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1. Executive Summary
Social Fitness Marketplace
Gymnut is the “iTunes of fitness” 1 and recently was featured twice on Techvibes as well was
called one of the four Canadian startups shaping the future of fitness.2
Gymnut is a web and mobile social fitness marketplace that connects personal trainers,
athletes, fitness models, and coaches with fitness enthusiasts, gym-goers and people just
looking for that extra bit of motivation, allowing them to engage with training programs such
as workout and diet plans that they can purchase.
With Gymnut, personal trainers can now streamline and expand their revenues with the
following models through their profile:
1) Selling workouts, nutrition and training plans through micro-transactions, which are also
published in an online store, much like music is sold on iTunes
2) Offering custom or personalized plans
3) Monthly online training subscriptions
4) Endorsing and selling physical products and brands
The platform is free to use, with Gymnut cutting a 15% service fee for all transactions.
Product-Market Fit
In recent years, there has been a significant rise in influential and celebrity-like trainers and
fitness models throughout social media, owing to how mainstream fitness has become. The
tech-savvy and early adopters of this trend have experienced tremendous success building
and monetizing their brand, while building a loyal following of fans and organic leads.
These trainers must convert their followings to sales by directing them to blogs, Skype, e-
mail, personal e-commerce websites, email money transfer, and other tools to offer their
online training products and services.
With Gymnut, trainers can take advantage of a social fitness marketplace, allowing them to
build a fitness focused following, which they then can provide accountability, progress
tracking, workouts, nutrition, and training plans; all from a branded profile that is ready within
minutes. To penetrate the market, we are creating a strong network of trainers and partners
as brand ambassadors and influencers of themselves and Gymnut.
1 http://www.techvibes.com/blog/gymnut-2015-03-18 2 http://www.techvibes.com/blog/future-of-fitness-2015-04-22
Traction: Over 200 trainers, 500 users soon after launch
In four months of a closed beta, we have brought on over 200 top trainers, coaches, and
athletes from around the world. These trainers have combined social followings of over a
million people already. In less than three weeks of launching the marketplace with our
mobile app we have already signed up 500 users with 5-10% weekly growth. The Gymnut
social feed, which works like Instagram, has already seen significant traffic—about 7,000
social posts so far, or an average of about 50 posts a day.
Initial market strategy
Our go-to-market strategy is focused on developing a strong network of trainers and affiliate
partners all over the world that endorse their brand and Gymnut to their current followings.
Online content marketing, SEO, PR campaigns, growth hack strategies, and leveraging
social media from within and outside of the app are the key drivers of growth.
Team
Gymnut's co-founders are Cyrus Nambakhsh and Hassaan Ahmed, two PhDs and
entrepreneurs in health and engineering sciences. They have a combined 16 years of
engineering and development experience in health care, app development, online marketing
and growth hack strategies. Our chief advisor is John Pollock, the managing director of the
Southwestern Ontario Angel Group (SWOAG).
Seed Fundraising
We are looking to raise seed funding of $700k for 12 months of our operations including
development, testing, marketing, building our brand and partnerships, hire the required staff
to achieve growth, and other operational expenses.
Cyrus Nambakhsh
Co-Founder/CEO
226-224-4425
2. Company Profile
Management
The Gymnut team consists of two founders, four marketers and personal trainers, and three
software developers.
1. Cyrus Nambakhsh (CEO, co-founder): Holds a PhD in engineering from Western
University. Prior to Gymnut, he has worked with GE Healthcare on the development
of cutting-edge medical software/hardware projects. He has several years of
experience in software development, specially developing online marketplaces,
management of development and marketing teams, SEO, analytics and PR
campaigns. He also holds a certificate in entrepreneurship from the Richard Ivey
School of Business at Western University. His main role is to lead the company and
in a particular the development team, oversee the growth and bridge the marketing
and development team, oversee the human resources and all marketing campaigns,
and raise funds.
2. Hassaan Ahmed (CMO, co-founder): A PhD in medical biophysics from Western
University. He has won several international awards for innovative research aimed at
translating novel technologies into the clinic. He also holds a certificate in
entrepreneurship from the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University.
He has a passion for innovation, social progress and entrepreneurship, and viral
marketing. His main role includes leading and overseeing growth, managing strategy
and execution for trainer development, inbound marketing, product-market fit, and
conversion optimization.
3. Fazil Loladia (Architect and back-end developer): He is a co-founder of Differenz
system ltd and has been working in the software development industry for over 11
years. He has developed web applications in manufacturing, real estate and many
more apps in past. He has also worked with iGATE (formerly known as Patni
computers) as the project lead.
4. Hasmukh Sumra (Front-end and dashboard developer) & Durvit Modi (Native app
developer): Together they have +10 years of experience in .NET, native and web app
development.
5. Kelly Gallacher (Head of Trainer Development): A top performing personal trainer
at GoodLife at one of the top 5 clubs within the company. He is known for being the
leader in face-to-face sales with over $200K in revenue. He has over 8 years of
experience in the fitness industry and has worked with hundreds of clients designing
personalized workouts and diet plans as well onboarding new trainers. His main role
is educating and onboarding the industry’s most influential, top performing trainers,
athletes, coaches, and fitness models across the world to create the core of our
trainer community.
6. Jakob Burke (Head of Social Media): Responsible for social media engagement,
posting and sharing content, developing, implementing, and tracking ROI based on
our social media strategies. He has previously consulted several companies on their
social media strategies.
7. Josh Armstrong (Programs Development): Honours kinesiology graduate
(McMaster University) and Bachelor of Education (fitness and health) graduate
(Western). He has been training and creating programs for hundreds of clients over
the last 10+ years. He is developing the back-end programs for Gymnut along with
helping to build relationships with higher profile athletes/potential investors. He is
also the marketing director of another tech company called “Sircle” based in London,
Ontario.
8. Chelsey Moore: One of our personal training advisors who is responsible for
developing relationships with trainers and keeping them engaged and active.
9. John John Pollock (Chief Advisor): Managing director of the Southwestern Ontario
Angel Group (SWOAG), and one of our directors.
Corporate structure and history
Gymnut is based in London, Ontario and was incorporated federally in Canada on June 23,
2014. The partners and team members have bootstrapped for the past 24 months to
research and develop a product that can penetrate the market with least friction. We have
extensively worked in close proximity with our in-house and off-shore trainers, and one of
the largest fitness corporations in Canada (Goodlife) to pivot twice ending up with our
current product and business model, which best meets the needs of our target market. To
get to this point, we have been awarded two of the toughest government funds, and have
received some funds from family and friends totaling $100k.
3. Product
Overview
Gymnut is a social fitness marketplace app that connects trainers, coaches, and athletes
with people looking to get fit; for the first time, empowering fitness professionals to generate
and convert fitness leads, and offer online training products and services to clients in
innovative ways.
Gymnut as the ‘iTunes of Fitness’ is an e-commerce driven personal training marketplace
built on top the principles of social media and web 2.0. Gymnut leverages the expertise of
trainers, athletes, and fitness professionals to provide an affordable and scalable training
option for the large majority of people for whom fitness and exercise is still a challenge (and
also for those experienced exercisers who just want to try a new workout).
As an open, flexible, and competitive marketplace, Gymnut can handle different training
models:
1. Follow and learn from trainers and fellow Gymnuts for free, much like you would on
Instagram, as well as gaining access to a set of introductory free workouts
2. Buy workouts, nutrition, and training plans for as low as $0.99, allowing for micro-
transactions where the first step is both affordable and practical, similar to music
distribution and sales in iTunes. At this price point, single sales are also lead
development for trainers
3. Order custom or personalized workouts, nutrition, and training plans
4. Subscribe to monthly trainer subscriptions for one-on-one online training
Why Gymnut?
In recent years, there has been a significant rise in influential and celebrity-like trainers and
fitness models throughout social media, owing to how mainstream fitness has become. The
tech-savvy and early adopters of this trend have experienced tremendous success building
and monetizing their brand, while building a loyal following of fans and organic leads.
These trainers must convert their followings to sales by directing them to blogs, Skype, e-
mail, personal e-commerce websites, email money transfer, and other tools to offer their
online training products and services. Here is an example of a trainer on Facebook:
With Gymnut, trainers can take advantage of a social fitness marketplace, allowing them to
build a fitness focused following, which they then can provide accountability, progress
tracking, workouts, nutrition, and training plans; all from a branded profile that is ready within
minutes.
4. Value Proposition
Value Propositions for trainers:
1. A hub for all of your online training and business needs, through a branded social
profile that is ready within minutes, letting you build a fitness community centered on
your brand
2. Create, share, and monetize workouts, nutrition, and training plans with your social
networks and followers across all platforms through the following three sales models:
- Publishing them in the workout store, for as low as $0.99, allowing for passive
sales that engage and generate a greater numbers of leads
- Personalized workouts or plans with custom questionnaires, messaging, and a
built-in dropbox
- Monthly subscriptions for detailed progress tracking, adjustments, and
notification/messaging for accountability
3. Endorse and sell physical products and your affiliate programs through your social
profile
Value Propositions for app users looking to train:
1. Access to a diverse marketplace of personal trainers, fitness models, and coaches
for workouts, training, inspiration and the accountability you need to get results
2. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced exerciser, you can find the workouts,
nutrition, and training plans you need from the workout store for as low as $0.99,
curated for different goals (weight loss, weight gain, beach workout, etc.)
3. Get connected with your ideal trainer matches, allowing them to train, and keep track
of your progress, while holding you accountable
4. Share completed workouts and progress milestones with your friends and followers,
earning rewards that you can spend in the ‘Gymnut Club’ loyalty program, featuring
products endorsed by trainers and influencers
5. Business Model
Gymnut is free to use for both trainers and general users. Users can follow and learn from
trainers and fellow Gymnuts, as well access a set of introductory workouts, which can be
unlocked by sharing with their friends, and utilize progress-tracking features for free. Users
only pay for the products and services they purchase from trainers.
Trainers pay no fees upfront, and are only charged service fees as per the models below:
Micro-Workout Sales:
By creating an open marketplace for our workout store, which can handle workouts,
nutrition, and training plans, with prices as low as $0.99 (set by trainers), we are expanding
the culture of creating and sharing affordable workouts as a first step in engaging clients.
This model also allows trainers who are active on social media or who have large social
followings to engage clients online and monetize on larger scales, creating sustained
passive income. Gymnut charges a service fee of 15% from each sale through the store.
Custom or Personalized Programs:
Flexible pricing allows trainers to offer custom or personalized workouts, nutrition, or training
plans through their Gymnut profile. Gymnut replaces the need to direct people to e-mail, a
website, or paypal for third-party billing – with built in questionnaires, messaging, and
document exchange to personalize the experience. Gymnut charges a service fee of 15%
from each custom or personalized program sale.
Monthly Subscriptions for 1-1 online training:
Gymnut also allows for a monthly subscription option for trainers to go deeper with specific
clients. Benefits of this tier include the ability to assign and adjust workouts at any time,
notification/messaging service throughout the month to keep clients accountable and on
track, as well synced progress tracking so they and their trainers are always on the same
page. Gymnut charges a service fee of 15% from monthly subscriptions.
Additional Revenue Channels:
1. Providing customized websites for trainers and hosting them
2. Monetizing workout visibility in the workout store
3. One-time or monthly messaging packages as an option for trainers-clients to stay in
touch with instant messaging
4. A physical marketplace called ‘Gymnut club’, where trainers can seamlessly endorse
and sell their brands or affiliate products
6. Traction and Scalability:
We have signed up 200 personal trainers from all around the world including Australia, India,
Middle East, and different countries in Europe, as well South and North America. These
trainers have a total of over 1 million followers which fall directly into our target market. For
example Cindy Landolt as one of Gymnut trainers has 240k followers between Facebook
and Instagram alone. Here are her profiles:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cindylandolttraining
Instagram: www.instagram.com/cindylandolt
Gymnut: www.gymnut.co/cindylandolt
In less than three weeks from our Android app launch in early-June, we have signed up
about 500 Beta users from around the world. Gymnut as an online marketplace is not limited
by any geographical or time constraint, and its primary objective is to help personal trainers
scale up their business to a worldwide market.
5. Market Research
Health and fitness apps
The number of fitness apps have doubled in the past 2 and a half years, and are the fastest
growing category of apps, according to a 2014 study on app growth in the Google Play
store. In 2012, the mobile health and fitness app market was reportedly worth US$1.22
billion. By the year 2020, projected revenue in the mobile health Apps market is expected to
reach upwards of US$49.1 billion.
Some of the biggest companies across multiple industries are jumping onto this trend. Under
Armour recently purchased MyFitnessPal and Endomondo with a combined 100 million
users, FitBit just underwent a $4.1 billion IPO, and both Apple and Google have launched
their own wearable and health apps.
These apps, which largely focus on health and fitness tracking, are missing out on one vital
component of health and fitness progress – tracking is different than training. Proper and
personalized workout, nutrition, and training plans and non-tangible factors such as
education, motivation, and accountability are just as important to drive behavioral change
and long lasting fitness gains. This knowledge and experience is the inherent and integral
value that personal trainers possess in health and fitness.
Trainers and Fitness Industry Trends
According to government labor data, in 2012, there were around 260,000 trainers in the
United States, and about 30,000 in Canada. Not counting the rest of the world, these
numbers are expected to grow in excess of a combined 400,000 by 2018 - due to fitness
going mainstream and the rise in popularity of online trainers and fitness influencers, many
of which have celebrity-like followings in the hundreds of thousands or even millions.
A recent focus group of trainers and fitness professionals came up with the following list of
current and future industry trends:
1. The rise is online training as an affordable and practical alternative to traditional gym-
based training models, which are badly broken
2. Shift to team or group personal workouts as opposed to face-to-face session
3. Fitness, health and wellness continues to go mainstream; we are in the middle of a
global epidemic of chronic disease, and people are fighting back
4. Fitness and fashion collide - Fitness apparel is growing at 4X the rate of other
clothing, driven largely by the endorsement from fitness influencers
5. Wearables are still a few years away from going mainstream. 1/3 Fitbit users
abandon it after 6 months, and Apple watch sales have dropped 90% since initial launch in
April 2015
6. Functional, and personalized workouts will rise in popularity
Search and Keyword Analysis
According to Google Keyword Planner, the average monthly number of searches for the top
10 keywords relevant to workouts rise up to 46 million monthly clicks. The following chart
depicts the number of searches for each keyword:
And also up to 7 million searches is conducted by people around the world for four main
keywords relevant to personalized training and custom plans.
Up to a total of 53 million monthly searches for workouts and custom plans is an intriguing
indication for online platforms such as Gymnut.
Demographic Profile
Another study published by Flurry analytics looking at health and fitness app usage showed
in 2013 overall mobile app usage increased 115%, while the increase in health and fitness
app usage was only 49%. In 2014, overall mobile app usage had increased by 33%, while
health and fitness apps usage saw upwards to a 100% increase.
This study mentioned that the health and fitness industry has already begun to experience
disruption due to innovations in web and mobile applications, with the following drivers:
1. The notion that the smartphone platform can replace the majority of health, fitness, tracking, and training is becoming widely accepted
2. The social integration of sharing achievement or progress in fitness apps has led to viral distribution amongst their active users
3. A rising new segment of mobile consumers termed ‘Fitness Fanatics’ – those who spend 3X the average time on health and fitness apps compared to the average mobile app user, and heavily engage with fitness fanatics and trainers on social media
Based on that study, the fitness fanatics are 62% female and 38% male, which compared to
48% and 52% for the average mobile app user. They tend to skew older, the 25-34 year old
group over-indexed (+41%) compared to the average mobile consumer, and the 35-54 year
old group also over-indexed (+47%). Teens and millennials (18-24) under-indexed by (-28%)
and (-57%) respectively. They tend to be avid sports fans (+80%), parents and/or educated
(+40%), and/or avid runners (+35%).
6. Marketing and Growth Strategies
Our marketing and growth strategies will be focused on Acquisitions, Activation, Retention,
Referral and Revenue (AARRR).
The Acquisition strategies are broken into 2 overlapping domains:
1. Inbounding or generating traffic from our target demographic
2. Analyzing and optimizing landing page and app store pages to increase conversions
Our Activation campaigns will be focused on generating leads and signups from visits using
cookies, ad wards, promotions and emails to beta signups.
The Retention strategies will entail workout and social based notifications/emails, trainer-
client relation reminders, progress tracking and status reminders, lifecycle emails, and our
blog posts weekly digests.
To scale our growth, we have created in-app event, workout and progress sharing and
synched them with other social media. We will focus on other viral growth strategies such as
contact importing and contests.
And finally for generating revenue, our emphasis will be on tracking the users status and
reminding them with workouts, products and trainers digests via direct emails.
Our primary metrics to measure success and stickiness will be DAU, MAU, their ratio (R=
DAU/MAU) and correlation between DAU and R.
Inbound Marketing/Lead Development
We are aggressively evaluating different channels of communities that we can target with
our content strategies, centered on our digital magazine, Fitness2.0. Some of these
channels include:
1. Leveraging our network of trainers and partners as brand ambassadors for their own
products and services available on Gymnut. This will be done through education,
support, and creating a strong community around our trainers
2. Partnering and distributing content through top social fitness influencers and athletes,
such as Paige Hathaway and Jen Setler.
3. Creating SEO driven and optimized content
a. Writing fitness and nutrition content on Fitness2.0
b. Guest blogging to cross promote and leverage similar audiences
c. PR and media strategy
d. Optimize app store pages
4. Engaging and building social networks and communities within, including Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, Quora, BodySpace, Reddit etc.
5. E-mail marketing
Conversion Marketing and Growth Hacking
The ability to understand user psychology, and build a product that the market needs and
wants is called the product-market fit, and is integral to the growth behind any digital
product. This is a data intensive and analytical approach to growth, often referred to as
‘growth hacking’. We have built a robust user-tracking dashboard that lets us:
1. Study the activity and conversions of our users,
2. Identify bottlenecks in the customer lifecycle,
3. Optimize and evaluate product and design centered improvements.
Viral Loops
Viral loops are product driven features that leverage in-app incentives, referrals, or social
invites to automate leads and drive viral growth – the Holy Grail for any app. A k-factor
(measure of the virility per user) greater than 1 means that you onboard at least 1 additional
user for every signup. Some of our viral strategies include:
Having trainers use their social media channels to drive traffic to their profiles and workouts,
optionally using the auto-made cards we generate for them.
1. Allowing users to unlock free introductory workouts by sharing them on social media.
2. Sharing progress, activities and milestones with their social media from within the
app.
3. Syncing other social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook to eliminate the
need for duplicating content on multiple platforms.
4. Incentives for email and SMS referrals or invites using contact importing.
7. Competitive Landscape
SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
- Business model considers trainers as influencers. Trainers are driven to drive traffic
and sales to their workouts and profiles.
- Micro-transactions for workouts (micro-workouts) creates lead generation for custom
training plans and monthly subscriptions.
- Selling document (PDFs) for workouts, nutrition, and training plans is an easy and
fast approach to generate sales to a wider audience.
- Users can follow and learn from trainers and fellow Gymnuts, have access to a set of
introductory workouts as well as progress tracking – all for free
- Micro-workouts, and unlocking free workouts via sharing on social media allow for
scalable growth, bringing online training to the masses for the first time.
Weakness:
- We are in the startup phase, compared to other companies that have established
trainer and client bases.
- We haven’t raised seed funding yet. Subsequently, our outbound marketing
strategies, sponsorship campaigns for top tier influencers, and running incentivized
contests can be very limited.
- Early trainers will need a large client base to drive significant traffic to the workout
store.
Opportunities:
- Low-income trainers comprise 85% of personal training market. These trainers are in
dire need of passive and scalable income.
- Online marketing is extremely hard and expensive for a majority of trainers.
- Leveraging trainers as influencers through education of the value that Gymnut offers
them, their fitness followings, and clients.
- Creating personal websites and online studios is costly and a barrier for a majority of
trainers.
- Selling workouts to masses in a store like iTunes for trainers is impossible at the
moment.
- Workouts on YouTube and other websites are not in app form and have no progress
tracking attached to them.
- Creating and hosting a custom website for each trainer and their logistics.
- Offering extra secondary services such as SEO, marketing, graphic and web design
content to trainers to help promote them and their training services.
Threats:
- Some gyms and fitness studios may ban their trainers from having a passive income.
- People can find free workouts online through YouTube and other websites.
Competition
Our main competitors in the online personal training or training marketplace space are Vint,
Trainerize, Fitocracy, and Wello. A competitive landscape analysis chart comparing
highlighted features is presented below. We have been keeping our competitive first mover
advantage by targeting and signing up the top online trainers on social media and have
started generating sustainable and passive revenue for them
Gymnut Vint Trainerize Fitocracy Wello Pumpup
Community Yes Yes Yes
Marketplace Yes Yes Yes Yes
Micro-Payments Yes
Brands Yes
Video Workouts Yes Yes Yes
PDF workouts Yes Yes
- Vint is a marketplace of nearby personal trainers with whom people can meet and work
out. Its cost for the trainees is not much different from face-to-face training sessions,
nonetheless it provides a more convenient medium for people who need to hire a trainer
outside of gyms.
- Wello is a marketplace for one-on-one or group video training classes that requires proper
video set-up from both ends. Its model for trainer-client engagement does not allow for
micro-payments and thus is not more affordable than face-to-face training sessions. Its focus
is on providing a medium for those who want to have a face-to-face trainer, but with the
flexibility of not being face-to-face.
- Trainerize is marketed as a personal training software or CRM which allows trainers by
paying upfront fees (Monthly subscription) to manage their own business with their own
clients. It lacks a marketplace that connects clients with trainers.
- Fitocracy, which used to be a social fitness app and has been stuck on traction for a long
time, has tried to create a momentum by bringing on board a few (limited number of) trainers
and lacks any viral feature for growth.
- Pumpup is a community app for people to share fitness posts and get workouts from a bot.
8. Operations
Human Resources
Over the next 18 months, Gymnut will need to operate with certain key employees and has
to put together a full stack of marketers, graphic designers and developers to achieve its
goals in growing its users base and generating revenue, and develop required features and
series of apps.
To achieve this growth, the following roles are either already assigned to our current team
members or we are planning to hire new staff.
Marketing:
1. Strategy, growth, and analytics: The founders main focus is on working with the
marketing team to lead and oversee growth. Our specific focus is on managing
strategy and execution for trainer community development, inbound marketing,
product-market fit, growth hacking, and conversion optimization.
2. Personal trainers community development: Kelly is in charge of developing
relationships with our core community of trainers across the world. His responsibility
is to develop a relationship with trainers, engage and reach out to them, and educate
them on to take advantage of Gymnut and increase their exposure and subsequently
sales.
3. Social Media: We currently have a very active presence on Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter and Pinterest. Majority of our leads are generated from these channels and
we are planning to expand our presence into Quora, Reddit, and some other fitness
communities. Jakob is currently the member who works full time on most of these
channels.
4. Content marketing and SEO: We are currently running our own online magazine
called Fitness2.0, which is utilized to feature trainers, their workouts and announce
the relevant PR matters. We have about nine trainers who write on our magazine for
free and we are looking to expand the team as we move forward. We are looking to
have an editor for the magazine who can manage all the content, and work with
contributors and marketers. The hire will have expertise with SEO, ASO (App store
optimization), and YouTube.
5. Part-time PR: The founders are currently in charge of reaching out to media and
getting word out there through these channels. However, in a long run we would like
to hire a part time PR expert and copywriter who can take over PR campaigns and
Email marketing.
6. A marketer and designer: Six months into the hard launch we will hire an extra
marketer and a dedicated designer to help expand our reach.
Development:
1. Full time web app developer: We will need to keep our current web app developer
(Fazil) in full time employment to make sure our web app is always evolving to
address our customers needs and covers all the basics such as security, scalability,
and is speed optimized.
2. Full time Android and iOS developer: We are using Xamrin technology which uses
.NET technology to develop our native apps. We will need to keep our native app
developer (Hasmukh) for next 18-24 months to keep up with users demands. Also
we are planning to develop Trainers native apps. Thus, for this role we will have two
separate developers (one for iOS and one for Android).
3. Marketing, analytic and dashboard developer: To meet the needs of our
marketing team, we need to develop our own analytic and insights into our
dashboard to make sure we can quickly analyze our users behaviors and make
necessary changes in our products and marketing campaigns. To this end, we will
hire a full time .NET developer 3 months into our hard launch.
4. UX/UI Designer: User experience design (UX) is the process of enhancing user
satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the
interaction between the user and the product. Always the most appealing apps and
on-line products win a niche market. We strongly believe visual designs, which
represent the aesthetics or look-and-feel of the front end of our user interface play, a
vital role in our success and would need continuous work. Therefore, a full time UI
designer will be added to the team.
5. Graphic Designer: To help our marketing and development team. Utilizing
professional graphic designs can be an integral step in the process of establishing
and maintaining a successful business.
6. Data Scientist: 6 months into our hard launch, we will bring on board a data scientist
to develop algorithms and metrics which will give us a better understanding of our
users and their behaviors.
7. Testers: In order to test the apps comprehensively, we will have to have a QA
department. We are going to need 1 tester for the entire project for the first 18
months and possibly 1 per each 2 programmers from that point on. Each
programmer should work closely with a single tester, throwing them private builds as
often as necessary.
Cyrus has been managing the developers, has designed the apps and tested them so far.
He will continue to work closely with them and the marketing team to make sure always
products are the reflection of what market demands.
Operation:
1. CFO: The CFO will be responsible for presenting and reporting accurate and timely
historical financial information of the company. Every stakeholder in the company will
rely on the accuracy and timeliness of this information. The CFO will decide how to
invest the company's money, taking into consideration risk and liquidity. The CFO
oversees the capital structure of the company, determining the best mix of debt,
equity and internal financing. We would plan to hire a CFO as soon as we raise seed
funding.
Other costs:
1. Office, Computers, Sponsorships, Tradeshows, Travels
2. Content, Distribution, Advertising Budget
The following table lists the cost for each quarters over the next 18 months.
Items Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6
Development Expenses $60,000 $81,000 $111,000 $116,500 $118,500 $127,500
Marketing Expenses $39,000 $39,000 $73,000 $75,000 $77,000 $78,000
Operation Expenses $67,500 $7,500 $7,500 $7,500 $57,500 $7,500
Total $166,500 $127,500 $191,500 $199,000 $253,000 $213,000
And the total incurred expenses for 6, 12 and 18 months of operation will be as followings:
month 6th month 12th month 18th
Capital required $294000 $684500 $1150500
9. Growth Forecasts
Growth Forecast Model
To forecast our user growth, we have structured a bottom-up financial projection strategy
consisting of the following traffic/lead sources:
1. Trainers as influencers/brand ambassadors
2. Google search
3. Social Media/Communities
The traffic sources are then converted to sign-ups, active users, and revenue out to 36
months, as per the customer lifecycle funnel below.
Key Assumptions
The outcome of the model is dependent on the following assumptions, any of which can be
instantly changed to modify its effect on growth forecasts.
Inbound Lead Assumptions:
1. Trainers:
a. Number of trainers in the first month is 180 with a 10% monthly increase
b. Average # of followers per trainer is 5000 with a 10% monthly increase
c. The trainer-lead conversion is 5% of their followers per month, with a 5%
monthly increase
2. Google search
a. Start with 400 leads in the first month, with 5% monthly growth rate
3. Social Media/Communities
a. Start with 400 leads in the first month, with 5% monthly growth rate
Conversion Lead Assumptions:
1. 10% of inbound leads (visits) are converted to signups in first month, with a 5%
monthly growth rate in # of conversions
2. 30% of total signups will be active users in first month, with a 10% monthly growth
rate in # of active users
3. 15% of the active users make a workout or training plan purchase in first month, with
a 5% monthly growth rate in purchases
4. The average amount spent per purchase is $10
5. Gymnut takes an average 15% cut from total sales revenue
Viral Loop Assumptions:
1. We start with a k-factor of 0.5, with a 10% monthly increase
Expense Assumptions:
We project total expenses of $294,400, $684,500, and $1,150,500, for 6, 12, and 18 months,
respectively, distributed between development, marketing, and operational expenses as
outlined in the previous section above.
The following 3-year growth forecast and cash flow highlight the growth in active users, as
well as revenue and cash balances over this time period. As per the projected growth, we
are expect to be profitable in Q8 and to break even in Q12.
Forecasted Growth
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Trainers 1,337 11,925 106,320
Users 140,921 1,393,020 12,548,580
Active users 46,948 459,697 4,141,031
Revenue $46,948 $542,564 $4,955,587
Cash Flow
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Revenue $46,948 $542,564 $4,955,587
Expenses $663,500 $847,000 $960,000
Net Profit -$616,552 -$304,436 $3,995,587
Investment $1,200,000 0 0
Cash Flow $583,448 $279,012 $4,274,599
0
2000000
4000000
6000000
8000000
10000000
12000000
14000000
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36
Trainers Users Revenue
$0
$500,000
$1,000,000
$1,500,000
$2,000,000
$2,500,000
$3,000,000
$3,500,000
$4,000,000
$4,500,000
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34
Revenue Expenses Cash
10. Exit Strategy
The online fitness space, although saturated with blogs, websites, and applications, lacks a
platform to disrupt the status quo in terms of helping the average person make real fitness
gains. Our emphasis is on the ‘sharing economy’, with our own social fitness platform that
can affordably leverage the followings of trainers or fitness brands, with an emphasis on
micropayment workouts as a first step.
We believe Gymnut is perfectly positioned to represent the fitness version of the sharing
economy. Apart from interest from large and established fitness companies, we expect to
generate interest from the top tech companies such as Facebook, Google, or Apple—neither
of which have a firm grip on the online fitness market.
Another exit chance will be getting acquired by Fitbit or likewise companies which are
coming out strong in the wearable fitness space.
