P.S. if you see this post as if I’m rambling. Yes. I just need to dump my thoughts. Cant sleep hu hu.
Recently I just saw this article of FTL (Link) getting 5 mio USD or around 78 bio Rupiah in terms of venture debt. First of all, this is quite interesting as there are really few startups that are actually taking venture debt. Most of them just took funding by buying stocks at future value. Anyway this funding can be considered series A.
If we look at their prominent competitor Fit Hub, they just received funding in 2023 by 6.5 mio USD (much bigger than recent funding FTL) and rumored will get another funding 12 mio USD this year based on dealstreet (Link). This round may be considered series B and by this magnitude only it means that FTL may not compete with Fit Hub in terms of expansion and growth capability.
But really, how big is this market actually, especially in Indonesia? Let’s say there is a “Portion” of people that would like to subscribe to the gym. How their purchasing power can compete against the gym membership cost. As a comparison median US salary is $42,800 and the monthly membership gym around $10-60 monthly the annually should be between $120-720 or around 3% of their annual income and bare in mind this 2019 data (Link). Meanwhile in Indonesia the average salary is around 3 mio IDR based on BPS data in 2024 (Link) and the “premium” gym membership like Fithub cost around Rp300.000/month or if you fancy it around Rp700.000 for FF and their circle. That’s roughly 10%-25% of the majority of people’s income. Based on this data alone you can get an idea that gym is not everyone and it’s not destined to scale. At least at the scale of GoTo.
This paragraph is super rambling, please don’t expect any structured thinking or data backed fact. If I’m considering the fact that the gym is actually that expensive, as a government I will focus on the sports that can have a high impact on health and can be enjoyed by many. And ladies and gentlemen that sport is… yeah right, running. But, I think there is something that actually happened in Singapore. I had read this guideline that was released by their MOH (link).
The approach is more holistic, by creating an environment with less escalators and interconnected by public transport it encourages its citizens to practice a healthy lifestyle by design (and by force if they want to be frugal). If I’m thinking about when I’m commuting to the office due to accessible cheap public transport I can have 6.000 steps per day easily while playing Duolingo on the train. Public spaces such as “Taman Kalistenik” should be a thing so people regardless of their fitness level can have strength training to strengthen their muscles. But then againnnnnnn we have an unhealthy obsession with football that 1) needs a big field 2) only can be played by few people 3) genetically cannot compete with Europeans 4) cannot be proud of (yeah maybe a little but not like badminton). Hey gov, plz fix.
Okay now get back to the topic, so how to scale this boring business? First we must understand why in the past 10 years it has been a tech boom all over the world. Yes, it is mainly fueled by the Zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) but despite the surge of funds why tech startups are the one that benefits from this growth. The answer is 0 marginal cost. The diagram below shows how the marginal cost works. Ideally when you’re scaling there should be no cost to reproduce what you’re offering.
In addition, when the resource is scarce this diagram might happen. Meaning there is a breakpoint where you sell more will result in lower margin due to resource constraints. Ehem nickel, ehem Tom Lembong.
In addition, businesses that need spaces will be hard to adapt to as their property is not liquid. So in the long term Fit Hub and FTL will hit their wall. And at that time where innovation comes in. At this moment both of them have achieved service excellence and the product market fit for their product “Gym” and at the phase growth.
The thing is it will soon go into a mature product. In terms of innovation I believe FTL has the upside with their 24 hours and their pilates studio, meanwhile Fit Hub bet on the concept “Gym that can be found in every corner (of Jakarta)”. But really both of them rarely innovate to the mass market. As an example Astro is the one that I believe optimize their innovation with self brand product, unlike indomaret and alfamart that has stupid self brand (Point cofe is dope tho) it is really replicate what Amazon do with the magic of 30 minutes delivery and the dark store concept.
So what is the next big thing in fitness? Data is? Gold. Yeah. So basically what you need is someone that really understands how the human body works, and monetizes that. The concept of wellness should be on the level of preventive healthcare and the one really tied to that is food. Just pick any food, but don’t do protein shakes please you can do it better. There is one catchy startup Sirka (link). I have followed this startup since their first year. At first their product is really general weight loss yada yada, more like fastic but with humans. Right now they focused on what most women experienced, imbalance hormones. This strategy makes them maximize their growth at that moment so they can still survive. And the innovation they pursue right now is medical weight loss. I think they really know how to prioritize. Just imagine, how big is their data right now as every consultation will be recorded in their data. It just matters that they can scale it to a mass audience if they have the guts to “really” innovate.
So back again, later in the future our struggles will be fighting NCD. It is inevitable. In order to be able to fight back first we must be able to understand how our body works by collecting all of our body metrics data. That’s why Apple and the other health tech companies focus on collecting our critical health measurements. So whatever the innovation you do should be focused on how you can learn. Foods, mental wellness journaling, etc. The one that wins the race is the one that can provide end to end preventive healthcare to full body transformation. that when I was in university I took PT in my last year of study. I learn many things of course. But like everybody, I don’t take their diet advice thoroughly. I mean it’s actually insane that ABS MADE IN THE KITCHEN BUT YOU GET FOTOKOPI HITAM PUTIH CARA DIET SEHAT. Just insane, and also jualan protein (and roid for some of them).
I think right now Fit Hub at least tried to really measure their member gym progress. Don’t know behind the scene, but at least for their home workout and gym tutorial is pretty much subpar. Hardly they can have good data on that. But if I’m not mistaken every PT must put their member training log in the app. I think that’s good data collecting practice. But it has a flaw. It will not have much meaningful data. All of the PT should be teaching based on best practice standards and it will make whatever data you collect will be skewed towards some certification methodology.
Okey that’s all I’m sleepy bye. This article does not have conclusion just me rambling Sorry to waste your time 🙂
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