Fit-N-Fun Games came to us during the shutdown period of Covid-19 in 2020 and we began to dream of creating it for others to enjoy. Two friends (Michelle Caron and Sherry Rasmussen) were working out together at home with our kids for their gym credits. We made several bootcamp games out of gameboards such as CandyLand, Chutes & Ladders and Matching Games. After several months, we grew tired of these same workouts and created our Fit-N-Fun Bootcamp Edition.
How to Bring a Business Idea to Life
Neither Michelle or Sherry had expertise in starting a business, so we asked for a meeting with the Small Business Development Center at the University of Wisconsin River Falls. They give advice and help small start-up businesses. We spoke with a representative, and she thought we had a unique, viable idea we could bring to life and market and fill a much-needed niche for fun, challenging workout ideas at home.
Our consultant helped us find a more fitting name (we had originally thought of “Get Fit Fast”), and Fit-N-Fun Games was born. We purchased the URL through Go Daddy. Next, we needed a logo, and we enlisted Logo Tournament to create a logo for us. You give some ideas of what you want, and many graphic artists produce logos. Votes were cast by our team plus family members, and our four-colored barbell logo was chosen.
It has proven much harder to get a game board designed and produced than we originally thought, and we have gone through several designs/workouts before finalizing. Our instructions were to have many people play the game and give feedback, before adopting our actual game. This was good advice! We had a crew from our bootcamp class play, and they didn’t like the ending at all. They tend to be competitive people, and didn’t like that the challenging exercises at the end were timed. Once you got to the final ladder, there was no way you could surpass someone and win. We changed the ending several times, got additional feedback, and now have a version that everyone loves!
Get Fit Fast
Our first versions were all hand-drawn. Next, we asked several graphic designers to give a bid to design our gameboard. That also proved challenging and expensive. Michelle ran into a friend of her husband’s at their lake home, Greg Lynch, who has extensive experience getting things designed and produced, as well as many connections for sales. We asked him to partner with us. After seeing and trying the game, Greg loved it and was all-in for partnering with us.
Bootcamp Edition
Finding a company to produce our game at a price that we could actually sell it for has been another challenge. Greg has contacts overseas, and we are currently getting the game made and will have it shipped here, hopefully by mid October. We also had a video shoot, where we had our bootcamp instructor, Angie Moudry, who is also an exercise specialist and personal trainer, demonstrate how to properly do all of the exercises in our Bootcamp edition with modifications. At last, we are seeing our dream become a reality, of brining a fun workout game into people’s homes. It can be played solo, with a group or with teams. We can’t wait for you to try it, and look forward to creating more variations soon.
Fit-N-Fun Game Ideas:
- Fit-N-Fun for Seniors
- Fit-N-Fun for Kids
- Fit-N-Fun Yoga Edition
- Fit-N-Fun Dance Edition
- Fit-N-Fun Kickboxing Edition
- Fit-N-Fun for Strength
- Fit-N-Fun for Balance
If you have ideas on a workout game you’d like to have, or want to vote on which games to bring to life next, please comment. We can’t wait for more of you to try our game and enjoy getting fit and having fun at home!
Hugs & Health – Michelle
**Disclaimer: Please always consult your doctor before beginning this or any exercise program.
Wow excited to watch this develop!
Thank you SO much — it has really been fun and definitely a learning curve to bringing it to life!
Great and super fun idea!
Such a great idea! Have you thought about trying to do create a fit and fun smart phone app?
Thanks, Christy! We have thought of that, and hope to bring that to life after our boardgame.
Super cool, Michelle! Looks like fun in several ways. Congrats!
Thanks, Mark — the feedback we have gotten is that our workout is fun. Hope you can try it sometime soon!
Super excited for your game to come out. Yoga would be my 1st interest, hope it is out soon!
We’re excited, too. Thanks for voting!
Fantastic. So proud of you! Such a fun game. I like the games for kids and seniors. :-)
Thank you! I think the games for kids and seniors would fill a great need for workouts at home for those age groups, too!
This has been very fun to see come to life! I really enjoy this workout, very fun and competitive! I think the strength edition would be a great one to add!
This was a fun way to get my gym credits during Covid!