What started as late-night gym sessions and hallway brainstorms during an internship has now become a full-fledged mobile app.
Recent Cal Poly computer science alumnus Matthew Bosio and Western Governors University computer science student Colby Gatty met during an IT internship last summer and quickly bonded over two things: fitness and tech. “We’d take walks during breaks to just talk about our love of fitness and games,” they said. “Eventually we were like, why don’t we actually build something?”
That “something” became a social fitness platform designed to bring competition, validation, and a little bit of TikTok-style fun to the gym. The app lets users post personal records — like a new max bench press or pull-up count — and share them with others. From there, the community can validate or challenge the lift, and users level up through a ranking system based on fitness performance.
“It’s basically gamified fitness,” Gatty explained. “We’ve always competed with each other, trying to beat each other’s lifts by 5 pounds or one extra rep. Now we’re doing that virtually through the app.”
The project pulls together everything they’ve learned over the past few years. Between them, they’ve written over 45,000 lines of code using Flutter (Dart), Firebase and cloud functions written in JavaScript. Bosio leaned on his experience from mobile and web development classes at Cal Poly, while Gatty — who has an associate degree in graphic design — focused on the front-end design and user experience.
“There was a ton of self-learning too,” Bosio added. “We used Reddit, YouTube, pretty much everything. Firebase is pretty unstructured, which is great but also means you have to be really intentional with everything.”
Though originally created as part of Bosio’s senior project, the app has grown into something bigger. It’s currently in beta testing with a small group of friends, and the team aims to launch on both iOS and Android later this year. They’re also working on forming an LLC and expanding the feature set even further.
Their advice for other students thinking about building an app? “Don’t let self-doubt stop you,” Gatty said. “Even if it feels like a huge project, just start.”
What began as a way to stay competitive while living in different cities has turned into something much more: a platform built by two friends who wanted to make fitness more fun — and maybe even a little addictive.
