Cruce Saunders

Name: Cruce Saunders (pronounced close to "Crew" — YouTube auto-captions render it that way) - School: Alpha High School (Austin) - Company: Stride - Product: A gamified running app with haptic feedback through Apple Watch. Runners feel a strong wrist vibration mid-run signaling "the chase is on" — they physically chase a virtual item/pet/cosmetic by speeding up, slowing down, and responding to the game's inputs. Once caught, the pet has to be exercised to stay happy — a built-in accountability loop. Also includes a run-club competition layer (leaderboards for clubs across the US — he claims no existing running app does this). - Positioning: "Pokémon Go for running." Strava is for optimizers; Stride is for recreational runners who want fun + health. Named competitors: Fitness RPG, Strava, Zombies Run. - Insight framework: he cites 4 core things that retain users on running apps — competition, community, accountability, interactive adventure — and claims Stride is the only app that incorporates all four. - Stats he cites: 65% of runners who start end up quitting; 850M fitness app downloads last year; only 3-4% retain past 30 days; Strava has 135M users. - Traction: MVP built in ~1 month. Official UI complete for v1. Backend build is the immediate need. User-survey "how likely are you to use Stride after release" averaged 9/10. - Team / advisors: Brady Homer (scientist, endurance athlete, 20K on Substack and X) is advising. Also has a micro-influencer network with 10K+ influencers lined up for launch marketing. - Ask: Pre-seed round: $100,000 on a SAFE with a $5M cap. Different from Jackson — Cruce IS raising. - Vision: 1M users + 100 run clubs year one; overtake Strava by year 10 with 200M users; AR running glasses under $50. - Stride tagline (from Austin Startups): "Catch the adventure in every stride." Aligns with the pitch content. - CF adjacency: Pitched live at the Alpha High First Look event at Capital Factory. Also listed on Austin Startups / Pitch (CF product). - Judge feedback (from the pitch video): Bruce (1517 Fund LP — Peter Thiel Fellowship-derived) gave him notes on energy + coherence, encouraged him to keep going.