When Oleg and I founded Sweatcoin in 2015, it started as a simple, elegant question that became the final app concept – how can we reward people in the simplest way possible for being active and healthy?
We didn’t want to require a separate device (like others before us), and we wanted to show you how active you were – by leveraging Smartphone tech.
We had spent some time in our previous jobs looking at rewards programs. Many of them were complicated and required constant monitoring and an in-depth understanding of the conversion and menu.
For us we knew it was going to be simple: one step for one point. And so, we created Sweatcoins as the core currency. Beyond rewards, we knew that it was simply about acknowledgement for most people.
A simple high five (socially distanced) can go a long way – so we knew what we were creating would follow that same dynamic.
The Science Behind it
We knew we were onto something: this academic study done by King’s College London, UC San Diego, and Simon Fraser University analyzes the effect of analytics and small extrinsic rewards to help increase the frequency of healthy behavior.
Rewards can be lifting if done properly. We worked tirelessly amongst our initial user base through building the app experience to create healthy rewards mechanics – these vary entirely from how games operate. Games operate to suck you in – to take your time and attention.
Ours is designed to encourage you to be out there – to check in once in a while – but not to be focused on your screen for hours on end.
Today, we reward over 50mm people worldwide. We are incredibly proud of this number and are very excited to see it grow. We’ve seen countless stories”
“I have gotten more and more fit everyday ever since I installed Sweatcoin… without it, I’d probably be sitting on the couch everyday, watching TV or playing video games all the time. It really changed everything”, to, “Sweatcoin really helped me get off my seat to get outside and do some walking. Being in a 9-5 job involves me sitting at my desk for most of the day – so this app helped to track my steps while getting rewarded to walk”.
These stories touch us every day and we’re so excited to see rewards work.
The Next Chapter
Today, we’re seeing the world evolve beyond just exercise in terms of what we see as positive behavior. We hear about unhealthy behaviors – being depressed and sedentary, focusing on the past, being selfish, and not looking out for others.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has further created a rift between those who choose to help and those who chose not to.
We know it’s about volunteering at that shelter, choosing to walk to grocery store instead of driving, choosing to take your kids outside instead of binge watching on Netflix – these choices – can all be affected by a currency for “good”. We now know that all of these behaviors include one thing in common: physical activity.
We want to make Sweatcoin’s ability to reward people extend beyond our own app so that other apps and companies can also reward their consumers for being healthy and good.
That’s why we’re announcing the Sweatcoin Anywhere Project.
The project includes two main components: our technology is being provided to select, hand-picked partners to be able to enable the Sweatcoin technology and ecosystem to live outside our app, and we’re launching a Brand Challenge.
The Brand Challenge involves a call to action to all brands of all kinds to encourage their consumers to do something healthy: even if it’s just once, and to acknowledge or reward them.
Opt out of using that single use container; choose to snooze your notifications to take a true break; walk to the grocery store next time instead of driving: these are all good activities that deserve to be acknowledged.
We want to hear about the best stories of brands rewarding their consumers. The best story will be picked in August 2021 and will be rewarded with a 100,000 Sweatcoin package along with a brand new Peloton + 1 year membership.
We want to encourage the world of consumers and brands to help the world further into the realm of good behaviors – one action at a time.
Thanks for all your support!
Anton
