Jaha is a ‘Tinder for fitness’ app that wants to unite Asia’s athletes

It’s dangerous to go alone. Those words, first spoken by an unnamed grouping of pixels in the original Legend of Zelda game, apply perfectly to the world of workouts. Having an exercise buddy can help you enjoy your workouts more, which in turn helps ensure that you don’t get bored with them and quit. Having a buddy to compete with can also help you push yourself harder, or help you notice mistakes you’re making that might lead to injury. Exercise – like almost everything, really – is better with a friend.

But finding one isn’t always easy. Your real-life friends may not be interested in working out at all. Or they may just have different preferences. If you’re a runner, you can’t really be workout buddies with a weightlifter. And a yoga enthusiast isn’t going to get much out of partnering up with somebody who burns their calories by bicycle. So how do you find a workout buddy who’s nearby and shares your interests? Thankfully, there’s an app for that.

What is Jaha?

Jaha is a Hong-Kong based startup with an app that it calls a “Tinder for fitness.” The comparison is apt. Like Tinder, the app will automatically find users in your area. Like Tinder, it’ll allow you to browse through them, swiping right on anyone you’re interested in. But of course, in Jaha you’re not meant to be swiping based on who you happen to find attractive. You choose based on your shared interests.

In your own profile, you can select which fitness activities you’re interested in. You’ll also be prompted to enter some specifics – for example, after I chose running as an interest, I was prompted to enter my average run length and general running pace. Then, when swiping through other users, any common interests you have with the other person will be highlighted in green at the bottom of the screen.

Once you find someone who shares your interests and you’ve both swiped right on each other, Jaha is pretty open-ended. It has some stat-tracking features so that you can share workout results, challenge each other to hit specific milestones, and compete to be top of the leaderboards. But it also allows you to chat so that you can arrange to meet up for some real life exercise (or whatever else you’d like to do).

The birth of the Jaha idea

Longtime Hong Kong resident and Jaha co-founder Gary So says that the app came about as the result of the Jaha founding team’s interest in casual fitness tech. “We wanted to do a fitness band, actually, that’s how it started,” Gary told Tech in Asia. “However, we saw the market become really saturated, and we really didn’t have the expertise to do hardware.” So they partnered with Soul Electronics, where Gary and his co-founder Patrick both worked, to produce a fitness band. Jaha was born as the software that was backing it.

But as time went by, the Jaha gents noticed that the real problem with fitness tech was social. While there were plenty of social features in fitness apps, “you were stuck within the ecosystem of the hardware,” said Gary. You could only be friends with the people who happened to use the same fitness tracker as you. Gary and Patrick saw the potential for an app that could cast a broader net, and let you make friends with anyone in the area who shared your interests regardless of their hardware allegiances. Jaha was born.

Expanding from the US to Asia

Though based in Hong Kong and backed by Chinese investors – Jaha recently closed an angel round of US$1 million from GSR Ventures – Jaha actually launched first in the United States this July. Both Gary and Patrick are Asian-Americans who grew up in the US, so they were familiar with the market, and they saw the app quickly gain traction there, especially among runners. Because it features GPS tracking and step-counting without the need for any additional hardware, Jaha is well-suited to being a running app as well as a social one.

“The first three months have been a lot of data-gathering,” said Gary, who added that the company is putting more runner-friendly features in to help make the app even better for pavement-pounders. But Jaha isn’t content to limit itself to the US market. Jaha has just recently launched in Hong Kong, and is organizing events (like runs) to get people working out together while promoting the app – “like O2O events,” Gary said. The first such run took place this past weekend.

But Jaha isn’t only looking at Hong Kong. In addition to creating a Traditional Chinese version of the app – meant for Hong Kongers – the team has also build a Simplified Chinese translation, which will appeal to mainland Chinese users. So is Jaha thinking about expanding into mainland China? “We’re definitely looking into it,” said Gary. He recognizes that selling a social app in China is tough, but Jaha’s Chinese backers are interested in seeing the app expand into the Middle Kingdom, and the market is too big to ignore. “We’ve already looked into doing the Weibo login and such,” said Gary, although the app isn’t ready for launch in China yet. “It’ll take a little bit of time to figure out,” he said.

Southeast Asia is on the table too. “Obviously the English-speaking countries we can probably target right away,” said Gary. “And the good thing about Traditional Chinese is that we can go into Taiwan as well. So we’re thinking like the next few countries could be Singapore and Taiwan.” Gary says the Jaha team sees both as ideal locations thanks to their social-friendly users and lots of interest in fitness. “Taiwan, for example, hosts tons of runs every year,” he said. Even into those countries, expansion will take time, but they could see a launch as soon as “within a quarter,” according to Gary.

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