Destin George Bell was fresh out of college when he conceived the idea for Card.io, a movement app taking boring cardio and transforms it into a fun and social game of team turf war. Inspired by his athletic career, Destin came up with a brilliant idea to solve the biggest problems anyone faces when trying to accomplish their fitness goals — motivation and consistency.
How it started
Before the launch of his startup, George dabbled into several ventures, including real estate, stock, crypto investing, esports content creation, and B2B SaaS.
Bouncing between his car, a hotel, and an Airbnb, he focused on launching his app right out of college.
Cardio was born out of a vision of using gamification to motivate people to go outside and be active in a similar way to Pokémon Go.
In an exclusive interview with Afro Lazer, Destin recalled lacking the motivation to stay in shape during the lockdowns when gyms and other activities were unavailable and believed his app could help millions of people live a healthier lifestyle.
Funding
The app, launched on 7th January, brought in its first 100 users and has grown to over a thousand. Destine and his team at Cardio have raised a little under $1M, including non-dilutive capital from groups like the University of Kentucky, Niantic (Pokémon Go parent company), crowdfunding, and grants from accelerators and pitch competition wins.
On the most important lessons he’s learned as an entrepreneur, he said: “The biggest lesson I learned is that a “no” is a not yet/I’ve been told no so many times in my life that if I took that to heart and never did anything that was met with resistance, I’d still be sleeping in my dad’s attic on an air mattress.
“The “not yet” that became the biggest “yes” we ever got was when I sent a cold email to the CEO of Pokemon Go. It took two months for him to respond. After our first conversation, 3 months passed with complete radio silence, but despite that, I sent email after email the entirety of that time until one day they rewarded my persistence with a $50K grant,” he added.
The Motivation
The Cardio CEO’s long-term vision is to impact the lives of millions of people worldwide, becoming the major catalyst for a ton of people hitting their fitness goals and living a healthier lifestyle. Destin and his team are currently working with the Austin half and full marathon for a fun side activation. They also have a partnership with Texas Venture Association for an SXSW turf war between founders and investors and have affiliations with several fitness communities around Austin, LA, and NYC.