Why did I build Lift Card?

In December of 2022, as a sophomore in college, I decided to learn mobile application development. At the time, I didn't have a MacBook, so I was forced to use React Native.

Lift Card started out as a simple to-do list. I was heavily inspired by Takuya Matsuyama, an indie developer based in Japan.

After following a couple of his tutorials, I decided to build a simple workout tracker. At the time, I went to the gym basically everyday and I wanted to build something that I would use. Other fitness apps were charging a subscription fee, and I wanted to build something that was completely free.

Mistakes I made, and what I've learned.

When Lift Card first started gaining traction in July 2023, I wasn’t ready.

Thousands of users poured in. I should’ve celebrated, but instead, I panicked. My inbox was filled with feedback—feature requests, bug reports, passionate messages from people who actually cared. But I didn’t know how to process it all. I didn’t prioritize the voices of my users. Instead, I doubled down on my own vision, thinking I knew best. That was my biggest mistake.

I remember seeing the user count slowly go up. 100, 1000, 15000, 30000. I was pulling my hairs out during my software engineering intership. I was working 9-5, and then coming home to work on Lift Card. I was exhausted, and I didn't know how to handle the influx of users

I rebuilt the app from the ground up in November of 2024, and took all of the previous feedback into account. After re-releasing (and a tiny bit of marketing), the app is in a pretty solid place. We're currently sitting at over 5,000 daily active users! Extremely proud of the work that has been put in, but I know there's so much more to do.

Here's the takeaway: You don’t build a great product alone, you build it with people who believe in your vision, even when you don’t yet know where it’s going.

What's next?

I've asked one of my good friends, Colin Hwang, to join me on this journey. Having a co-founder to bounce ideas off of allows us to keep iterating and building new features that users genuinely enjoy. He's currently focused on the diet tracking, workout automation side of the app, while I'm focused on the social aspect of the app.

After doing some thinking, I realized that the virality of the app came from the social aspect. There are a ton of workout trackers out there, so why did Lift Card blow up? The ability to meet people all over the world brought in new users. I believe health and fitness should be a social, and I wanted to bring that to the app.

So what's next? Revamping the social aspect of the app. I'm currently working on a new feature called "Clubs", and this is going to allow people who go to the same gym to connect with each other, see each other's workouts, and cheer each other on. I've always been fascinated by the concept of building a community, and I am so excited to bring this to the app.

I'm going to combine the "Discover Page" (which shows a list of gym goers who you can follow) with the "Clubs" feature, and have the previous Discover Page be a page where you can easily see your friends progress in the gym.

The Challenges Ahead

Building a social app is difficult, but I think the hardest part is going to be the marketing. I have no experience marketing, and I don't know what works consistently yet. Once this is figured out, there's no way Lift Card doesn't become a household name, like Instagram / Tiktok.

If you're reading this, thank you for joining me on this adventure. I plan to update this devlog regularly with my progress, challenges, and insights.

Here's to building cool things!