Fitmob, the recently launched startup that wants to help people find and try local workouts in their cities, is working on bringing fitness to an unlikely place — the office. fitOffice basically gets together a group of 10 to 15 employees to work out together at the office or in a nearby park with one of fitmob’s trainers.
Fitmob is also hosting a contest that will bring fitOffice to five startups or companies in San Francisco, with four weeks of free workouts. To enter either submit here or email fitOffice@fitmob.com, and tell fitmob in 50 words or less why you want to bring workouts to your office and colleagues.
For background, fitmob’s consumer offering allows people to find local workouts in a park or indoor facility near them. Fitmob offers around 50 workouts per week in San Francisco at the Brannan Street Wharf in SOMA, at fitmob’s HQ on 5th Street and in Dolores Park, focusing on strength, cardio and yoga fusion. Fitmob’s drop-in workouts start at $15, and the more you use fitmob every week, the less you pay per workout. So participants who come twice a week pay $10 per workout, and those who come three or more times a week pay only $5 per workout.
On the trainer side, fitmob certifies trainers, and allows them to create their own workouts according to their skills. Signature workout experiences on fitmob include Weapons of Ass Reduction, Sweat Soiree, Twerkout Conditioning and Guru Gone Wild. Fitmob is also partnering with a Bay Area nonprofit, the Fit Kids Foundation, to help bring workouts to underserved communities in San Francisco.
Fitmob’s founder Raj Kapoor tells us that the response has been positive–over 1200 people in San Francisco have worked out with Fitmob since launching in late January. And because it can be more fun to work out with friends, most users are inviting others to use the platforms. Another interesting stat — 33 percent of fitmob users who were members of a gym left their gym.
Can fitmob bring workouts to the office? Of course, most of the challenge with exercising regularly is getting the motivation and time to go, so it should be interesting to see if startups, which are already strapped for time, can set aside time to work out together. But as someone who has founded and worked for a number of startups, Kapoor believes that working out and fitness is key to energy level, productivity and overall happiness. Big companies often have built gyms within their offices to support employees but most startups don’t have this luxury. Until now.