Best Success Story

[pullquote align=”right”]”We have bootstrapped this entire venture ourselves and we’re both first-time entrepreneurs. To us, if people hear about FiTMAPPED and want to collaborate, we’ve found success.”[/pullquote]We have bootstrapped this entire venture ourselves and we’re both first-time entrepreneurs. To us, if people hear about FiTMAPPED and want to collaborate, we’ve found success. We’re also very proud that we’ve managed to connect with a lot of people in the fitness industry in a grassroots way through social media without a huge marketing budget.

The fact that FiTMAPPED has become a recognizable name in the industry is also a big success for us considering we’re both just two gals flying by the seat of our pants.

Specifically, we are very proud of our inaugural FiTCRAWL event hosted in NYC, July 8 – August 4 of this year. We partnered with SELF Magazine to offer our users exclusive discounts to fitness classes all across Manhattan, (each promotion was valid for one week). These discounts encouraged FiTCRAWL participants to try out new studios and gyms and to tweet, pin and share their experiences with FiTMAPPED and SELF Magazine.

Biggest Startup Challenge

Learning how to be successful as entrepreneurs [is a challenge]. Every day is a learning experience for us. When we started, we didn’t know “what we didn’t know”. We didn’t know where to search for things because we didn’t have business mentors or guidance.

We jumped in kind of blind. It was overwhelming to realize how much work needed to be done and how many things we needed to become familiar with, but it has also been a lot of fun.

Now that we’ve started, new challenges have come about as well. Currently, we are in what we like to call a discovery phase. As we’ve pieced our database together, we’ve realized that there is still a greater opportunity to engage our users. So we’ve started to view our company differently.

Right now a user can come to our site to find and rate a studio, but eventually we want to create another loop for them to revisit our site to share their workouts with other FiTMAPPED users. We want to facilitate a sense of community among our users to ensure that they return to our site again and again. This would promote a social space in the fitness community. Ultimately, one of our biggest challenges has been trying to find the best way to engage our users.

#1 Tip for Entrepreneurs

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

At first, we were so scared to tell people about our idea, but when we started to get more comfortable with asking for help, we realized how helpful the startup community really is. Most of the time, people will listen to your idea and offer their feedback; all they want is for you to keep in touch with them.

However, if you do talk and reach out to people, don’t get overwhelmed with the feedback. Stay true to your concept and idea. Take all the advice and filter it, so that you don’t stray too far from your own [vision]. 

Stay connected with FiTMAPPED on Twitter.

This interview has been edited and condensed. Interview conducted by writer, Katherine Burks.