America is in turmoil. While suffering from a seemingly never-ending pandemic, America is also facing an “it’s-about-time” reckoning over racism. And it’s still answering for the predatory sexism brought to light by the Me Too movement. If that wasn’t enough, its citizens are ideologically divided on the verge of a national election. Who doesn’t need MORE EMPATHY now?
Reilly Brady
This is a question that Reilly Brady has been pondering as she considers her place in the world. Reilly is a Senior at Drexel University, majoring in Behavioral Health and Counseling. She is also a prolific maker and small business owner. For the past few years, Reilly has run a handmade jewelry company, called Tilly’s Art Box. Tilly is the nickname her parents gave Reilly when she was a little girl. Although she has great sentimental affection for the name, Reilly has decided that it is time for Tilly’s Art Box to re-brand to include her social agenda in her business model. Tilly’s Art Box is now More -Empathy, a brand whose mission is to raise awareness about the issues of diversity, inclusion, and accessibility; to advocate for non-profits that support under-represented populations; to raise awareness about the importance of mental health wellness and to normalize the discussion of mental health issues in the workplace.
Whew! That is a lot to think about, especially for one so young. Although More – Empathy may be in its start up infancy, Reilly believes that, for there to be true change in this world, brands and businesses need to step up and declare what they stand for – right from the start. Reilly aims to establish a company whose values reflect who she is as a person and as a business leader.
Reilly began making jewelry during her freshmen year at Drexel University after she contracted e.coli. Already prone to anxiety, this illness sent her mental health into a tailspin. She moved out of student housing and home to Doylestown to live with her parents. She began drawing and making jewelry and discovered that the act of creating helped alleviate her anxiety. These creative pursuits led to the establishment of Tilly’s Art Box; first, as an Etsy store, and then as a marketplace website, using the social media platforms of Instagram and, especially, Twitter for marketing. She describes her jewelry aesthetic as “Funky, fun and different” with a bent towards bold colors. (Sounds a lot like Reilly’s personality, actually.) As Tilly’s Art Box has evolved to become More – Empathy, so has Reilly. She continues to learn new skills that include working with polymer clay and learning how to screen print as she plans to add a fashion component to her collection in the future.ti
The focus of this blog has always been female entrepreneurship – after all, the name of the blog is The Ladies who Launch! But at this unprecedented time of COVID-19, I am pivoting to include male founders, whose stories of how they are adapting to the “new normal” are instructive to budding entrepreneurs everywhere.
Featuring Trey Lewis, Sports Fan and Entrepreneur
Drexel alum, Trey Lewis, grew-up in San Diego, California: a place where the weather is so nice that it was possible for Trey to play outside year-round participating in the sports that he loved. He played every sport under the sun, from swimming to golf to tennis. The only sport he wasn’t allowed to play was football, and with all the headlines in recent years regarding traumatic brain injuries, Trey is grateful to his mom, every day, for putting down her foot.
WeWager Founder and CEO, Trey Lewis
Trey’s father was an entrepreneur and he encouraged Trey’s innate entrepreneurial spirit. When Trey was ten, his dad asked him if he would ever consider following in his footsteps. Trey thought he was joking – he was too young to see himself someday in the same position as his father. It wasn’t until college that Trey realized that he had inherited his dad’s entrepreneurial drive.
Trey chose to attend Drexel University for two reasons: 1) the four seasons and 2) its Co-Op program. The thrill of everyday life in a northeastern climate quickly wore – off, but the Drexel Co-Op program proved to be a positive. Trey was able to hone his skills in the real world and these experiences cemented his belief that a person can learn more in practice than in theory. One of his Co-Ops included an opportunity to grow his business at Drexel University’s Close School of Entrepreneurship’s Baiada Institute, where he was given office space, access to technology, expert advice from mentors, and a stipend.
The Original SportsStock Team
Trey was awarded this Co-Op experience for a business that he began in high school with a friend, who was a business fanatic. His friend specialized in stocks, and by the age of 16, had amassed a portfolio worth thousands of dollars. They combined their passions and started SportsStock – a fantasy sports stock market. The premise behind SportsStock was this: sports teams acted as companies in the stock exchange; every team had a monetary value and that value changed depending on their performance on the field. Users of SportsStock could buy into a team with the goal of buying low and selling high.
There proved to be many complications with the development of SportsStock, and Trey decided to pivot. He created a new business – a sports betting app with a twist – and named it WeWager. WeWager is a social sports betting platform, where social media users can connect, compete, share, and participate in peer-to-peer sports betting with other sports fanatics.
As with many small businesses and start-ups, COVID-19 changed WeWager’s trajectory. The sports industry continues to struggle with the complex problem of how to combine public sports competitions with safe social distancing measures. Live sports events, at present, are non-existent, throwing the whole premise of WeWager into question. Trey credits The Close School with teaching him how to take a terrible situation and turn it into a positive: the WeWager team chose to see COVID-19 as an opportunity instead ofa hindrance. WeWager shifted its focus to eSports. eSports is an up and coming sports sub-industry that everyone is watching, even prior to the Pandemic. WeWager is now positioned to become one of the premier sports betting platforms within eSports. Users of the WeWager platform can remain safe while still doing what they love. With this pivot, opportunities for funding and marketing opportunities have increased, along with access to other resources.
As for the future of WeWager, Trey writes, “WeWager is a lifestyle career that I will not only love developing every single day, but it is a company that can also make an impact in the world. This is what makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur: the ability to see a product as something much larger than anyone else can see it.”
Trey Lewis and WeWager are the featured entrepreneurs on this week’s Proving Ground Pop Up. They will also be the guest this week on Drexel’s Stay-Cation Summer Interview Series on Wednesday, July 22 at 1pm (RSVP here). Trey and WeWager are on Social Media! Website: https://wewager.io/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/wewagersports/
The focus of this blog has always been female entrepreneurship – after all, the name of the blog is The Ladies who Launch! But at this unprecedented time of COVID-19, I am pivoting to include male founders, whose stories of how they are adapting to the “new normal” are instructive to budding entrepreneurs everywhere.
Featuring Harrison Hertzberg, Innovator, Inventor and Entrepreneur
Harrison Hertzberg is a 19-year old, first year student (going into his second year in the fall) at Drexel University’s Close School of Entrepreneurship. Harrison was born and raised on a ranch in the isolated wilderness of Northern Idaho. Spirit Lake is a spectacularly beautiful, wild place to grow up, surrounded by dense woods, high mountain peaks and clear, unspoiled, lakes. As the son of an inventor, Harrison grew up with an inquisitive mind and an interest in building things.
The family affectionately nicknamed their home “Invention Ranch” and from a very young age, Harrison worked by his dad’s side, inventing objects created out of materials from the natural world that surrounded him. Harrison refers to his inventions as “innovations” because they weren’t really revolutionary, but more like improvements to everyday objects. Several of his “innovations” utilized natural wood sourced from his family’s forested property. These included the “Soap Stick” (soap molded to a long, handcrafted wooden handle to increase reach), a “Clever Coaster” which solved the perpetual problem of knocking over one’s glass, and designs for imaginative and original pergolas that utilized lumber that he milled and produced himself.
In the summer after he graduated from high school, Harrison invented the devise that is the basis of his current entrepreneurial venture – AeroPest – an aerial drone spraying system designed to eliminate and prevent pests in hard-to-reach places. Harrison describes the “aha” moment that led to his invention: “I was on the roof of my dad’s second-story office building, on a steep incline, with my aerosol can in hand, spraying a wasp’s nest with wasps all around me on a 100 degree day. So, I was like ‘this is a problem, right? Is there a solution?’ And there wasn’t, so I decided to do it myself.”
With the advent of COVID-19, Harrison is back on his family’s ranch in Idaho. I am excited to share his answers to my questions in my 6th installment of “The New Normal: How Drexel Entrepreneurs are Pivoting in the Age of COVID-19.”
1) Describe your upbringing.
I have grown up my entire life in the pristine backwoods of rural North Idaho on a ranch. I am an only child. In middle and high school, (with the exception of my senior year), my father would drive me half an hour to the bus stop each morning so that I could spend another hour and a half on the long windy mountain route to attend a project-based Charter school: a daily four-hour round trip commitment for me, and a two-hour commitment for my father. This anecdote serves to demonstrate the unwavering commitment my parents had for my education. Drexel was a last-minute addition to my college applications list. I found The Close School because I had been doing lots of research on experiential entrepreneurial programs.
2) Tell me about the evolution of AeroPest.
AeroPest is a product project venture which creates drone-mounted aerial precision spraying systems for the Pest Control industry. It has evolved most during my freshman year at Drexel. My CTO and I are currently continuing the product development/prototyping process and refining the design and use of the product specifically for Pest Control professionals with no drone expertise. This technology will largely remove the need for dangerous ladder use to access elevated pest nests which is the main cause of significant injury in Pest Control.
3) How has your business pivoted in the age of COVID 19?
Being forced to come home to Idaho has been a curse and a blessing. The curse: our almost non-existent internet, which makes remote learning a complete hassle. I must drive an hour to an open coffee shop with Wi-Fi in Sandpoint, Idaho. The long orange extension cord running from the coffee shop to my car tells everyone that pulls up, “this kid has set up shop… a real out-of-home office.” The blessing: I’ve been able to put my attention to AeroPest. My CTO, Jason Giddings, is here in Idaho and this has allowed us to accumulate all the necessary hardware in one place and to hand-off parts when necessary. Jason is a forty-year-old aeronautical engineer whose daughter I went to high school with. I met Jason while attending the monthly Inventors Association of Idaho meetings as a member. Jason is a serial entrepreneur with his hand in many pots simultaneously. Previously, Jason has launched a glass-laser keyboard product, a phone rifle scope “Intelescope”, and a salivary health test which he is currently selling in bulk due to the pandemic. His other current company “RhinoHide” has created a hardening bulletproof wall filler to ‘harden’ any facility that he’s primarily selling to schools and US border facilities. Jason brings technical expertise to design, fabricate, prototype, build and eventually initiate small-batch manufacturing. Jason also has experience crowdfunding, securing investors, as well as marketing through trade shows which will be a primary sales avenue for AeroPest.
AeroPest has pivoted from a small office space in the Baiada Institute at Drexel University to a large acreage and workshop where prototype testing isn’t hampered by campus or Federal Aviation Administration laws preventing drone flight.
4)How are you turning the hurdle of social distancing into an opportunity for AeroPest?
Social distancing has resulted in more people quarantining at home, and this home living has resulted in more people becoming more aware of the other organisms that share their home! All people, and most importantly, homeowners, have been able to act as human surveillance for the past two months. This is great for Pest Control and great for AeroPest.
5)How specifically are you “thinking outside the box”?
AeroPest is thinking outside the box by creating a high-tech solution for a low-tech industry. To bring this invention to life, in a way that works in the context of Pest Control, we are developing hardware and software that presents a shallow learning curve for operators and an attractive payback analysis for ownership. We are taking an “out of the box” approach by assuming we will be able to educate the industry on the efficiency-increasing applications of drone technology. Drones don’t require physical proximity; this makes drones a great pest control solution during the coronavirus pandemic or a worse pandemic in the future.
6) How do you imagine your business will look post pandemic?
AeroPest hasn’t been adversely affected by the coronavirus. Pest Control isn’t an industry that fluctuates much on its own and it has seen steady growth due to global temperature increases contributing to rising pest populations. My business is so young and so early in development, that it never knew a pre-pandemic existence. Additionally, the basic premise of my product is mitigating downside risk: the remote spraying drone serves to mitigate high-risk situations such as ladder use. In a post-corona world, a remote spraying drone could also serve to de-risk physical proximity and the subsequent possibility for viral transmission.
7) Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
In 5 years, hopefully AeroPest will prove to be successful. In addition to having a hand in AeroPest’s future trajectory of product offerings, I hope to be involved in other product projects that overlay into the drone world, which is one of my passions. In 5 years, I see myself as a Drexel graduate with venture experience under my belt and a plethora of Pest Control and drone-related industry connections to support my future endeavors.
8) What makes a person an entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur forgoes the path of least resistance in an effort to make and share … entrepreneurship appears to be such a daunting mountain to climb – starting a business, doing anything yourself. The employer/employee track seems a lot easier. But, I guarantee entrepreneurship is more rewarding, even if you’re not successful.
Harrison Hertzberg
Harrison will be our Featured Entrepreneur during the week of June 1st – June 5th on our Proving Ground Instagram page. Follow us at http://www.instagram.com/provinggroundpopup/ to learn more about Harrison, his life, innovations and entrepreneurial adventures. Also, like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pgpopup/.
He will also be our guest on Wednesday, June 3 at noon, for our Summer Stay-cation Series of Zoom interviews featuring Drexel entrepreneurs. RSVP at https://bit.ly/HertzbergZoom to receive the link and password to attend.
The focus of this blog has always been female entrepreneurship – after all, the name of the blog is The Ladies who Launch! But at this unprecedented time of COVID-19, I am pivoting to include male founders, whose stories of how they are adapting to the “new normal” are instructive to budding entrepreneurs everywhere.
Featuring Gaurang Bham of Phoodie
Gaurang Bham was born and raised in Northeast Philadelphia to Indian immigrant parents. He was a self-described “fat kid” who loved the rich food-culture of Philadelphia (which he considers one of the greatest food cities in the United States by the way!). Checking out the best foodie spots in town has always been a favorite interest for Gaurang. He was also interested in computers and technology: after graduating from Central High School, Gaurang went on to study Software Engineering and Entrepreneurship at Drexel University.
During one of his Drexel Computer Science classes, Gaurang was assigned a group project. The scope of the project was wide-open and could be anything as long as it involved programming. Gaurang’s group decided to design an app that would use foot traffic to optimize college facilities and called it “Crowds”. After the class ended, Gaurang continued work on “Crowds”.
It was at that time that Gaurang learned that one of his favorite restaurants was struggling. Like many Philadelphia restaurants, it was family-owned and struggling to survive with razor-thin margins. Could a third-party sales processing and delivery service app such GrubHub help smaller local restaurants increase business? Gaurang discovered that Grubhub (and DoorDash and UberEats) charge such high commission and delivery rates that they are actually bleeding these independently-owned restaurants dry. Restaurants pay a commission rate based on location and density of restaurants in their area. The more competition, the higher the commission (commissions average from 15 – 25% plus an additional 10% for delivery). If a restaurant wants to stand out, it can pay even more for a sponsored listing. Without a sponsored listing, a restaurant can get lost in the crowd.
Gaurang realized that “Crowds” could be used to help drive foot traffic to restaurants. Guarang shifted its focus and renamed his app Phoodie. Phoodie uses machine learning to analyze foot traffic, sales and food inventory to identify slower times when a restaurant needs business most. It then suggests to restaurants that they offer a discount at that time, notifies app users that a discount is available and then allow customers to purchase directly from the app, coupon code applied, for pick up. Both customer and restaurant benefit: restaurants see increased sales and reduced food waste and customers get a deal.
With the current COVID-19 pandemic, most restaurants are closed for eat – in dining. If they are open at all, it is for curbside pick-up or delivery only. On the surface, it seems like an ideal situation for a third party sales app such as Phoodie. Is it? I asked Gaurang to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by COVID-19.
What was Phoodie’s pre-pandemic business model?
Phoodie, like any food ordering app, provides a restaurant-facing and customer-facing app. We used machine learning to automate pricing at restaurants based on demand. When restaurants are slow, the app suggests lower prices to entice customers to order takeout. We charged a variable commission rate based on sales performance through our app. (We do well when we help you do well!)
How are you turning the hurdle of social distancing into an opportunity? How has your business pivoted?
For the first few weeks, I had no clue what we were going to do. Phoodie was pre-launch and pre-revenue. The Food/Drink industry has been hit arguably the hardest from the pandemic and Phoodie was based on a unique value proposition powered by sales demand at restaurants. And it was pick-up only with no option for delivery.
It seemed like there was literally nothing we could do to launch our business. But as the CEO, I felt like I had to save face and be strong for my team even though I had no idea how to move forward.
My team and I focused on building our product and helping our partner restaurants in whatever way we could – spreading the word, featuring them on our social media, and through referrals. Eventually, I reached a crossroad where I realized that Phoodie could either:
Build the product and wait until the pandemic blows over to launch. This would be a huge risk: the post-pandemic restaurant industry might be totally different than the pre-pandemic industry. We could spend invaluable time building our product for nothing. Or we could
Figure out a way to add a delivery option and put dynamic pricing on hold. We could simply release our app as a totally free alternative to the big name GrubHub, DoorDash and UberEats, who are continuing to charge restaurants an arm and a leg even in these extremely difficult times.
Opting for option 2, we forged a partnership with Habitat Logistics, a local delivery provider for restaurants in the Philadelphia area. We are now aiming for an early May launch with the plan of providing a totally free food takeout/delivery service in which 100% of the sale goes back to the restaurant.
We earn 0% commission, but at the end of the day, restaurants learn they can rely on us. They can increase their sales and we do a good thing for the Philly Restaurant Scene. I would call that a win-win!
How important is “thinking outside the box” to the survival and growth of your business?
I think at this point, if you are not thinking outside the box, your business is at a standstill. If you are in an industry that does not conduct most of its business online, you are back to square one for the first time since the birth of that industry. All metrics are being re-made, so now is the time to experiment.
For us, thinking outside the box is more of a “nothing to lose” situation. If we wait for the pandemic to end, our product could be obsolete. If we try to sell the service “as is”, restaurants will slam doors in our face because a discount-based app is tone-deaf in the current climate. And if we give up, all the hard work my team has spent is for nothing. Besides, what else am I going to do with all this free time?
Releasing a free food ordering platform means we make a name for ourselves and we do a good thing and make an impact on the local food scene. That is our primary goal – making an impact.
How are you connecting with your peers?
As a technical founder, I have designed my entire team’s framework around being remote-accessible. All our meetings, even pre-pandemic, are logged in a team calendar with Google Meet Conferencing Links attached so anybody can be involved. So luckily the transition to a totally remote workforce was the easiest thing about this shift.
Our team syncs up at least once a day for 30 minutes to go over what they have worked on, any issues they ran into and any questions they may have. This gives me insight into the pace in which we are moving forward and how to better-position each team member. Additionally, I have 1:1 calls with team members to go over more in-depth issues.
Prior to the pandemic, our team had a very close-knit relationship and it has been hard to find opportunities for the team to bond outside of work. We all ate lunch together at least once or twice each week and would set aside time to bond through a shared love of games (Our team is particularly competitive when it comes to Super Smash Bros.). Without a shared space to work, along with some teammates living in different time zones, opportunities for that have diminished.
That being said, I am currently trying to schedule the entire team to have a set “Happy Hour” of sorts for all of us to play games online, chat and catch-up.
How important are Mentors to you at this time?
Mentors have played an incredibly large part in both my and Phoodie’s development. I would argue that our mentors have had an even larger impact as a result of the pandemic. Things have been crazy and having mentors to bounce ideas and strategy off-of has been incredibly comforting during this pandemic.
What new learning are you planning?
The past several weeks has extended my knowledge tenfold. I had a technical co-founder who left the company earlier in the year who was responsible for our entire database and back-end architecture. With his absence, I had to become an expert in all things Amazon Web Services. So that has really been the bulk of my learning!
How important is resiliency to you?
If there is one thing that I try to impart to my team it is the value of “grit”. Things are never going to be easy in life and now, more than ever, I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs are seeing that reality up close and personal.
I was born and raised in Philadelphia and came up through the devastatingly underfunded public-school system. I am now a graduate from Drexel University with a Degree in Software Engineering, I have a startup about to launch and a corporate job lined up for the summer. The only thing that has gotten me this far is my resiliency and determination. Even getting Phoodie to where it is now was a 4-year process!
There are no shortcuts, not before the pandemic and certainly not after it. Grit means you want it even more. It means you are hungrier. And as Philadelphia Eagles Center Jason Kelce put it so eloquently, “Hungry dogs run faster”.
Phoodie Team: Gaurang Bham (center)
If you own a local restaurant that would like to be a part of Phoodie’s pilot program, please reach out! Email Gaurang at gaurang@phoodie.io.
The focus of this blog has always been female entrepreneurship – after all, the name of the blog is The Ladies who Launch! But at this unprecedented time of COVID-19, I am pivoting to include male founders, whose stories of how they are adapting to the “new normal” are instructive to budding entrepreneurs everywhere.
Featuring Jibran Nabeel and Robbie Decker of SafeSense
SafeSense was founded in 2017 by Jibran Nabeel and Robbie Decker, undergraduate Science in Engineering Students at Drexel University. As avid cyclists, Jibran and Robbie have had many near accidents while riding the busy streets of Philadelphia. After a friend was rear-ended, they decided to come up with a solution to make the roads safer for cyclists.
SafeSense is the world’s first Artificial Intelligence powered bicycle accident prevention system. Its warning system consists of smart handlebar grips which light up, vibrate and beep to alert riders of impending danger. They are powered by technology that combines a camera, ultrasonic sensors and a mic-array to detect vehicles and dangerous obstacles. It also includes accident detection technology – if an accident occurs, an SOS message will be transmitted with the accident’s location. SafeSense is lightweight, aerodynamic, and anti-theft. Its business slogan is “Bicycle Safety Beyond the Helmet.”
With COVID – 19, most states have issued stay-at-home orders. Residents are being told to stay indoors, unless they are running an essential errand or participating in an approved recreational activity like bicycling, walking, hiking or jogging.
I jog the streets of my Philadelphia suburban neighborhood most afternoons. Occasionally, I see a fellow jogger or pedestrian. I rarely see a serious road cyclist; instead I see a handful of young children riding bicycles with a parent. More serious cyclists have chosen to stay off the roads during this pandemic. With hospitals already overwhelmed and at capacity, cyclists are choosing to stay home rather than risk an accident that could further strain an already-strained healthcare system.
This hesitation to ride makes it clear that the cycling industry needs to come up with defensive solutions to make our roads safer for cyclists, sooner rather than later, and it makes the solution offered by SafeSense even more imperative. I asked Jibran and Robbie to share how SafeSense is meeting the demands and challenges of the “New Normal”.
What was SafeSense’s pre-pandemic business model?
The focal point of SafeSense’s pre-pandemic plan was to visit bike shops to get input and feedback from people on what they think could be changed and improved with our sensor. We are not at a product-ready stage, but we did have a roadmap and deliverables in place for prototyping and testing.
How are you turning the hurdle of social distancing into an opportunity? How has your business pivoted?
Social distancing has been a problem, but we are using this as an opportunity in several ways. There were several enhancements and add-ons for our product that we were putting off, but social isolation has given us the time to explore additional features and to focus on software development. There are a lot of things that can be accomplished remotely: we are contacting suppliers and manufacturers who otherwise wouldn’t have found the time for us pre-pandemic. But now due to the economic situation, these same suppliers and manufactures are now on board for all opportunities, including working with smaller companies such as ours.
How important is “thinking outside the box” to the survival and growth of your business?
Thinking out of the box plays a critical role in any given scenario. Our entire team thinks outside the box, hence the reason that we are here trying to solve a problem with our startup. How do we optimize our business for the post-pandemic economy? We are working on some ideas. The pandemic has created a situation where people have become more reliant on an internet economy. So keeping that in mind, we are still searching for ways to optimize our product to meet the demands of the new, upcoming economy. Some of the things that we have considered, for instance, is breaking up our product into two parts and offering a stripped, bare-bones version of SafeSense first. Nothing is set in stone for us. As time goes on and we face different challenges, we will optimize our strategies accordingly.
How important is resiliency to you?
Resilience plays a huge role in achieving any type of success and we are being resilient and relentless in making sure that we do everything that is now possible that wasn’t possible before (such as working with companies that previously wouldn’t give SafeSense the time of day). As a team, we are all on-board in making sure we realize our objectives and don’t lose sight of the end-goal, which is to make cycling safer.
Bicycling is an approved exercise activity during the current Stay At Home orders. What are your thoughts on cyclists choosing to NOT ride rather than risk injury? How will this impact the future of SafeSense?
Many cyclists are choosing not to bike but at the same time, since gyms are closed and activities are limited due to quarantine, a lot of people who don’t normally bike are biking; we think that its going to create a huge impact in the post-pandemic society because cycling is a healthy activity and more and more people are embracing it now. So, we are hopeful that the potential market for SafeSense will actually see growth.
To follow SafeSense‘s product development journey and to receive updates, visit:
Up until now, I have featured only female entrepreneurs on this blog. (After all, the name of the blog is The Ladies who Launch!). But at this unprecedented time of COVID-19, like a good entrepreneur, I am pivoting to include male founders, whose stories of how they are adapting to the “new normal” are instructive to budding entrepreneurs everywhere.
Featuring Adam Pawelec and Monika Maj of WhyFit
WhyFit is a wellness app designed to help employers help employees lead healthier lives with a focus on a holistic approach that includes mindfulness, food, nutrition and exercise. WhyFit’s target market is small to medium-sized companies; each company pays a monthly subscription fee for each employee user.
When WhyFit first began (under a different name – Mad Body), it targeted the employee rather than the employer. Mad Body was having difficulty retaining users and founder Adam Pawelec realized that people, despite their good intentions, struggle to keep to their fitness goals. Life gets in the way, and, in particular – work. On average, people commute an average of 2 hours per day, work 8 hours, and return home to domestic responsibilities: dinner, childcare, chores. People spend an average of 90,000 hours at work over the course of their lifetimes – 1/3 of their lives. This was WhyFit’s aha moment – if the typical person has trouble incorporating fitness into their outside-of-work lives, then the answer was to bring health and well-being on site into their inside-of-work lives! With partner Monika Maj, he pivoted and began targeting employers, rather than employees, and WhyFit was born.
If ever there was ever another time for a business pivot, that time is now. Workers are (temporarily?) off-site, working from home. How will WhyFit pivot to face the unique challenges of a work-from-home workforce? I posed the following questions to Adam and Monika. Here are their answers:
What was WhyFit’s pre-pandemic business model?
WhyFit is a platform that helps employers run and manage their employee wellness program and fitness initiatives. Using the platform, employers can find vendors and services such as yoga instructors, massage therapists, fruit and healthy snack delivery to bring to the workplace. The platform was also designed to bring employees together in fun activities and it provides content – employees can participate in challenges, access fitness routines or learn about nutrition and stress management.
How are you turning the hurdle of social distancing into an opportunity? How has your business pivoted?
We have had to re-think the WhyFit platform and create new initiatives that embrace the new work-from-home (WFH) environment. We are pivoting to virtual or live wellness initiatives. We are now offering virtual classes such as yoga or stretching sessions with a live instructor. Employees can join a youtube live stream from the comfort of their own home. For those that miss out, they can re-watch a recorded version. Employees can still participate in various challenges and they can set reminders to help them in adapting healthier nutrition, activity, and stress management habits. Additionally, WhyFit is focusing on creating initiatives that help solve common problems in WFH environments such as isolation, distractions and work-life balance.
We realize that remote-working may be a big adjustment for companies and we are reminding employers to promote a healthy work/life balance. They can still encourage wellness through our initiatives, challenges, and services to a remote workforce. For the next two months, we have decided to waive our subscription fee to make it easier for employers to offer our solution to their employees in these troubling times.
How important is “thinking outside the box” to the survival and growth of your business?
We are closely following LinkedIn, online forums and apps where employers and employees discuss their working conditions and issues relating to the work environment. Initially, all we heard from different sources was how amazing it was to work from home. At that moment, we thought we were going to have a very hard time growing since most of our product was designed for on site wellness and not for a remote business model. Nevertheless, we know that there is always room for improvement! We decided to dive deep into researching the problems associated with working-from-home. We discovered that companies with employees that had been working fully remote, pre-pandemic, had already been talking about the many issues that affect their employees well-being and productivity; issues such as isolation, being distanced from other coworkers, home distractions, and work-life balance. Instead of listening to the initial excitement from crowds praising the WFH model, we looked into the new working patterns and quickly made product development decisions based on these patterns. We were already prepared for employers as WFH issues began to surface. We quickly adapted our product and we are now adjusting our sales process and marketing.
How important is resiliency to you?
The pandemic makes it obvious that we have to adjust our business model and product – it will last at the very least a couple more weeks before people will slowly start going back to their pre-pandemic routines. We also believe that the pandemic is going to permanently change many employers’ and employees’ routines. Some employers may continue to run portions of their employee base from home and employees who have been exposed to working from home may look for new WFH opportunities. We had to be resilient to quickly adapt to the pandemic; otherwise, we would have made no progress from a growth and product development perspective. Once everything returns to “normal”, we will have a much better product that fits both styles of work.
How important are Mentors to you at this time?
We have used the Mentor Match program in the past and we are continuously in touch with all the mentors we have interacted with through this program. They have been essential to our learning and growth, and are always willing to connect us with professionals to help with sales, marketing, and business development. We continue to update our mentors on our progress and value their feedback.
How are you connecting with your peers?
We connect digitally and virtually. We have a Facebook group chat where anyone can set up a time for group calls. This is where we also play games as we had been doing during breaks when we were all on site in Baiada. Additionally, we have had phone calls daily with our peers where we talk about current situations, the economy, and business progress.
What new learning are you planning?
We are focusing on learning about the problems employers and employees experience associated with the WFH environment, particularly in regards to employee well-being.
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WhyFit founders Adam Pawelec and Monika Maj with Bob Knorr of Timeless Tartans and Alma Matters during Drexel’s recent Fund Run Competition.
The Ladies who Launch 