"Most apps turn out to be profit-losing, as they don't have other ways to generate incomes other than membership and advertisements. And they also are restricted to a mobile phone's screen. Fitness app users are usually not so tolerant of constant pop-up ads. Too many ads will easily annoy them and make them lose interest."
He suggested e-commerce can be a smart way out of the dilemma app developers face.
"Based on its users' data, the fitness app can use algorithm to foresee what its users most likely need," he said.
Give what users need
To gain income from existing large user bases, Keep has already taken a step into e-commerce by selling its own designs.
"Fitness is an incremental market. The first step is workout, the second is healthcare," Wang Ning, chief executive of Beijing Calories Technology Co Ltd, which created Keep said. "We have launched products for yoga, sport supplements, clothing and workout equipment of our own brand."
Currently Keep sells around 50 types of products, with prices ranging from 20 yuan ($3) to 400 yuan, but sales were not particularly eye-catching. One top seller was a yoga mat, priced at 99 yuan. The app platform has sold about 80,000 since 2016.
But investors was not worried.
"How to gain cash from the traffic depends on how much value the app can provide to its users," said Wang Tianfan, vice president of Bertelsmann Asia Investment, one of Keep's major investors. "Keep doesn't have many varieties to offer at current stage but it is growing fast. The financial status of Keep is very promising and we expected the revenue will achieve 10 times the growth from last year."
According to Keep, it is generating profits and e-commerce is an efficient way of branding. As a very young product - just 2 years old - the app's emphasis is becoming more on maintaining user loyalty by giving them a handy choice to buy sport equipment. It also gives users a sense of being a part of a big community through logoed clothes.
"For the younger generation, wearing Nike or Adidas is not a cool thing anymore. Now we prefer brands like Under Armour," said Wang Ning. "We are not sure but we can't rule out the possibility of young people starting to buy Keep."
However, Liang Feng, chief executive of Joyrun, one of the most downloaded running apps in Chinese app stores, thinks differently.
"From my point of view, we can't count our profit on cashing out from the online traffic or e-commerce," Liang said. "Sport, after all, is an offline business. You can't expect your e-commerce business or online traffic can beat up big guys such as JD or Taobao."
An online marathon?
Liang put his bid on the sport itself - an online marathon.
During an online marathon, after runners pay the participant fees, users can start running anywhere they like and share their performance through the apps. After completing the run, users receive a real medal from the company so they can take pictures and share their participation, rather than a digital icon that only shows in their phones.
For users, the medal represents a sense of achievement and honor, but for the businessman, it shows how important a social function is in maintaining users and encouraging them to take part.
"Running is a very lonely thing to do," he added. "When I post a picture of this medal, I can let people know what I have achieved."
In 2016, the most successful marathon Joyrun hosted had over 450,000 participants.
"Profits from every online marathon can return over 1 million yuan in income from selling goods, medals, sponsorships and participation fees," Liang said.
In 2016, the company had over 45 million yuan in revenue.
