How ClassPass Built a $100m Fitness Empire

How this Google Ventures-backed gym membership startup grew to over 35m reservations across 2.5k studios in 39 cities.
How ClassPass Built a $100m Fitness Empire

Payal Kadakia is the CEO and co-founder of ClassPass. Since its launch in 2013, ClassPass has facilitated over 35m reservations across 2.5k studios in 39 cities. ClassPass is a Google Ventures-backed gym membership startup that grew to over $100m in revenue in 2 years and has raised $84m in funding.

Hi everyone. I’m Payal Kadakia, the founder and executive chairman of ClassPass. I hear we have some fans in the audience. For those of you not familiar with ClassPass, it’s a monthly fitness membership program that lets you take classes at different studios and gyms, so you can go to a dance class, spin class, yoga class whenever you want to.

The journey of ClassPass, which I’m very excited to share with you guys today has been long and winding like most startups are, and instead of just telling you guys all about the successes and failures, I’m going to focus on one important thing that really has led to the success of our company, and that was making hard decisions. We all face them in our lives and in our companies and they’re challenging. But I will tell you, and I hope from the stories I tell you today that you can make through them, make it through them and get to the other side.

Available exclusively to Trends subscribers

Understand upcoming market trends, receive our premium weekly report, access our database of research, and network with the smartest people we know

7 Day Trial

Join Trends now for $1!

Hear from our members:

Gagan Biyani

Co-Founder / Udemy

Few places bring together so many engaged hustlers around new ideas, changes in the markets and product/services recommendations.

Adrian Salamunovic

Founder / Author of "Free PR"

The network is amazing. Where else do you see founders of 9 figure companies helping founders who are just getting started?

Jack Smith

Co-Founder / Vungle

The community is very collaborative and people in there have offered introductions for me, not wanting anything in return.

What do you get with Trends:

Private Community

The most powerful business peer group

Connect with thousands of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, executives and insiders. Collectively, Trends members have companies with tens of billions in revenue.

They say you’re the average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with. Are you surrounding yourself with the right people? You are now.

Weekly Case Studies

Curated stories from the business world

Dive into the success stories of companies around the world and discover how they achieved.

How One Company Created a Niche Market for Young People Who Want Fancy Bibles
How to Capitalize Early on the Fast-Growing Sports Gambling Industry
How Moiz Ali grew Native Deodorant from $0 to $100m acquisition in 2 years
How The Athletic Grew a Niche Audience to ~1m Subscribers in 4 Years

Market Signals

In-depth trends analysis & monitoring

Discover what’s trending before it goes viral

Don’t press snooze on this opportunity: sleep supplements

The signal: As meditation becomes mainstream, people may be surprised to find that searches for sleep apps double their meditation counterpart. As people invest in getting a better night’s rest, there’s opportunity abound, including physical products like weighted blankets or premium PJs, supplements, popular insomnia drugs having their patents expire, companies paying their employees to sleep better, marketing for sleep specialists, or online sleep education (ex: sleep apnea test has 27k searches per month).

The alternative milk market is getting frothy

The signal: As more people wave goodbye to dairy, alternative milk is slowly taking over; it has already cornered 13% of the market. With the exception of soy milk, all of the alt-milks have been on the up, with some of the newer entrants including hemp milk and pea milk. Other alt-products are getting attention, including cashew cheese, with 18100 searches per month.

Capitalizing on the Airpods market, making more money than Shopify

The signal: Since killing the headphone jack, Apple has graced the world with AirPods, which did an estimated 60m units in 2019. That means AirPods alone are bringing in approx ~$10b in revenue, more than Twitter, Shopify, or Spotify, to name a few popular tech giants. Opportunity lies in Apple opening up SiriOS or the wave of iPhone accessories (including cases, cleaning kits, hooks, and keychains) which have shown “hockey stick” growth alongside their hardware predecessor.

Weekly Lectures

Leading experts share their knowledge

Attend exclusive lectures from experts in the industry and stay in the know

Sound good?

Gain full access to Trends for $1! Cancel anytime.

7 Day Trial

Join Trends now for $1!