The company was registered in Austria in October 2009. Their potential clients were now the runners themselves.Īlfred Luger, Gschwandtner’s university friend, quit his job to join the venture and the Runtastic team was complete. They quickly realized that it opened up new global horizons and abandoned the stationary running-track equipment to focus on the mobile app. The team built an app prototype to track runs directly with a smartphone. Then in June 2008 Apple launched the iPhone 3G – with an in-built GPS receiver – and everything changed. However, they knew they were on to something so continued to develop the technology. It didn’t take long for the three friends, René Giretzlehner, Christian Kaar and Florian Gschwandtner, to realize that demand for such equipment was at best unclear and at worse confidential. Revenues would come from selling equipment and tracking devices and they would build a web portal for users to track their progress. Their plan was to sell stationary tracking equipment to operators of public tracks, running clubs and schools. They had the technical expertise to build the kit. They knew that more people were taking up running. In 2006, three young Austrian men had a brilliant idea: a tracking system for amateur runners to record runs and improve their times.

Runtastic app download