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amSTATZ — Health & Fitness SaaS Platform

Role: Founding Product Designer | Timeline: November 2011 – April 2015 | Industry: B2C SaaS / Health & Fitness

Setting the Scene

In the early 2010s, most personal trainers weren't keeping their clients' workout data. If they were, it was reps and sets scribbled in a notebook. Clients had no way to review their own progress. Trainers were juggling 4–5 different apps to manage scheduling, billing, and communication — and still losing clients between sessions because there was no good way to stay connected outside the gym.

I was the first and only product designer at amSTATZ, a Chicago startup founded to solve exactly this. I worked directly with three co-founders, a team of three developers, and one QA consultant to design and ship the platform from the ground up.

My Role

Founding product designer — first hire. I determined the usability and design of the full amSTATZ platform and all digital assets. I helped establish the software development lifecycle, conducted all user and market research, maintained business requirements and user documentation, designed and iterated prototypes, and worked directly with developers to ensure the frontend matched the final designs pixel for pixel.

The Research

My early work happened in gyms — Lincoln Park and Lake View — following personal trainers through their sessions, watching how they recorded data, how they communicated with clients, how they moved through a workout in tight spaces during peak hours.

What I found:

Trainers were wasting time they wanted to spend with clients managing their business across multiple apps. The physical space of a gym — always moving, limited surface area — made large inputs on a phone awkward but iPads were sometimes too big. Larger phones with large tap targets worked best. Clients wanted to watch workout videos on a TV at home. A responsive framework was the right call.

I worked with a consistent group of three trainers — two women, one man — throughout the process, from early research through mockup reviews and UAT.

The Problem

Trainers needed to spend less time on business and more time with clients. Clients needed to stay motivated between sessions and track their own progress. Neither had tools built for the way they actually worked — on the move, in tight spaces, sometimes sweaty, always time-constrained.

No single application existed that let trainers schedule, bill, log workouts, communicate with clients, and promote their business in one place.