The messages are divided into specific categories for men's and women's weight loss, men's and women's general health, marathon training and a category called In Your Face, for users who decide they need additional motivation, Citakovic said. In its demonstration, Poosh showed an In Your Face message that read, "Get off your lazy butt and do 5 push ups right now!! Add 1 additional push up each day until you reach your max!"

Users can sign up to receive as many as three messages per day, and along with those, they will get one advertising message, which is targeted at health and fitness topics.

Medical information for Kenya

MedKenya is developing a mobile app that provides information about health and health-care workers in Kenya, a country with 40 million people and only 7,000 doctors, according to MedKenya entrepreneur Mbugua Njihia. "It means a lot of information in too few heads," Njihia said.

In addition, those doctors are prohibited from advertising their services. The lack of information about health and doctors in the country opens up the field to many unqualified practitioners, Njihia said.