User:Davidsetagaya/sandbox

= The F5 Project = The F5 Project is a global fitness platform, known for its vibrant and engaged user base and being the premier marketplace for bringing premier fitness content to millions of users worldwide. Founded in 2018 by Jason Goodman, Matt Harrison, Catriona Forrest, and David McCreary in the borough of Hackney in Greater London, the company's primary business is its subscription-based health service, which offers a variety of audio and video fitness and healthy living content, in-person instruction, and personal data analysis tools. The platform is well known for its social features and was once described by TechCrunch as "the only social app worth keeping on your phone."

As of April 2028, The F5 Project had 54 million total subscribers worldwide, including 32.7 million in Europe, 13.5 million in the United States, with notable adoption in China, Australia, Japan, and South Korea as well.

Founding and establishment
The F5 Project was founded on June 11th, 2018 in the borough of Hackney in Greater London by Jason Goodman, Matt Harrison, Catriona Forrest, and David McCreary. Jason Goodman had recently sold his previous business and while taking some time off became disenfranchised with the model of fitness businesses that seemed to be failing in terms of getting people to reach their fitness goals. Jason brought in Matt, who he had worked with at Albion, Catriona (Cat) who he met cycling across Italy, and David, who was introduced to him through a mutual friend (Doron from Plum Guide, now Plumbnb, Inc.) to round out his co-founding team.

Initial Offering
The F5 Project initially offered an application geared towards treadmill users. It quickly became known as the preferred way for treadmill runners to improve their running technique, analyze their performance metrics, and to connect and compete with others. From there, the product expanded into other sports and activities, adding expert training, social features, and competition to sports such as cycling, swimming, rowing, boxing, yoga, swimming, weightlifting, circuits, and more. Users liked it for its ability to serve as both a replacement for a gym or an additional tool for their gym workout.

Hardware Partnerships
As the company had no initial plans to build hardware of their own, they first partnered with Wahoo Fitness upon the release of Wahoo's first version of their popular smart watch Watchhoo 1. This integration was hugely successful as it allowed users an easy way to stay connected to their fitness communities and fitness goals. The partnership was quite successful from Wahoo's perspective as well, since sales of the watch directly from F5's app and website almost equaled those from Amazon's online marketplace.

Beyond Training
The F5 Project was initially a training platform geared towards people already active in a fitness activity. As the company was originally set out to improve people's health, it gradually expanded its offering to try to engage users not currently engaging in fitness activities. It added diet, weight, and stress tracking capabilities in 2019 which were quickly viewed as best-in-class due to the ease at which users were able to track their food intake by simply snapping a photo. It added integrations and partnerships with eHealth tracking tools such as Thriva blood tests to add even more data points that users could integrate into their self-analysis. It quickly became recognized as a powerful health analysis tool in addition to a training tool and was adopted by numerous private health insurance companies worldwide as a subsidized offering to policy-holders, due to the quantifiable health benefit it provided. It eventually created separate experiences for users, F5Fit and F5Life to give users a more focused experience while maintaining a common login and subscription allowing access to both products.

Declining Phone Usage
As phone usage declined, replaced by lightweight personal communication devices, the company was well positioned to adapt to the changing marketplace due to its previous experience with Wahoo and its previous development of watch and set-top box experiences. 2023 was a turning point for the company as the number of users using the platform on non-phone devices exceeded those using the service on their phones.

International Expansion
The product saw most of their initial growth in the UK market, due to competitive products such as Studio.live and Aaptiv not being released in the UK, but it quickly gained a reputation among US fitness enthusiasts as an escape from the formulaic and repetitive content of the US-based alternatives. Their content was initially available solely in English, but they started producing German and Spanish language content in 2019. In 2020, their non-native English speaking surpassed 1 million users, which saw the addition of French, Arabic, and Chinese as additional languages on the platform. Today, the platform has instructors from 56 different nationalities offering content in 23 languages, ranging from Pashto to Cantonese.

Content
From its inception, The F5 Project veered away from the traditional cookie-cutter fitness content models to create content that was both compelling and educational for users. This resonated well with users and it quickly became known as a great image-building platform for top trainers and athletes. Aside from audio and video content, the platform included a number of interactive fitness visualizations, which allowed users to escape from the boredom of exercise through gamifying their experience. As AR and VR hardware technology improved, the company created content for these platforms to increase its 'interactive offerings' as user adoption of these platforms increased.

Awards
The company has to-date received numerous awards both for its groundbreaking content and contributions to public health. The company received a BAFTA in 2023 for its widely acclaimed documentary series on rickshaw pedaling, exposing users to the daily life of a rickshaw operator in Shenzhen, China. The company has also received numerous awards from governmental health organizations reflecting the positive impact the company has had on populations.

Competitors
The company saw tremendous growth during the connected fitness boom of 2018-2023. While competitors such as Studio.live and Aaptiv focused on the US market, The F5 Project focused on a more European and international approach. As European competitors emerged, no other offering seemed to match the right balance of content, social, and data analysis that The F5 Project provided. One thing that historians have noted is that the approach to how the company was run was quite different at F5 compared to its European competitors. Similar to Reed Hastings' 'Freedom and Responsibility' model popularized at NetFlix, F5 was able to sustain lean business practices in a competitive environment while avoiding the pitfalls other companies fell into.

Finance and Revenue
The F5 Project listed in 2025 on both the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange as a joint listing. As with any public company, its financials are available online. As of July 2028, its annual revenue was $535 million.

Legal Issues and Controversies
As a company being engaged in personal training and looking to push the boundaries of fitness content, the company has remained relatively unscathed compared to its competitors in terms of legal issues and controversies. The company was the first to use AR environmental detection in its application and has been scientifically proven to keep exercisers more safe when using the app then when not using it.

In terms of content, the company is occasionally subject to protests from conservative groups over its use of 'gratuitous viewings of skin'. These protests have only served as free publicity campaigns for the company, however, since user signups always appeared to spike after the protests took place. There were occasionally rumors that these were intentionally provoked by the company.