Superstar athletes help Aussie startup Rookee deliver new approach to fitness app
-Founder Alex Kuhle
Australian startup Rookee has brought together the three elements of successful sports and fitness into one app: exclusive training routines and nutrition information provided by over 250 superstar athletes across 24 sports and fitness categories; a personalised workout creator that lets you share your workouts with friends and family; and an education platform to ensure you are performing exercises correctly.
Since officially launching just last month, Rookee has attracted over 5,000 downloads with zero paid marketing.
The Brisbane based startup operates in a global fitness industry worth $87.5 billion and a sports industry valued at $1.3 trillion – and neither is slowing down as interest in both continues to grow.
“Nobody wants to be the coach, everyone wants to be the athlete,” says Rookee founder Alex Kuhle. “So we made Rookee athlete-focused with the aim of using their unique influence to motivate our users to become more active – and rewarding athletes along the way.”
The project started when sport and exercise scientist Alex Kuhle realised that people wanted to get fit but had absolutely no idea what to eat or how to train.
“I kept hearing the same three excuses: I don’t know what to eat, I don’t know how to train, and it costs too much money to do it right,” Kuhle said.
In 2016, reports indicated that more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese. Having noticed the growing obesity rate figures and the gap in the market, Kuhle sought to simplify the process of achieving sport or fitness goals. To do this he enlisted the help of his friends and family and bootstrapped his way to what would eventually become Rookee.
With a lot of fitness apps on the market, the Rookee team is committed to ensuring their app makes an impact.
“We have been talking to a lot of people and our core focus right now is to ensure our users are satisfied with Rookee and to gain any feedback so we can make further improvements,” Kuhle said.
This is reflected through Rookee’s app store rating with over 300 combined 5 star reviews highlighting the apps design, content and idea.
“Our app is simple and easy to understand – if you want to excel at a sport or improve your health and fitness then check out the athlete programs featured on Rookee,” Kuhle said.
Users can jump on the app for free, check out their favourite athletes, see how they train and what they eat, build their own workout (or use a community one), watch instructional videos on how to complete the workout and finally track their workout all through one app.
However flipping to the other side of the app, supporting upcoming athletes was the next key step. The Rookee team was adamant in giving back financially to their athletes from the outset and developed a system whereby they don’t just get exposure but also financial gain through a cut of sales of their premium programs through the app.
“So many of our athletes are gold medallists at the Olympic or Commonwealth Games level, yet they don’t have a stable income allowing them to further pursue their dreams,” said Kuhle.
With the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games roughly a year away, the Rookee team is determined to help prepare athletes financially both short and long term.
“We want to give back to our athletes. We have already helped generate 4 figures for athletes at such an early stage, with the plans to integrate with charities in the near future. I’m looking forward to see the vast impact Rookee can have on the world.”
As he looks to grow Rookee throughout Australia and globally in 2019, Kuhle said the goal was to ensure the app is providing value for its users and its athletes.
Rookee is now available to download on both iOS and Android and is adding new athletes to its catalogue weekly.
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