GRIT BXNG At Home Founder Bill Zanker on Creating a Social Fitness Experience

GRIT EPIQ is the newest innovation in at-home connected fitness. When in use, the product opens up to a touch screen mirror, a fitness bench, boxing knuckles, and smart dumbbells. It is truly connected and utilizes AI. When not in use, it’s a sleek bench that blends seamlessly into any room in your house.

We were forced to close our flagship fitness studio GRIT BXNG in NYC during COVID for more than one year. Thankfully, we are back open today in Union Square. While stuck at home, we tried every single at-home fitness product on the market, and we were underwhelmed by the existing devices. We wanted to create something that’s an all-in-one product – intelligent but also social.

I am a serial entrepreneur. I’ve had the good fortune of successful exits with The Learning Annex and Great American Backrub. I started the first online learning company called Brainfuel that was acquired by Allen & Company. More recently, I launched the GRIT BXNG concept with my family, and in the seven months we were open pre-COVID, we were killing it. So, when I see an opportunity like I do here now in connected fitness and in the boutique fitness space before that, I try to find a way to take the industry in a new and bigger direction by finding the best people to join me in my vision.

It’s exploding. Everyone knows about the growth of Peloton over the last 18 months. At one point, the company was valued in excess of $40 billion. Lululemon made a big splash when it acquired MIRROR for half a billion dollars. But it’s not just the mainstream names. The entire industry has seen an extraordinary influx of investment and venture capitalist money over the last year – hundreds of billions for Tonal, Tempo, Hydrow, Liteboxer, etc. It’s a white-hot space. According to Allied Market Research, online fitness is projected to be a $59 billion industry by 2027.

We approached Eric Villency, the world-famous designer of the Peloton bike, to design the GRIT EPIQ. He is a fan of GRIT BXNG and has come in to experience it. When COVID hit, we asked him to design a cutting-edge total home gym encompassing the exercise modules that our clients love from GRIT BXNG. We’ve also put together a world-class team of hardware and software developers, led by SweatWorks, to bring together all of the cutting-edge features we plan to incorporate into GRIT EPIQ.

The at-home fitness space is booming with products like Peloton and MIRROR. However, they are not a complete home gym. They tend to specialize in one workout modality. We are a total gym with smart dumbbells, haptic boxing knuckles, and resistance bands. 

We are also the first truly social-plus piece of fitness equipment. On a Peloton or Tonal, for example, you can’t interact with other users via audio or chat. All you can do is send others a high-five emoji. With GRIT EPIQ, we will have a two-way mirror, chat, and audio functionalities to interact with other users and your trainer.

We will have multiple revenue streams: product sales, subscriptions, and lastly, upselling anything from apparel to seminars to VIP memberships.

We are raising $10 million to get EPIQ to market in 2022. I am a big fan of allowing the public and our potential customers to get in early and hopefully reap the benefits of investing before the rest.

As I mentioned, I am a serial entrepreneur with several exits in the consumer space. We revolutionized boutique fitness by making working out fun with GRIT BXNG. Our Union Square flagship studio in NYC is the first gym to add a full liquor bar to create a third space for clients and trainers to mingle before and after class. We love to innovate, be different, create buzz, and do things uniquely.

I have always tried to have an exit for my companies. Here, it seems that an IPO or buyout from a private equity firm or an acquisition from a larger company is on the horizon. Our goal is to make working out fun through a vibrant, social-plus community of like-minded fitness enthusiasts.