IIT Ropar’s first women entrepreneur brings fitness to lives ; 2nd year student started company YOBOSHU
KI Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Ropar
IIT Ropar’s first women entrepreneur Shivanshi Verma a second year B.Tech student in Mechanical Engineering Department and her startup partner Sandeep Kumar started a company “YOBOSHU” as a Startup. It is a one stop platform for all diet and physical activity related issues. It’s like an Oyo for fitness centers and Uber for personal trainers. People can look for fitness centers at the desirable place and buy membership based on people’s review and rating. Once they buy the membership, they will have access to all centers in Yoboshu’s chain. It is the first ever platform which brings all your fitness centers on one platform. One can choose them on the basis of reviews and the quality of machines, services and trainers the center have. Also, this platform encourages the aged people to call personal trainers at home for personalized training sessions at their available time.
The research shows that exercise is certainly good for one’s body and health, properly timing exercise is necessary to maximize the beneficial effects. For example, a good workout can make you more alert, speed up your metabolism and energize you for the day ahead. People who sometimes feel uncomfortable training with other people can book personal trainers and exercise at the place they want, be it home, and park or fitness center itself. Members would also be provided with nutritional support.
Technology Involved: An easy to use app and website
Market scenario: The healthcare and wellness market which is expected to grow upto INR 150000 crores by 2020, the startup would be targeting people who are willing to get themselves healthy and fit. The app is to aggregate fitness centers all over India, and people would be able to check in any of the fitness center. Plus, all the member users would get nutritional support by expert dieticians as well.
Innovation:
- People would be able to check-in in any fitness center of Yoboshu Chain all over India.
- People who want personal training can hire personal trainer and train at the place of their choice- be it fitness center, their home or parks.
- People would get online nutritional support.
USP: 1. Both users: Pay per session, get well get rewarded, one pass for all fitness centre, fitness coach on demand, nutritional support
- For fitness centers: Business scale up.
While inauguration of the Startup Shivanshi, founder Director of YOBOSHU said, “This is the era of technology. AI and automation has rolled in, and it has greatly affected our lives. In the early times, everything was done manually; there was a lot of physical labour involved. And as a result, people were fit. But now, people are suffering from diseases more than ever before. Even though medical science has progressed, but it has failed to make people healthier. According to FICCI 2014 report, cardiovascular diseases comprised 26% of the total diseases in 2003, which is expected to grow to 36% by 2030. Majority of the cardiovascular diseases are caused by lack of physical activity and good diet.
Also, it has been observed that 70% of the people who go to fitness centre to exercise step back. It is so because people feel demotivated, primarily because they feel “weaker” when they see other people around them who are far better than them. Also, they have no one to push them.
We thought that we must solve some of the problems caused due to advancement in engineering.”
Prof. Sarit K. Das, Director, IIT Ropar said, “Our first women entrepreneur of IIT Ropar has come up with a solution for bringing fitness in the lives of the people, it is need of the hour. This startup will provide people with their choice of fitness centers in and around the city and to choose their trainers who review their progress, provide diet and exercise plans and help the users to achieve their fitness goals.”
On this occasion, Prof. Harpreet Singh, Dean Industrial Consultancy, Sponsored Research and Industry Interaction (ICSR&II) and Mr. J.K.Sharma, CEO, Technology Business Incubation was also present.
Yoboshu has been founded by Sandeep kumar and Shivanshi Verma. Praful Gupta,a second year CSE student is developing the app. And Paras Kumar, a fourth year CSE student is developing the website.
