We asked FitQ CEO Marti Soosaar a few questions about FitQ’s past, present, and future.
Let’s start with the basics. What is FitQ?
FitQ is a software solution designed to give trainers a tool to market their skills to the world. Even in a small country like Estonia, there are hundreds of trainers. Through their clubs, they reach a few hundred people, who are mainly concentrated in major cities. At the same time, many people lack access to high-quality workouts. FitQ allows trainers to reach clients online, find new followers, and help more people get active.
How did FitQ get started?
Then the pandemic hit. Gyms were shut down in the spring, trainers were furloughed, and Stebby (then still known as SportID), we brainstormed ways to get our clients moving in their home offices, figure out how to keep trainers from letting their workout equipment gather dust, and find a way to offer them an opportunity to earn money. At the time, we compiled a daily schedule of video workouts offered by the trainers. We sent our clients an email encouraging them to pay a monthly fee for home workouts through Stebby. We then distributed that fee to the trainers based on how many viewers they had. We compiled all the viewership numbers into an Excel spreadsheet based on Facebook viewing statistics. We also did a number of workouts ourselves with trainers in Tartu—sometimes 2–3 a day—so in addition to working our abs, we gained experience with live video streaming. From there, as we continued to communicate with the trainers, the idea evolved of how to turn this into a unified service.
Why do people use FitQ?
First, to get in shape at home. Second, because their favorite trainer invites them to work out, and the workout is in their native language.
Who are FitQ’s main target audiences?
Looking beyond the pandemic, the three main target groups are:
a) people who don’t live in big cities and don’t have good workout options or a great trainer
where they live b) people who live in big cities and don’t want to spend 30 minutes a day getting to the gym and another 30 minutes getting back. If you work out three times a week, that’s one hour of your day and 156 hours of your year.
c) people who are just starting to get active, are self-conscious about others watching them, and would prefer to work on their fitness on their own at home.
The target audience definitely consists of more women than men; the ratio is likely about 3:1 in favor of women. The largest age group is 25–45 years old.
Competition in the video workout sector is extremely fierce. There are plenty of video workout apps out there—not to mention the local Netfit and YouTube, which are even better.
That’s true. It must be acknowledged that operating in this field and investing money in it is definitely a risky venture. At the same time, Estonians are a startup-minded people who can create high-quality, successful services even in highly competitive global sectors, such as ride-sharing.
We believe we can create something much cooler than your average fitness app and, with it, capture the attention of a larger user base and get them to open their wallets. To do this, we’re bringing in trainers—in other words, we’re taking an approach to the fitness app that’s unusual in the world. The usual approach would be “my app, my content.” Our approach is more like Spotify’s: we want to offer a great platform for great content creators—but why not for average ones, too? We have a democratic system, and ultimately, the channels that think through their content more carefully and produce it with higher quality are the ones that will rise to the top. After all, Avicii has more plays on Spotify than Üllar Jörberg, but both Jörpa and Avicii’s copyright holders are free to upload their content.
If you’re a great trainer today but not very tech-savvy, how can you sell your workouts online to thousands of people? YouTube won’t pay you a reasonable fee for that—can you imagine that you’d attract, say, 1,000 viewers to your workout and earn 2 euros for it? 1,000 viewers and participants for a single workout is a very respectable number by Estonian standards, but getting 2 euros for them is pointless. But how realistic is it to reach 10,000 or 100,000 viewers with a single workout? Not in a market the size of Estonia’s, and it’s probably nearly impossible even in a large market like Poland’s. You also have the option to sell on Facebook, Instagram, and Zoom. But can you imagine the paperwork that comes with that? Who has paid you and who hasn’t? Whose viewing access expired the day before yesterday? Has the person who wants to join your group or video call paid for today’s workout? If not, will you remember to send them a reminder after the class and check later to see if the payment went through? Where do you even find these people, and how do you let them know about class times? The questions go on and on.
If we can create the perfect tool for a trainer—one that lets them reach people in Karksi-Nuia, Orissaare, and Narva-Jõesuu, collect payment from them, and turn them into fans, then we’ve done our job well.
I’m also giving our trainers a small personal development goal that I got from Pat Flynn’s book "Superfans". Gain at least one new fan every day, and you’ll have 1,000 of them in three years. Charge each fan 10 euros a month, and you’ll have a business with six-figure annual revenue—1,000 fans times 120 euros a year. That seems like a realistic goal even in Estonia.
What are FitQ’s plans for the future?
Right now, we have a minimal viable product with paying customers and even a few fans who really praise us. Forty trainers from Estonia and Lithuania offer workouts on the platform. Right now, we want to get a couple of important things up and running. First, single-channel ticket sales, so that trainers can receive payment directly from their fans. Currently, trainers earn money through the platform’s general ticket system, based on their view counts.
Second, home workout programs. These are exactly what people are searching for online. Keywords like “home workout program,” “beginner workout plan,” or “home fat-burning routine” pique people’s interest. We’re creating an opportunity for trainers to build their own personalized workout programs. Why shouldn’t our platform also feature programs like “Handstand in 10 Hours” or “Practice Your Volleyball Underhand Serve at Home Without Breaking the Chandelier,” in addition to our exciting fat-burning content?
In the future, we want to create tools for trainers to offer personalized consultations via video call, as well as for personal trainers to create workout plans for clients and monitor their progress. The latter could also take the form of a training log.
You’ve trained to be a coach yourself. So when will your workouts be available on FitQ?
I just finished reading Robin Sharma’s book “5 AM Club," and as a result, I got the idea to try out his methodology on myself. According to Sharma, it takes 66 days to form a habit. Since one of his main recommendations is to wake up at 5 a.m. and start the day with a 20-minute workout that’s intense enough to make you sweat, I thought, why not turn these workouts into video workouts? So, my 13-week challenge for myself is to go live on the FitQ platform every morning at 5 a.m. with a 20-minute workout. You’re welcome to join me in this challenge, and we’ll see if I can last 66 days.
Why are live workouts necessary at all? Why isn’t the option to work out later using a video enough?
Live workouts have their own charm because they happen right here, right now. I have to step out of my comfort zone immediately, and putting it off is out of the question. Why do people go to a rock concert to hear their favorite band when the music sounds much better on Spotify or a CD? Or why go to a fitness club to do BodyCombat when you can follow along with world-class instructors and an amazing production on Les Mills On Demand?
Second, putting on live shows means a steady stream of new material. We see in our community that people don’t want to do the same workout twice—and even if they do sometimes, they generally want something new in the long run. Novelty helps the brain cope better with the workout intensity.
Going back to the example of rock music, if you’re my age, there’s a good chance you think Foo Fighters’ *The Color and the Shape* is a great album. But for some reason, you’ve still listened to and bought new music since then and discovered other great new releases.
Stebby investors are wondering why FitQ didn’t continue under the Stebby umbrella and brand.
Mainly because it’s a completely different product. At Stebby, we’re building a marketplace for health services where companies play a very important role, and one of the core values at the very heart of it all is the healthy employee. With FitQ, we’ve turned our focus toward trainers and are building the product so that the trainer—and their mission to get people moving—is at the very center.Another important reason was that, over the years, Stebbys has assembled a team that shares common values, and each person has their own reasons for joining this team. We have shared goals regarding product development and expanding into new markets. It seemed complicated and demotivating for the team in an eight-year-old company to say, “Hey, we’re pivoting now—we’re going to do something completely different.”
We tried operating under the same roof for a while, but it quickly became clear that both products were suffering. However, we do believe that by operating as a pair, we can gain advantages in certain areas. Our previous experience building Stebby helps FitQ get off the ground to some extent; I’ve personally gained invaluable experience that’s now extremely useful to apply. It’s also much easier for FitQ to reach Stebby’s existing customers. For Stebby, FitQ will bring in new service providers who, in addition to video workouts, will have an excellent opportunity to sell outdoor workouts, personal training sessions, workout plans, and more on the Stebby platform. I’m particularly optimistic about the future of this collaboration, because, due to its system architecture, it is not just several times but dozens of times easier for FitQ to expand into foreign markets than it is for Stebby, and this could provide significant benefits in the form of new contacts and the development of a network.
