After years of unsuccessfully trying to expand Twitter, Dick Costolo was let go and replaced by Twitter’s Co-Founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. Costolo faced an upward battle from the start at Twitter; he had to try and bring users (and retain them) to a platform that was hard to use and off putting to newbies. After leaving Twitter he’s laid low but he recently tweeted (ironically) that he’s starting up his own so-far-nameless “social” fitness platform.
https://twitter.com/dickc/status/689454657832226816
He isn’t attempting his New Year’s resolution alone; his cofounder of his new initiative will be Bryan Oki, who was also the cofounder of corporate fitness company fitify as well as a former CrossFit employee. According to Costolo, he and his new partner will build a software platform that reimagines the path to fitness. We still don’t know what this platform is; it could be an app, a subscription service or social media website.
Of course, much like his Twitter tenure this isn’t going to be an easy road to travel on. There are already numerous fitness brands out there like CrossFit and Jawbone. Brands such as Huawei are also branching out into the fitness industry resulting in a market that’s already saturated with different apps and products varying in price, which begs the question: What will set this “social” fitness platform apart?”
He also tweeted that he will be joining venture capital firm Index Ventures as a partner; the same firm that invested in several companies such as SoundCloud and Etsy.
