Interview with Steph Mandeville, Co-Founder at Motivation App: Challenge Accepted

Challenge Accepted is a new motivation app to help people keep going and stay motivated with all their challenges. People can start challenges from 30-day health and fitness to reading lists, all in one place.

Paul Johnson and I created Challenge Accepted on a budget of less than £1,000 and shared the workload between our specialist areas – growth marketing, partnerships and software engineering. We’ve both previously worked at global tech brands including Intel, BT and Fujitsu.

We have been working with charities to support their virtual fundraising campaigns over the last 7 months as charities saw a huge decline in donations due to the cancellation of in-person fundraising events. So far over 1,000 people have taken part in a fundraising challenge on the app.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for Challenge Accepted?

 
Paul and I were trying to do so much from working on fitness challenges to visiting all the best pizza restaurants in London, that we’d often lose track of what we started.

We were keeping track of all our challenges in so many different places from specialist apps, notes on our phones to print-out calendars. We wanted one place to keep track of all the challenges we set ourselves; from the fun ones to good habits we were trying to create, and have the flexibility to pause and come back to them when we were ready.

In our research we found so many more people were in a similar boat to us – trying to be more environmentally friendly, working on their fitness, reading lists etc. but were missing that one place that provides a helping hand to stay motivated and keep track of those goals.

We created the Challenge Accepted app, so people can track every goal in a fun and flexible way. We’ve designed the app to be inclusive of any level and allow people to go at their own pace with any challenge they’re working on.
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
The first lockdown prompted us to bring Challenge Accepted to market earlier than originally planned. We were seeing so many people taking up hobbies and challenges to support their mental health and to stay entertained – we wanted to help them stick to it.
 

What can we hope to see from Challenge Accepted in the future?

 
Whilst continuing to support UK charities with their fundraising campaigns, we’ll also be partnering with consumer brands to host fun and engaging challenges on the app that their audience can take part in.