Workout From Home: This Fitness Startup Rewards Users for Exercising Even in Quarantine

This fitness startup is rewarding users for exercising, and they are not giving up in the face of quarantine.

According to Statista, revenue in the fitness segment in India is projected to touch US$2,190 million in 2020. With an annual growth rate (CAGR 2020-2024) of 0.6%, the projected market volume is poised to result in US$2,239 million by 2024. That means Indians are serious about their fitness.

However, with outdoor activity coming to a sudden stop owing to the pandemic, people are missing their regular exercise. One of the drawbacks of staying home is that we are ready for a snack anytime, while we lose the discipline of exercising on time.

StepSetGo, a fitness startup, has found a way of rewarding its users for keeping up their fitness. How does that work? The Tech Panda spoke to Shivjeet Ghatge, CEO and Co-Founder of StepSeGo, to find out.

The aim is to motivate users to do some form of exercise every day. This is easier said than done and that is where the rewards come into the picture

“How many new year’s resolutions have you made to get fitter?” he asks.

Millions of people make the same resolutions towards a fitter year ahead. Yet, almost all of them fail to keep them.

“Don’t worry, we have been in the same boat,” says Ghatge. “The story is the same. Jan is the year gyms get the most enrolments thanks to this human tendency. Most of us have given up by February of the same year because we have run out of motivation to keep pushing ourselves to make sure we do that one hour of training,” he adds.

Recognizing this as a real problem, StepSetGo has been trying to free people from the loop of trying and failing, which can be quite demotivating.

“We recognised this very problem, and in our own way, have solved it for the users who have been stuck in this loop,” he says.

Rake in Coins for Discounted Products

StepSetGo is a fitness rewarding platform. For every 1000 steps that the user takes, he/she is rewarded with 1 SSG Coin. These coins can be accumulated over time and redeemed for amazing products and discounts in the Bazaar, which is StepSetGo’s in-app marketplace.

“The aim is to motivate users to do some form of exercise every day. This is easier said than done and that is where the rewards come into the picture,” Ghatge explains.

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In order to ensure a high engagement rate and keep up with the momentum, the app introduced four new challenges in the month of April.

“Rewards are just one of the ways we motivate our users. Apart from that, StepSetGo adopts a deeply gamified and social approach towards fitness. This gives users more reason to engage with the platform. So to sum it all up, we reward you for getting fit while challenging you with new activities every day that you can do with your friends and family,” he says.

Owing to the emerging demand and to induce motivation to stay fit while walking indoors, the startup has partnered with Gamezop to launch new engaging games on their app. These hyper-casual games will allow users to try some fun activities to keep the stress at bay, while they spend and earn points on the app.

The app has also started encouraging users to start tracking their daily steps and be accountable for something that they anyway do – walking.

“Walking might be a very basic form of exercise but we have seen our active users walk 20-30% more after joining the application,” says Ghatge.

How it Started

StepSetGo was started in January 2019 by Ghatge, along with Misaal Turakhia and Abhay Pai, a group of youth who always wanted to start something of their own that provided innovative solutions to everyday pressing issues.

Before StepSetGo, they ran through and dismissed many ideas – a football planner that helps people find and play with different football enthusiasts across their city, a tinder-like app for dogs and even an SOS based app to help people in dire circumstances.

Ultimately, it was a joke that brought on the light bulb.

“It all started with a simple statement, ‘Why am I paying the gym so much? Getting fit is so hard, the gym should be paying me!’ This joke sparked the idea of StepSetGo. Getting fit is hard enough as it is and maintaining motivation is an extremely uphill task. Why not reward users, provide additional motivation and make it fun? We knew there was potential here and we went for it all guns blazing!” Ghatge gushes.

Exponential Growth

StepSetGo has almost hit the 6-million-downloads mark in just about a year and a half. With a healthy number of DAU (Daily Active Users) as compared to their competitors, they have shown exponential growth.

Ghatge counts themselves as fortunate to have gained more than 90% of their users organically through their referral program and word of mouth. More than that, they have also witnessed countless users who have transformed their fitness levels and lost weight with the use of StepSetGo.

“We have user stories of users losing 34 kg in just a matter of 6 months by walking regularly and eating healthy. Such stories and the love we receive from our users always encourage us to push our limits and provide more to our users in terms of features and value additions. We have a long way to go and we are ready to walk that road,” he says.

Rewards are just one of the ways we motivate our users. Apart from that, StepSetGo adopts a deeply gamified and social approach towards fitness. This gives users more reason to engage with the platform

The app has collaborated with leading brands like Bajaj Avenger, Apple, Boat, Skechers, Puma, and Decathlon, among others, to reward its users and encourage them to stay healthy. In October 2019, they partnered with additional 100 brands so that they can offer a variety of rewards to their users. By November 2019, the app observed an overwhelming response from their users with over 500,000 redeemed offers.

The app also claims to have the highest per user activity and the highest daily active user base in the Indian market. With over five million downloads and a 4.3 rating on Google Play Store, StepSetGo is rising fast in the fitness rewarding space.

The startup uses in-app advertisements like banner ads and video ads to gain revenue. Apart from that, they have a commercial model, wherein they get paid by brands to list their exclusive offers and products on the Bazaar.

“We are soon going to open up new features that expand the revenue streams, so stay tuned for these new and exciting features,” Ghatge informs.

Adapting to COVID-19 Challenges

Like all businesses, COVID-19 has impacted StepSetGo. As a platform that requires their users to walk outside to stay fit, quarantine became a difficult time. However, they adapted to rise above the challenges, says Ghatge.

We changed some of the most critical features to adapt, support, and promote this new environment

“It did affect our DAU and growth to some extent, but we were proactive enough to soften the blow. We changed some of the most critical features to adapt, support, and promote this new environment,” says Ghatge.

In order to ensure fitness in a home environment, StepSetGo made indoor walking more rewarding by giving more SSG Coins for walking indoors as opposed to walking outdoors. In addition, they added ‘Turbo Time’ slots for their users to earn 1.5x the Coins than normal, so that they started reminding users to walk four-five times a day, while easing the level progression system.

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All these changes, along with some engaging challenges in their Arena section, which is their in-app section for hosting fitness challenges for their users, motivated users and encouraged them to stay fit even during the quarantine.

“We did see a drop in the overall number of steps being taken, but because of our actions we managed to increase app engagement figures even when the COVID-19 lockdown was ongoing,” he says.