MOST Startup Media podkast returns with new guests, co-founders of one of the most successful startups in Kazakhstan in recent years - 1Fit.
Meir Adilzhanov and Askar Akshabayev founded 1Fit together with three other co-founders. Eight years later, the business is represented in six countries, cooperates with more than 2,000 halls and serves 100,000 customers.
CEO of MOST Holding Mirat Akhmetsadykov learned from the guests the details of the record launch in Mexico for $100,000, the failure in England and the internal kitchen of the company.
Meiir and Askar identified 3 main points to consider when scaling.
Select a suitable country
Moreover, the selection must necessarily be data-driven - based on facts and analysis. 1Fit had a bad experience in England, where the launch failed due to an incorrect assessment. The product was not suitable for the market of this country, and the founders drew conclusions.
"After England, we decided to add some macro parameters and removed all developed countries. In developed countries, fitness is usually cheap because the state subsidizes, the competition is too great. And you understand that if you go there now, you will accelerate for a very long time," says Meir.
Check your target audience
Askar Akshabayev advises to conduct field research. In the case of 1Fit, it was the launch of fake registrations: "We do the process of downloading the application until the moment a person enters his number, receives an SMS and enters the application. And after that, we tell him about the upcoming launch."
This approach allowed not only to assess the potential interest of the audience, but also to collect a base of the first users for future communication. Any founder should prioritize minimizing the risks of launch and understanding how ready the target audience is for the product. Therefore, we do not advise you to forget about CustDev.
Go to the country by yourself
Meir and Askar told about their experiences in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. On paper, each country met the criteria, but already being there, the founders were able to identify real cons and cons.
"In Thailand, we could not really understand the economic situation at all, in Indonesia it was more or less the same. It was also very difficult to communicate there. We went to some luxury hall at the hotel, even there we knew English very poorly, and we realized that in these countries it would be very difficult to communicate," says Meir Adilzhanov.
As a result, 1Fit stopped at Malaysia.
Learn more about scaling and scandalous marketing of 1Fit in the podcast "Marketing on the verge. Kazakhstan startup 1Fit captures the Mexican market" on our YouTube.