With all those hours spent in front of the office laptop, grabbing your favorite fast foods and snacks, it’s now a must-have to stay fit for a healthy and happy life. Staying fit requires a lot of hard work and most importantly a lot of motivations which we all lack.
To bridge this gap of motivation and fitness, Shubham Goyal and Pankaj Singh Bora started Fitard, a fitness startup, which motivates its users to adopt a fit, active and healthier lifestyle by engaging them in competition and giving rewards. It also provides a social platform for brands to market their product and services.
Fitard’s CEO, Shubham says ”Lack of motivation to continue fitness routines pulled us into this idea.”
Shubham, an IIT Roorkee Alumni, left his job as an executive in BHEL, moved to Mumbai and joined MovinCart as a Lead Android Developer. He then met Pankaj, who founded TrustyDeal and worked as a Senior Developer at TinyOwl. Both being in the same community used to discuss various problems of the masses. They noticed that majority of the people want to remain fit, but they are not enough motivated to continue their fitness routine which led to the inception of the idea.
Both started digging the motivational angle of Fitness. They started doing morning surveys with people around Mumbai to figure out the main parameters that could motivate users to continue their fitness routines.
And it turned out that competition and rewards are the best perks to engage and motivate people. Hence, the founders came together and started Fitard. Prashant Chourasia joined them subsequently who now Heads the Business.
How does Fitard work?
Tracking – The App tracks user’s steps automatically. Users earn points (Fitcoins) based on the number of steps
Redeem Rewards – Users can redeem these fitcoins for different types of Exclusive Rewards by 25+ Reward Partners across different verticals. Rewards can be freebies or massive discounts on various products and services.
Public Challenges – Users can participate in Public Challenges for examples marathons, and if they come up as winners, they get rewarded.
Private Challenges – Users can create fitness challenges with their friends/ colleagues/ family, and watch their progress while cheering and motivating each other thus encouraging a healthy lifestyle.
Buzz – A section dedicated to content related to health, fitness and wellness.
The company charges its reward partners for marketing, brand building, and customer acquisition.
The Fitard Android App went live in Mumbai in Jan’16, and received overwhelming support from the users and partners. In March, they launched in Bangalore, Gurgaon and Pune.
Currently bootstrapped, this startup has 500+ Daily Active Users with 3000+ downloads and 25+ reward partners at present, across 4 cities- Mumbai, Bangalore Gurgaon and Pune.
The reward partners include FreshMenu, Truweight, HealthyWorld.in, True Elements, Fiticket, HolaChef, Azani, Dance With Madhuri, Zimmber, Yumist, PharmEasy, LiveYourSport.com, Flyrobe, GetLook, MyGlam, Lean Body Meals, Mink, Pep Salons, etc.
There is no major direct competitor in India in the fitness rewarding space. There are companies like Earthmiles and Running Heroes in Europe working on fitness rewarding.
About motivating people for fitness, CTO – Pankaj says “We have studied Indian market in a better manner. In last six months, we have analyzed the user data which tells that there is a major difference in Indian audience. Fitness motivation in India is something that people have started paying attention now. A majority of the people are not motivated to go for a fitness routine. They need external influencers to push them, whether it’s rewarding or competition.”
“There are tons of apps for tracking your fitness, lot of startups working on aggregating gyms, classes, etc. But the problem of motivation for the users to run or to continue their fitness routine still lies,” he adds.
According to reports, the Indian Health and Fitness Industry combined together forms a huge market i.e around Rs. 1 Trillion as of 2015 and is growing at more than 15-17%.
With India having around 200 million smartphone users, Fitard plans to target the critical masses with its easy to use mobile platform. The startup also has plans of entering the corporate wellness segment to help corporates run successful wellness programs.
About future plans, Shubham says “We want to increase our user base and provide users with more channels to spend the points (fitcoins) earned on the platform and in the process build a strong product to handle large traffic. We also plan to enter the corporate wellness segment to help corporates run successful wellness programs with ease.”
Fitard also plans to raise funds in the near future. The founders say that the raised funds will be utilized to expand the product reach and build a large community of users with more reward partners.
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