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Community Builds Empires: Fittr's Secret | Jitendra Chouksey (Fittr)
152 Plays4 years ago
"Success isn't about greatness. It's about consistency. And those who are consistent are bound for greatness!"
This profound insight from Jitendra Chouksey, founder of Fittr, encapsulates his journey and philosophy. It highlights that sustained effort and adherence to fundamental principles are more crucial for achieving long-term success, both in personal fitness and in building a disruptive business, than sporadic moments of brilliance.
Jitendra Chouksey (JC) is the founder of Fittr, a global online fitness and nutrition community that began as a WhatsApp group in 2014. An "accidental entrepreneur", JC bootstrapped Fittr with just ₹90,000 (approx. $1200), impressively amassing $13 million in cumulative revenue before its first significant funding round. Today, Fittr boasts a community of over 5 million users globally and has raised approximately $17 million in funding. JC's mission is to make 50 million people fit and create numerous careers in the fitness industry.
Key Insights from the Conversation:
- The Accidental Entrepreneur: JC's entrepreneurial journey was born out of a personal fitness transformation and a desire to help friends and family, evolving organically from a WhatsApp group to a Facebook community, and then into a company.
- Bootstrapping to Profitability: Fittr was profitable from its inception while being entirely bootstrapped, demonstrating strong financial discipline and product-market fit before seeking external capital.
- Fundamentals Over Fads: JC champions a "no-BS," science-backed approach to fitness, emphasizing consistency, simplicity, and fundamentals like quantified nutrition, countering prevalent industry myths and quick fixes.
- INFS as a Strategic Moat: The establishment of the Institute of Nutrition and Fitness Sciences (INFS) provides Fittr with a pipeline of certified coaches, ensures quality control, and reinforces its authority in fitness education.
- Navigating Adversity: The conversation touches upon Fittr's journey through financial challenges, including periods of loss, and the strategic pivots and tough decisions made to steer the company back towards sustainable growth.
Chapters:
- 0:00:43 The Accidental Entrepreneur: JC's Unlikely Start
- 0:02:55 From Being Bullied to Fitness Obsession: The Transformation
- 0:06:28 Corporate Life & The Seeds of Fittr: An Unintentional Beginning
- 0:19:43 WhatsApp Group to Facebook Community: Organic Growth
- 0:26:23 Launching SQUATS (Fittr): Bootstrapping with ₹90,000
- 0:31:18 First Year Success: ₹9 Crores Revenue & Building the Coaching Model
- 0:37:17 Founder Fitness & Dispelling Common Indian Fitness Myths
- 0:46:38 The Fundraising Journey: Y Combinator, Sequoia Surge, and Investor Philosophy
- 0:53:01 Building the Founding Team & Navigating Co-founder Challenges
- 1:01:32 Why JC Quit Y Combinator & The Importance of Investor Alignment
- 1:09:30 Fixing the Fitness Problem: Fittr's Community-First Approach
- 1:15:56 The Business Model: Ethics, Non-Marketing, and Long-Term Vision
Hashtags for YouTube Description:
#FounderThesis #JitendraChouksey #Fittr #StartupIndia #Entrepreneurship #FitnessMotivation #HealthTech #Bootstrapping #CommunityBuilding #IndianStartups #OnlineFitness #Nutrition #EntrepreneurJourney #Podcast #StartupStory #MakingIndiaFit #DigitalHealth #Investments #Leadership
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Transcript
Introduction to the Founder Thesis Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
HD Smartcast You are listening to an HD Smartcast original
00:00:24
Speaker
Hi, I'm Akshay. Hi, this is Aurob. And you are listening to the Founder Thesis Podcast. We meet some of the most celebrated charter founders in the country. And we want to learn how to build a unicorn.
Jitendra Chokshi's Personal Transformation
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, guys, my name is J.C. I call myself an accidental entrepreneur. I'm the founder of Fitter and I'm here to speak to you guys. Success is about greatness. It's about consistency.
00:00:54
Speaker
and those who are consistent are bound for greatness. If certain words could describe the hunk, Jitendra Chokshi, in the world of fitness entrepreneurs, it'd be these. Bullied for being fat during his childhood, J.C. strived to become the fittest version of himself. He believed in all that he had and gave his goals every bit of dedication he could. But little did he know that life had other plans for him.
00:01:18
Speaker
Not only did J.C. transform himself, but he became a fitness entrepreneur with two very successful businesses. Tune in for in this episode of Founder Thesis, Akshay Dutt unwraps the tales of Jitendra's company Fitter, one of the world's largest online fitness and nutrition community.
Childhood Ambitions and Body Image Issues
00:01:37
Speaker
So what was your ambition when you were studying as a kid, as a teenager?
00:01:43
Speaker
Now when I think about it, I want it to be so many things. So many things.
00:01:59
Speaker
When you come from a background like that, your thought process is also limited to the movies you watch, right? So if you see an actor in a movie, if you see an actor in a movie, if you see an actor in a movie, then you're not going to be able to see it. You're going to be able to see it and you're going to be able to see it, right? So I think that's why we're going to be able to see more of the aspirations. You know, by the time you were finishing school, what had you thought about what happened next?
00:02:27
Speaker
By the time I finished school, I think my first priority was to fit into the society. I was very anti-social or anti-social, not because I was kind of introvert. I just had body image issues. I was fat and I also kind of felt ugly and you know, I had people mocking all the time. So those kinds of things were very common in my life. How fat were you? I was quite fat. So like what was your weight?
00:02:55
Speaker
I think I was around 86 kgs when I was in class 11th or 12th and that was quite a lot of it. So, then what did you do to overcome
Integrating Fitness into Daily Life
00:03:06
Speaker
this?
00:03:06
Speaker
So I think around when I was in class 8, there was a friend of mine. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously for my gym. So I took that very seriously
00:03:37
Speaker
I was able to do a lot of exercise and I was able to do a lot of exercise and I was able to do a lot of exercise and I was able to do a lot of exercise and I was able to do a lot of exercise and I was able to do a lot of exercise and I was able to do a lot of exercise and I was able to do a lot of exercise and I was able to do a lot of exercise
00:04:06
Speaker
But I think I started building muscles. Underneath that whole fact of mine, there were muscles developing. Or I was getting skilled like push-ups, pull-ups, lifting heavy, all those things became a part of life. And I think that continued for the rest of almost now, it's almost 20-21 years that I have been working on every single day. So I think it became a part of my life. What did you choose to do for graduation?
Academic Achievements in Software Engineering
00:04:34
Speaker
So I had enough marks in my 12th. But I had to settle for a local engineering college. So I selected software engineering.
00:04:58
Speaker
First year, the college was actually quite far. So, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year, the first year,
00:05:33
Speaker
It's like ragging to honey hotel.
00:05:44
Speaker
I'm going to prove myself and I don't need you guys. So I started scoring good marks. In fact, my past semester, almost my last class, my top peak.
00:06:07
Speaker
and I ended up graduating with Distinction. So that was my college. So which company did you join then? So Maastik company Jyothi Usnapele offer letter didyata or Hoski joining I think Amare was around
00:06:51
Speaker
or Pune was the first city I loved it.
Early Career and Relocation Challenges
00:06:55
Speaker
Mumbai Major Training, that was very brief. But when I came to Pune, I immediately fell in love with the city. The culture was very nice and for the first time I had pizza.
00:07:05
Speaker
October 2008. I very desperately remember. So October 2008.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yes, yes. In my whole life, yes. And smoking juice was actually my friend's first time training. So smoking juice was my first time. That was the first time I actually had pizza in my life. For the inhibitions that I had, you know, for life, I was earning a salary. So everything was nice. Everything was nice.
00:07:36
Speaker
That's it. You were essentially writing code, this job, man. Yeah, yeah. So I was, initially I was a software engineer trainee, so I was writing code, some local c-sharp, java.net, and low-end key preparations. Was there a recession? Yes, there was no ambition. Entrepreneurship, anything. You were pretty happy being in a job, having enough money, enough time for fitness. Well, that was the goal of life.
00:08:13
Speaker
or my education had finally come to a conclusion, right? So family was happy, I was happy, but for the session,
00:08:25
Speaker
Absolutely. See, the day I got the job was the day I made my dad proud.
00:08:35
Speaker
At recession, we have a company called Sareo. We have a group of people who are working with us. We have a group of people who have options. They have a salary. We have a group of people who have a salary. We have a project called Project Ayatof and we have a group of people who are working with us. We have a group of people who are working with us.
00:08:57
Speaker
I think it's important for us to understand the struggle that we had in the last few years. We actually managed a lot of things. We did a lot of work. We made 2700 bhosar rent. So I think it's important for us to understand what the bhosar was like. It's important for us to understand what the bhosar was like. It's important for us to understand what the bhosar was like. It's important for us to understand what the bhosar was like. It's important to understand what the bhosar was like.
00:09:41
Speaker
So, I used to walk.
00:09:44
Speaker
could not afford definitely. So I think there was a Lakshmi Thali stall. They used to serve 30 rupees. And you can replace roti with rice.
Life in Pune and Personal Growth
00:10:01
Speaker
And you were still working out.
00:10:08
Speaker
It was all about survival. Because I definitely didn't want it to go back. It was about survival. Because I definitely didn't want it to go back. Because I definitely didn't want it to go back. Because I definitely didn't want it to go back. Because I definitely didn't want it to go back. Because I definitely didn't want it to go back.
00:10:34
Speaker
you know so I tried my best like you decided you don't so why don't you come back to
00:11:04
Speaker
April was the last month of April, but it was a little bit late. I think it was a little bit late, but I think it was a little bit late. I think it was a little bit late, but I think it was a little bit late. I think it was a little bit late, but I think it was a little bit late.
00:11:23
Speaker
If you want to learn more about this, you can go to the college. If you want to learn more about this, you can go to the college professor. If you want to learn more about this, you can go to the master's degree. If you want to learn more about this, you can go to the master's degree.
00:11:46
Speaker
And life was... I don't know if it's true or not, but I think it's true. But I think that in November 2009, I think LNT came out with an awful letter. I don't know if it's true or not, but LNT came out with an awful letter.
00:12:03
Speaker
Okay. I think I cried so much, man. All of us we cried, but finally we were so happy. Okay.
00:12:30
Speaker
I started working out. I made friends. You know, everything was going good. My life was getting better every single day. And I think then I got selected an IBM. What was the work profile? Yeah, I was a consultant. You were a consultant like you were an SAP consultant.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah, I was an SAP consultant. So we used to work on a Johnson and Johnson project. Same, same SAP consultant.
00:13:10
Speaker
Same, same. It was more a shared services delivery. So I was working on Luria, Luxortica. I also developed on my communication skills.
00:13:30
Speaker
You had so much free time, girlfriend.
00:13:53
Speaker
I met Akriti. Then I moved to Bangalore. Again, I don't want to get into the details of what meant. But I met Akriti and then Akriti was studying for her MBA in Bangalore. And I had just started working with IBM. So we started dating. How did you meet her?
00:14:16
Speaker
So I randomly pinged her on Facebook seeing that, you know, we are from the same place, MP, and you know how Facebook is like I used to be the same guy.
00:14:33
Speaker
but I imagine you must have been pretty well you know you were working out so you must be pretty fit by then I was extremely shy yeah you were very shy
00:14:49
Speaker
I was extremely shy. I can't do it. So that girl wants to talk to you. This girl wants to talk to you. I was very, very socially awkward and very shy. But I think when I met Akriti and because she was from my place, we connected on different things.
00:15:13
Speaker
There was this mall where we met once and then after that we started, you know, going out together again and again. So you told our family, because I was well settled working with IBM. And then we got married in 2013, February. How old were you then? I was I think around 27 years old.
00:15:39
Speaker
And so at 27, you are married, earning well at IBM. Then what happened after that? Then life was cool. Life was good. We made a lot of friends in Bangalore. Around the same time, we took one BHK flat, small flat in Kamanahali. It's near Marathali. And Aakrati, she loves clean stuff.
00:16:04
Speaker
she's a clean freak right so because of her I also learned some good habits or life was set so I used to drive every single day to Manita tech park which is almost one hour if you if you go by bike so I used to have a bike back then R15 which I had loaned and I used to drive every single day and then I'll come back spend time with my wife and life was good Saturday Sundays was party and Bangalore is known for its party culture and
00:16:30
Speaker
I got into trouble.
00:16:59
Speaker
Uh, the manager was rude. He would always, you know, micromanage. He was always, he'll always, uh, you know, ask me why am I five minutes late? What is happening? It seems like sometimes he was just pinpointing. He didn't like the fact that I was working out and I was fit. And he will always bring that up. So I just didn't like that. And it was getting too much. So I said,
00:17:29
Speaker
just let it go, I'll apply to Pune and because I always wanted to come back to Pune, it's just that I
The Birth of Fitter's Community
00:17:36
Speaker
could never. So I started applying to Pune and I got a good job in Teato. It's a software company in Karate and I got good package. Everything was perfect, shifted here, got a new
00:17:53
Speaker
rented a flag to BHK and Karate and the gym was almost like walking distance. The company was walking distance and around the same time my wife got pregnant and life was again good. The only problem was that my manager and IBM also had applied for a job in the same company at the same time.
00:18:15
Speaker
and he joined Teato one month before me, again in a senior position. So while everything else was perfectly fine, life was getting miserable because of this manager and it went so bad that in six months I had to quit Teato again and I had applied to another company and then I shifted to Emphasis. Emphasis was perfect, everybody was super cool, you know the managers, everybody was like amazing and I think
00:18:45
Speaker
When Rachel was born in 2014 on, you know, 6th of July, I just had this huge sense of responsibility. I said, okay, this is my daughter, and I have to make sure I become the best dad for her. And that day, I think it was like a sort of promise to myself and my wife. I told her that, boss, whatever we are doing today, and whatever the circumstances, I promise you one thing.
00:19:10
Speaker
Every day will be better than yesterday. And that is the promise which I have upheld since those last seven years. And so I started, I quit all my bad habits. I started working out and I started posting some pictures on social media. I think that started in 2013, but I think 2014, in the beginning of 2014, I participated in a competition also in January. I think Body Power exposed there.
00:19:37
Speaker
And that also gave me a lot of exposure on social media. I think a lot of people started following me. People started asking me for suggestions on fitness. And around the same time, yeah, Facebook. From Facebook, some people came on WhatsApp, and I created a small WhatsApp group. And I started training these people for free. So I would have Google Drive. I would ask these guys to fill in their details. And all those things were part of my Google Drive.
00:20:05
Speaker
And when these people started getting results, and some of these people were from the gym where I was working out. So I was working out in Abs Karadi. Sorry, Abs Magar Patna City. And so some of these people from that gym. Now, when they started getting results, I started getting more and more requests from people.
00:20:30
Speaker
you know some people even traveled from different cities and some people were from even you know different countries altogether so i think two or three people were from us and at one point of time i had like 180 190 people who i was training and i used to do it for free i think when things blew out of proportion and i'm not able to give
00:21:18
Speaker
When your daughter was born?
00:21:21
Speaker
No, my daughter was, uh, so this is next year, July. Okay. 15. This is next year. And, uh, around same time, I remember I had a back injury, actually made a backup problem because I have osteoarthritis. So back, Upanisha, Upanisha, my life time, throughout lifetime, but I think June, July was time.
Building Fitter: Website and Training Focus
00:21:45
Speaker
I could not even get up and move on my own. So I was just sad and started writing that booklet and I called it Get Shredded. I think it was the first time that I was a participant in this group, or Facebook group, and I was able to form the Systematic Quantitative Unified Aesthetic Transformation System. So I was able to do a squat exercise, and I was able to do a squat exercise, and I was able to do a squat exercise.
00:22:20
Speaker
I will be solving their problem. Instead of solving the problem, I created a bigger problem. Now more people are reading the books.
00:22:38
Speaker
and they had doubts and they were asking, I realized I was spending almost entire day and just replying back on Facebook.
00:22:54
Speaker
And as a result, what happened was that Facebook group started gaining popularity. And we had some 25,000 people in a matter of a few weeks. So I vividly remember, I don't remember the exact things. But the first seminar, how did the first one come about? Like you thought, or people told you, location category.
00:23:21
Speaker
Yeah, first seminar was in multi-fit. So Samir is a good friend of mine. And I think when I was approaching here, I wanted to conduct a seminar. There were around 300 plus people.
00:23:38
Speaker
So by that time, I had gained quite a good reputation or seminar, so the whole idea of squats actually came much before the seminar. I think when the group had roughly 25,000 people.
00:23:52
Speaker
And I think it's a good idea to join a group like this. They still need help. And I don't want to help so many people. It is not possible for me.
00:24:10
Speaker
What I did was I wrote a booklet for them but they still want to come and train with me. So I said let's discuss the idea and then I came across this idea of what if I educated these people instead of personally training them.
00:24:34
Speaker
So I think we had a great response and I think we had a great response
00:24:50
Speaker
Obviously because I didn't want to take any money from my family. So he designed the first Squads website.
00:25:23
Speaker
And these were all free seminars.
00:25:27
Speaker
free seminars I think yeah these were all free seminars initial seminars were free for the conveyance conveyance on I think collectively I must have done around and these seminars were like on workout techniques like how to work out
00:25:51
Speaker
This was all about quantified nutrition. How can you learn to stay fit all your life? So it was all on quantified nutrition and resistance training, importance of resistance training. So more of theory, but more of, you know, unlearning.
00:26:10
Speaker
carbohydrates. So just dispelling all these myths. All these things in a very scientific manner I used to explain. So I remember that in 2016 January we had a website launch and I had by then educated and trained around 14 coaches. So we were an immediate hit in January
00:26:41
Speaker
So what was the concept of the website? It was that you can come and find a coach and these were all coaches that you had personally approved. That was the concept. Let's get information.
00:26:52
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah that was the concept and information was always for free so I used to write like hundreds of articles back then so
00:27:42
Speaker
So this was like the initial product itself had all these features, rating of coaches,
00:27:49
Speaker
Initial product. Yes. Initial product. Most of these features. Most of the features were there. Only feature was the diet charts. Now, everything is automated. But most time, Excel sheets, Word documents. So, the website uploads, the user downloads the website. So, the website downloads the website.
00:28:15
Speaker
Okay. And you were still with emphasis is time for Jan 2016.
00:28:22
Speaker
January was my emphasis and I worked from home and I had a lot of issues. So my manager was very supportive at that time. So he was like, he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very supportive at that time. So he was very
00:28:46
Speaker
or we got around 139 customers in the first month itself. So Daslak would have gone largely to trainers. Did you also keep a percentage, like a platform fees?
Fitter's Growth and Business Strategy
00:28:59
Speaker
In the initial margin, the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1% and the majority of the margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Daslak's margin was only 1%. So the majority of Dasl
00:29:15
Speaker
But what I was trying to do was website T or Shubhaka monthly maintenance fees and salary. So I wasn't really concerned. So I was really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So I wasn't really concerned. So
00:29:37
Speaker
So, when we started doing monthly profits, my name is Daska Business. I am not a business owner. I think I am a business owner. So, monthly business numbers are coming. Or I think around March, February 2016, I got into a
00:30:01
Speaker
different project manager Taurasa stricta, this guy is doing something outside or work from home. So he started creating some issues. Let me get all into this and we'll see what happens.
00:30:46
Speaker
And you were the sole breadwinner? Yeah, was your wife working?
00:30:50
Speaker
No, no, I was the sole bread owner. If I finally quit cardia and just put cardia for family to be good, sadha, parashanti. All we can do is support. So for, uh, I think April chaos pass, maybe started making 24, 25 lakhs in revenue or for birthday, birthday, birthday. And we used to do pachas, lack of business. And the first itself, I think we did a business of around, uh, nine crores. Okay. Amazing.
00:31:19
Speaker
2016-17, we did a business of 9.4 crores. And again, with healthy profits.
00:32:00
Speaker
So there were always challenges in the business.
00:32:05
Speaker
So, how does a coach do the coaching? Is it like, is there a chat interface in the app or is it video based or what is it like? Yeah, it's a chat. Chat interface is there. The audio and video calling is also coming. It will take another one, one week probably. So we will also have a video and audio based interface. Previously, they used to have WhatsApp calls and videos for chatting they used to use.
00:32:30
Speaker
the app chat. Apart from that, you have tools. So they have a tracker, they have a calendar, they have different kind of tools which allow them to create exercise videos, allows them to create recipes, all those things are there. So the app has
00:32:46
Speaker
Recipes app has transformations app has a section where people can post their queries and people can discuss just like Facebook It's kind of like a social media platform, but we call it a community So it's a community app not a social media platform, right? So it's a community app where you can post recipes articles Everything is there and there are roughly eight to ten tools which can help you create diet and training plans Exercise videos roughly 600 plus exercise videos and we also take live classes. So all those things are there
00:33:13
Speaker
So in a way, you've empowered a trainer with all the tools that he would need to do training effectively. Yes, yes, yes. How do you sign up more trainers? It's like from the community only that people who are interested there. I mean, does one and is there a process like does one need to do some certification or something like how what is the wedding that you do?
00:33:33
Speaker
So interestingly, a lot of our trainers were actually one point of time our clients. So we expect a lot of our clients to become trainers and that's actually very aspirational for them too. A lot of people, I'd say 90-95% of our trainers are actually from federal community. So two ways it works, either the guys who are in the community, they want to become trainers, they will become fit first and they will enroll with an INFS certification.
00:33:59
Speaker
INFS offers different certifications but we have minimum requirement of foundation plus export. The course fee is roughly around 20-25,000 INR and it's around six to seven months and duration. So after the six to seven months you have FTP, you have live interview, you have to write review articles and you have to be active in the community and contribute to the community and you have to be fit. So based on different parameters we select the best of the best guys.
00:34:24
Speaker
And the INFS coaching is like live class, like they have to be physically there or is that online? It's like online. It's like by juice. It's like Udemy. So you have physical books which will be sent to you, but you also have everything online where you can read the chapters. You can submit your quizzes. You can take the exam also. Everything happens live.
00:34:47
Speaker
OK, OK, got it. And so I guess the lockdown would not really have impacted you much in terms of business revenues because most of what you do is already online, right? OK. Have you seen like a spurt, like a growth happening because more people are at home and maybe interested in fitness? I mean, what have you seen like April onwards?
00:35:07
Speaker
Well, April was kind of a low month for us. January was pretty good. We did an upwards of, we did close to four CR. Then February was okay. It's like every, because January is usually a high peak kind of a month because a lot of people go on these fitness resolutions, right? So, and was definitely one of the best months. And then February was on an average. Okay. Then March was very positive in the first half, but second half announced. So wow.
00:35:33
Speaker
last last K das din umehamara business kharabogya so we could not even touch three affected our revenues by at least 15 to 20 percent osuke badmefir april was severely down our business was affected by around 40 percent badmefir may onwards when people realize this lockdown is going to be part of their lives they started coming back so we almost reached you know
00:35:57
Speaker
decent levels of February first we reached in May and then June we almost touched levels of January and this month I think we have surpassed all our previous records we are set to do a business of roughly 5 CR so that has been unprecedented and I think it's also kind of a growth which we were anyways pegged towards had the coronavirus not happened but yeah that's where we are right now.
00:36:22
Speaker
and what's your plan like how do you plan to use the funds that you raised like what will you be spending it on well majority of the fund will be utilized for content generation we are a content platform right because it's a community and a lot of funds will be utilized for growing this community and technology so right now we have around 95 employees we do have some tech requirements and now because we are
00:36:47
Speaker
becoming more of an international kind of a business. We have started getting more and more customers from abroad and we have to focus both on globalization as well as micro markets, so localization at the same time. So we need more and more senior guys who understand business, who understand technology, who understand product. So a lot of hiring will be done in the coming days. So that's where the funds will be utilized. So priority is hiring, tech and community growth. These are the three places.
00:37:15
Speaker
Marketing is still on the back burner. We still haven't figured out why do we need to market when community growth is the main revenue channel for us. So we just focus on community. So for people who are startup founders, do you have some useful hacks on how they can remain fit while running a startup which is very demanding? It's like having a second marriage when you start up. How do you balance that with the need to be fit?
00:37:45
Speaker
the majority of a founder's time is spent on building something right so when you are building something you need your 100% undivided attention on building that and you cannot give your 100% undivided attention if you have some sort of physical ailment if not today
00:38:01
Speaker
tomorrow if not tomorrow someday so that means that your productivity is going to get affected if you don't take care of your health i would say if you are fit you are going to build a much better startup in the long term because you'll be more productive now again there are a lot of variables but i'm saying let's say there are two people with the exact caliber exact same talent but one is fit and the other one is unfit the fit guy will end up doing much better than the unfit guy you know
00:38:28
Speaker
Let's say a fitter version of you will be much better at running a job or running a startup than an unfit version of you. So don't think of fitness as a separate aspect of it. Think about it as you're getting 100% undivided attention, 100% mental focus because you don't have any body issues.
00:38:49
Speaker
Basic sanitization. If you are not taking care of your body, if you're not taking care of your surroundings, if you don't make your bed in the morning, these habits translate. So people must be thinking, I don't have to do my household chores. Boss, I get up at 6. Trust me, me and my daughter and my wife, we all love working. And our house is pristine clean. We work out and we work and fix our daily household chores much before even the world wakes up. And no complaints whatsoever.
00:39:15
Speaker
because what else is there? What other choice do you have? So we have to just understand that there are certain things which are the way they are and they will be the way they will be. For example, your health, if you are messing around with your health today, there is no way that you will get it back despite doing whatever you can in future. So staying fit is really, really important. If you are not physically fit, there is a chance that you are also not mentally as fit as you could be.
00:39:43
Speaker
because I feel physical fitness and mental fitness is like day and night you know you can say day is important night is more important but hey one comes after the other right it's like day and night and everything is you can't do that in isolation for example if it's calories in versus calories out right
00:40:00
Speaker
If you are not controlling your calories, if you are eating too much food, then even the exercise won't help you because you are eating too much. It's like putting, you know, 50 liters fuel in a 40 liter tank. You will definitely have an overflow order, right? And similarly, if you just diet and if you just control your calories, but you're not exercising, you're not building your muscles, right? So one is the energy part of things. The second is how do you build stronger bones, stronger muscles through exercising?
00:40:26
Speaker
But why do you need to build stronger bones and muscles? And, you know, I mean, why is that important? Well, it's important because if you are not building stronger bones and muscles over a period of time, your body starts wasting away stronger bones and muscles. It's simple for body. It's simple, you know, use it or lose it. So if you are not using your muscles, if you are not using your body, the body will start wasting away these parts.
00:40:47
Speaker
And it happens more in people who are on severe calorie deficit because the body will see, okay, this guy is eating less calories anyways. Why does he need all these muscles? Because he's not even working out. So you lose your muscles. And when you lose your muscles, you have all sorts of problems. You have injuries, you have bone issues, you have so many issues. And that's why when people get old, they have a bend, they have a hunch, right? Because they don't have enough muscles to support their height. They don't have enough muscles to support their back straightness.
00:41:16
Speaker
And that's why they have a hunch. That's why they have bone issues. That's why they have knee issues. And everything starts making noises because they don't have muscles. So the entire body's weight falls on the bones. Bones get weaker over a period of time. And people end up in a very miserable condition. What are some of the common myths relating to fitness in India? Like widely held myths that Indians have about fitness that you would like to dispel?
00:41:39
Speaker
look one of the first things is you know people think fitness is sort of a luxury or they have to do something extra to get fit I think it's crap fitness minimum takes 45 minimum to maximum takes 45 minutes a day and just eating mindfully and rightfully you know the things that you have to eat protein is not dangerous protein is one of the most
00:42:00
Speaker
Building blocks of the body basic building block of the body without adequate amount of protein even your mental development cannot happen properly Please don't run away from protein protein is the basic if you're not eating adequate amount of protein rest assured You will leave poor genetics for yourself your kids in the future Your kids will not become tall enough the main reason why you know The average Indian height is so bad compared to some of the countries in the world is because we lack protein
00:42:25
Speaker
the nutritional data on deficiencies which was released by the national this thing right so they had taken a survey and they realized that we are severely deficient in protein and despite feeding so much our childrens are still malnourished despite having adequate food so there is malnutrition obese kids and that's that's kind of counterintuitive because you must be thinking oh my kid is eating so much how can he be malnourished because he is eating junk he's not eating the right food he's not eating enough protein so first don't go away
00:42:55
Speaker
don't run away from protein. Please take protein. Protein comes from different sources. So you don't have to be a non-vegetarian. I'm almost like a vegan. Nowadays, I quit meat, I quit eggs almost six months back and I quit meat almost a year back. And I've been just for ethical reasons. And I was not like a lifelong meat eater. It is something which I had picked up in Bangalore because one of my friend, he force fed me and then that's when it started. Otherwise, we are always
00:43:24
Speaker
We were always vegetarians back then. My entire family is vegetarians. So I quit it last year and I'm still in good shape. I'm getting better. I'm progressing every single day. I box and you know, so you don't have to be a non-vegetarian. You can build good muscles at home also. You don't have to necessarily go to the gym, right? So it's almost 130 days of me working out at home. I work out with my entire family and all of us, we are fit and fine, you know. How about a number of meals in a day?
00:43:52
Speaker
again that's it okay so there's a meta analysis uh which suggested that number of meals does not matter uh what matters is the total caloric intake and it's a simple concept
00:44:14
Speaker
So there is this diet trend called one meal a day.
00:44:27
Speaker
I think the calories that we consume are the problem. I generally prefer 2-3 meals a day and I split my meals. So it is good for people probably who have like super busy schedule, but imagine that 2-3 calories per meal is very very difficult. Does that work?
00:44:56
Speaker
And just to give you a rough estimation, those are calories like char sogram rice uncooked. So that's 2000 calories for you.
00:45:17
Speaker
So, I had Bala, Nader, Rohit, Rohit, Nader, Bala, Nader, Akshay and Upam, the guys who had initially invested 5,000 bucks, right? So, if you look at them, if you look at the majority work, Bala and Nader are there. So,
00:45:39
Speaker
He went into a different business vertical which didn't work later on. But me and Bala stayed in the Malabkur business. All of them are still working with us. They are still coaches. Bala is one of the directors in the company. I'm director.
00:46:07
Speaker
And all other coaches are very, very highly paid, thriving coaches. So first year, first year, second year, business doubled. Third, and now we have completed almost 4.6, 4.7 years now.
Co-founder Challenges and Restructuring
00:46:25
Speaker
And I think the cumulative gross revenue target is going to be complete in March.
00:46:32
Speaker
2020 March was an accumulative gross revenue. We got into Ycom Minute by the way last year. So why did you need to go through the fundraising route? You were saying you had profitability right from year one. So fundraising is a root.
00:46:51
Speaker
I think, see, I, when I started, I had no clue. It was business. In fact, we started looking for investors by the start of 2016 itself. From March 2016, my co-founder back then, then co-founder.
00:47:08
Speaker
He started reaching out to investors. He said, this is trendy. This is cool. And today we are a growing business. Anybody would be willing to invest. We reached out to multiple investors. But some investors asked for 30% equity. Some said, don't do this, do that. And sadly, I could not agree to any of them. My co-founder was very eager, but I could not agree to any of them.
00:47:32
Speaker
And I was also not very keen, but he was very keen on raising funds. In fact, I was never very eager. And throughout, you know, multiple years, I was never very eager. Or Hamesha, it was like we'd start a conversation and never happened. 2019, I think my colleague,
00:48:00
Speaker
Casually applied Kia Tawai Combinator until then I honestly didn't know what Y Combinator was. And it's kind of a shame because it's very famous.
00:48:14
Speaker
I'm not a well-read guy. I'm more of an observe and reflect kind of a guy. So I will go to the very, very extreme depth of that thing. That is what I do. Instead of collecting, assimilating knowledge,
00:48:41
Speaker
I know about one thing and I go in depth about that one thing. So why combinator selection? It's very famous and you know not everybody gets a chance. So prepare and fill in the video interview.
00:49:02
Speaker
We have selected the final round in Bangalore. And last 2018, we had rejected an acquisition duel and we had also rejected a very big investment offer. There were times when we had a lot of money. We had a lot of fitness companies in the market. We had a lot of possibilities in the market. We had a lot of success by that time.
00:49:30
Speaker
Kult, I think Kult had come in 2017-18 and they were making a lot of noise back then. So acquisition offers me, I have never gained a difference of philosophy, right? In fact, the acquisition offer was from Kult actually, which I had rejected. Over many meetings, I met Mukesh Bansal.
00:49:54
Speaker
Right, and I remember him telling me, it's better to be a part of a big, like better to have a one percent stake in a billion dollar company than having like a hundred percent stake in a one million dollar company, something like that.
00:50:17
Speaker
So they gave us acquisition of a bit of a lucrative lagani. And we thought it would be a bit of a philosophical thing to do. But the lagani is a bit of a noise bath already. The business model is fundamentally flawed. What was your analysis? Yeah, see a lot of people back then work here. All these things, they happen. First of all, they are known as gymskull.
00:50:47
Speaker
operational cost is very low, it's a very low-barrier business. And then how do you differentiate? When you say calories, calories, you know, salad versus pasta. So approach India.
00:51:17
Speaker
First, we have to address the culture. There was a cultural problem with the whole thing that they were doing. It was very aspirational. I have huge respect for these guys.
00:51:41
Speaker
But I think that business model is more of a guzzler. They will keep on raising funds and valuations. And I didn't want to be, you know, doing a meaningless business. I'm happy. Or at any age, you are not big enough.
00:52:07
Speaker
Right? Back then. So all those things were weighing very heavily on me. So I started taking investment and all these things very seriously.
00:52:28
Speaker
We were all very excited. In Bangalore, I spoke to Tracy, who was the partner at YC, and she interviewed her. I think by that time we were already doing a 3CR a month business. So, business model, by then we had around
00:52:50
Speaker
and we had almost 85, 90,000 guys pass me somewhere around the same line we had customers. So they selected us. You had Sonal as a co-founder with you by this time. Yes, Sonal was co-founder. Sonal I met in October 2016 and since then she had become a co-founder.
00:53:12
Speaker
So what was the understanding? Why did she join? What was it from her side and what was it from your side?
00:53:20
Speaker
So initially, when we started, it was just me and Bala. We were the directors. Another was also one of the directors, but later he moved to Wolfpack, which was our apparel brand, right? Oostime, we had two more co-founders. I don't want to take their names because they left. So, and Oostime pay, when they were co-founders, I was training Sonal for a beauty page. And she had reached out to me via some friend's friends connection. And she was taking part in a beauty page. And she asked me, JC, if I can train her.
00:53:48
Speaker
So, I started training her and she got results and we used to only chat on WhatsApp and she used to send me her updates and I used to tell her workouts and diet for her. That was very formal. In 2016, October, we did an event called Connect. Connect, we were looking for speakers and she had just won this pageant and she had also been associated with different NGOs and Rohit had joined the team.
00:54:15
Speaker
He was not a director until this point. So it was me and Bala who were directors and my two other co-founders, they were directors, right? And Jyoti was also there. I'll tell you a story about Jyoti. Jyoti was also a co-founder, but she was not a director.
00:54:30
Speaker
Squats. She was a director in INFS, Squats Academy back then. So we invited her as a guest speaker in 2016 for that Connect event. And when she came, you know, all the team, when we took all the speakers out for dining and we were discussing, it was these two co-founders that are sitting.
00:54:52
Speaker
They are plotting and planning something and they are trying to break off with the company. And this is something which I had a hunch, but one of my guys was handling the entire corporate side of things. And seeing that Sonal had extensive corporate experience, I told her that, hey, what are you doing? And she told me that she was working in London.
00:55:14
Speaker
and, you know, with Deloitte and how she's from, you know, LSE and she's not currently doing anything. She is pursuing options. So I said, would you be open to working with Fitter? So first she was like, because nobody knew about Fitter back then. And she, she comes from, you know, like a different reputed firms and obviously a LSE grad, or here I was like a graduate from technocrats, starting a small company.
00:55:40
Speaker
But I anyways pushed the idea and somehow she felt like it would be a nice thing to do. And so we had an equity deal and then she got into the company as a co-founder and handled corporate. Now throughout the whole transition phase when these co-founders left, she was very instrumental. So she took over everything in a very nice and consistent manner without me getting
00:56:05
Speaker
you know mentally affected and at the same point of time Rohit also became a co-founder because when these guys left they not only took our website they took three of our best coaches they took the coaches they took the website which was under development and I was left with literally zero so when they were there there was a tech team now there was no tech team no corporate no accounting nothing and transactions are still happening clients are already enrolling I know nothing about
00:56:35
Speaker
I have no idea. My co-founder was the one who used to maintain accounting and all those things. I had no clue whatsoever. And we remember me and Rohit, we used to sit at night and handle everything. And these guys did it so abruptly that, you know, none of us got a chance to reflect on what is happening. So, why did they leave? It can't just be that you can't pass away if you're in a growing business to pass away.
00:57:02
Speaker
Right. I think first was a principal disagreement. I think they didn't like my approach or my way of doing things. Like whenever they tried to push their agenda, I would just shut them down, telling them to focus on the main business, which was, you know, making people fit. I think one was that also, I think there was a huge fight. Do you regret that you were not open to their ideas?
00:57:25
Speaker
No, no, I'm glad I stuck to my principles. Had I listened to them, we'd be done and dusted back then, which is something what happened with their companies later on. So I could very well be done and dusted in the future. But at this point of time, if you ask me if I regret, no, I don't
Y Combinator Experience and Community Focus
00:57:41
Speaker
regret. I think the major fight broke out when there was a party in Kalyaninagar.
00:57:47
Speaker
And of course I'm not a party guy and I'm a very strict and disciplined guy, right? So I don't like doing all this stuff like where people go and drink and party and smoke and all those things. I did have smoking habits, but I left them, right? So this party was there and some of our coaches went. I think this was after Connect. And later on I came to know that this party was extremely radical and the coaches were complaining about each other and they were bitching about each other.
00:58:13
Speaker
somebody brought in weed and all those kind of things. I think that incident you know resulted in me being really really angry at these two co-founders and I said you guys you realize that we are a fitness company we can't let all these kind of things happen.
00:58:29
Speaker
And they did it very casually. I think after that, the relationships went sore and over a period of time, it just went from back to worse. And then I told them that, guys, I don't think it's working out between us. They left. I cried. And then Rohit was there. Bala was there.
00:58:47
Speaker
and was there joe was on borderline because she was not sure what was happening but finally she was convinced that whatever i did was the right thing to do and then all of us five of us we've been we are very close now and we have been very very close for the last four and a half years since that incident and i think
00:59:04
Speaker
After that we never looked look back and that was the incident that that also reaffirmed that you know This is what this company will grow into. This is who we are. This is what we will do This is what we will not do and I think that also set the culture that was what happens This company will always stand for health and fitness and we'll never ever ever negotiate with Anything that goes against you know our basic fundamentals
00:59:28
Speaker
So coming back to YC, so then you went for the final round of interview and I assume you cleared that also. Yeah, cleared that and we got selected to YC and the news broke out and after that we were getting
00:59:45
Speaker
a lot of investor interests. I think we were getting almost three to four investor emails every week. Some emails from the same investors who refused to talk to us or some who were stalling communication for several weeks. The same investors now suddenly started chasing us and that's when I realized how powerful YC is. I went to US and I think around the same time we had also applied to Sequoia Search
01:00:12
Speaker
So we didn't apply, the search team approached us and then we, you know, Sonal was handling all these things because finance is really her domain and I suck at finance. So she worked with the Sequoia search team and I still went ahead to YC
01:00:28
Speaker
while all the search thing was happening in the backend. When the first week was good, after that everything just, the hype just died for me. It just didn't work out for me. And after three to four weeks, I realized that that was not what I went there for. So I quit Y Combinator, I came back. What is the Y Combinator value proposition to a... Well, one of course you've told us is PR. What is the core value proposition?
01:00:56
Speaker
So it gives you $100,000 no strings attached in a form of a safe and the safe only materializes if you raise subsequent investment. Right. So it's a it's a good program and we were amongst the 200
01:01:12
Speaker
best startups in the world for their 2021, 2020 winter batch. So it was a pretty big deal. And Y Combinator is very, very famous. Like some of the best startups in the world have come out of Y Combinator. So Stripe, Airbnb. These were startups which came out of Y Combinator. And we know how big these are. Why didn't you like it?
01:01:33
Speaker
Yeah, I personally feel that over a period of time, their focus had changed and all they wanted us to do was just raise funds because honestly, there was a huge conflict of interest in the way it was operating. See, they select a lot of startups and they invest $100,000.
01:01:50
Speaker
which means that they are investing $100,000 per startup. Now, if the startup ends up raising more funds, let's say $1 million, $2 million, the value of their $100,000 suddenly starts getting bigger. So for them, it was really, really important that the maximum number of startups end up raising funds. So their approach was very cookie cutter. Get so many startups, give them $100,000 and train them how to raise funds. If they raise funds, our money multiplies.
01:02:19
Speaker
I didn't go there to raise funds, right? I went there so I can learn more about business and entrepreneurship, and I'd been attending a lot of bootcamps from MIT.
01:02:28
Speaker
I went to Tokyo, I went to Boston, and I just thought that this Y Combinator thing would be similar such experience. Well, you'll learn a lot of things about entrepreneurship, but it was all about fundraise. And the fact that the guys were asking us to pivot and focus on non-community aspect, it just didn't rhyme with me well. And so after a while, I said, boss, fuck it.
01:02:55
Speaker
What was their suggested pivot? What were they asking you to do? First of all, we don't understand your business model. Now, Tracy somehow was not the part of the program there. I just don't know how. Maybe she was sick or she was on some sort of a leave. So the other mentors who were there, they just didn't understand the value prop and they didn't understand why I was focusing so much on community.
01:03:20
Speaker
And every time they would ask, I say, it's a community platform. It's a community platform. They seem to like getting agitated. They said, you are making people fit. Why the community? Where are you going with this social media thing? And I think that's where the frustration came in. I'm like, OK, no matter what I do, these guys will never understand what I'm trying to do.
01:03:42
Speaker
And, you know, maybe Tracy did, but she's not here. So finally, I think in the third or fourth week, I wrote a mail to Michael Siebel. I told the YC team, that was, there's a lot of philosophical difference. This is not what I came here for. And so I would like to withdraw my name from YC.
01:03:58
Speaker
So we drew from there, came here. By that time, Serge started their due diligence. And due diligence is an extremely, extremely thorough and complex process. It has so many processes. So me and Zonal, we had both our fingers crossed, hoping that we will get cleared in due diligence. And we got cleared in due diligence. And there were no red flags. The companies, basically, in due diligence, they check if there is any kind of monetary issues.
01:04:26
Speaker
or any kind of legal, luckily there were no such issues. What do they look at in the due diligence that basically they see that financially everything is clean.
01:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, financially, legally, the company is clean. There are no cases. There are no, you know, issues, because it's a very, very premium program. And it's a program by Sequoia, which is one of the largest VC firms in the world. And it's so big that almost 75% of NASDAQ is literally owned by Sequoia. So Sequoia invested in Google, Sequoia invested in Apple.
01:04:58
Speaker
In fact, Sequoia is one of the investors in my community too. So Sequoia is a program for growing startups. They don't give you seed funding. They probably give you more like a growth seed fund because the check size is typically between $1.5 to $2 million compared to YC, which gives you $100,000. So deal wise, definitely it was better. Apart from that, I think
01:05:25
Speaker
The thing that changed my perspective about Serge was talking to one of the guys, his name is Rajan. Now Rajan is the one who leads Serge in India.
01:05:39
Speaker
And he is ex-Google. And what an amazing guy. He told me that J.C. communities are extremely important and communities are actually kind of a solid business mode. And more we spoke to him, more we realized, look, this is the guy who understands exactly what we are trying to do.
01:05:57
Speaker
And he was extremely supported. So that changed everything for us. And that's when we decided, it was a good thing we left Y Combinator. Now let's just cross our fingers and see if we can get through the due diligence. They went through the due diligence. They wired us the money. And this is where we are right now. So what is the need for funds? I mean, your business is profitable, right?
01:06:22
Speaker
So I'll tell you what is the need for fun. See, what happens is we work on the concept of a TAM, which is the size of the market. Now, generally, businesses, when the TAM is huge, both matters, like quality matters and scale matters. Because let's say if your TAM is, let's say, 2 billion users, which is kind of the case here because 2 billion people on the planet are suffering from lifestyle diseases.
01:06:48
Speaker
they contribute to let's say one or two trillion dollars worth of business via wellness and fitness services. Fitness obviously is the smaller one but wellness services. So you see the time is pretty huge which means that if a business is trying to solve the problem and if they grow at the current pace that they are growing they will never be able to solve those problems in time effective manner.
01:07:11
Speaker
getting my point for example if i want to reach out to 50 million people and make them fit i cannot do that if i'm just making 100 000 people fit every year that would take me a longer time so what any company needs is scale because the time is big if the time is small then you don't have to scale right for example let's say take a company like by juice why is byju growing so fast because the time is big
01:07:34
Speaker
because there are millions of students who immediately need coaching services. Now if Baidu was a small business and Baidu was only limited to one or two cities, those one or two million students wouldn't be able to access what Baidu is providing. So it's important that if you are doing, if you are solving a problem, you solve that problem for a lot of users in a fast manner because otherwise it's a disservice to those users too.
01:07:57
Speaker
For example, today we say Apple is a great company or Google is a great company. Now imagine if Google didn't scale as fast as it did, we wouldn't have Google today. So it was extremely important for Google to take that Google search from US to literally every part of the world. So scale matters. You have to scale when the time is big. So in our business also, the time is pretty big. So today, let's say this year, we end up transforming 100,000 people.
01:08:23
Speaker
but 100,000 people are not going to become 50 million people if it's just 200,000 year after year after year. So it is also kind of our fiduciary responsibility to the stakeholders, to the people who are suffering from these diseases to reach out to them as soon as possible.
01:08:39
Speaker
And to do that, sometimes you have to use funds, be it in terms of developing that tech, be it in terms of hiring more people, be it in terms of sometimes marketing, which we haven't done so far, or be it in terms of just going out, establishing distribution channels. For example, monthly
01:09:00
Speaker
we spend around 20 lakh rupees on just our AWS hosting because the clients want a seamless service. And just to confirm, we haven't used a single dime out of Sequoia's money as of yet. So as of yet, we are still using money and we still have roughly half a million dollars of our own hard earned profit liquid in the bank. So before we even touch Sequoia's money, we still have our own fund which we haven't used. The point is that if you have enough money in the bank, you feel safe and we haven't
01:09:27
Speaker
hired anybody despite the pandemic, we didn't do any, we didn't take any drastic measures. Everything was very smooth. And even now everything is very smooth because there's money in the bank, right? So you feel safe. And when you are safe, you are able to take more rational decisions. So that was the whole logic behind why people raise funds and some of these companies end up raising funds. It's a direct
01:09:50
Speaker
relationship with that time if the time is big you have to scale otherwise you will never be able to fix the problem and if you are not fixing the problem a quack might enter the market and he will try to make the problem even worse so how are you fixing the problem can you take me through is it like a coaching through messages or is it like a video based lessons or what is it like
01:10:15
Speaker
Our business is a very secondary aspect of everything.
Fitness as a Habit and Societal Shift
01:10:19
Speaker
Our primary business is community. We believe that fitness is an essential habit. The fact that people think taking brush, taking shower, brushing your teeth should be habit but exercising and eating right
01:10:31
Speaker
It's sort of a sacrifice or a difficult choice or a tough choice. I think it's nonsense. Eating right and exercising should be habit. Now, why is that not there? Because of the mental conditioning that we grew up with. It's partially a problem with the society and partially of the leaders, partially of the environment we grew up in, partially on the movies. So there are so many responsible factors for this whole differential approach that people take when they look at fitness.
01:10:58
Speaker
Again, that has become sort of a very different kind of a business. So now you have one side where people are not motivated to go to the gym, not thinking of fitness as a habit. And then other side, you have businesses which are like, oh, fitness is a journey, fitness is
01:11:15
Speaker
fitness is life, fitness is this, blah, blah, blah, all that. And it has become a very big business, right? So fitness today is a very, very big business. What we are trying to do is we are trying to fix that problem by telling people that boss, you don't need motivation for fitness. Fitness is a habit. You know, honestly, in my view, people should not even talk about fitness.
01:11:34
Speaker
We don't talk about shower or we don't talk about brushing our teeth every day, right? And if you think about it, what are these? When you brush your teeth, you're just cleaning your teeth, right? You're taking care of your teeth. When you take a shower, you're taking care of your skin. When you're eating right, exercising, you're taking care of your body inside out. What's the difference, right? But people have taken these things to extreme measures. They have taken fitness to extreme measures. We want to bring that sense back into people that was fitness is nothing. It is not a journey.
01:12:03
Speaker
It is not your life. It's a start. It's basic hygiene. If you are physically fit, you get more time to become more mentally fit and you can do much more with your life. As simple as this. That's it. So we are more of habit coaches. We inculcate nice habits, good habits in people.
01:12:23
Speaker
I mean, tell me with a little bit. So you've given me a top level view that you want to build fitness as a habit. But tell me in a little bit more detail, like how you go about doing this, like what are the steps that you take or what are the features of the product that make it possible?
01:12:39
Speaker
right so the biggest thing is community look we are social animals right so for us we seek reason in everything that we do if five people are doing something the sixth guy will come and try to understand why these five people are doing what they're doing and if it is fun whether there's logic or not he will start doing the same and there have been multiple social experiments
01:12:58
Speaker
which prove that automatically people have this habit of following the herd. So for example, if five people are doing some sort of a stupid thing like excessive eating, the other person will start doing that. When did it become all about food? When you think about it, when did it all became about food? Were we a society which promoted food? When did it happen? It was vested interest.
01:13:25
Speaker
You know, it was vested interest from different people who were either selling food or who just realized that, you know, people love food. And, you know, sometimes people when they eat food, they will have the habit of buying and eating more and more food. So they just they just started putting this idea in the minds of people that everything is about food. So today we go to weddings. People talk over food.
01:13:44
Speaker
It's all about cakes and food. Parties, all about drinks and food, right? So they address the social aspect. They said food equals to social connect. Food, friend, society. This is how the circle has become. We are trying to change that by saying friend, fitness.
01:13:59
Speaker
and society. So first thing is community in this community of let's say six lakh people right now we have roughly in one of the largest groups and then collectively we have over eight hundred fifty thousand people eight hundred seventy thousand people collectively so on the app and Facebook group so then these eight hundred seventy thousand people let's say fifty percent of them are engaging in fitness or fitness related activities or fitness related arguments or subjects or topics
01:14:25
Speaker
What happens to the rest of the people who come in or join in? They don't feel left out. They find it easy for them to start talking and discussing about fitness. It's like going for your IIT entrance preparation, whether everyone in Kota has that. So you created an online like Kota, but for fitness.
01:14:43
Speaker
Yes, right. So that's the first step. So you first you will get the mental conditioning that okay, it's okay to talk about fitness. It's okay to not talk about food for once in their life and people are not going to judge them. And we don't care whether you're fit, unfit, whatever stage you are in your life, as long as you're willing to take a.
01:15:01
Speaker
take a start as long as you are willing to start and as long as you are trying to become a better version of yourself. It's a very uplifted, progressive kind of a community, right? So we don't put anybody down. And once you join the community, the second step is, okay, now there are so many fit people, how do I become fit? So once that desire to become fit comes in, then we supply with them with the knowledge. So there's enough knowledge in the group on the app. Everything is for free. So people read through these things and try to do it on their own. A lot of people end up getting fit on their own. We don't even ask them or, you know,
01:15:30
Speaker
ask them to go with a coach or anything. We don't have a marketing approach. We say try to do it by yourself first, because if we don't get a customer, we might get a good coach, right? So these people try to do it on their own. And then later on, there are always some people, let's say 10% of the people who can't do it on their own, they end up enrolling with our coaches. So as the community grows, the more number of fit people grow and so the number of people who enroll with our coaches grows. And that's how the revenue grows. So revenue is a direct function of the community grows.
01:15:56
Speaker
So the only source of revenue for it is when someone signs up for a quote. There's no other. You're not looking at advertising on the app. Like you could advertise nutrition supplements and immigrants. Why is that?
01:16:09
Speaker
Because that's not a priority. That's not a priority. Our priority is growing the community, changing the culture. See, I think we are very well positioned to become the only company in the world which can solve this problem effectively once and for all by changing the culture, this whole culture. And I think it somehow is the problem is very personal to me. You know, it's a very personal problem. And so at this point of time, for me, it's not the money that fascinates me. It's the fact that I'm able to change or mobilize an entire generation into
01:16:36
Speaker
thinking contrary to what they have been thinking all along. That's a very powerful thing. That's a personal goal for me. So I want to be a changemaker. I want my coaches to become changemakers. Because let's be honest, who remembers anybody who has lots of money? People remember changemakers. And if we are doing some sort of positive change, if we are bringing a positive change in the society, I would love to be remembered as positive changemaker. I would not love to be remembered as a guy who made tons of money.
01:17:04
Speaker
And that's why we stay away from any sort of product, any sort of supplements, any sort of marketing. We don't do any kind of marketing because it works for us. The non-marketing approach sort of is kind of marketing for us. It's kind of marketing when we don't market. When you tell 50 people or 100 people, when everybody's saying, hey, Fitter does not market, aren't they indirectly marketing us?
01:17:24
Speaker
So, it works for us. The contrarian approach, it works for us. It suits our business. And we are very, very high on ethics kind of a business. So, let's say people come to us even after one year, say JC in 2016 or 2017, I enrolled with you. I lost five kgs instead of 10. We will not
01:17:39
Speaker
argue with them. We'll say, okay, what do you want? Do you want a refund? Or do you want a different coach? And they have this choice, even after one year, even after two years. So the most customer centric business, the most employee centric business and the most social centric business, that's what I intend. And that's what we have been trying to build for the last four and a half years. Now, of course, every time we achieve a milestone, the belief, you know, it further depends and it strengthens our resolve even further.
01:18:08
Speaker
So that was an informative conversation between Akshay and Jitendra. And I'm sure that there's a lot that you would be taking away. However, the most important and even the most imperative task for you is to have the Fitter app in your cell phones. And if you don't, then what are you waiting for? Head to the app store now and download the application. And don't forget to thank JC for all the discounts and deals.
01:18:32
Speaker
If you like the Foundry Thesis Smartcast then do check out our other shows on subjects like Marketing, Technology, Career Advice, Books and Drama. Visit the podium.in for a complete list of all our shows. This was an HD Smartcast Original.
01:19:04
Speaker
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