Building A Business to Help Others Do The Same- Alexandra Bonetti talks Talent Hack, SPACES & Entrepreneurship
Athletech News sat down with Alexandra Bonetti, founder of Talent Hack and their latest product drop, SPACES, to understand what it means to be an entrepreneur within the fitness industry and how she supports other entrepreneurs to make their businesses a reality. Below are excerpts from our conversation.
About Alexandra Bonetti Perez:
Alexandra Bonetti, a former consultant and Wharton grad, founded Bari Studio and operated fitness studios in NYC for close to a decade. During that time she realized boutique fitness, characterized by sleek studios, premium prices and bespoke methods, was treating talent as commodities, even though clients were showing up more for the talent and less for the eucalyptus towels. Driven by her industry-insider experience and entrepreneurial spirit, Alexandra was inspired to create Talent Hack, a platform to empower the wellness professional to run and grow their independent practices. In 2018, she jumped in head first, selling Bari Studio to focus on building Talent Hack full time. Alexandra, originally from Venezuela, currently resides in Manhattan with her husband and two sons. She is also the co-founder of the art auction app, Fair Warning Art.
Alexandra, you are quite the entrepreneur. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and experience and what it means to be a female leader within the fitness and tech spaces?
I didn’t grow up an athlete and rarely worked out. After graduating from college, I had a very intense job where I worked very long days and spent a lot of time on planes. Fitness became my escape, a consistent place, where I found strength. Limited by exercise myths and methods that didn’t offer the experience and results I craved, I took matters into my own hands. In pursuit of a workout unicorn — you know, one that was too good to exist — I committed myself to researching and developing a fun, sexy, addictive and effective workout; one I’d want to return to again and again. With the method I developed, I opened fitness studios in NYC and ran them for close to a decade. That’s where I became obsessed with wellness talent and decided to build a mechanism to support them, which is why Talent Hack was born.
For those not familiar with Talent Hack, what is it exactly?
Talent Hack serves as the technical partner to help fitness professionals launch their own brands so they can focus on creating and connecting with their clients. Talent Hack’s belief is that the wellness industry is its practitioners: coaches, trainers and instructors who become their own brands, rather than corporations. The future is people driven and in the wellness industry this is overwhelmingly evident. In order to power this emerging future, Talent Hack’s latest product drop, SPACES, grants wellness professionals access to the same type of software that studios and major gyms use to manage their businesses, uniquely designed for the solopreneur.
Earlier this year the company announced a $4.7 million seed round. What does the funding mean for the business, how will it be used, and why now?
The funding was raised at a critical time to grow SPACES as I just mentioned. The need for SPACES has only intensified throughout the pandemic and even more now as we approach a “new-normal” hybrid world. We are in the midst of a massive shift in the industry with talent at the forefront. Even though fitness and wellness creators have always had an independent practice, the pandemic has served as an awakening to the fact they can scale those independent businesses. That’s where we come in: we supercharge creators by growing their business so they can focus on what they love to do: create and build relationships.
Can you tell us a bit more about how SPACES actually works?
SPACES uses the same type of softwares that studios and major gyms use to manage their businesses. Think of it as a digital storefront — talent can sell privates, packs, programs, build out a categorized on-demand library, and of course host their live schedule. All of it is built to work together and eliminate back-end work for instructors. So for example when an instructor teaches a live class they have the ability to auto-record and auto-upload to their on-demand library and auto-send that class recording to all class participants who booked the class, in case they missed it.
Who does Talent Hack see as the biggest competition to SPACES? What is the alternative for the solopreneur?
Our platform is very unique in that we take a 360, end to end approach to support our community. We’re a community first, it’s the foundation on which we stand, and we strive to support fitness and wellness talent throughout their career journey. Beyond our emotional value, we offer extensive functional value: modern education, job opportunities and business software that supercharges your growth.
The thought of starting your own business can be daunting, how does SPACES support trainers in their pursuit of “going at it on their own?”
Getting started is extremely simple but our team is available to instructors throughout the whole process. If you want to chat and strategize you can book some time with us.
When is SPACES not the right fit for a potential client?
By definition, fitness and wellness creators range from part time to full time and have different backgrounds, career paths and job mixes. Our software powers everyone. iIt doesn’t matter if you have 3 or 3,000 clients. We have yet to meet a wellness professional that SPACES was not the right fitf. The platform offers live streaming virtual classes, in-person as well as on-demand so no matter what the practitioner wants to sell, they are able to do it on SPACES.
You were recently quoted in Well+Good about the power shift in fitness giving more control to trainers. Can you elaborate on this? While there is greater opportunity for personal success, how sustainable is it for these individual trainers to maintain growth on their own?
To be clear, trainers have always held the keys to the community, which is the heart of any fitness business. They have also had independent practices. What they lacked prior in many cases was financial and decision-making power. The biggest difference now: they can scale their businesses and monetize their followings seamlessly. With this greater shift and general decentralization, many of them are able to control every aspect of their businesses. The wellness space has grown to $4.3T and that’s only going to continue. This pandemic has made people prioritize health like never before and also made it more accessible. We believe the opportunity is endless. That being said, sustaining growth in any business is incredibly difficult and that’s why we are here.
What does diversity and inclusion mean for your business? Based on the critical need for us to be a more inclusive fitness community promoting diversity across organizations and levels, does Talent Hack have a role to play?
As the gateway to opportunities as well as a large and highly engaged wellness community of talent and business ownership, we believe we have the responsibility to enact massive change in our industry. We take that seriously.. Within our organization we’re extremely focused on providing equitable access to opportunities and representation at all levels of our platform and partnerships. Additionally, we’re passionate about providing education for individuals and businesses and sparking much-needed conversations on DEI topics through our POC POV series, year-round.
Where do you see the future of fitness and wellness heading in the next few years?
Surveys show 81% of millennials (and 66% of the population) prefer to work out from home. The pandemic has made clients realize that working out from home is effective and efficient, both financially and in terms of time management. So over the next five years I think this offline to online paradigm shift will only intensify. I also believe this shift will be creator-led, and I’m excited to be building something to help power them.
About Talent Hack
Launched in 2019, by tech wellness entrepreneur, Alexandra Bonetti, Talent Hack is a VC backed tech platform that exists to propel enterprising professionals forward in their wellness career: from tools and resources to build and scale their businesses to access to the best job opportunities in the wellness space.
Founded on the principle that building community and an emotional connection to your clients is the secret ingredient for success in the wellness space, Talent Hack serves as the technical partner to help fitness professionals launch their own brands so they can focus on creating and connecting with their Clients.
After running a fitness boutique for almost a decade, Alexandra saw that at its core, despite the industry being driven and fueled by talent, they were looked at as a commodity. Though the instructors were the reason why clients showed up, businesses ultimately owned the financial relationship with clients, and talent lacked leverage.
Talent Hack’s belief is that the wellness industry will be driven by its practitioners: coaches, trainers and instructors will become their own brands, rather than corporations. The future is people driven, and in the wellness industry, this is deafening loud. In order to power this new future, Talent Hack’s latest product drop, SPACES, grants wellness professionals access to the same type of software that studios and major gyms use to manage their businesses, uniquely designed for the solopreneur.
SPACES offers a professional and streamlined solutIon for creating a digital storefront, monetizing, selling everything from live classes, private sessions, custom packages etc. host challenges, programs and on-demand content. SPACES provides each user their own site or it can embed directly into an existing website and provide the tech to power, automate and manage their business.
Additionally, the “Talent Hack Factor,” complements the tech, by providing practitioners on SPACES with additional opportunities for exposure including partnerships with brands through “Branded Spaces,” as well as integrations with global corporate fitness platforms.
Talent Hack is the first and only career platform for wellness professionals and influencers with a network of 50,000 wellness professionals and countIng, and thousands of the top wellness companies and brands across the US.