Rocket — Fitness App From Idea to App Store

Context

Rocket started in 2020, during the COVID lockdown. Gyms were closed, and we wanted to give people a way to train properly at home. That was the core idea. Gym workouts, personal programs, paid programs from invited trainers, premium features and online classes were all on the roadmap after it.

Rocket is a subscription fitness app: workout programs from professional trainers and athletes, for training at home or in the gym. It was our own startup. My partner and I came up with it together and ran it as co-owners and producers. He is an iOS developer and built the app itself; I owned UX/UI, product design and the overall vision. As producers we also brought people in: a backend developer, fitness trainers who wrote the signature programs, and models we filmed showing the correct technique for every exercise. Together we took it from idea to the App Store.

The app

On the design side, we covered the whole iOS product: an onboarding quiz, a market of programs with new releases, recommendations and top trainers, program pages with reviews, a workout dashboard with a calendar and progress, subscription plans, trainer profiles, FAQ and settings. Loading, error and offline states were covered too.

The workout player

This is the screen people use mid-workout, out of breath and a meter away from the phone. So the player is built around big numbers, a full-screen exercise photo or video and one main action at thumb level. It has separate modes for sets, running and rest, and ends with a summary of the session.

Promo website

A landing page that sells the app: programs for every level, how it works, new programs, pricing with a 7-day free trial, reviews, results and FAQ. Designed in three breakpoints, 1440, 768 and 320, plus the feedback form and the confirmation and password-reset emails.

Design system

One dark visual language for the app and the site: a violet accent, TT Norms type scale in text styles, and components with all their states. The app file holds around 75 components, the website around 46.

Beyond the app

We made App Store screenshots in Russian and English and produced promo videos, like this one.

The hard part: filming every exercise

The most challenging and the most interesting part had nothing to do with screens. Every exercise in the app had to be filmed so people could see the correct technique, and we did it all in-house, with me behind the camera.

Home workouts we could shoot in a studio. Gym exercises were a different story: we had to find gyms, agree with their owners, and bring in models and equipment at hours when the gym was almost empty. Every shoot was a small production of its own, and it taught me a lot about planning, people and getting real content into a product.

How it ended

We shipped, and then reality hit. It was our first independent product and we were inexperienced: we had put almost everything into building it, and only after the release did we face the real question of promotion. The fitness niche turned out to be overheated, and getting noticed there takes a serious advertising budget that we didn’t have.

We tried promoting through smaller, affordable influencers, but it brought almost no return. Rocket got a modest number of users, and in 2021 we decided not to keep investing our time and money into it.

What I took away

Rocket let me see product development through an owner’s eyes. Things I could never fully grasp as someone executing tasks suddenly made sense: why some decisions are made, what really costs time and money, and what actually matters for the product to survive. The biggest lesson: a great product is only half the job. Distribution, budget and the market have to be thought through before the first screen is drawn, not after the release.

That experience is priceless. My view became much wider than tasks and their delivery, and I bring that owner’s perspective to every team I work with.