An overview & synopsis of the UM Ross intern team's market-discovery survey — built to steer the design, content, and go-to-market for the My Healthy Athletes module.
The Ross interns did the heavy lifting — I've turned their 89 responses into the signal we need. The short version: athletes don't know us yet, they're skeptical of one-more-app, but they'll show up for the right content through people they trust. Here's the whole picture.
Every figure below is computed from the 89 completed responses in the exported dataset.
A conversational survey designed and fielded by the UM Ross student-athlete intern team, distributed to current and former athletes across competitive levels.
A predominantly female, highly athletic sample spanning current undergrads, graduate students, and athletes now out of school — exactly the audience the module targets.
Respondents picked up to three priorities. Five themes dominate — and they map cleanly onto content FFH can build.
The adoption triggers are remarkably actionable — and several are things FFH and the Foundation can offer immediately.
The barriers are mostly about perceived fit and cost — not technical ability. Both are solvable with positioning and the pilot offer.
Two-thirds of athletes rarely go looking for a new platform — so discovery has to come to them, through search and social.
When athletes named the single most critical feature of platforms they use, basic tracking dominated. Their open-text "what's missing" answers point straight at where FFH can differentiate.
"Something telling me what my data means."
— the #1 qualitative theme: interpretation, not raw numbers"A one-stop shop for ALL of health & wellness."
— fragmentation fatigue / "all-in-one""Accurate calorie expenditure / macros for home-cooked food."
— nutrition accuracy came up repeatedly"I use a period tracker and wish it integrated with my calendar."
— menstrual-cycle features for a 71%-female base"Structure and guidance specific to my body and goals."
— personalization & coaching"Recovery / strain insights like WHOOP and Oura."
— recovery interpretation across devicesThe survey offered a 1-hour focus group with FFHN leaders plus a free year of membership. Over half are warm.
48 warm leads — 12 firm "Yes" and 36 "Maybe" — ready to be invited into co-design. Many left names and emails in the response file.
These athletes are the fastest path to a credible V1: run the focus groups, hand them the free year, and convert them into the first ambassador cohort that the other 42%-who-trust-referrals will follow.
Next action: build the pilot invite list from the response exportA subset of 39 respondents also rated their confidence to respond to six real-world emergencies — choking, severe bleeding, stroke signs, collapse/unconsciousness, fall prevention, and a major catastrophe.
Self-rated confidence was spread across the full 1–5 range on every scenario — a clear share of athletes are not confident they could act if someone collapsed, choked, or showed stroke signs with no help in sight. That's a capability no fitness tracker, WHOOP, or Oura offers.
It's also the bridge from "wellness app" to the Force for Health mission: bundling life-saving readiness skills (and the Prepared Patient content) into My Healthy Athletes gives the module a differentiator athletes literally cannot get anywhere else — and turns athletes into community first-responders.
Seven moves, drawn directly from the data, to take My Healthy Athletes from blank slate to launched module.
No one in the sample had heard of FFHN. Invest top-of-funnel: athlete-specific positioning across Google/SEO (61%), TikTok (48%) and Instagram (47%). We're not fighting for share — we're introducing ourselves.
Strength & Conditioning (53%) → Nutrition & Meal Planning (48%) → Personalization (40%) → Mental Health (38%) → Recovery insights (36%). Map each to existing FFH 360 Academy + tracker assets so V1 ships fast.
49% want integration and the loudest open-text plea was "tell me what my data means." Aggregate Apple Health / Garmin / WHOOP / Oura and differentiate on interpretation, guidance, and personalization — not raw metrics.
Beat "not relevant" (43%) with personalization + exclusive university-athlete features (29% want these). Beat "cost" (42%) with the free trial / discount that 58% asked for — delivered through the Foundation's free-membership pilot.
65% rarely go searching, but 42% trust a teammate/coach recommendation. Convert the 48 warm pilot leads into the first ambassador cohort and let referral do the distribution.
33% are moved by evidence-based guidance from professionals and 38% are skeptical platforms even work. Front-load clinical credibility (Dr. Rob) and "built with University of Michigan athletes" proof to disarm the skepticism.
Bundle emergency-response and Prepared Patient skills into the module. It's unique, mission-aligned, and turns the My Healthy Athletes audience into trained community responders.