Jon Gilman

We noticed a new, emerging trend in the health and fitness industry. For some runners, running had gone from a primary form of exercise to just part of a broader training routine. These new workouts were mostly some form of HIIT and popularized by apps like Sweat with Kayla and Aaptiv.
We embarked on a product discovery effort to learn more about this new market segment and assess our capabilities for launching a competitive product. After conducting user research studies among runners using these new apps as well as our existing users, we found that there was an opportunity for a differentiated product; to offer on-demand HIIT workout classes that matched the quality of in-person boutique fitness studios. Thus began the process of defining the user requirements and minimum viable product (MVP).
After building a beta prototype, we conducted usability tests to validate our assumptions and squash usability bugs. Our go-to-market strategy comprised of cross-marketing the app to our existing Runkeeper users who fell into this new segment and directly marketing to this new segment via paid acquisition channels like Facebook. The app reached over 100,000 users in its first year across iOS and Android.

ASICS acquired Runkeeper in 2016, and the team at Runkeeper grew to become ASICS Digital. As GM of the Fitness Apps business unit, I was tasked with integrating fitness apps into the broader ASICS customer journey.
The primary goal was to increase the number of customers who both shopped at ASICS and were active users of Runkeeper. We took two paths to achieve this goal: 1) Thoughtfully introduce Runkeeper users to the ASICS brand within the Runkeeper experience 2) Utilize Runkeeper's premium subscription service to drive conversion and repurchase rates.
For the former goal, we integrated the ASICS brand at key touch points in the customer journey (e.g., when the user's shoes in our shoe tracker feature were ready to be replaced). We experimented with bundling Runkeeper's subscription service with purchases of ASICS running shoes for the latter goal. We also integrated Runkeeper marketing in the core ASICS eCommerce and retail store experiences to increase awareness of the ASICS <> Runkeeper relationship. All told, we were able to increase the number of crossover customers through these initiatives significantly.

Mightier is a biofeedback gaming platform that teaches children how to better regulate their emotions through play. The video games are embedded in a tablet app and played while wearing a heart-rate monitor so that children get immediate feedback when their emotional state becomes overheated.
We were trying to solve the business problem with this project. How do we improve child engagement with our tablet app, which is the necessary component of driving education and learning? We decided to reimagine our "metagame," which is the gaming/incentive narrative built on top of the third-party licensed games on our platform. The early stage of this process saw numerous internal brainstorms that defined the required design principles and sketched/prototyped new concepts. Once we had a promising concept, we conducted early validation via feedback from kids, parents, game developers, and our internal team.
We landed on a concept that garnered positive feedback and constructed a launch plan. That included building out the experience, conducting a second round of child and parent testing, and fine-tuning the game mechanics. We then launched the experience as a beta to our new customers and saw a tremendous increase in new player retention.