How do you scale a fitness brand when your growth depends on your customer’s consistency?
Akshay Verma, Co-founder of Fitpass, and Sahil Bansal, Co-founder of Fitelo, saw the same problem. People could start their fitness journey but struggled to stay consistent.
To solve this, Fitpass gives people access to a massive network of physical gyms, while Fitelo offers personalized diet and lifestyle coaching entirely online. They both started their fitness businesses with very different mindsets. Here’s what their journeys reveal.
The Insight Behind Both Businesses
Sahil Bansal saw a knowledge gap. Staying fit had become too complicated. People had to think about everything, from calories to gut health. They didn’t need more motivation. They needed the right knowledge to make better choices.
Akshay Verma saw an access gap. Fitness was expensive and inaccessible. His answer was to make it as easy as getting food or a cab. Fitpass even launched Get Fit, Get Rich, a programme that paid customers to work out and helped them get started.
But turning that insight into a business came with its own challenges.
The First Big Challenge
For Akshay Verma, the challenge was convincing people that fitness mattered at all. Fitpass started in 2015, when India was still solving for food, clothing and housing. Other categories had clear demand. Fitness didn’t. It wasn’t top of mind, and there was little wallet share to compete for.
For Sahil Bansal, the challenge was getting people to stick with it. People wanted quick results, but fitness takes daily effort. You have to manage your diet and exercise every day. Without those habits, results don’t last.
Getting people started was one thing. Keeping them going was another.
The Moment That Forced a Rethink
Sahil Bansal had to rethink the behavioral model because motivation comes and goes, and often fades. The focus shifted to understanding how to sustain it and make fitness easier for customers.
For Akshay, it was about changing the gym model. Instead of a ₹20,000 upfront fee, Fitpass offered access to 1,000 gyms for ₹999 a month. That brought people who had never started their fitness journey into the category. The challenge then shifted from acquiring motivated customers to scaling supply fast enough to meet demand.
As the businesses grew, the founders also had to rethink how they approached growth.
The Biggest Lie Founders Tell Themselves
Sahil Bansal’s answer is simple. Founders think they can acquire customers now and solve retention later. But without engagement and retention, there’s little to build on.
Akshay Verma’s answer comes from Fitpass’ own journey through demonetization, GST hikes and a 21-month COVID shutdown. The biggest mistake is thinking that if you keep solving today’s problems, tomorrow will take care of itself.
You need a plan. Hope is not a strategy.
What They’d Do Differently
Akshay Verma would start with a clearer understanding of the market and ask investors how they personally view fitness before pitching them. Being first isn’t always an advantage. Sometimes, you have to build the market yourself.
Sahil Bansal sees fitness differently today. It’s no longer just a diet and exercise problem. It’s closer to a disease that needs to be treated clinically.
And sometimes, sticking with your gut means making decisions that look wrong at first.
A Decision That Looked Wrong, Until It Wasn’t
When AI took off, Sahil Bansal was told to pivot because nutritionists would be replaced. He didn’t. He believed AI could create the plan, but coaches were still needed when customers were about to drop off. AI makes coaches superhuman.
Fitpass started with gym access, added nutrition services in 2017, and launched an AI coach in 2018. When COVID hit, that groundwork helped Fit Coach reach 7 lakh monthly active customers across 500 cities. Together, these decisions helped Fitpass become a holistic membership.
Building the right product was only part of the journey. The experience around it had to keep up too.
Powering the Business Behind the Growth
As fitness businesses grow, payments become an important part of the customer experience.
PayU helps businesses accept payments and drive customer conversion with reliable payment infrastructure.
Payment Gateway: Accept 150+ payment modes with industry-leading success rates, 99.98% uptime and seamless integration across web and app platforms.
Know more about PayU solutions
No One Way to Scale
Akshay Verma scaled Fitpass by making fitness more accessible. Sahil Bansal focused on knowledge, retention and AI-backed coaching to scale Fitelo.
Two different approaches, built around the same goal of helping people stay consistent.
There is no single formula for scale. What matters is understanding what your customer needs to keep coming back and building for it at every stage of growth.
PayU powers businesses like Fitpass and Fitelo, helping founders focus on building what’s next.
