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PT ON DEMAND
Uber has had great success with its taxi on demand app, but do people need PTs at such short notice? Kath Hudson reports on the new trend for PT on demand apps
IN-PERSON PT
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ruBe, founded by Swiss-born entrepreneur Daria Kantor, is a PT on demand app aimed at time-poor Millennials. “People are so busy nowadays that time has become a valuable commodity. TruBe is a product that works around their schedule,” she explains. Currently only available in the UK, TruBe has more than 100 highly qualified trainers, with users able to choose from PT, yoga, boxing, kickboxing and ballet fit. They have to be able to provide the workout venue, which may be at their home, their office, their work gym or even Daria Kantor the local park.
The fee for four sessions a month is £99, eight sessions cost £189, and it’s £269 for 12 sessions. Four sessions is the most popular among the app’s 6,000 users. TruBe gets a commission for each session. The app launched last year and then relaunched a few months later, after taking on board customer feedback which found that people wanted it to be more visual and simpler to use. Although the app is gaining traction, Kantor says the main challenge has been to find a large enough network of personal trainers – and that this is also the barrier to expanding more rapidly overseas and into remoter parts of the UK. Four PT sessions a month is TruBe’s most popular option
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Louise Fritjofsson
A PEER NETWORK
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S app VINT came up against similar problems to TruBe in terms of finding enough good trainers, even though it was using enthusiastic amateurs for a peer-topeer approach – a model it felt would be less intimidating for users. “We wanted to use people who were passionate about fitness to train other people in their spare time,” explains founder Louise Fritjofsson. “However, we experienced a lot of problems with our PTs not being professional enough – cancelling and turning up late.” After two years of struggling to find sufficient numbers of reliable PTs, VINT decided to change its model. “We found we’d built a brilliant one-click class booking system, with a community-based feel, lots of pictures and the ability to send messages,” says Fritjofsson. VINT has therefore been relaunched as a bookings system and counts premium US chain Equinox among its clients. PTs and yoga teachers can still list their services and can be booked via the app, but selling one-to-one PT sessions is no longer the sole focus of this app.