Driven by the strong focus on fitness post the pandemic, online fitness start-up Fittr said it was aiming to double revenue to ₹200 crore in the current fiscal and expand operations by onboarding 1,000 additional coaches.
“We are going steady. We have a target for 100% revenue jump this year as well, and for that we need the support of coaches who will drive the other end of the growth and make sure that customers are being serviced well,” said Jyoti Dabas, co-founder of Fittr, & CEO – INFS (Institute of Nutrition and Fitness Sciences).
The company closed FY22 with a revenue of ₹100 crore.
Ms. Dabas said since the pandemic, people had realised that they needed to give priority to fitness, which could be done online. Consequently, Fittr’s business had grown.
Pointing out that the number of people going out for walks and those looking for healthier options had increased, she added that during the pandemic, as many as 71,000 new fitness and health apps were launched globally.
“We started the online personal training vertical during this time, and now it is doing phenomenally well. It has grown 100% over the last one year,” Ms. Dabas said. “Right now, we have 650+ INFS certified coaches including fitness and nutrition coaches and personal trainers. We continue to hire more people; we plan to hire 1,000 more coaches over the next 12-18 months,” she added.
Fittr supports the coaches on its platforms for the first three months, wherein it guarantees them a minimum pay. The revenue model after three months is commission-based. Interestingly, most of the Fittr coaches come from within the community. More than 30% of the coaches had previously been Fittr’s clients.
The company recently tied up with fitness wearable brand Garmin. “Fittr is working towards collaborating with like-minded brands to offer holistic wellness solutions to the masses,” Ms. Dabas said. “One such collaboration is with Garmin which caters to the users who are looking at leading a healthy life by mapping their progress on a day-to-day basis,” she added.
Fittr is also planning to do a small product launch this year for its user base, where it will offer a starter kit, some apparel, weighing scale, and sipper bottle to users. “The main goal is that when someone is starting their fitness journey, they don’t have to spend a week or 2 weeks trying to buy all these products so that they can begin their fitness journey. We are not looking at it as a major revenue stream,” she added.
For Fittr, about 35% of its user base is situated outside of India with a strong following in markets like the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., and West Asia. Gender wise, it's an almost a 50-50 split, and in terms of age group, between 25 and 40 years is where it sees most of the transactions happening.
