Tempo on 9to5Mac Watch Time

Zac Hall invited me to talk about the origin story of Tempo (and how it led me to go full-time indie) on his 9to5Mac Watch Time podcast series.

When Zac asked if I would be interested in doing this, the introvert in me instantly wanted to find an excuse to politely say no and get out of it. This was my first podcast ever, and I was nervous, but I agreed because being indie is also about sharing the story and inspiration. Zac is a great host, and carried me through the conversation. Sorry, if I rambled too much, Zac. I am glad I got to do this, because story telling in audio format is so different than a blog, and I really enjoyed it.

My thanks to Zac for having me on the show, and including Tempo with all the inspiring stories on Watch Time. Thank you to all the listeners who have reached out and sent words of encouragement.

9to5Mac Watch Time podcast episode 6: Making apps for Apple Watch with Rahul Matta and Will Bishop

Cadence for Runners

Tempo v2.5.0 makes it easy for runners to analyze cadence data.

Cadence, also known as stride rate, is number of steps taken per minute (SPM). It is measured by counting number of times both the feet hit the ground in a minute. Back in the day, measuring cadence was a manual task done by counting number of times one of the feet hit the ground in a minute and multiplying that number by 2. These days, most running watches display live cadence on our wrist during a run.

If you think about it, at a very basic level, running pace (speed) is the byproduct of how fast the feet move (cadence) and how far they move with each step (stride length).

Pace = Cadence x Stride Length

So generally speaking, faster cadence would mean faster pace. That's easier said than done due to physical and physiological condition and limitations of our bodies.

In his book Daniels' Running Formula, legendary running coach Jack Daniels describes ideal cadence to be 180 SPM. He derived this number by observing runners compete from 800 meters all the way up to the marathon distance at the 1984 Olympics.

Apple Watch started supporting live cadence in the Workout app with watchOS 5.0. Doing some quick analysis of my past data, it looks like there is cadence data saved by the Workout app from pre-watchOS 5.0 versions as well. But the older cadence data was sampled at around 10 mins intervals vs every few seconds in the latest version.

Good news is that all this data is also saved and available in the Health app for us to analyze. So with v2.5.0, Tempo now supports a detailed view of cadence data. You can view your cadence (along with pace and heart rate) for every split, and interact with a timeline of your cadence tracked over the entire run on a graph. I have wanted this feature for a while now, and I am not alone; there have been a lot of runners who have made this feature request. And it looks like there are even more runners out there, waiting on other running apps to support it. Please do give Tempo a try while you are waiting :)

View fullsize

View fullsize

There's a lot more information about why cadence matters, how to improve it, and different coaches' advice and opinions on the topic. You should really first study your own data, learn more about cadence, maybe get some pro help, before experimenting to use cadence as the next make me faster trick.

Disclaimer: please do not take any of this information as running advice or coaching guidance. The data in Tempo is from your Apple Watch and should be accurate (unless otherwise due to software bugs). My explanation of cadence above is my understanding from reading various posts and books about running, and from my general training experience. Your mileage may vary.

Going Indie

“ To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift. ”

— Steve Prefontaine

On July 31, 2019, I left my full-time job as a software engineer. It paid well, and I got to work with some talented folks on an interesting product, but it wasn’t something that I have been wanting to pursue next. So as crazy as it sounds, and I am still uncomfortable about it, I have taken the first step towards that next. It’s ambitious, exciting, and nerve-racking. The general idea is to build things independently, of high quality, with strong ethics, what feels right, and make that into a sustainable indie software business.

I have no clue if that is doable. I could crash and burn in 12-18 months, but let’s not digress too far. For now I do not want to think about plan B, but focus on what I can do to build a successful indie business.

Where do we start? I have had this side project called Tempo. Tempo is a fantastic app for runners. Runners love it. It has 3 years of slow-paced, but solid development under it, and a bunch of paying customers. I believe it has a lot of potential for various reasons. And it converges my love for running with the craft of building products into one. So that’s where we are going to start.

There's a solid roadmap for Tempo that I am starting with. A lot of it is based on feedback and feature requests from real runners over the past 3 years. My focus here is going to be simple, and based on the same core principle that Tempo was built with: build the best app for runners, with strong emphasis on privacy and quality design. Do that at a healthy pace, make constant progress, and keep shipping, while paying careful attention to revenue and growth.

That’s my general indie plan, my next adventure.

I can really use all the help I can get. If you would like to help, here are some ideas,

• If you run with an Apple Watch, please download Tempo and subscribe. And if you don’t find Tempo good enough yet, please reach out, and let me know how I can make it better for you to subscribe.

• If you do any kind of app reviews or publishing, please write about Tempo. Again, if it’s not there yet, please let me know what would make Tempo worthy of your time.

• Help spread the word by telling your running friends and family about Tempo. You can share it easily by suggesting to checkout tempo.run.

• If you are an indie developer, let’s connect. I would love to learn as much as I can about making this work.

You can find me on twitter @rmatta, or email rahul@indie.sh.

My Thanks to the Founding Users

When Tempo 2.0 was launched, the early adopters got 2 free years of Tempo Premium. I wrote the following note to them. It will be visible to all the founding users in v2.4.0 of Tempo. But I also wanted to express my gratitude more openly, so here’s a copy of it.

---

Dear Fellow Runner,

Did you know that you are one of the founding users of Tempo? Every runner, who originally paid to download v1.0 of Tempo from the App Store, is a Founding User. I wanted to take a moment and thank you.

❤️

Thank you for being a Founding User.

It’s been 3 years, and we have come a long way since the initial launch. Tempo's version 2 introduced pro features with premium subscription. Runners have loved pro features like route maps, simple graphs, tags, trends, and more.

🎉

Tempo v2.0 introduced pro features
with premium subscription.

Your patronage, as a founding user, was extremely motivating for me to keep working on Tempo. As a token of my gratitude, Tempo premium, with all the pro features, was free for you for the first 2 years, until August 15, 2019.

💰

Tempo premium was free for you
for the first 2 years.

I hope you have found Tempo effective in your training journey so far, and will continue your support by subscribing to premium going forward. As you know, Tempo was built and has always focussed on the core principles of privacy and great design. We respect your privacy without any fine prints or caveats, and we sweat the details to create a simple and beautiful experience to visualize powerful insights to help us run better. I strongly believe that Tempo is the best value compared to any other running app out there today, but we are also not done yet, and making it better every day.

⭐️

Goal is to be the best app for runners.

Finally, I wanted to share some personal, but relevant, recent news – I have officially switched to working on Tempo full-time. Over the past 3 years, Tempo has been work of passion that I have enjoyed deeply, both as a craft and as a way to build something for my fellow runners. It’s been a lot of late evenings and weekend hours, balancing with family and running. My goal for Tempo has always been to make it the best app for runners. And now I am dedicating my full energy to pursue that goal. Your premium subscription will further enable that pursuit for me, and more importantly for our running community!

🚀

Your premium subscription will enable
Tempo to be the best.

Thank you & Keep Running!

Best,
Rahul

Tempo 2.0

I am ecstatic to be launching 2.0 of Tempo. While it took way longer than I anticipated, I have enjoyed building it. It’s a labor of love and a lot of running, testing, and throwing away work that I didn’t find good. And it’s looking fantastic! I have said this before, but it needs emphasis again,

Tempo is my daily go to app. I do not run every day, but I use Tempo every day, multiple times on some days, to stay motivated. It provides great insights to help improve and optimize my running.

I can go on detailing every feature here, but instead I will just mention a recent scenario that made me disappointed and smile at the same time. Disappointed because I should have known better after all these years of training and it’s so obvious in retrospect; smile because Tempo revealed it for me: Just a few weeks ago, as I was scrolling through one of the new screens, called Intensity Log, I discovered why I might have crashed so badly during my last marathon. There was an obvious training strain pattern during the last few weeks leading up to the race. Those weeks are meant for recovering/tapering to peak for race performance and not running hard to risk race performance. It was an aha and why did I do that moment - I had already run my race during those weeks of training. Now more aware, I will be able to monitor it easily with Tempo’s new Intensity Log.

If you run with an Apple Watch, you should really give Tempo a shot. As a runner, I can tell you with confidence that there is nothing like Tempo out there! Tempo amplifies the power of Apple Watch as a running device.

(I really believe Apple Watch is a superior running Watch, but I will save 'why are you not running with an Apple Watch' part for a different post)

With 2.0 (as mentioned here) Tempo requires annual subscription to access pro features. You can try it for free, but I think you will find it to be an effective training tool to subscribe.

As promised, the original buyers and patrons of Tempo 1.0 will have premium access to all the pro features until August 15th, 2019. Thank you for your support.

Keep Running!

Release Notes for 2.0.1

Tempo has been completely rebuilt, with more insights, graphs, and beautiful new design to keep it simple, yet powerful!

Here’s a quick list of new features:

• Dashboard: The new dashboard tab shows quick running totals and intensity trend along with fast access to new reports.

• Cumulative Graph: In addition to the weekly and monthly totals, cumulative graph has been updated to show average pace and highlight days of weeks/months you run.

• Intensity Log: All new in 2.0 is the Intensity Log. It’s a fantastic addition to understand training pattern and identify stress as well as improvements.

• Trending Averages: The average runs and miles per week (or month) header on Cumulative Graph screen in 1.0 was so useful that it has been expanded to provide more averages along with a quick current trend for each averaged data point.

• Notes: We have all been waiting for this one.. With 2.0 you can add your personal insights to every run. It is stored encrypted on your device and backed up to your iCloud account.

• Tags: This is another frequently asked item that you are going to love. Tags are so useful to remember a run, race, location, etc. Tags on a run also appear on your Runlog screen. You can lookup for all the runs with a given set of tags using the new Filter feature.

• Pace & Heart Rate Graphs: Yes, it’s here too! Not just static, these graphs are interactive - you can scroll and pinch to zoom.

• Cadence: This is an experimental feature, but the data looks promising, so it’s been added. More to come.

• New subscription model: These new pro features require Tempo premium subscription. I hope you will show your support by subscribing. It takes a lot of time and effort to build a quality app like Tempo. I love working on it; but in order for Tempo to survive and thrive as a product for all of us as runners, it requires a lot more than just being a side-project done on nights and weekends.

• Patronage: If you originally paid for Tempo in the AppStore or paid for pre-2.0 patronage, you will have access to all pro features of Tempo Premium subscription for the next 2 years. Thank you!

• A lot more behind the scenes: Tempo 2.0 has a lot of behind the scenes optimizations that will further enable next set of features on the roadmap. I look forward to keep working on them and adding more helpful insights to help us run better.