Last week the 4-day FitTech summit was hosted online. FitTech is the contraction of Fitness and Technology, and represents the market in which we operate. The topics of the first two days were mainly about fitness tracking, interactive fitness, fitness data and gamification. If you’re familiar with our product, you probably figured out that we were excited!
During the Summit many new interesting fitness concepts and existing big fitness companies came together, discussing the hot and happening within the fitness industry. Everyone agreed: fitness is big and was already booming before Covid, but the pie is getting bigger.
As for many industries, last year was difficult for fitness and wellness. Gyms were closed and industry suppliers had to lay off many people. So, gyms and suppliers had to reinvent themselves and serve their customers differently. The crisis became a catalyzer of what was already happening: more at home fitness, more personalization for users and more technology. This means that a very tough year also handed a lot of opportunities.
Oddly enough, for us these last 14 months were not too disadvantageous. The market was closed and everybody was trying to save itself and master these new opportunities. In this chaos, we found tranquility to finish our prototype. We could build a solid product instead of hacking our way into the market. Now we finished our prototype, which is actually a good foundation for our future and suitable for some serious scaling.
Let’s get back to the Summit. A big topic was people going back to their gyms and expecting new products and value. Because of the Covid situation people were forced to do fitness at home and they adapted to training with technology. All old “best-practices” like scribbling in notebooks and paper-based training schedules will not suffice any more. If gyms will not adopt new technologies for their users, it’s expected that a significant share of gym go-ers will de-subscribe again after a couple of months. Without new technologies, the gym’s fitness experiences adds too little value compared to fitness at the comfort of people’s own homes.
That’s where GymStory comes in. We created a new technology that delivers users new products and real value that enhances their in-gym training experience. Our product’s data enables personalization and gamification. So, it seems that our timing is right! Or is it luck?
What is a good example of the luck and/or timing?Anyone who read the book Zero to One by Peter Thiel (I love it, although it’s very American) knows the example of Tesla, the electric car manufacturer. In the midst of the CleanTech boom, Elon Musk build a businesscase that created real value to customers. In the beginning of the 21st century, the only eco-friendly cars available were the Toyota Prius, a Honda and some other Asian cars. If you wanted to drive green, you were forced to drive these oddly looking cars and so many people decided not to. Tesla changed this by making styled cars that drive good. Was it luck or timing? The fact is that Tesla is still one of the few CleanTech companies from the early 2000s that survived the test of time.
Our situation is similar. The smart fitness industry is booming and new fitness startups are founded everyday but only a few actually bring real (10x) value to their customers. So far, our product gets a lot of attention from users and gyms and people cannot wait to get started (including ourselves). Only time will tell ifGymStory will live the test of time, but it seems that luck, timing and luck of timing is in our favor.