Team: Felipe de Sande Palma (Stern ’25), Ignacio de Sande Palma, Juan Mugica Gonzalez
About the Venture: Amrap aims to be the ChatGPT voice for the weight room.
Strength training is one of the most powerful tools for promoting longevity and combating the effects of aging. Engaging in regular strength training has been associated with a 10% to 20% reduction in all-cause mortality, meaning that if more people adopted it, the impact on public health and healthcare costs could be massive. And yet, the majority doesn’t. Three in five adults do no muscle-strengthening activity at all.
Contrary to what many people believe, the problem isn’t just motivation—it’s accessibility. Walk into a weight room for the first time, and you’re met with rows of unfamiliar machines, a sea of experienced lifters, and no clear guidance when you hit a roadblock. It’s overwhelming, and way too often, people walk away before they even begin.
At Amrap, we’re on a mission to change that. We believe that with the right guidance, strength training can be for everyone—not just the confident few who already feel at home in the gym. Our personal AI trainer provides real-time, expert coaching, so anyone can step into the gym knowing exactly what to do and how to do it.
Our story began with Felipe, who left his career as a dentist in 2021 to become a fitness influencer. He saw firsthand how many people wanted to lift weights but felt lost and intimidated. In 2022, he launched an online personal training business, offering direct coaching to clients. The impact was clear—people gained confidence, saw results, and stuck with their training. But there was a limit. With a cap of 40 clients per month, it wasn’t scalable. That’s when we started thinking bigger. How could we bring expert coaching to thousands, not just a few?
Like many startups, we didn’t start with the right solution—we had to find it. Our original idea was a high-tech training machine with built-in cameras, designed to let remote trainers guide users in real time. We planned to sell it to gyms nationwide, believing that hardware was the missing piece.
Luckily, before committing, we set up a gym lab inside a WeWork office to test the idea. After dozens of user tests and multiple prototypes, one thing became clear: The value wasn’t in the hardware. It was in the content we were sharing with users and the way users could interact with their trainer. What people needed wasn’t another machine—they needed real-time, expert guidance that could adapt to them, wherever they trained. That realization changed everything. We scrapped the hardware, went all-in on software, and started developing what would eventually become Amrap.
This was a defining moment for us. We learned that solving a problem means staying firm on the goal but flexible on the approach. The key wasn’t forcing a product onto the market—it was obsessing over user feedback, testing relentlessly, and letting real people guide us toward the best solution. That mindset has shaped everything we’ve built so far, and it’s something we’ll continue to apply as Amrap hopefully grows in the years ahead.
