一家健身公司如何赢得千万投资

    这种合作也有其局限性。比如，一位ClassPass用户每月最多只能去同一家健身房三次，还有一些健身房禁止用户选择那些往往会售罄的课程。不过，通过给人们提供方便的混合健身方式，比如今天拳击，明天空中瑜伽，ClassPass希望取代作为健身房默认选择的月度会员制。卡达奇亚把它比作“健身的潘多拉魔盒”。

    一些健身中心拥有大批付费却几乎不锻炼的会员，与它们相比，卡达奇亚说：“我们希望人们多多使用我们的服务。我们公司最重要的业绩指标是预订课程量。当然，我们需要实现盈利目标，但如果预定课程量开始减少，那对我们来说不是个好消息。”

    去年，ClassPass完成了5万次课程预定，这一数字今年超过了100万。今年3月，公司得到了200万美元的种子基金，9月又宣布获得了另外1,200万美元的注资。

    弗里茨•朗曼是ClassPass最近一轮融资的主要投资者，他也是该公司种子阶段的投资人之一。他说，“与他们接触之后，我感到有点吃惊，因为他们居然没有被更多的投资者包围。他们在真真正正地改善人类的生活。没几个公司敢说：‘我们正在让人们变得更健康，更快乐。’”朗曼曾在2013年将自己的移动推荐公司Livestar卖给了Pinterest。

    ClassPass的创立缘起于一次让人沮丧的经历，那一次，卡达奇亚怎么也找不到自己想要的健身课程。2011年，卡达奇亚是华纳音乐（Warner Music）数字战略和商业发展部的一名职员。从3岁起开始学舞蹈的她，花了一下午在网上搜索当晚的芭蕾课。

    她说：“那件事太让人郁闷了。一堂课不过一个小时，但我花了一个小时才找到它。”

    当年晚些时候，卡达奇亚创立了Classtivity，这是一个类似于订餐网站OpenTable，供用户预定健身课程的平台。在做公司推广时，她遇见了后来的共同创始人玛丽•比金斯。比金斯曾为美国橄榄球大联盟（National Football League）和迪斯尼（Disney）等品牌设计营销活动。两人合作调整了Classtivity的运营模式，并在今年年初将其更名为ClassPass后重新推出。

    目前，ClassPass系统中有超过1,000门课程，这给健身爱好者提供了很大的方便。但卡达奇亚的设想不止于“出点汗的生活”——这是公司的非官方口号之一。接下来，她想提供烹饪课、音乐课等类似服务。在她看来，ClassPass是一个生活品牌，而不是健身品牌。

    她表示：“我们不想成为耐克（Nike）。我们将会加入新产品，让人们的生活变得更好。”

    卡达奇亚说到做到：她是Sa Dance Company的创始人兼艺术总监，这是一家位于纽约的南亚舞蹈团，而ClassPass也在纽约设立了分部。创建这家公司的历程使她意识到，并没有多少年轻上班族在追求健康的业余爱好（即不是围绕喝酒展开的活动）

    她说：“每个周六早晨，我起床后就会去锻炼，而其他人则会去吃早午餐，喝酒。我的行为就像说：‘我待会儿再来见你，现在我得先去做我最重视的事。’”

    卡达奇亚认为自己非常幸运地拥有一份事业和充满激情的生活规划，她希望ClassPass能帮助其他人也实现精神和身体的平衡。

    她表示：“这一切都是为了赋予你权利，让你的生活丰富起来。”她引用奥普拉•温弗瑞的口头禅说：“过最好的生活。”（温弗瑞和史蒂夫•乔布斯是卡达奇亚的商业偶像。）

    卡达奇亚补充道：“我们邀请你参与进来，体验一下。我们希望你能找到让生活变得更加美好的那件事。”（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    There are limits: a ClassPass user can visit the same studio up to three times per month, and some studios block users from signing up for classes that regularly sell out. But by giving people easy ways to mix up their workouts—say, boxing one day, aerial yoga the next—the company hopes to displace standard monthly gym memberships as the default option for exercise. Kadakia likens it to “the Pandora of workouts.”

    “We want people to use it,” she says, as opposed to gyms whose membership rosters are rife with clients who pay but rarely go. “The No. 1 metric that the whole company stands behind is our reservations number. We obviously need to hit our business metrics, but if the number of classes people are going to starts declining, that’s bad for us.”

    Last year, ClassPass facilitated 50,000 class reservations; this year, they’ve done more than one million. In September, they announced $12 million in new funding, in addition to the $2 million in seed funding they raised in March.

    “I was sort of surprised that they weren’t being swamped by more investors when I got in touch with them,” said Fritz Lanman, who sold his mobile recommendations company Livestar to Pinterest in 2013 and led the ClassPass’ most recent financing and invested in their seed round. “They’re improving people’s lives, literally. Not many companies can say, ‘We’re making people healthier and happier.’”

    ClassPass was born out of Kadakia’s frustration with finding an activity of her own. While working in the digital strategy and business development division of Warner Music in 2011, Kadakia—a dancer since the age of 3—spent an afternoon tumbling down an Internet black hole, searching for a ballet class to attend that evening.

    “It was the most miserably frustrating thing,” she says. “A class is an hour and it took me an hour to find it.”

    Later that year, Kadakia founded Classtivity, a kind of OpenTable like system for reserving spots at fitness classes. While trying to market the company, she met her eventual co-founder Mary Biggins, who previously built marketing campaigns for brands including the National Football League and Disney DIS 0.36% . Together, they tweaked the company’s model and at the beginning of this year relaunched as ClassPass.

    With more than 1,000 classes currently in their system, ClassPass is kind of a golden ticket for workout fiends. But Kadakia has visions beyond “living the sweaty life,” one of the company’s unofficial mottos. Down the line, she envisions offering things like cooking classes and music lessons, and she sees ClassPass as a lifestyle rather than a fitness brand.

    “We’re not trying to be Nike,” she says. “It’s about evolving into new products that are going to make people’s lives better.”

    Kadakia practices what she preaches: she is the founder and artistic director of the Sa Dance Company, a South Asian dance troupe based in New York, where ClassPass is also headquartered. Launching that group made her realize how rare it was for young professionals to partake in healthy hobbies (i.e., those not based around alcohol).

    “I woke up every Saturday morning and I would go to rehearsal, and everyone else would be going to brunch and getting drunk,” she says. “I was like, ‘I’ll meet you later, but I want to go do something I care about first.’”

    She considers herself lucky to have a career and a passion project, and hopes ClassPass will help other people find their mind-body cocktail of choice, too.

    “It’s about empowerment, enrichment,” she says, citing Oprah Winfrey’s mantra, “live your best life.” (She considers Winfrey a business idol, along with Steve Jobs.)

    “We require you to commit and have an experience,” Kadakia adds. “We want you to find that thing that will make your life better.”