Project Overview
Kubo is a new mobile platform that connects consumers with fitness professionals, allowing them to easily find, book and pay for personal and group fitness sessions. For trainers, it simplifies promotion, provides a new channel for acquiring customers, reinforces customer loyalty and guarantees weekly payouts.
Kubo provides a business model unique in today’s marketplace. The platform incentivises customer retention and loyalty, whilst providing fair compensation to trainers. There are no exclusivity agreements, no lock-in contracts and no monthly limits to the number of sessions a trainer can have with a client.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Mark Sellar - Co-Founder of Kubo
Michael Almond - Co-Founder of Kubo
Tom West - Strategy & Sales
Sasha Reid - Development & PM
Sam Nissinen - Design & UX
Stephanie Brown - Design
Project Brief
Kubo’s founders, Michael and Mark, have had extensive experience in the fitness industry, and have discovered first-hand the difficulties involved in acquiring new customers and executing effective marketing for their personal training businesses. Mike and Mark found that significant barriers existed which impeded the onboarding of new customers while gyms controlled customer relationships through expensive memberships and fixed-term contracts.
Michael and Mark felt that the fitness industry no longer met the needs of fitness professionals and consumers, and required an innovative alternative. Kubo’s concept, like many disruptive technologies, aimed to minimise the costs and distance between the industry and the consumer, whilst making the experience simple and enjoyable. Kubo needed to cater to a wide audience, from those who are new to fitness and require motivation and an accessible platform, to those who are already actively engaged in training and simply want to find a reputable fitness professional.
Using a scalable model that echoes the likes of Uber, AirBnB and AirTasker, Kubo allows fitness professionals to market sessions to local customers who can easily find and book them. The platform caters to a wide array of activities such as yoga, crossfit and even massages. All transactions are secured through Stripe Payments and fitness professionals are afforded full discretion over the amount of hours they work.
Project Need
Kubo has been designed from the ground up with transparency in mind. The app provides new customers full access to local sessions without the need to register in advance. Payment is a simple process, only requiring credit card details to be entered once, allowing future bookings to be seamless and quick. Full refunds are available for those who cancel sessions in advance. Kubo provides a rich social experience, integrating consumers’ social accounts to allow their friends to join fitness sessions. Calendar integration ensures consumers and trainers can easily keep track of their fitness sessions.
Fitness professionals can easily add Kubo participants in existing classes or create new sessions, removing the constraints of traditional gyms and studios. Creating new sessions is a simple affair: entire weeks can be populated quickly, multiple dates and times can be specified, and past sessions can be used as templates. There are no exclusivity restrictions, nor are there contracts to lock-in parties; Kubo seeks to maximise flexibility for trainers and consumers alike.
By allowing personal trainers to establish their own relationship with customers, Kubo creates a distinct market alternative to the fierce competition of gyms. Alternatively for gym-averse or private clients, Kubo is a non-invasive track to fitness. Similarly, experienced consumers can maintain their training pursuits more easily, regardless of timing, location or schedule. Ultimately, Kubo is about fitness discovery, providing users access to a varied network of fitness pursuits, from larger gym collectives to individual trainers.
User Experience
Kubo’s business model is simple, and required a user experience designed to reflect this philosophy. The user experience and interface have undergone numerous iterations to simplify features and encourage users to engage with the technology. Examples of this can be seen in the booking process, where the process of finding and booking sessions has been reduced to 4 simple taps. Similarly, the browsing of fitness sessions and the viewing of trainers’ schedules has been simplified to its most straightforward and clear form. The result is an intuitive, valuable and convenient app. Mobile analytics provider, MixPanel, has been integrated to provide analysis and allow refinements to the app based on user behavior and feedback.
Project Marketing
Kubo’s marketing strategy is based around the growth hacking philosophy that relies on a constant feedback loop of campaigns aimed at our target audience. During the project’s soft launch, scheduled until the end of April 2016, trainers and fitness professionals from Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide will be asked to integrate Kubo into their workflow. Through existing connections and partnerships, Kubo anticipates 500 to 1,000 trainers will be available at launch, to provide ample choice for consumers.
Future monetisation and partnership opportunities are also in development to expand Kubo to the remainder of Australia and abroad.
Project Privacy
Kubo has the latest industry best practice privacy features built into its design, including high strength encryption for data stored and transmitted from the app and strong user authentication to prevent unauthorised use.
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Best App Startup
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