Soon after exiting Flipkart earlier this year, Mukesh Bansal announced he was teaming up with former Flipkart colleague Ankit Nagori to start a fitness venture called CureFit. What exactly they intend to do is not clear yet. The first products are expected to launch only early in 2017. But Bansal, who founded fashion portal Myntra and made a success of it with technology and data and sold it to Flipkart for a phenomenal $300 million two years ago, has indicated that he wants to bring those same elements of technology and data into fitness.
Nagori told TOI that though the current fitness and slimming industry size is over $1.1 billion and is growing at 20% a year, it's actually struggling, with a limited set of organized players offering little or no technology play and with a heavy focus on equipment. "We strongly believe that this format is on the decline.Trainer-led functional workouts, coupled with a high degree of data and tech integration, will be the future of the industry," he said.
It's a path that many others are today beginning to take. Traditional gyms and fitness equipment are often the subjects of jokes. Few who take gym memberships are able to sustain their interest - the drop off rate at gyms in India is estimated to be as high as 70%-80%, with most dropping off within 3 to 4 months And home fitness equipment very quickly fall into disuse, frequently becoming clothes hangers. Yet, there is no doubt that urban India is getting passionate about fitness. And newer entrepreneurs are trying to see if they can provide more personalized offerings using customer data, technology and research, and often in a way that people can use their offerings anywhere, anytime.
App-based tracking, fitness coaching and consulting
The 16-month-old, Goa-headquartered Mobiefit offers a variety of products. It has an app that works as a personal trainer-in-your-pocket. It sets the right level of exercise for you, gives reminders, guides through warm ups, counts steps and movements, and maintains an electronic diary . It features over 50 exercises that involve no equipment. It has an app for training you to run, and it has an app for walkers.
Co-founder Gourav Jaswal says the apps have multi-lingual capabilities and use artificial intelligence to provide automated coaching. "This gives us scalability," he says, noting that over half a million people have used the apps over the past few months. The venture earns revenues through digital sponsorships, paid programmes, event registrations and store purchases.
Several others including Fitso, Actofit, FitCircle, Orobind and ObiNo also offer tracking and consulting options. Gurgaon-based Fitso, founded last year by Saurabh Aggarwal, Naman Sharma and Rahool Sureka, has an online coach for running, providing a personalized service. Users can create a profile, challenge others in various physical activities, upload their videos, seek suggestions, and chat with coaches.Of its 70,000 users, 5,000 are active and 500 have opted for personal trainers.
Aggregation & discovery-plus
Then there are the Zomatos of the health and fitness sector, like FitnBliss, FitMeIn, Fitraq, Fitternity and Gympik. They aggregate fitness activities, studios, gyms and trainers, making it easy for customers to quickly find what's best for them.
Mumbai-based Fitternity, started by Neha Motwani and Jayam Vora in 2014, allows you to find fitness classes based on location, book free trials and take membership from the over 12,000 listings across Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune. But they have done a number of things to ensure users can sustain interest. It recently introduced a pay-as-you-go model that's seeing a 100% growth month-on-month. Users can select fitness centres just one hour in advance, make an online payment and work out at their convenience. They are tying up with di agnostic centres, creating programmes for specific diseases, and also aggregating health food. They launched a virtual currency called Fitcash that corporates can buy to gift to employees, who in turn can use it on Fitternity. HUL and Mahindra & Mahindra are among the users.Fitternity has 75,000 users, and Motwani says the venture has grown 12 times from last year and is approaching breakeven.
Food & diet
A bunch of startups are also watching what you eat and drink, and suggesting diet plans. Some even deliver the appropriate food home. HealthifyMe's app has a database of calorie value calculated for over 40 million Indian food items - from gulab jamun and pani puri to very local dishes such as South India's puliyogare, Maharashtra's kandyache thalipeeth and Nagaland's axone (fermented soybeans). It can tell you that 100g of Bengali-style eggplant in mustard sauce contains 105.8 calories, 13.4g of protein, 2.7g of carbs, and 4.7g of fat. HealthifyMe also offers paid services from fitness experts and nutritionists.
The system uses machine learning to personalize services. Based on food habits, calorie intake, weight and other parameters, the app can make automated suggestions on what needs to be altered in terms of diet and physical activity. The venture's user base has been rising dramatically - it was 50,000 soon after launch in 2012, 5 lakh last year, and 1 million now.Co-founder Tushar Vashisht says paid users are around 4% of overall downloads.
Truweight is a weight loss startup that offers a meal tracker app that is watched closely by a personal dietician while also providing food products like granola bars, batter for food items like millet idli, and quinoa dal dosa. While consultation happens over the phone, information is available on the app. "Our products are not meant to replace meals.They are only food items with a healthy twist so one can enjoy them guilt free," says co-founder Megha More.
But she admits it's not easy selling the concept. "The challenge with weight loss is that it is a function of many factors like hormonal imbalance, blood pressure, mental and physical stress. Sometimes clients simply don't lose weight.Diet changes also do not give instant gratification, which makes people impatient," she says.
Exploding market
But clearly, the opportunity is big. Karan Mohla, executive director in VC firm IDG Ventures, which has investments in the two top-funded ventures in the space - Curefit and HealthifyMe - says awareness about fitness is high among 10-20 million people, and he expects that to rise to 50-60 million in the next few years."But players should be careful not to lose focus and diversify too much," he says.
Courtesy : www.gadgetsnow.com
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