GIMMY: Developing a Platform That Empowers the Businesses of Personal Trainers and Sports Coaches

Overview

In the fitness industry, a growing number of personal trainers and sports coaches work as freelancers. But many trainers are not comfortable with IT and handle client management, scheduling, and sales management by hand on paper, which kept them from focusing on their real work: coaching.

Paper-based client management also made it hard to see information clearly, and adoption of cashless payments lagged behind, which made it difficult to improve the customer experience.

GIMMY was developed as a platform to support the digital transformation of this work, so that trainers and coaches can devote themselves to their real role of "supporting people who take on challenges." It brings complicated administrative work, from attracting clients to booking, client management, and payment management, into one place, greatly improving trainers' productivity.

Since its release in 2021, it has been highly rated by freelance trainers and personal gyms, earning a 5.0/5.0 rating on ITreview.

Challenges

• Many people in the industry are not comfortable with IT, and digitalization lags behind

• Client management, scheduling, and sales management are done by hand on paper or in Excel

• Accepting cashless payments is difficult

• Administrative work takes up time, so trainers can't focus on coaching

• Client information isn't visible or put to use

What We Did

• Developed a business support platform specialized for freelance trainers and coaches

• Designed a simple, intuitive UI/UX

• Implemented credit card payments

• Streamlined booking management through Google Calendar integration

• Optimized client management with a lesson record (client chart) feature

Results

• Earned a high 5.0/5.0 rating on ITreview

• Adopted by several personal gyms and online community services

• Greatly reduced the time trainers spend on administrative work

• Helped improve client retention

Our Scope of Work

• Requirements definition

• Design

• Development

• Testing

• Operations

Client Information

Company Name

RASCAL's Inc.https://rascals.co.jp/

Mission

To create a society that can wholeheartedly support people who take on challenges

Vision

To make use of the "dormant assets" of the sports and fitness industry and create an environment where athletes and trainers can stay active in society after retiring

Business Overview

• Operating "GIMMY," a business support service for personal trainers and sports coaches

• Operating "Life Pilot," a health and productivity management platform for companies

• Operating "puram," a skill-sharing service for former athletes

• Supporting digital transformation in the sports and fitness industry

CEO

Satoshi Yamamoto (former competitive swimmer; founded the company in 2013)

Product Information

Name

GIMMYhttps://gimmy.co/

Mission

To empower freelance personal trainers and sports coaches and support individuals' challenges

Service Overview

GIMMY is a business support service specialized for personal trainers and sports coaches. It makes tedious administrative work, from attracting clients to booking, client management, and payment management, dramatically more efficient. It also helps improve trainees' (clients') lesson retention through reminders and sales support.

Features

• Service design specialized for the industry

• Simple, intuitive operation

• Easy enough for anyone to start using right away

• An environment where trainers can focus on their real work

Feature List

• Profile management

• Lesson menu and location registration

• Booking schedule management

• Google Calendar integration

• Client management

• Lesson records (client charts)

• Sales management

• Ticket (session pack) management

• Credit card payments

• Receipt viewing and PDF download

• Online lessons

• Messaging

• Social media integration

• Reviews

Project Challenges

Under its mission "to create a society that can wholeheartedly support people who take on challenges," RASCAL's Inc. was running businesses that support athletes and trainers working in the sports and fitness industry. In the process, several challenges facing freelance personal trainers and sports coaches came to light.

First, many people in the fitness industry were not comfortable with IT, and in most cases client management, scheduling, and sales management were done by hand on paper or in Excel. As a result, trainers spent a lot of time on administrative work and could not give enough time to their real role: coaching and communicating with clients.

Second, with paper-based client management it was hard to keep track of past training history and each client's progress efficiently, which got in the way of providing personalized service. Cash-only payment was also inconvenient for clients, and support for cashless payments was needed.

In addition, trainers working as freelancers struggled with attracting clients and with sales, making it hard to earn a stable income. The goal of this project was to solve these challenges and give trainers an environment in which they could focus on their real work.

How the Project Was Run

At the start of the project, we interviewed freelance personal trainers and sports coaches in detail about the challenges they faced. By carefully gathering voices from the field, including the inefficiency of paper-based client management, the slow adoption of cashless payments, and how administrative work affected their coaching, we clarified the features that were truly needed.

Next, assuming that trainers were not comfortable with IT, we designed a simple, intuitive UI/UX with "anyone can start using it right away" as the top priority. As a service specialized for the industry, we pursued an interface optimized for trainers' workflows, creating wireframes and UI designs in Figma.

In development, we prioritized features that reduce trainers' workload, such as more efficient booking management through Google Calendar integration, credit card payments, and better client management through the lesson record (client chart) feature.

Since the 2021 release, we have continuously improved features based on user feedback and raised the value of the service by adding features such as online lessons and messaging.

We also set up an attentive support system so that trainers could use the service with confidence, responding quickly to questions about how to operate it and how to use its features.

We continue to evolve the product today while listening to trainers' voices.

Technical Features

• Cloud infrastructure and scalability: GCP/Firebase (serverless): A serverless architecture on Google Cloud Platform and Firebase provides automatic scaling and high availability. It reduces the burden of infrastructure management and optimizes resource use.

• Backend development: Node.js: The backend is implemented in Node.js, delivering fast, efficient server-side processing.

• Frontend development: React: The frontend uses React, and its component-based design provides a highly maintainable and extensible user interface.

• Payment system integration: Credit card payments are implemented, giving both trainers and clients a safe and convenient payment experience.

• Calendar integration: Integration with Google Calendar creates an environment where bookings can be managed seamlessly.