Looking for workouts at the best fitness centers near you ?

Tired of doing the same workout for ages ?

Wanna change your trainer but no connects ?

Well, look no more ..... Join the 1.2 million fitness community through the best fitness chain in town - CultFit.

Cult.Fit is a health & wellness platform offering group workout sessions, gyms, yoga, meditation programs & nutrition programs via app & physical centers. If you are a busy professional, aged 18-40 who value convenience & affordability, you have come at the right place !!

It solves the problem of accessibility to good quality fitness centers & trainers with a flexibility to choose between various forms of workouts. It also solves for personalized workout plans and fitness tracking.

Become a Cult Elite member now!!

Understanding Product

Fundamental need or want the product is solving for - Cult.Fit is solving for accessibility of good quality fitness centers and trainers for young working individuals who want to live a healthy lifestyle & lose weight. It is also solving for providing a variety of options of workout (dance, strength training, yoga, boxing etc.) at a single center, at the convenience of the user by offering multiple time slots in a day.

What are the basic features and functionalities that the product provides?

In order to understand the basic features & functionalities of the product, I have used the product multiple times as well as spoken to few regular users at the nearest cult center. After having gone through the desktop version & Mobile version, the key features in cult.fit can be summarized as under:

1. In person workout sessions: Below is the screenshots of the website & mobile app to book group fitness sessions at the center. Various subscription plans are available to suit the user needs. At Center there is an option to book yoga, strength training, HRX workout, Boxing, Check-in to the gym, Dance, and even sports like badminton, swimming, table tennis. It allows selection from 21 time slots (available every half an hour in morning and evening) per day at the nearest cult center. Cult also has a functionality to provide customized weight loss program for users called - Cult Transform, where in the user can get onboarded for 6 weeks getting access to workout plan, personalized training, nutrition guidance. Cult also has a personalized gym module in the app, where the user enters the fitness goal, preferred days of work out & current fitness level. Basis these inputs a personalized gym plan is created for the user, which he/she can do by herself. This is a guided plan in which the name of the workout, correct posture, and repetitions are explained. User can also opt for a personal trainer at the gym for a monthly fee. The details of personal trainers alongwith their training history & ratings is mentioned in the app. Users can also workout at cult affiliated gyms through the option of luxury gyms on the homepage.
2. 
3. At Home work-out sessions - Cult provides a functionality to select the fitness goal, for eg - gaining muscle, lose weight etc. Basis that goal, virtual plans are suggested for the users and progress can be tracked in the app as the user attends these sessions. I have selected the goal as " build muscle", below were the suggested workouts for me. 4. Lab Tests: Cult offers lab tests for thyroid, blood CBC , Lipid profile etc. for members under its "Care" tab. These can be booked through desktop as well as app. 5. Mind.Fit: Cult offers a variety of meditation modules as part of both desktop and app versions. Some are part of the subscription programs listed above, and few can be used on a paid basis. It has guided meditations, yoga nidras and other forms of mental relaxation techniques. 6. Merchandising & Sports: Cult offers its branded merchandise through the app and desktop platforms on a paid basis. As mentioned above, it also has sports facilities at some centers. What other ways are users using to solve the same problem? The other ways users are solving the above listed problem is by going to other gym chains, using their community gyms. Using apps such as Healthifyme for nutrition coaches & workout guidance, Sarva for yoga studios. But the no other platform is listing everything together under one platform like Cult.

   Understanding Users

Basis the user interviews which I have done, the user profiles can be listed as below.

The ICPs can be defined as below:

Understanding Market

i have identified three main competitors for cult.fit in India basis the user base and popularity. Each of the competitors detailed analysis is shown as under.

TAM , SAM, SOM Calculation for Cult.Fit

Example Calculation for Cult.fit

Assumptions:

• Target Geography: India
• Population: 1.4 billion
• Urban Population: 35% = 490 million
• Health-Conscious Individuals: 40% of urban population → 196 million (considering only metros and upcoming metros).
• Average Annual Spend on Fitness and Wellness: $150

Calculation:

TAM = Number of Health-Conscious Individuals * Average Annual Spend

TAM = 196 million * $150 = $29.4 billion

Serviceable available market

To calculate SAM, consider the following factors specific to Cult.fit:

• Geographical Reach: Current and planned cities or regions within India where Cult.fit operates or intends to expand.
• Service Offerings: Specific products and services Cult.fit provides (e.g., in-person fitness classes, online classes, nutrition services, mental wellness programs).
• Target Demographics: Age groups, income levels, and other demographic factors that Cult.fit specifically targets.
• Distribution Channels: Availability through physical centers versus digital platforms.

Segment the TAM Based on Operational Scope

a. Geographical Segmentation:

Assume Cult.fit currently operates in major metropolitan cities and plans to expand to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. Let’s define the urban population in these areas.

• Tier 1 Cities (e.g., Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai): Approximately 20% of India’s urban population.
  Tier 1 Urban Population=490 million×20%=98 million
• Tier 2 Cities: Additional 30% of urban population.
  Tier 2 Urban Population=490 million×30%=147 million
• Total Targeted Urban Population: Tier 1 + Tier 2 = 245 million

b. Service-Specific Segmentation:

Consider Cult.fit offers both in-person and digital services. However, digital services can reach a broader audience, while in-person services are limited to specific cities.

• In-Person Services Reach: Limited to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.
• Digital Services Reach: Can extend nationwide but depends on internet penetration and digital adoption.

c. Health-Conscious Individuals within Target Areas:

Assuming the same 20% health-conscious individuals within the targeted urban population.

Health-Conscious in SAM=245 million×20%=49 million

Adjust for Service Offerings and Accessibility

a. Digital Penetration and Accessibility:

Not all health-conscious individuals may have access to or prefer digital fitness solutions. Assume 70% have sufficient internet access and are inclined towards digital services.

Accessible Health Conscious Individuals=49 million×70%=34.3 million

b. Service Adoption Rate:

Not every accessible individual will adopt Cult.fit’s services. Estimate an adoption rate based on market research or industry benchmarks. Suppose a 50% adoption rate.

Potential Users=34.3 million×50%=17.15 million

c. Average Annual Spend Adjustment:

Assume that digital users might spend slightly less on average compared to in-person users. Let’s set an average annual spend of $120 instead of $150.

Calculate SAM

SAM=17.15 million×$120=$2.058 billion

Summary of SAM Calculation

1. Total Urban Population Targeted (Tier 1 & Tier 2): 245 million
2. Health-Conscious Individuals within Targeted Urban Population: 49 million
3. Accessible Health-Conscious Individuals (Internet & Digital Adoption): 34.3 million
4. Potential Users (Adoption Rate): 17.15 million
5. Average Annual Spend: $120

SAM=17.15 million×$120=$2.058 billion.

SOM : Serviceable obtainable market

To calculate SOM, consider the following factors:

• Market Competition
• Market Penetration Strategies
• Operational Capacity
• Brand Recognition and Loyalty
• Technological Capabilities

For Cult.fit, considering its existing brand presence, diverse service offerings, and operational reach, a reasonable SOM estimate can be between 5% to 10% of the SAM.

Chosen Estimate for Cult.fit: For a balanced approach, let's assume Cult.fit can capture 6% of the SAM.

SOM=$2.058 billion×0.06 = $123.48 million

Justify the SOM Estimate

To substantiate the 6% SOM, WE ARE ASSUMING the following:

• Brand Presence: Cult.fit has an established presence in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities with a growing customer base.
• Diverse Offerings: Comprehensive services across fitness, mental wellness, nutrition, and digital platforms attract a broader audience.
• Strategic Partnerships: Collaborations with corporates, influencers, and other brands can accelerate market penetration. More local gym chains Acquisitions such as the Gold Gym in the past.
• Customer Loyalty: Strong retention rates and positive customer experiences contribute to sustainable market share growth.
• Competitive Advantage: Unique service offerings and quality differentiate Cult.fit from competitors by leveraging technology.

✅ PMF is achieved.

• 1.2 million followers on instagram (willingness to pay).
• As of May 2024, Cult.fit reported approximately 5 million active users across its platform. (retention is good).
• Strong Word of mouth, as seen through testimonials.

📅 Current Stage

• Cult.fit has planned to scale its revenue from 10 - 100x ( 2023 revenue 600-700 Cr, planning to scale it to 7000 Cr by fiscal year 2025)
• Category ranking is 5th amongst health & fitness on the app store, with 111k ratings and overall rating of 4.8 stars.
• As of September 2024, Cult.fit's website received approximately 1.2 million visits.
• The Engagement Rate on instagram is 1.01%. The average number of likes and comments per Instagram post created by cult official is 12.4K and 27 respectively.
• Youtube Stats & Analytics for wearecult (@cult.official) is higher than instagram. 2.2M subscribers. 2.8K average views. Engagement rate is 2.89%.

📈 Channel distribution framework

• Scaling is an important parameter for Cult.Fit at this stage.
• Considering that we look into Search, Influencer marketing, Paid Ads, Referral and Coupon integrations.
• The lead generation time is also important for cult fit considering the cost and effort put into each channel
• Now we will look into the insights from our user-calling.

• In order to find the best possible acquisition channel we will drill down the usage pattern of phones by our ICPs & their journey of discovering.
• Their behavioural pattern on a day-to-day basis. Usage of kind of apps.

How did they discover Cult ?

• Consumes a lot of content from instagram & youtube.
• Can be the distributor of the content loop
• Buying decisions influenced by surroundings (referee) mostly family, friends, colleagues
• Uses UPI apps for payments everyday.
• Health freak, but prefers working out in society or at home due to time constraints.
• Budget constraint
• Possible channels -
• • Paid channels - YouTube Ads
  • Referral
  • Integrations on savings and UPI apps

• Consumes a lot of content from Youtube, Spotify.
• Good influence among friends and peers (Referer).
• Spends a significant amount of time on UPI apps, Google, Youtube, credit card apps, food ordering.
• Looks for healthy food while ordering from the app or even outside.
• Health is a priority but prefers to go to the gym with people, and not alone.
• Possible channels -
• • Paid channels - YouTube Ads
  • Referral
  • Integrations on savings and UPI apps, Food ordering apps.
• Let’s deep dive into the most reachable channels among our potential customers:
• • Paid Ads (Instagram & Youtube, Google)
  • Referral program
  • Coupon integrations

• In the Cult discovery framework, we can observe that most of the potential customers found it through Instagram / Youtube.
• The potential audience is reachable more on Instagram.

CAC : 500 Rs or $6 calculated based on the average CAC of the fitness apps / gyms in india.

Broad LTV calculation for cult.fit user would be defined as under

LTV=ARPU×Gross Margin×Customer Lifespan

1. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU):
2. • Assumption: Cult.fit charges an average of ₹1,000 per month per user.
   • Conversion to USD: ₹1,000 ≈ $11.85 (assuming ₹80 = $1)
   • ARPU (Monthly): $11.85
   • ARPU (Annual): $11.85 x 12 = $142
3. Gross Margin:
4. • Assumption: Cult.fit operates with a gross margin of 50% due to higher operational costs of running the gyms.
   • Gross Margin: 0.5
5. Average Customer Lifespan:
6. • Assumption: The average user remains subscribed for 12 months (1 years).
   • Customer Lifespan: 12 months

Step-by-Step LTV Calculation

LTV=ARPU (Annual)×Gross Margin×Customer Lifespan (Years)

Convert Customer Lifespan to Years:
Customer Lifespan= 12 months= 1 year

Calculate LTV:
LTV=$142×0.5×1= $71

CAC / LTV ratio is 0.08 approximately, which is approximately 1:12 which means for every dollar spent on acquiring a customer, the business should ideally generate 12 dollars in return over that customer's lifetime, which is a good ratio for business's profitability.

• Considering the cost and scalability across the paid channels, FB Ads and Google search ads can be major distribution channels for acquisition.
• Also, 60% of the website traffic comes through search.
• When we look at the discovery of Cult.fit chart from the users we can see that Instagram & google are being the major source for discovery. Youtube is another platform which the users use most often.

Target Audience selection

• Demography target - The target audience age will range from 15-35 who live in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.
• Behaviour target - People who frequently shop online and consume more fitness content, follow fitness influencers, order healthy meals from paltforms like swiggy & zomato.
• Interest target - Their major part of interest will be around sports, fitness, diet regimes, healthy recipies etc.

Google Search Ads

Cult fit is ranked 1st organically on the SERP for the keyword "gym"

It is ranked low in narrow searches like workout centres, yoga centres, group workout classes.

Google search Ad creative

• The Ad creative should include the cost and the USP mentioned
• It should sound more selling and appealing.

For gyms search

• For ICPs who search for gyms near me.

• For workout centres search.
• For ICPs who search for workout centres offering more services apart from gyms.

Instagram Ads

• This channel can be used to showcase workout collections with great designs and creatives.
• We can divide our audience into small buckets based on their interest.
• The 1st bucket will be of audiences who is looking for specialized training needs. Influencer collaboration videos and collections display which is shot in a creative form can attract them.
• The second bucket will be for people who are looking for basic fitness needs and price matters to them. Static and GIF creatives with price cuts down and REWARDS mentioned can be a point of attraction.
• The 3rd bucket will be of the audience who are looking for building a fitness community & joining with their friends.
• Static, GIF and video Ads with all these four concepts included and presented in creative form can get the Ad more clicks.

Static Creative for Price conscious consumer

(Images / videos used in the creative are taken from the cult website)

Video creatives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khHLvY7SN3o

This campaign was focused on instagram users who keep scrolling mindlessly. This creative strategy is fantastic as the user would stop at this ad and is highly relatable. To be retained as is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfMV1W3pt6o

This campaign was focused on users who watch too much netflix. Again a brilliant idea. To be retained as is.

Does Cult fit into product integration?

They already have an integration with fitbit & apple health.

Coupons are one of the significant ways to trigger the user's purchase.

• When we look into the app usage of ideal customers we can see that on a daily basis, our customers are spending a significant time on Swiggy, Shopping & UPI apps.
• When we look into Time to go live - High, Tech Effort - High

When we observe the discovery channel the third most important channel was through coupons from the above listed apps.

When we observe the ICP’s app usages fintech apps such as Slice, Gpay, Phonepe, Groww and other investment apps are used on a day-to-day basis. Also, Swiggy / Zomato are used on a weekly basis to order in healthy meals.

Hence coupon discovery on these apps can be an important acquisition path.

The above two acquisition channels though can cover the age range of 15-35. We can integrate coupons on apps such as Gpay to make teens & adults enter into the acquisition channel. Cult is famous for its merchandise. Teens and young adults are more likely to get the merchandise when compared to millennials.

Product flow:

Swiggy integration with eat fit- every order on eat fit, get xx fit-coins on cult app. User clicking on claim now, gets re-directed download link in case app not installed.

Why someone will refer Cult.fit?

Brag-worthy points about Cult.fit -

• Calories burnt in a week / month at classes attended at Cult.
• Badges earned for consistency, milestones, activity, step counts etc.

Insights from user-calling

What is the one thing they like about Cult?

How referral program will suit the existing customers?

• When we look into the cult fit discovery chart we can see that the highest discovery was from friends and family.
• It has a strong WOM, and also a referral program in place.
• Most of the cult fit's offerings are diverse workout options (at center & at home). People who are willing to do same kind of workouts as their friends are doing, can benefit through referrals.
• To scale the acquisition we can implement a referral program in the happy points over the cult fit shopping journey.
• When we look at our ICP’s behaviour we can see that ICP-2 can possibly be our referrer and ICP -1 can possibly be the referee.
• Let's drill down to the referral setup.

What is the reward currently for existing & future users ?

Issues with the current program -

• Incentive for referrer is not enough, as he/she would get 30 days extra ONLY IF the referee BUYS a CULTPASS above 5000 Rs.
• Some new users getting onboarded for the first time, might not want to buy the pass as they're unsure about their commitment to cult.fit.
• Therefore, not much people might use the referral option.
• The Referral option is hidden in the profile & doesn't appear on the home-screen or any other user screen prominently.

Changes proposed in the existing referral program for current and future users :-

• The reward should be a platform currency that makes the user come over and over to the platform to benefit from his reward.
• Platform currency → Fit-coins
• For the referrer → We can build a stage of rewards for the referrer throughout the cycle. These fit-coins can be redeemed for extending the Cultpass membership, Cult merchandiser purchase, Cult transform purchase.
• • When the referee installs the app - Fit-coins worth INR 100 will be added to the referrer’s Cult Wallet
  • When the referee makes the first purchase (any purchase) - Fit-coins worth INR 500 will be added to the referrer’s Cult Wallet.
• For the referee → To make the referee stay in the loop of purchase we can add 3 trial classes in the beginning. Followed by, 20% off the first order value up to Rs. 2000 saved as Fit-coins + 2 free diet consultations. These coins can be redeemed for Membership purchases and for orders above 500.

Referral discoverability

1. On the app screen to them keep referring friends
2. On the happy moments - workout done, calories burnt page
3. Regular push notifications to make the user discover the referral program.

On app screens

Sharing the referral message

• Whatsapp is a great space to share the referral message with friends and family. Most of personal communications take place on WhatsApp and personalized message on Whatsapp increases the trust factor. Also, more contacts can be reached easily.
• A personalized link with the referrer name can build more trust.

How the referrer can track his/her rewards?

• A dashboard with fit-coins and the stages of the referees in their buying journey to be included.
• When the referrer sees the fit-coins added on they will start influencing the referees who have not entered the funnel.

Onboarding experience for the referee

• The referee will exclusively look for the offers on the first point after the app install.
• So a personalized welcome message and a step by step process to redeem their rewards can make them start their buying journey.

Increasing the average referral per person:

• The merch store of cult has variety of options for members.
• When a referrer makes successful referrals of 10 (The referee should have a purchase) he/ she will grab a cult t-shirt for free along with a cool badge of Cult.
• The same will happen if the referrer makes successful referrals of 30 (The referee should have a purchase) he/she will get a bumper prize like yoga mat or kettle bell etc. for free / discounted prices.