GOQii to add more fitness coaches; plans US launch

GOQii, a wearable device maker, plans to add 10,000 fitness coaches on to its platform by 2017.

Talking to BusinessLine at the sidelines of the CeBIT global conferences, Vishal Gondal, Founder and CEO, said: “Currently, we have 1,000 coaches on our platform and are looking at a ten-fold increase in the next couple of years.”

The start-up, which has seen investments from Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is confident that it can achieve this target, mainly due to a differentiated business proposition. “Others sell a device but we know that in the long-run services are what will differentiate, as hardware is getting increasingly commoditised,” said Gondal.

The wearable band comes for free and users can choose a coaching subscription offer for three, six or a yearly subscription from ₹3,999, ₹6,999 and ₹11,999 respectively.

The differentiated business model that Gondal talks about has to do with the fact that once a person buys the wearable device, he gets access to a range of fitness experts – from dieticians to yoga instructors. The start-up counts Satyajit Chaurasia, a Bollywood coach as one of the first professional coaches on its platform.

Also, unlike a normal wearable device maker, GOQii works on an open platform, which means that it can integrate with major fitness bands including Jawbone, Fitbit, Garmin, Moov, Misfit and Sony.

Gondal does not share revenues but said that they have ‘thousands’ of paying customers.

Research groups like Juniper Research estimates global shipments in wearables to increase to 150 million units by 2018. Wearable devices are starting to see an uptick in the market and earlier this year, Google came out with its new version of Android operating system solely crafted for wearables.

Sensing this market potential, GOQii plans to have a commercial launch in the US in the near future.

COMMENT NOW