$100K ARRin 4 years

3 milestones

Current revenue

$160K MRRas of November 2024Source

$160K MRR November 2024 (~$1.92M ARR). 10M users by 2025. Bootstrapped.

Hevy: 10M+ descargas con solo $15k en gasto de publicidad

Founder

Guillem Ros & Desmond McNamee

Co-Fundadores•Technical•Remote

Commitment

Full-time

Experience

Experienced

Product

Hevy

Aplicación rastreadora y planificadora de entrenamientos para levantamiento de pesas con características sociales y seguimiento de progreso.

Type

App Móvil

Industry

Salud y Bienestar

Model

Freemium

Marketing Strategy

How Guillem acquired customers

Growth Channel

Boca a Boca

Also Used

SEO / ContenidoComunidades

Tech Stack

Tools used to build Hevy

React NativeNode.jsPostgreSQLApp StoreGoogle Play

The Full Story

TL;DR

Guillem y Desmond construyeron un Strava para levantamiento de pesas que creció casi enteramente de boca en boca.

Soy Guillem, cofundador de Hevy. He estado en el mundo del fitness durante una década, trabajando en las aplicaciones de fitness más grandes, y ahora construyo Hevy con mi cofundador Desmond.

El problema del aislamiento

Desmond dice que fue el lado aislante de la experiencia del gimnasio lo que nos inspiró a inventar Hevy. Queríamos crear la experiencia enfocada en la comunidad que Strava proporciona para corredores, pero para levantadores de pesas.

Construyendo el MVP

Constructimos la primera versión en aproximadamente 75 días. La aplicación rastrea entrenamientos, monitorea el progreso y tiene características sociales para compartir con amigos. El diferenciador clave era enfocarse en el aspecto social, seguir a amigos, compartir entrenamientos y celebrar RPs juntos.

Casi cero marketing pagado

¿Cómo llegas a dos millones de descargas con solo $15k en gasto de publicidad? No necesariamente necesitas marketing pagado para que el crecimiento baje como una avalancha. Nos enfocamos en construir características que crean naturalmente bucles virales, compartir entrenamientos, invitar amigos, celebrar logros.

Motor de crecimiento orgánico

Optimización de App Store
Comunidades de Reddit (especialmente r/fitness)
Creadores de YouTube de fitness descubriendo y reseñando la aplicación
Recomendación de boca en boca de usuarios satisfechos

Escalando a 10M+

Hevy ahora tiene más de 10 millones de usuarios y genera $160k+ MRR. Crecimos el equipo a alrededor de 13 personas, todo mientras permanecemos autofundados y rentables.

Descargas: 10M+
MRR: $160k+
Gasto de publicidad: $15k total
Equipo: 13 personas
Tiempo para construir MVP: 75 días

Key Takeaways

Las características sociales crean bucles virales naturales y crecimiento de boca en boca

Puedes crecer a millones de usuarios con casi cero marketing pagado

Enfócate en construir características que los usuarios naturalmente quieren compartir

El compromiso comunitario en Reddit puede impulsar crecimiento orgánico significativo

Originally published onHevy Blog

Founder proof brief

A one-page proof brief turns Guillem's Hevy playbook into your next test.

See what it covers before you sign up: the pattern worth copying, the channel to test, and the risk to avoid when you adapt this story.

Pattern

$100K ARR

Channel

Boca a Boca

Output

Action checklist

What a proof brief covers

A one-page brief that turns Guillem's pattern into a testable plan
Channel bet: start from Boca a Boca
A risk check before copying the Hevy playbook

See what a proof brief covers

See what it covers first. Create an account only if you choose to unlock.

Inspired by Guillem's journey? Generate a business idea in the Salud y Bienestar space using AI and real founder data.

Milestone Journey

Guillem achieved 3 milestones on the path to $100K ARR

Primer Cliente

1 month

May 2019

70% faster

vs avg 3 months

+1 year to next milestone

$10K MRR

$10,000

2 years

April 2021

Avg: 1 year

+2 years to next milestone

$100K ARR

$1,900,000

4 years

April 2023

Avg: 3 years

4 years

Total journey time

Milestones achieved

Guillem's Path to $100K ARRPremium

The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone

How Guillem actually did it

6/7 funnel stages sourced

Reconstructed from Guillem's own published sources. Quoted claims are the founder's words, verified verbatim; anything marked as our analysis is exactly that.

Where the idea came from

Personal pain5y domain experience

Guillem started going to the gym in early 2019 and wanted to track his workouts. Existing workout trackers did that fine, but he missed being able to interact with friends about their training, and, having previously been a triathlete, missed the social accountability that cycling/running trackers gave him.

“I missed the ability to interact with other friends working out.”

Guillem Ros, "How we built Hevy" (Hevy blog)

Validation

Built first, validated after

SurveysInconclusive16 survey responses

Guillem wrote a Google Forms survey and stood outside his gym asking people to fill it out. Only 16 people responded, opinions were polarizing, and by his own later assessment the sample was too small and demographically mismatched to draw real conclusions from.

The gym-door survey got a small, polarized response; Guillem later concluded survey data is a weak proxy for real usage, especially for a novel product.

“Only 16 people answered the survey”

Guillem Ros, "How we built Hevy" (Hevy blog)

MvpValidated

After the inconclusive survey, Guillem and Desmond built and shipped the MVP to friends and family first. Real validation came once strangers outside that circle started using the app on their own.

Following the friends-and-family soft launch, the app began picking up organic App Store and Google Play traffic from people with no connection to the founders, which is the signal Guillem cites as real validation.

“we had total strangers using our app!”

Guillem Ros, "How we built Hevy" (Hevy blog)

First test users

Personal networkFree testers

The MVP's first release went out to friends and family before any public or App Store launch.

“ready for a small launch amongst friends and family”

Guillem Ros, "How we built Hevy" (Hevy blog)

Acquisition channels, and whether they worked

Word of Mouth · friends and familyPre-launchWorked

The MVP first went out to friends and family rather than the public, and that circle was the app's earliest source of usage and reviews.

“ready for a small launch amongst friends and family”

Guillem Ros, "How we built Hevy" (Hevy blog)

Guillem credits friends leaving five-star reviews with getting Hevy off the ground in its earliest days, ahead of any paid or PR push.

“we mostly got off the ground with the help of friends giving us 5 star reviews”

Guillem Ros on LinkedIn, "6 years ago when we launched Hevy..."

Product HuntLaunchWorked

Hevy launched on Product Hunt on 16 November 2019, the same day as its formal press-release launch, and saw a spike in signups from the listing.

“Got a bunch of great feedback, and had an amazing reaction from the community”

Guillem Ros, "Launched on Product Hunt!" (Indie Hackers post)

The official Product Hunt account tweeted the launch, giving it extra reach beyond the listing itself.

“We got tweeted by the official Product Hunt account which was really exciting”

Guillem Ros, "Launched on Product Hunt!" (Indie Hackers post)

SEO / Content · App Store / Google Play organic search (ASO)LaunchWorked

After the friends-and-family soft launch, Hevy began surfacing organically in App Store and Google Play search and category browsing, bringing in users with no personal tie to the founders.

“we started gaining organic traffic from the App Store and Google Play”

Guillem Ros, "How we built Hevy" (Hevy blog)

What didn't work

Product scopePre-launchCost: time

During prototyping, Guillem let the design scope creep until the app tried to do everything a workout tracker could do, at the expense of doing any one thing well.

“It was the antithesis of what I wanted the app to be.”

Guillem Ros, "How we built Hevy" (Hevy blog)

What they did instead: Cut the design back to three pillars only: workout logging, analytics, and social, and built the MVP around those alone.

How it changed as they grew

At launch: 2 people (2 co-founders, Guillem Ros and Desmond McNamee, no other team members)

Today: 8 people (2 founders plus 6 additional team members (per a third-party report referencing 2022-2023 figures))

Bootstrapped

Sources (6 in the founder's own words)

Guillem Ros, "How we built Hevy" (Hevy blog) · founder-authored
Guillem Ros, "Launch Press Release" (Hevy blog) · founder-authored · 2019-11
"About Us" (Hevy site, founder bios in first person) · founder-authored
Guillem Ros, "Launched on Product Hunt!" (Indie Hackers post) · founder-authored · 2019-11
Guillem Ros on LinkedIn, "6 years ago when we launched Hevy..." · founder-authored
Guillem Ros author bio page (Hevy blog) · founder-authored
BoringCashCow, "Workout Tracking App Makes $40k a Month" · third party

Persistence

Projects attempted before finding success

failed projects before this one worked

Learned from a previous attempt

Launch Strategy

How they introduced the product to the world

Soft Launch

Initial go-to-market approach

Low risk — lets you iterate quietly

Validation

How they tested demand before building

MVP

Method used to confirm market interest

Most common approach — build and learn fast

Launch Pricing

Price point when the product first launched

Gratis

Initial pricing strategy

Common for building initial traction

Starting Audience

Whether they had followers before launch

Started from Zero

Built audience alongside the product

63% of founders in our database started from zero

Time Investment

Average weekly hours during building phase

50 hrs

per week on average

Full-time dedication

Initial Investment

Capital required to get started

$15,000

in startup costs

Significant upfront investment

Biggest Challenge

Crecer sin marketing pagado en un mercado de aplicaciones de fitness saturado

Unlock Guillem's Full Journey

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Frequently asked questions

How much does Hevy make?

Hevy reports $160K MRR as of November 2024. $160K MRR November 2024 (~$1.92M ARR). 10M users by 2025. Bootstrapped. Source: GetLatka.

What is Hevy?

Aplicación rastreadora y planificadora de entrenamientos para levantamiento de pesas con características sociales y seguimiento de progreso. It operates in Salud y Bienestar.

How long did it take Hevy to reach $100k arr?

Guillem Ros & Desmond McNamee took 4 years to reach $100k arr with Hevy.

Was Guillem Ros & Desmond McNamee a solo founder?

No. Guillem Ros & Desmond McNamee built Hevy with co-founders.

What marketing channel did Hevy use to grow?

Hevy grew primarily through Boca a Boca.

What industry is Hevy in?

Hevy operates in Salud y Bienestar.

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The Full Story

TL;DR

Guillem y Desmond construyeron un Strava para levantamiento de pesas que creció casi enteramente de boca en boca.

Soy Guillem, cofundador de Hevy. He estado en el mundo del fitness durante una década, trabajando en las aplicaciones de fitness más grandes, y ahora construyo Hevy con mi cofundador Desmond.