No-one can better train you for fitness than a hardcore entertainer. Meet Ishita a strong techno & fitness freak and her fitness app Zymin
Fitness! In today’s hectic world, we all barely get time to take care of our health but at the same time, if we see the young population in metro cities, we see lot of people who are fitness freak. Not just young even housewives, people from corporate world and old age people also prefer to opt for yoga or gym to keep themself fit, after all who do not want to live a healthy and balanced life. There are multiple gyms, gadgets, watches, belts, food supplements, machines which claim to burn your calories and give you right body, right shape and weight, but ultimately you need a right coach, a right trainer and right mentor. Here is when you can surely count Zymin mobile app from Ishita Vasa.
Ishita Vasa a young jolly, beautiful and glamorous entertainer from mumbai, who else can be a better fitness freak than people from the entertainment world. Don’t just go on her face, she is not just gorgeous but a hardcore techno & fitness freak. If you see Ishita Vasa you will surely memorize powerpuff girls, she is gorgeous, glamorous, talented as well as strong headed with lots of entrepreneurship masala inside her and a strong determination to make fitness a mandatory task in your daily routine. Ishita Brings a right mix of fitness, glamour, technology & healthy living in the life of Indians with her mobile app.
Ishita and her two co-founders from USA has launched a mobile app Zymin which provides you all the training material through one single click, Her long career in entertainment world has made Ishita a fitness enthusiastic as fitness is the need and rule in the entertainment world, Now she brings all her knowledge and passion in fitness to benefit people at mass. lets see what this fitness nerd has to say about her venture and how is she planning to change the face of fitness industry with her mobile app Zymin.
1.What is the Name of Your Venture? Any specific reason for this name?
The name of our Venture is Zymin (Pronounced: gym-ming). Our venture is related to health and fitness and we wanted a name that sounded like “gymming”.
2.Who is your target Audience/clients?
Our target clients are health and fitness conscious individuals who leverage personal trainers or fitness classes to achieve their fitness goals. Also the one’s who do find it difficult to manage their time for workouts .
We are partnering with corporates, club-houses, schools and colleges to provide fitness and training sessions in their premises. Additionally, our customers can book either a single session or a monthly package offered by a number of qualified trainers on our app.
3.Where is your venture based (city, state, country) & What are your geographical target areas?
We are a Mumbai based startup. We plan to expand to Pune, Ahmedabad and other nearby cities in the next 3 months.
4.What problems does your venture resolve? What are your products or services?
At this time, customers who look for fitness relates services do not have much choice. The highly motivated ones get membership at a nearby gym. There are some materials available online (on platforms such as youtube) that can be looked up, but the authenticity of the information is always a question mark. Customers do not realize that it is not sufficient to get a gym membership or show up to work out. The most critical component is right training, guidance and motivation. Every body type is different and, as such, in order to achieve fitness goals, one needs expert and professional advice. In absence of right guidance, it is impossible to show results. As a result, most people lose hope and get back to an unhealthy way of living. Others, who do avail professional training services, get disheartened with the cost. They do not get holistic eco-system for fitness help – right training, right diet advice and right supplements.
The above can be synthesized into following customer requirement –
“I need a holistic fitness support to achieve my fitness goals in a cost effective manner at a place and time of my convenience”
At this time, the above statement remains a dream for most customers that is impossible to fulfil. Zymin will change all that and will bring this dream to fruition. In fact, Zymin will make it so seamless that people will wonder in amazement when they look back at pre-Zymin days.
5.Share the idea or story behind the venture. How did it came to an existence? What motivated you to start your own venture?
Rakesh, who is a co-founder, is a fitness freak himself. He is a great believer that having a trainer is a must for effective workouts. Just like even a Roger Federer would hire a coach to help him maintain and improve his skills, one needs continuous support and training from experienced trainer. But, finding trainers today is difficult and expensive. Rakesh’s friends would not hire trainers precisely for this reason. With a slew of workout options mushrooming all over Mumbai, he realized there has to be a better, more transparent and convenient way for discovering and booking training sessions. After discussing this idea with many other friends and family members, Rakesh was convinced that this was a problem worthy of solving and that he had a great solution.
6.Who are your biggest competitors and how do you differentiate yourself from them?
Today, one can hire a trainer or book sessions offered by local gyms – but you need to have gym membership for that. Options are limited and expensive. There are yellow pages or some variants that one can use. But, the process is neither transparent nor convenient. Zymin provides end-to-end solution from discovery and booking to making payments and scheduling sessions. It makes achieving goals of its users a friction-less, simple and rewarding experience. Zymin has put its users at the center of everything and carved out product experiences that are highly contextual, personal and intuitive.
7.How did you identify your co-founder? Tell us some thing about your co-founder/s
I am the Chief Marketing Officer for Zymin Fitness,India . Now how did i identify is a tricky question altogether . I am an Artist who met Rakesh over a professional meet . He liked my marketing strategies to an extend that he spoke about his venture and asked whether i would like to join hands . Well i loved the idea and so now we are a team . So technically he identified me !!
8.How did you hired your first team members? What skills Do you want in your employees/team?
When you talk about hiring for a startup -its more over difficult because employees really do not want to invest their time and energy for and in a startup . The mindset is the core problem you see . Since everyone wants to work with established and well known firms . Now when you face this problem, choosing the right skill set is very important. So the skills which we seek in our team is – Risk-taking , Industry knowledge of course, The thirst to work with a startup where one is not designated to a certain job profile and a task. An entrepreneur mind . As we believe its very easy to teach or designate an employee to a task but it’s very important to find an entrepreneur mind in an employee. Yes that’s it . We definitely don’t have a big list ..haha . W
e are looking to expand. We are looking to hire individuals with great passion for products, entrepreneurial mindset and go-getters who dream big. So if anyone reading this interview wants to be part of our team, can write me :)
9.What expansion plans are you looking for the next 2 years, next 5 years?
We would like to be operating in over 10 cities across India in the next 2 years. We want to keep enhancing our platform and making it more robust and feature rich. We have global expansion plans in the future as well.
10.Where do you want to see yourself in next 10 years?
We see ourselves as World’s number 1 brand for health and fitness in the next 10 years. We aspire to make Zymin a verb, as in, “Let’s Zymin!”
11.What are your goals over the next 1, 3, 6 and 12 months?
Zymin wants to be a one-stop shop for all fitness related requirements. By the end of 2017, we will create an ecosystem that will help our customer get holistic health and fitness related guidance. Our algorithm will match customers with the right set of freelancers who can deliver training, diet advice as well as post-work therapy and messages. All of this will be provided in a seamless, intuitive and digital experience that can be managed in few simple clicks. At scale, Zymin will provide freelancers broad access to customers and customer’s access to a range of freelancers. The growth in one side of the platform will fuel growth in the other side and upon reaching a critical mass will trigger network effects.
Zymin’s platform will achieve market efficiency and allow the fitness marketplace to determine the right fee and surface the best freelancers based on constant reviews and ratings by the customers. Zymin will provide best in class fitness services at a fraction on today’s cost. At the same time, Zymin will dramatically improve the income for freelancers making them truly independent and in control of their schedule.
12.Have you raised any funding? Or have any plans for the funding?
Zymin has received its first round of funding at a valuation of 1.5 crores. We will be looking to raise around 1 crore in the next three months.
13.What were the problems you faced during the starting days and how did you resolve them?
Being a freelance Artist it took time to be comfortable with the fact that now i am a CMO of a company and that i will be glued to a desk in an office environment for xyz hours. Ours is a service provider platform so getting the profiles of fitness experts and making them understand the concept was difficult.
14.What was the most challenging part of your journey till now? How did you overcome those challenges?
I was a shy school girl who lacked confidence ,had stage fright ,no fashion style statement and most important who never spoke to more than 3 boys during the whole school journey . So when i stepped into the world i realized this is going to pull me down and i would never accept the failure . So i started my work journey in events. I was a promoter then became and continued my profession as an Anchor . So slowly the qualities which i lacked started shaping up my persona .
I ,being born in a gujju family since childhood wanted to build my empire ,start a business so it was like always that i got ideas and struggled with them.Because an entrepreneur mind never rests . And till the time you don’t decide onto something you can’t even sleep properly .
15.Are you married, single or in a relationship?
You should have a fourth option , i am a BOSS WOMAN .
16.What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
Taking a mindful sleep is my hobby because otherwise i am so occupied with work that i hardly get time to sleep . haha. I love cooking , yoga , Driving, Xbox, Swimming these are my hobbies and my chores when i am off work .
17.Whats your favorite food & holiday destination?
Indian Cuisines are my fav. , and i am in September going for a Scuba Diving certification course so for now Andaman is my holiday destination.
18.Whom do you consider your idol or biggest motivator?
I don’t have anyone in particular , i am a big fan of those who succeed from their failures. Our country has a lot of
entrepreneurs and hence they all are my motivators . But i will like to name one of the biggest motivators of all time – Mr. Ratan Tata.
19.What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
The mindset .
20.If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Be a travel blogger .
21.How has being an entrepreneur affected your family & Social life?
It has affected at all . Because i manage my time and my parents are very supportive as they understand a startup takes time to settle .
22.Anything, you would like to say to our readers or upcoming entrepreneurs?
It doesn’t matter what you have studied or pursuing your education as . What is important is you having the thirst to achieve what you wish to , always believe in yourself ,learn and get comfortable with failures . Failures are going to give you a stepping stone to success. Choose your peer group wisely and don’t trust your ideas with anyone .Start preparing yourself to be confident and how to pitch your brand to investors . And lastly learn to save money for your startup .
23.Tell us something about your education & family background.
I am a bachelor’s in Mass Media (Advertising ) and my mother is a house maker ,Father is a Diamond Merchant and my young brother is pursuing 2nd year in Civil Engineering .
24.What is your USP which makes it unique & different from other start-ups in similar domains.
We don’t only believe in business but also believe in upbringing the gym trainers ,fitness experts by giving them training in orientation, body image and enhancing their language skills . To create an legacy where they feel like home when it’s about working with our team. And to make sure they are benefited monetary matching their talent and caliber with zero negotiations.
25. What do you think is the biggest threat to the success of small businesses & Start-ups today?
Lack of Marketing strategies and not being consistent with their service and product. Being rigid in adopting to the new methods of business. And being unable to sell yourself . You selling yourself would mean you selling your business . Nowadays customer is a king and so to make sure that they are brand loyal ,one has to work really hard bridging the gap between customers (even B2B ) and Brand.
26. Do you consider yourself successful and by what means do you measure success?
Yes i am successful . Considering a girl who was shy and in a nut shell during school days to a woman who is now more confident about herself ,I have seen my self growing,learning over the years . That is success for me . Success for me is not the big list of clientele ,but the clients who maintain long term professional relationship benefiting both the parties and a belief in me and my service .
27.Please share complete name, address, phone number, email id & website of Your Business & Contact Person
Ishita Vasa – B Wing , 5th floor , 91 Spring Board, Zymin India , Ackruti Trade Centre, MIDC, Andheri (E),Mumbai-400093.
Email Id- [email protected]
www.zymin.in
www.ishitavasa.com
