Rethinking Fitness & Wellness in Web3
Last month I had the sincere honor of speaking about web3 and how it will reshape fitness & wellness during an amazing event hosted by TechNexus Venture Collaborative called “Rethink:FIT” - part of the inaugural TechChicago Week.
This was my first speaking engagement since I jumped into the Metaverse with both feet (more on that in sec,) so it served as a really cool forcing function for clarity of thought on what is still very much a learning journey for me. It forced me to think about things like how I define web3, the upcoming trends that I have the most conviction in, and what the future actually looks like. Given all that thinking, I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to translate these ideas into a post as well.
But first, given that my most recent post was the one announcing indiFIT's shutdown 6 months ago, I suppose I owe the world a few updates! Since March, my Co-Founder Brandon and I have been building the “Mindful Metaverse” at Maloka, a VR and mobile game that helps people build a consistent meditation practice. We are incredibly grateful to be able to continue working in the health & wellness space that we love so much, and to be doing it together!
The origin story of this new adventure is pretty cool, too - and has served as a fantastic reminder that relationships between people have the power to transcend any single venture. One of those people for me is Pratap Penumalli, who I first met as a fellow at Cleo Capital. We kept in touch as the months passed and he continued to serve as not only a great friend, mentor, and cheerleader - but even joined our indiFIT community as an angel investor. You can imagine my delight when he shared that Maloka, which was two months post-launch at the time, was looking for a leadership pair just like Brandon and I. It’s been a fun ride so far - and one that has pulled us into the Metaverse. So, let’s talk about the wild world of web3!
First, the obvious question: “what is web3?”
Everyone explains it a little differently, and the real answer is that we probably don’t really know what it is yet. Imagine if you asked someone to explain the internet in the 90s. They probably wouldn’t have described it as a thing you use to hail a cab with your phone or to have a burrito delivered to your couch.
We tend to give the internet a new name when new technologies come along that are so fundamental that they re-shape the entire way we interact with it. In the case of web3, we’re referring to blockchain technologies that have brought us things like cryptocurrency, NFTs, smart contracts, and DAOs. VR/AR/XR technologies also tend to get bundled in as key elements in our web3 transformation because of their critical role in bringing immersive digital identities and experiences to life.
The most important attribute of these technologies is that they make decentralization possible. In contrast to to the web2 world that we live in today where a very small number of platforms control a great deal of the internet and profit from user data, the web3 internet is owned by its users. Web3 also comes with the benefit of interoperability, which has the power to break down our very siloed internet and allow us to take a single wallet-based digital identity with us anywhere.
I’m really excited about web3 overall, but nothing excites me more than the ways it will intersect with fitness and wellness. Web3 is really just a fancy way of saying that we are heading into an age where there will be new ways to build and interact with communities; and I believe that no industry is already better at nurturing community than fitness.
With that in mind, here are three trends that I believe will re-shape fitness in the era of web3:
#1: Communities with Ownership
I spent a lot of time thinking about how fitness creators nurture and monetize communities while building indiFIT. A major question for me was always how platforms do or do not fit into that. To be blatantly honest, I went into my journey as a platform founder and came out a champion for decentralization - and the primary reason is that I believe it is deeply important for creators to have true ownership and control of their communities.
The concept of real ownership doesn’t just apply to creators having control their communities, however. The concept also works in reverse, with new mechanisms to give loyal fans real skin in the game - transforming them from members to owners.
Here are a few ways I believe this will come to life:
The concept of memberships will look less like monthly subscriptions through a platform, and more like buying and holding an NFT
Social tokens will become the official currency of communities, rewarding participation and facilitating exclusive experiences.
The idea of an NFT membership is a major paradigm shift to the way fitness works today. “Buy and hold” is very different consumer psychology, which breaks away from the mental model of “I spend $69 per month on this thing, am I using it enough or should I cancel it?” Instead, it requires members to make larger up front investments in something they are presumably more deeply committed to. Once that commitment is made, it is perceived differently as well - the feeling of ownership provides a natural incentive to participate in the community in a meaningful way.
This new model also radically changes things for the creator, especially from a financial standpoint. Instead of a steady trickle of subscription revenue, NFT purchases provide a large amount of cash up front, which can act as a form of crowdfunding for creators. Maybe they want to invest in a physical space, level up their production capabilities, hire a brand designer, build an app, or invest in marketing - this model gives them the up-front capital to do these things. Those infrastructure investments enhance the experience and in turn make the community more valuable; everybody wins.
Because there is real ownership baked into the model, both the creator and their members have built-in upside. Let’s say NFTs existed when Kayla Itsines founded her business. Well, today she is worth $63M, so those assets would presumably be worth a whole heck of a lot. The verifiable ownership and transferability that the blockchain offers make it possible for OG members to participate in that increase in value and cash out if they choose. Smart contracts ensure that the creator also has a continued ability to monetize as those assets are transferred; again - everybody wins.
While these are all exciting benefits of NFTs as memberships, there is also a major elephant in the room - namely the volatility of cryptocurrency. I believe that at some point in the future, we will just call these currencies and they will behave in a much more stable way, but until then, the reality is that creators and brands that take the web3 path are betting their business on the health of an emerging financial market. Of course, that bet could pay off if ETH goes to the moon and takes the value of their business with it ;)
In web3, creators also have the opportunity to create their own social tokens via platforms like Rally and others. These social tokens become the official currency of a community and give creators new tools to tackle many of the challenges that come with nurturing a fitness community like:
Keeping people interested and drive participation
Rewarding and expressing appreciation for your most loyal fans
Creating exclusivity around certain experiences
These token-based assets also eliminate friction for fitness consumers. In today’s world, you might need an eventbrite login to book a live event, a Playbook account to access on-demand content, and a Shopify login to buy merchandise. In a token-gated access world, creators can host their content and experiences across a variety of platforms and even “worlds” inside the Metaverse; and a community member can seamlessly follow them anywhere, using their wallet as a mechanism for verifying community membership.
#2: Gamification of fitness & wellness / “move to earn”
We live in a country that spends 20% of its GDP on health care. That stat represents a full-blown crisis that every single person who is building and working in health & wellness is in the business of trying to solve. To transform a society that is largely inactive, we have to get creative about the types of incentives that we create to live a healthy lifestyle.
What excites me about what’s happening at the intersection of fitness and web3 is the presence of inherent gamification.
Web2 set the stage for this in some interesting ways, including:
Adoption of wearables and connected hardware, which transformed physical activity into trackable data
Social competition & accountability features, like slots on a Peloton leaderboard or challenges with your friends on Strava
These innovations were the first steps towards incentivizing people to be active with data and social connectivity; but web3 will take us much further down the path of using extrinsic motivators to incentivize physical activity. Fitness in web3 will not only be trackable and social; it will also be gamified, enabling individuals to earn digital goods with real ownership and transferrable value by staying active.
Something the gaming community got right a long time ago was a deep understanding of psychology and behavior change - I’ve gotten a glimpse into this in a short period of time at Maloka by watching the genius of our game design partners, Unity, in action. The concept of creating a currency that can be earned by completing a specific unit of work is not new at all - it’s just making its way out of video games and into our every day lives via the emergence of new technologies.
It’s also important to note that “move to earn” doesn’t just mean earning tokens or currency; web3 unlocks an entire world of other types of digital assets that carry real value and meaning to people, even if simply as a form of self expression. Genopets is a really cool example of this - they call themselves the first move-to-earn NFT game, and translate IRL activity into in-game upgrades, skins, etc. that players go crazy for.
#3: Working out (or meditating!) in the Metaverse
It was just two years ago that fitness operators were scrambling to pivot from predominantly IRL models to a virtual/hybrid world. I was in the trenches with many fitness creators and brands during that transition, so I know first-hand how sudden and stressful that transition was.
But, I’ve got some news for the fitness community, which is that the next major transition is already here. Our “hybrid” world no longer simply includes IRL and digital streaming, it also includes fully immersive digital experiences (aka “the Metaverse.”)
One way we’re seeing this come to life is via the growth of VR/AR/XR-native fitness and wellness apps. Supernatural, a popular VR dance and boxing app, is probably the most prominent example of this, boasting a Facebook community group with over 60k passionate users.
This is what we’re working on in VR and mobile at Maloka as well - equipping each player with a tranquil private island and an adorable spirit companion that guides you on a journey into mindfulness. We’re also helping leaders in the mindfulness space like Deepak Chopra and Sharon Salzberg bring their content into VR inside of our little meditative world.
The reality, however, is that most fitness and wellness brands are not going to go out and develop their own VR applications. More commonly, they will develop a strategy for showing up as a guest in immersive digital worlds like Sandbox, Decentraland, Fortnite, Roblox, and more. Alo was an early mover when they created their Alo Sanctuary inside Roblox. The space boasted meditations, live yoga classes, and even a digital storefront where players could dress up their Avatars in Alo gear.
Just like a fitness studio or creator might host an event on a rooftop, the Metaverse is now another place where brands are popping up to grow their community, diversify their offerings, and keep up with the future.
In summary, the fitness of tomorrow:
Turns members into owners with memberships that look less platform-based subscriptions and more like tokens on the blockchain
Is inherently gamified, offering new types of incentives that change behavior and reward people for physical activity
Includes fully immersive digital workout experiences inside the Metaverse
I’m pretty pumped about it - and hopefully you are too :)
