PHL Inno's weekly "Startup Spotlight" feature highlights founders and new businesses cropping up in the region.
The startup: Upswing Fitness is a subscription platform for personal trainers and fitness instructors to create and post content.
Founded: 2020
Home base: West Chester
Founders: Chris Putsch, a personal trainer, and Shaun Ziegler, one of Putsch’s first clients.
The two founders met through Putsch’s wife, who is Ziegler’s cousin. The duo run Upswing Fitness full-time.
When Covid-19 hit, Putsch’s clients approached him about workout plans they could complete at home while gyms were shut down. Rather than creating siloed programs for all of his clients that participated in a group class, he built a group chat and spreadsheet where his clients could log their workouts and compete with each other through a leaderboard.
“We’re just kind of trying to replicate that group fitness or in-person, in-gym experience while still being apart,” he said. “We say we're allowing our members to work out together, but apart.”
Putsch tested several other platforms to make posting workouts online easier, but couldn’t find a social media platform that fit his needs. So he and Ziegler sought to build one themselves.
The product: Upswing Fitness is an app where fitness instructors can post their workouts which are available using a subscription model.
Trainers can sign up to use the app, create a profile and then post to the app. There are two types of posts available: a workout or a simple text post. Workout posts can include multiple photos or videos to demonstrate “steps” of a workout.
The product is tailored to personal trainers and fitness instructors who want to be self-employed, rather than working for a gym or studio. Trainers can list their content as free or for subscribers only.
Users can download Upswing Fitness for free and access different trainers’ posts through a subscription. After they subscribe, users get access to the trainer’s group chat and a leaderboard.
The startup is designed to be an alternative to other social media platforms where fitness content creators have difficulty monetizing their work, such as Instagram or Facebook, Putsch said. Upswing takes a percentage of each subscription plan and a membership fee.
Upswing Fitness stands in direct competition with platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans that offer content subscriptions to creators, while also offering the competition and community aspect of companies like Peloton.
“There's a lot of Big Tech coming in who are squeezing out the trainers and going directly to the end users, and trainers kind of need a way to fight back,” Putsch said. “So we're trying to create technology so that they can do just that.”
Funding: Upswing Fitness is in the midst of a $1.5 million seed round, of which it has already raised more than $600,000.
The goal: Upswing Fitness’ platform is in beta testing with several trainers, and the startup plans to soft launch the platform in early March and roll out its first version in May,
One way to get there is to get sports teams involved on the app to keep track of workouts and keep up competition in the off-season, he said.
The startup is also looking at corporations as potential clients, offering Upswing as a product that employees can use to compete against each other in fitness challenges.
“Wellness benefits are huge and attractive right now for both employees and savvy employers, so I think that could be a space where we really could flourish,” said Putsch, who previously worked in group insurance and employee benefits.
