Quick Information
- Name of Startup: Victa
- Year Founded: 2022
- Website: Victa.ai
- Type of company: Fitness, Gaming, AI
- HQ Location: Remote
Startup Founders:
Alexander Karbankov, CEO,
Startup one-liner:
Victa is the first AI gaming running app, maintaining user’s journey to their personal results by merging fitness with an addictive game & series and keeping them motivated by adding an extra layer of purpose.
Problem the startup solves:
Victa is the first gaming running app, maintaining user’s journey to their results by merging fitness with an addictive game and NLP chatbot. We are striving to drastically increase retention in fitness now and other healthtech domains in the future to make more people healthier. We do it via creating a sticky factor with a character and telling a great animated story where user participates via moving. We rely on several scientific approaches in the product such as the anchoring effect, compulsion loop and pseudo-set framing to impact retention. We are going to balance fitness and gamification allowing users to use Victa as a full-fledged fitness tracker, but simultaneously get more motivation. Duolingo is a very good example of the success in this approach in an Edtech.
Progress and Current Status:
– 2000 clients
– 100-150 DAU
– 14% R7
– Angel round closed, Pre-seed is under negotiations
What is an Inspiring Story about the Startup?:
When I was 20 years old, I got sick with a quite severe problem with my eyes. It’s called degenerative vitreous syndrome, which usually occurs in a later adult life and in a much milder form. It was simply a disaster: you can’t study, work, even sleep. You see some unnatural spooky things that others can’t see, because they simply exist in your eyes in the dark and in the light. It’s driving crazy.
I went through an unproved laser vitreolysis procedure, conducted by a doctor with no licence at his home, because all other doctors in my country told me that this disease either didn’t exist and I made it up or it was uncurable. After a small relief this led to even a worse condition damaging my retina, that made me conduct an even more dangerous stem cell injection procedure. It didn’t help.
After living months in a depression, I understood that nothing would change on its own and decided to work as hard as possible, do everything I can do to overcome this thing which came to take my dreams away. I worked 14 hours a day and grew faster than my peers. All my free time I devoted to my side projects: gathered teams, developed products, earned first money. There were no time I haven’t building something mine.
I worked so hard to make money for a last possible cure, surgery “floater only vitrectomy”, which implies sucking out the liquid from both of your eyes with a special fluid replacement. It has huge risks and a high cost [$100k], but there were no other choice. I conducted the reseach of all such surgeries done during 20 last years to find the best doctor on the planet and maximize my chances to success and not lose sight at all. Overall chance of good outcome was 65% per eye.
This doctor turned out to be Dr. Alwin Kwok from Hong Kong. I overcomed the first surgery when I was 24, after 4 years of torture. When I was 26, I decided that it’s time to bring the matter to an end. It was 1.5 year ago during the covid lockdown. Back then Hong Kong was the most impregnable city on earth. To get there I had to spent 3 weeks in an intermediate country to decrease my danger level status to be allowed on a plane. Then I spent 2 weeks in one room with closed windows in the Hong Kong airport and 1 additional week in the city before I was allowed to lie on the surgery table.
Everything went well and I saw a sky I had never seen during 7 years. I shared my calculations with people on the forum dedicated to this disease to help them at least like this.
When I recovered, I started Victa. That’s why I want to make something significant to make people healthier and let them never face what I faced.
What is a Company the Startup Looks Up to, and Why?:
1. Duolingo is an excellent example of the success of proper gamification in the Edtech industry.
2. Zombies Run is a unique case of gamification intersecting with running. They offer an audiobook library to listen to during runs. However, this approach may not be scalable as only 4% of users prefer audiobooks compared to 82% who prefer music. Source
3. Stepn is also interesting, but they’ve essentially created another Ponzi scheme with a strong UI/UX and generated a lot of hype. However, whenever a company ties their unit economy to a volatile cryptocurrency, it can limit their long-term product development, which we are currently seeing with Stepn.
The Company in Four Years Will Be…
1. In 5 years we’ll become the first digital healthcare metaverse providing properly gamified experience in fitness, nutrition, meditation, sleep, wearables and telemedicine. Help millions to live longer and feel better.
2. Depending on the seed round volume we calculated 3 different strategies: the most aggresive implies new vertical creation each 6 months, the most conservative sticks to a fitness but guaranties break-even in 2 years.
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