Goodbye Gixo. Hello Openfit.
Three years ago, Al Lieb and I started Gixo with the vision to make fitness easy, enjoyable, convenient and affordable. Our goal was to bridge the gap between awesome in-person class experience with the convenience and affordability of working out from home.
Today is the first day of the next chapter in our fitness journey together. Gixo has been acquired by Openfit, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Beachbody, LLC.
In general, when you start a business you want to build it to become the next Patagonia: a huge business with a strong brand that has a reputation for taking care of its community. That said, with most businesses if you build it well, you are often faced with the question if it’s better to continue on your own or sell to achieve your mission. Al and I made the decision to sell. Why?
We knew if we joined forces we could scale the business faster. The fitness space is super competitive and, unlike Evite or SurveyMonkey, not naturally viral. You have to invest a lot of capital and build a great brand to break through such a crowded category. Since we launched Gixo, it seems like everyone and their trainer has launched a fitness app! When Jon and Carl, the cofounders of Beachbody/Openfit, approached us it became clear they knew how to build and scale great fitness experiences. Who doesn’t remember the Tony Horton P90x infomercials? We knew we could take our product — live fitness classes — and bring it to millions of people a lot faster with Openfit.
We are super proud of the product & team we built at Gixo. Since we launched just over 2 years ago, we had over 150K workouts done on our platform. Every day, I woke up to first look at our consumer feedback and reviews to be inspired at the difference we were making in our consumer’s lives and health. One day I cried when a consumer told us our app helped her combat depression. Our community was accepting of people of all shapes, colors, genders, and fitness levels.
“I always struggle with self motivation. When I found Gixo I found a community of people who support me, amazing coaches who push me through my workouts, and bomb music. Love this app.”
While the Gixo app is going away, the impact our incredible coaches had on people’s lives will only become greater. We are launching on Openfit with 360 live classes per week.
That brings me to the thank yous. First of all, thank you to all our Gixo Teammates that used our product (and hopefully will join us on Openfit). Secondly, to our investors — especially Reid Hoffman Greylock Partners who was a true partner. And last and most important, to our team — who built our product, took care of and built our community, and coached our Teammates. I am excited to be continuing on this journey with Openfit as the Chief Digital Officer and most importantly, I’m excited to still be working alongside Al and all my colleagues.
Thank you,
Selina
P.S.
On a very personal journey, I wanted to do something in Health & Fitness after losing a close friend and mentor (Dave Goldberg). I could not have imagined that I would have completely changed my lifestyle — mostly walking to work, taking walking meetings, trying to swim once a week, doing Gixo classes on the sidelines of my kids soccer, doing virtual 5ks, 10 minute classes at an airport, and most importantly doing Gixo classes with my family.
My stats: 378 classes, 8321 exercise minutes, 227.2 miles all on Gixo in the past 2 years
Here’s a pic of the kids and I last night doing our final Gixo class … as they say, going out with a twist :).
