How one founder spotted the future of the fitness industry and built tools for trainers to take advantage
- ByStartupStory | December 30, 2021
While owning and operating studio gym spaces in New York, Alexandra Bonetti knew that it shouldn’t have to be this hard to establish processes for issues all gyms have like recruiting new members, hiring qualified talent, and getting substitutes for classes, to name a few. So she founded The Talent Hack which is a platform geared towards helping experts working in the fitness and wellness industry achieve tangible success. In this episode, she discusses her philosophy that everyone has superpowers and she is passionate about discovering those talents and making them work for the individual and how to be nimble as a new company in a complicated industry.
The Wharton grad eventually left consulting to open a fitness studio. Over time, she realized that the industry had a two-sided problem: Studios had no place to find talent and talent—fitness and wellness coaches, instructors, and trainers—were treated as a commodity. How do you increase the financial leverage of fitness creators with studios and gyms?
Her answer: Provide them with the tools to be masters of their destiny.
Encouraged by her mother to do something she loved, in 2010, Bonetti opened her first Bari Studio and it became a cult favorite. With greater ambitions and having spotted an industry problem that she wanted to solve, she sold her flagship and satellite studios in 2018 to focus on building an online platform.
“Studios have a tough time attracting great talent,” said Bonetti. “There was nowhere to go find them, no standards, for example, on what to pay them, and no clear career ladder in our industry.”
It was a big black box for both studios and talent.
“The value drivers of the industry—the talent—are treated as commodities,” said Bonetti. Studios charge premium prices, but it’s not the eucalyptus towels that clients show up for; it’s the fitness and wellness talent. She wanted to build a community for fitness creators, support them through their careers, and help them succeed. Because they are a business of one, they don’t have much leverage with the studios.
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