一家健身公司如何赢得千万投资

    不久前一个周一，帕耶尔•卡达奇亚左手轻扶芭蕾把杆，右臂抬起，手指尖指向天空。她一袭黑衣，头发后梳，轻巧地用双脚点地又收回，像大多数人描述的那样，举手投足之间充满了女性的优雅。

    这个四面都是镜子的宽敞房间位于旧金山市中心，是健身公司Avant Barre的教室。对卡达奇亚来说，待在这样的地方舒适自在极了。作为提供每月健身课程预订服务的ClassPass公司的共同创始人，她经常在这些房间中与健身房经理畅谈，会见公司客户，当然，还有健身。

    她随后捧着一杯绿茶，说道：“我基本上每时每刻都穿着健身服。”

    31岁的卡拉奇亚并不是简•方达或特雷西•安德森那样的健身达人。她不在乎ClassPass用户在健身后是否拥有紧实的大腿肌肉或线条优美的腰身，她只想让人们离开办公桌和电子设备，做一些运动让生活更加充实，如果能出点汗就更好了。

    她表示：“有些人抱有成见，认为健身很乏味，我们要做的是让它更有趣、更有挑战、更吸引人，让它变成一种享受，而不是必须完成的枯燥动作。借助技术和数据，我们正在改变这种体验。”

    ClassPass的运作模式是：用户每月支付99美元，就能在纽约、洛杉矶和旧金山等特定城市的数十个健身中心上课（该公司计划在明年扩大可选城市范围）。作为帮助健身公司找到新客户的回报，ClassPass能够获取这些课程的批量折扣，部分折扣甚至高达每人35美元。

    位于旧金山的健身公司Avant Barre创立于今年6月，创始人尼尼•格列柯表示：“我们的健身中心增加了许多粉丝。由于健身房不在他们的社区，或者看起来不能随便进入，他们原来可能根本不会进来看看。”她选择了与ClassPass在Groupon和Living Social等团购网站上进行合作，因为卡达奇亚的公司“能吸引到真正对健身课程感兴趣的合适客户。”

    On a recent Monday, PayalKadakia placed her hand on a ballet barre, lifted her right arm, and pulsed her fingertips skyward. Clad in all black, hair pulled back, she moved with the grace of a woman who points and flexes her feet as effortlessly as most people text.

    Airy, mirror-walled spaces like this Avant Barre classroom in downtown San Francisco feel like home to Kadakia. As a founder of ClassPass, a monthly subscription service for fitness classes, she finds herself in them often, talking with studio managers, meeting ClassPass users, and, of course, working out.

    “I basically live in workout clothes,” she says later over a mug of green tea.

    But Kadakia, 31, is not an exercise enthusiast in the mode of Jane Fonda or Tracy Anderson. She doesn’t care if the users of ClassPass end up with trimmer thighs or carved-out midsections. She simply wants people to break away from their desks and devices and do more life-enriching activities. If they happen to work up a sweat, that’s icing on the proverbial (perhaps gluten free) cake.

    “Some people have that school of thought where fitness isn’t enjoyable, but we’re making it enjoyable, I think, by making it more fun, challenging, and engaging, rather than this boring thing that you have to do,” she says. “It’s about using technology and data to change this experience.”

    Here’s how ClassPass works: subscribers pay $99 a month to be able to take classes at dozens of different fitness studios in a given city, like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco (ClassPass plans to expand to more metropolitan areas next year). The company receives a bulk discount on classes—some of which can go for upwards of $35 each—from their providers in exchange for helping them reach new customers.

    “We’ve gained a lot of fans of the studio who would never have tried it because it wasn’t in their neighborhood or it didn’t seem accessible for them,” says NiniGueco, founder of San Francisco’s Avant Barre, which opened in June. She chose to work with ClassPass over group discount providers like Groupon and Living Social because Kadakia’s company “attracts the right individual, someone who is actually looking to discover classes.”