From CrossFit Frustrations to SaaS Success: How the Co-Founders Bootstrapped PushPress.
Company profile
Company business details
Motivation to build the product
Founder Dan Uyemura—an internet developer turned CrossFit gym owner—grew frustrated with inflexible, clunky software that failed to meet his operational needs. Drawing on his personal experience and recovery journey, he teamed up with two friends—a designer and a developer/banker—from his gym community. Their shared pain points and insider perspective inspired them to create a gym management solution they themselves would love to use.Problem that their product solves
Independent gym and fitness studio owners often juggle multiple disconnected tools for billing, scheduling, waivers, member tracking and communication, leading to manual errors, administrative overhead and frustrated members. PushPress solves these challenges by providing an all-in-one, vertical-SaaS platform tailored to fitness workflows. Streamlined operations and automated payments give owners more time to coach clients, drive retention and grow their communities.How they developed a primary version
The three co-founders bootstrapped the first MVP themselves by coding a WordPress plugin over 3–4 months, then iterating on a custom billing engine before settling on a standalone web app integrated with Stripe. Over roughly 18 months they scrapped two initial codebases and rewrote the platform on a more scalable stack, iterating in coffee shops and testing features directly in their own gyms. No external contractors were used—every version was built and refined in-house.Their unfair advantage
Deep domain expertise from actual gym owners and technologists ensures a customer-obsessed culture, rapid empathetic support, and early adoption of Stripe Connect for seamless billing—creating strong word-of-mouth and network effects.Strategies
Idea Validation Stage
Operating a Flagship Gym for Market Validation
The founders opened their own CrossFit gym as a live laboratory to deeply understand everyday pain-points of gym owners, build credibility in the fitness community, and market their software directly to peers. By running a real gym they validated demand, gathered feature requirements, and generated their first customer relationships before heavy product investment.
Pre-Launch (Product Development & MVP)
Branded Olympic Lifting Poster Giveaway
Working with an Olympic lifting coach and a designer, PushPress created a high-quality infographic poster demonstrating proper clean & jerk and snatch form. They offered it as a free digital download (and for a small shipping fee if printed), driving gym owners to their website, capturing leads, and massively increasing brand awareness before the software was fully built.
Free Workout Timer App
Built a free mobile workout timer app customized for CrossFit, featuring downloadable motivational voice packs from well-known athletes. The app spread virally, drove ad revenue, and positioned PushPress as the go-to software solution in fitness communities.
Freemium Product Tier
In November 2019 PushPress introduced a completely free software tier offering core gym-management features at no cost. This lowered the barrier for adoption, accelerated brand awareness among gym owners, and created a large base they could upsell as paid functionality rolled out.
Launch Stage
Freemium Software Tier for New Gyms
Launched a free tier of the gym-management platform to remove upfront costs and lower adoption barriers. As gym owners saw value and grew, they were converted to paid users, establishing a scalable acquisition funnel.
