Not everyone has time to go to the gym nor the money to pay the monthly or annual fees to do so. However, that does not mean you can't get in shape. To provide a solution for this dual problem, about two years ago Ictiva was set up, a project led by four partners who wanted to transfer the model of the physical gym to the online world.
“We wanted to give the part of the population that doesn't do sport the chance to get active. So we thought that with the Internet we could create a platform that everyone has access to and that was also cheap,” says founding partner Jordi Marsal. The plans go from six to eight euros a month, depending on the type of plan chosen.
"We wanted to give that part of the population that doesn't do sport the chance to get active"
The platform offers videos of about 20 minutes in 21 different disciplines adapted to all levels and with different exercises to work each part of the body depending on the objectives. “We have about 1,000 videos recorded and we have them for children and babies, for people beginning from 0 and who want to start making progress…,” he says.
What’s more, they offer a nutrition service with standard diet plans and others that are personalised for the user, as well as training systems designed for each person. It is all done by professionals, they work with an association of nutritionists and dieticians who set the pace. And to avoid people getting bored watching themselves on the screen doing exercise, they have a motivator that follows each activity done by the user and rewards constancy.
Even though they have a variety of profiles, their main public is made up of women between 25 and 45 looking for aerobics, belly dancing, pilates or yoga. According to Marsal, aerobics is the most in-demand activity and, as far as diets are concerned, the 15-day plans. “People want quick results,” he says.
The registration peaks are at three times in the year: after Christmas, the spring thanks to operation bikini, and in September, when everyone gets back to work and sets new objectives.
Looking after the worker
Ictiva Work is the other part of the business. They offer companies the chance to improve the health of their employees with physical and mental exercise plans or diets. The employees get the service for free and the bill is sent to the corporations, whom they assure can cut the number of sick days and staff problems.
Among their clients are companies like Gas Natural, Simon and Áreas.
Search for funding
“We have always moved forward using trial-and-error, we have progressed on the back of our own financial resources, but now we need help to continue growing.” This is the reason why Marsal says they are part of the third edition of Menorca Millennials, the world’s first decelerator for startups, which has selected 20 projects from almost 400 around the world.
"The company had to be 100% our own as long as our resources held out and now we have gone past that point"
As the head of the product explains, the idea is to find the person (or people) prepared to invest in Ictiva so that it will have sufficient resources for promotion and marketing. “We have an established product, critical mass and things are going well. But we only have 145,000 people registered, on the Internet that is nothing, it is a drop in the ocean,” he points out. “The company had to be 100% our own as long as our resources held out and now we have gone past that point.”
They have set the figure of two million euros as the ideal amount to grow well. To expand in the Spanish market and to think about translating the platform into other languages and make the leap abroad.
The team is made up of 10 people and is led by the four founding partners: Orlando Pérez, Sergio Recio, Soli Zacal and Jordi Marsal. They work with some 30 specialists, with whom they record videos every three months to update the exercise routines.
In 2016, turnover was 270,000 euros and this year they expect that to rise to 600,000 euros.