Anna Shuford, 23, started taking virtual fitness classes three times a week during the pandemic via Zoom. She loved working out in her living room and using wine bottles as weights. But she said links could be hard to access, the sound quality was poor and keeping up with the timing of Venmo payments was mentally taxing.
That’s when she realized there had to be a better and easier way to do things — for both the instructor and attendees.
Shuford’s solution is the startup BOOMROOM, an integrated web-based platform that gives fitness instructors the tools and technology to host high-quality, live virtual classes.
“The whole point of it is fitness without boundaries,” said Shuford, CEO of BOOMROOM and an MBA student at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The platform is instructor-focused and provides scheduling, booking, payment, analytics, communication and high-quality music and video features. In her outreach to trainers, Shuford said these were features they wanted all in one place to simplify their workflow.
The startup has raised $150,000 in pre-seed funding. The funds have been allocated to branding, site development and operations, she said.
Shuford started working on BOOMROOM in summer 2020. The following summer, it was part of Launch Chapel Hill’s startup accelerator program.
The platform is expected to launch in late October or early November with a class of 12 founding instructors. The instructors are located across the United States, including in Charlotte and New York City.
To generate revenue, BOOMROOM charges instructors a $25 monthly service fee and a 20 percent commission on sales.
Shuford said the goal is to add 50 to 100 instructors to the platform by the end of BOOMROOM’s first year. She said if the platform is able to scale as expected, the startup will turn a profit fairly quickly.
But Shuford said BOOMROOM will be intentional about its growth, requiring trainers to complete a short application before they can join the site to discourage the saturation of inexperienced instructors.
“It’s always been in my head to create this really high energy, positive and badass group of people that just want to work hard, play hard and teach these classes from wherever and reach people wherever,” Shuford said.
And Shurford anticipates the number of trainers using the platform will continue to grow because she believes virtual fitness is here to stay since providing virtual classes is another source of revenue for trainers and people enjoy the convenience of not driving to the gym. Her projections indicate BOOMROOM will double its trainer base each year for five years.
“It has so much room to grow,” she said.