Chorus, a US-based collaborative fitness app developer backed by corporates Chernin Group and United Talent Agency, is shutting down eight months after its launch, Business Insider has reported.
Chorus had created a group-orientated fitness app where friends could encourage each other to maintain workout schedules. It launched in beta in December 2017, but users typically left the platform within four to eight weeks.
Dick Costolo, the company’s co-founder and CEO, told Business Insider the app’s users were liable to stop using the platform when they missed sessions, due to a psychological phenomenon known as “abstinence violation effect”.
Costolo also revealed that Chorus had completed a seed capital round of unspecified size backed by over-the-top media company Chernin and United Talent Agency’s UTA Ventures unit.
The startup had sufficient funding to continue and could have protected against customer churn by charging an upfront fee, according to Costolo, formerly CEO of social media company Twitter, but he concluded that its vision of an encouragement-based fitness platform was ultimately unviable.