A Startup Energy Bar!

You all know how much I love entrepreneurship.  And after this blog, I hope you also understand how much I love and value fitness.  Well, I've found the perfect energy bar that combines both aspects!!  It's Element Bars and the startup is from Chicago, Illinois (even better--it's a Midwest company too!). 

Learn all about Element Bars below:

By now, we are all aware of the evils of high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavoring. These ingredients plague virtually everything in our diet, contributing to widespread health issues such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

But you wouldn’t expect these unhealthy ingredients to be in nutrition bars—but shockingly, they often are.  The number of big-name energy and nutrition bars brimming with complex sugars, saturated fat and unnecessary calories is higher than you might think. 

Luckily for us bar-eaters, the founders of Element Bars couldn’t stand it anymore. After experiencing disheartening bouts with mid-morning energy crashes and not-so-natural flavors, Chicago natives Jonathan, Jonathan and Marie decided to take matters into their own hands. Say hello to new Chicago startup Element Bars. 

Bye-bye Frustration:

The three creators of Element Bars began a business that not only ensures natural food products, but also caters to each and every particular human body it serves. Understanding that nutrition is deeply personal and dependant upon individual bodily needs, the brains behind Element Bars give their clients the tools they need to devise nutrition bars that best meet their own tastes and requirements.

By visiting elementbars.com, clients are able to discover what sorts of nutrients their bodies need, creating bars that contain these ingredients.  Then, customers can order them to be delivered right to their doorsteps.

The website gives its visitors a wide range of options and provides them with a set of tools that help produce the perfect bar. Through a variety of questionnaires, clients are able to discover what sort of nutrition bar they need for how they want to look or what type of exercise they want to pursue.

There’s a bar for everyone—whether you want a little sustenance to last you until your lunch break or you need nutrients to get you through a marathon. The website guides you through a step-by-step process that lists ingredient options and informs you on what components would be best for whatever your purpose may be.

Behaving Naturally:

What makes Element Bars so great is the company’s wide variety of tasty and healthy ingredient options. Clients have plenty of selections to create their ideal bar and every one of these options is completely natural.

The excellent ingredient choices make for a delicious bar and there’s no need to worry about hidden calories or strange additives you can’t even pronounce. As you create your bar, the website informs you about the nutritional content of each and every component you add. It even goes so far as to inform you when your bar is taking a turn in a less healthy direction.

As you would imagine, complex sugars are not part of the equation with Element Bars. If you do choose to add something sweet to your bar, you have nothing to fear. Element Bars offers sweeteners such as honey, agave syrup, and brown rice syrup, which are not only healthier for you but are also crash-proof. The options you have to choose from ensure that your body absorbs the sugar at a slower rate, giving you more energy for a longer period of time.

If you feel like adding a little further punch to your recipe, there are also extra all-natural supplements to choose from that give you anything from an energy boost to large dose of protein. With ingredients such as egg white and chicory root, you can add protein and fiber to your bar in a purely natural and simple way.

Element Bars seem like such a great idea that you might wonder how no one had come up with the concept before this Chicago team did. Your body deserves all-natural excellence and with new startup Element Bars making waves in Chicago and beyond, you can finally have it.   

peerFit Puts Mobile Entrepreneurs in the Gym

I recently had the chance to meet Ed Buckley and Rex Tullius, two entrepreneurs from Florida who are creating a new app called peerFit.  Ed and Rex have been traveling across the country to gain advice from seasoned entrepreneurs and to spread the word about their new app geared toward fitness.  Take a look at a blog we recently posted on thinkbigkansascity.blogspot.com about Ed, Rex and their peerFit startup:

This is it—your year to get fit.  You purchased your new tennis shoes, you joined the local gym and you even gave in to buying those outrageously priced $22 dri-fit socks that the salesman at the Nike outlet somehow suckered you into.  Now, it’s finally time to take a look at the gym’s fitness class schedule and pick your poison.

And then you reach a state of pure panic.  Your eyes skim the gym’s online class calendar with confusion. Zumba...what the heck is that?  Instructor Michael McThrowdown...is he going to kill me?  Yogalates?...I can’t even pronounce that!

After questions such as these, you might give up on the fitness classes all together and opt for the monotonous 45 minutes on the elliptical.  Bummer.

Ed Buckley, President of peerFit.

Ed Buckley, Ph.D. student in the department of Health Education and Behavior at the University of Florida experienced this same problem...only he decided to fix it.  As a group fitness instructor in Gainesville, Buckley knew he taught a great fitness class, yet no one seemed to show up.  To draw people in, Ed decided to start writing exercises on the whiteboard in the classroom so gym passerbys could take note of what to expect during classes.

This small, seemingly insignificant change drew in more people than Buckley was prepared for.  Suddenly, people in the Gainesville gym wanted to be social while working out.  Ed Buckley immediately saw a need...and that need became known aspeerFit. 

peerFit is a free online and mobile app designed to allow users to quickly search and filter through workout options to find a class that best suits their individual needs.  The peerFit program has been developed in order to give users a more interactive platform for discovering and researching new workout classes within a particular area.  The app alone has not only helped gyms go social, but has inched users closer toward their fitness goals.

“Thirty percent of people are more likely to keep working out if they get into the right class,” says Buckley.  “We want to help people find the right class and then allow them to share the classes that they like with others.  People like to share their workout experiences—and prove that they went to classes!  It empowers them and it’s one of the greatest parts of the health realm.” 

In other words, peerFit helps perpetuate the fitness “circle of life” that makes most apps (not to mention fitness regimens) so successful.

There’s more to peerFit than meets the eye.  The app and mobile site incorporate an interactive calendar, workout uploads, instructor reviews, class reviews and overall class recommendations too.  Currently, the app is in Beta launch with a full peerFit marketing campaign to launch September 1, 2012.  The campaign will take place in Tampa, Atlanta and Jacksonville, however, any gym in any city is able to download and give peerFit a try today.

The founders of peerFit.
Source: Gainesville.com

As part of its mission, peerFit has helped to make gyms more social and connect people to one another through fitness.  So it comes to no surprise that Buckley immediately brought on three business partners (which also happen to be his good friends) to help launch and grow the app.  The peerFit team is currently made up of four partners including Buckley, Rex Tullius, Matt Redinger and Scott Peeples as well as public relations specialist, Anastasia Revzina.

The team has been working tireless hours (on top of fulltime jobs, grueling swim practices and never-ending graduate school lectures) in order to see that peerFit is the best app it can be. 

“I think the coolest thing about this process is that it has been beyond a fulltime job for us, but we are still able to run it as students and professional athletes,” says Buckley.  “We love to be busy, we love going 100 miles per hour and we love meeting people.”

Ed Buckley and Rex Tullius came all the way from Florida to visit
 Think Big Partners and to learn more about Kansas City's startup resources.

During the app’s build phase, the peerFit team somehow found enough time to survey over 10,000 potential users about the impact that the app could have.  According to results, 77% of surveyors believed they would be more motivated to try a new class if they could read about the workout ahead of time.

“It’s important for us to take a step back and look at peerFit from an outsider’s perspective,” says Rex Tullius. “We are all about picking people’s brains.  Those potential users know how to make the product better.” 

What can we expect from peerFit in the coming months?  Other than its mega marketing campaign hitting in the southeast in September, we can also expect a rollout of the full mobile app and website at the beginning of September.

“I am proud of the process we have built,” says Buckley.  “We love meeting with different gyms and getting to know people.  That’s what makes us unique.  But the truth of the matter is great athletes, great musicians and great entrepreneurs just aren't ‘normal’.  We are obsessive.  Running a startup is difficult, but we love it.  We may get criticisms 10, 20, 30 times over, but we always come back with more passion to move forward.” 

Keep an eye out for peerFit, the fitness app that’s making major waves, this fall.  To learn more or to get your gym involved with the app, visit www.peerfit.com. 

Read the full article at: http://www.thinkbigkansascity.blogspot.com/2012/08/if-app-fits-download-it-introducing.html

The Ultimate Fitness App Wello Says “No Excuses, Just Results”

As I have stated time and time again, the life of an entrepreneur is a hectic one. Days are often long and nights are even longer. The startup lifestyle can quickly become an unhealthy one.  Fast food and sugar-heavy caffeine drinks become the norm (especially around our office!  Town Topic is right down the street for cryin' out loud!). Unless you have the metabolism of a 13-year-old, your waistline may expand without you even noticing. Many entrepreneurs fall victim to this and know that they need to live better.  But we all tend to hide behind excuses like we don’t have the time, energy or money to do anything about it.  But the truth of the matter is...we do!

If this sounds like you or someone you might know, there is now a solution to the problem (as with most problems in life, oftentimes they can be solved with the development of a new product or service!!).  It’s time to stop making excuses. New startup fitness provider Wello, which uses video chat to allow anyone to get personalized training sessions online, may be the answer to any entrepreneur’s fitness prayers!  

Much like Hitch Fit, the service I use here in Kansas City, Wello has launched a marketplace that connects personal trainers with potential clients by using two-way video chat.  This feature enables anyone to get training sessions at their convenience. A user just needs a laptop, web connection and webcam, and they can begin scheduling and taking personal fitness classes. People can work out at home or the office without having to step outside. And since there’s another person on the other line, there’s no chance quitting early!!

Wello has a wide range of exercise disciplines to choose from including yoga, Pilates, martial arts and strength training. Once users determine what type of exercise they want to take part in, Wello can connect them with trainers who fit their personal schedule and exercise style.  As we all know, some prefer a laid-back coach while others need the drill sergeant-type motivation.  Users can also choose between 25-, 40- and 55-minute sessions, depending on how much time they have. Once booked, users will receive a link to log in to their one-on-one training session.

For personal trainers, Wello provides a new revenue stream that does away with the hassles that come from booking sessions through gyms. Trainers can schedule sessions in their spare time and since local gyms aren’t taking a cut, they’re likely making a lot more per session than they would have otherwise. Personal trainers are also open to a potentially wider customer base.  In fact, Wello has recruited trainers from major cities, but also from less-populated areas where the potential customer base might be limited.

So far, Wello has signed up more than 150 trainers and has a backlog of others to evaluate. The startup evaluates each fitness professional for certifications, then puts them through a training session and has them provide a session for a Wello employee, who evaluates them before adding them to the system.
Wello was founded by Ann Scott Plante and Leslie Silverglide, who met at Stanford Business School and bonded over their mutual love of fitness.

Not only is Wello an awesome app to download for your fitness regimen, but it also has grounds for a very successful startup business.  We are excited to watch Wello grow over time and become a valuable tool for entrepreneurs who are driven to lead a healthy life.  Why not give it a try?