community support that is the missing ingredient in all other attempts in
solving this problem.

~~~
mattmatt
Sorry about the iTunes link trouble – The joys of 1.0.

Does the link to the App Store on <http://lift.do> work for you?

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tsieling
I really love how only 'approved' activities are allowed. As a joke we tried
adding 'toke' but the app doesn't allow you to add that habit. It did allow
someone to add 'fuck bitches'. Classy, and just a little fascist.

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henrikgs
Top review on iTunes is a 5 star praise from Evan Williams. It has a clear
disclaimer at the top, but I can't decide if I think it's cool or cheesy for a
well known investor to do that.

~~~
tonystubblebine
Wait until my mom posts her review. She's really adamant that she doesn't just
love Lift because I'm working on it. I'm really excited to see the disclaimer
on her review.

Funny that Ev ended up as a top review. He's not really just a well-known
investor for us, he's basically a co-founder. We work in his office and he's
been a huge supporter. I think he's being honest in that review and I've heard
him say the same thing for a long time. Two apps changed his life: Lift and
Uber. I guess he left Uber out of his review. But still, he does genuinely
like Lift or he would have lost interest in working with us.

FWIW, I'm glad Ev reviewed it and I'm glad he left the disclaimer.

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djacobs
I liked this app until I found out there were no privacy settings. I don't
need or want to have a social network around the most mundane parts of my
life.

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incision
No love for Android?

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theniravshah
It is similar to Votodo (<http://votodo.com>) - where you can share todos
instead of habits.

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boothead
Is there anyway to check in multiple times per day? For example I'd like to
checking once per 30 minutes of uninterupted, focused work.

~~~
harscoat
eg. <http://didthis.com/flow>

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boothead
Yes flow is what I'm aiming for, specifically I'd like to track my progress
using number of pomodoros completed in a day

~~~
harscoat
<http://didthis.com/pomodoro>

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AznHisoka
Wasn't this made by one of the founders of Twitter? I heard the idea a year or
2 ago and was wondering what was taking so long.

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nevster
Is it possible to mark a habit as private?

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lincolnq
How do I add a habit that doesn't already exist?

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dantiberian
Tap the plus button and search for the habit you want to form. If it doesn't
exist it will popup with a row saying "Habit name, 0 participants". Tap that
and you will join that habit.

~~~
lincolnq
Ahh. Makes sense, but the habit I want is a substring of an existing habit.

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daveman
When I tried using the app, for some a reason a car came by and picked me up.

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ezekieldas
I do not want nor need a phone in my face guiding every aspect of my behavior.

