How this former IT worker cracked the fitness code and based a start-up

While operating with an IT organization in Pune, Jitendra Chouksey changed into the cross-to guy for his colleagues’ health-related queries. Chouksey, founding father of health start-up SQUATS, recollects an incident when a colleague requested him his health secret. “He instructed me that he is eating right from bananas to hen, eggs, protein shakes, and the entirety healthful. However, it is nevertheless now not operating out. So I instructed him that is not the way it works. You should comply with something referred to as quantified nutrients, which I had been following for 10 years. I gave him the weight loss program, and he got effects within three months,” he shares.

The incident turned into a life-converting event for Chouksey. After this, he changed into regularly approached utilizing human beings, who asked him approximately food regimen, recommendations, etc. As he turned into a full-time employee at that time and did no longer have time to answer all and sundry who approached him, Chouksey wrote an ebook approximately his fitness regime, referred to as ‘Get Shredded,’ and uploaded it online on SQUATS Facebook community, fashioned in 2014. The reputation kept growing, and he spoke back human beings’ queries, cleared their doubts online via the Facebook Group, and commenced engaging in health seminars offline.

“Initially, I did it as it was amusing, and I’m truely captivated with fitness,” Chouksey said. However, he quickly realized that it changed into a larger problem. He had already won greater than 20,000 followers on his Facebook institution, whom he used to recommend. But, a lot of them might reply as announcing: “Whatever you have got shared is honestly quality; however, I can’t comply with it on my own; I really need someone who can guide me.”
And that was a eureka moment for Chouksey. “I realized that it is not just like the information isn’t always available, and it’s now not like weight-reduction plan and education can not be done. It’s just that humans want some training, some motivation. And this is while this concept got here to my thoughts,” Chouksey shared.

Chouksey created a team and began instructing them approximately his health regime. These trained human beings could then connect to human beings via his platform and teach and educate them online at a charge of Rs 5000,” he added. What began as a network to keep people in shape took the form of a business, and a website was released in 2016. The start-up no longer handiest supplied coaches to users; however, it also offered reimbursement if they have been now not satisfied with the carrier or a distinctive instruct if they had been not satisfied with the contemporary one. The company, which began off with 14 coaches today, has a hundred and seventy coaches on board and has recorded over 70,000 health differences. SQUATS additionally launched an app, FITTER, in 2018, which thus far has over 2,00,000 downloads. Its Facebook network, too, continues to thrive and presently has five,00,000 contributors.

SQUATS recently secured an undisclosed investment from Bollywood actor Suniel Shetty and is going in advance with its plans to elevate as much as $5 million within the next yr. According to the employer, capital infusion might be leveraged to take SQUATS’ message of preventive healthcare to a much larger target market across the globe. The platform ambitions to clock an extra than 1 million FITTER downloads by way of 2019 and get more than 400 worldwide transformation coaches on board using 2020. It additionally claims to have generated cumulative sales worth $8—five million to date.