Plankk: Influencing the world’s fitness industry from Calgary, one app at a time
So here’s a Calgary story about energy.
It starts with oil and gas, but ends with the kinetic energy of tens of thousands of people exercising online.
Four years ago, Colin Szopa was Vice President of Growth at PetroFeed, whose wildly popular app let people in the oilpatch see the status of drilling rigs across Western Canada. Ultimately Szopa left, and the company wound down a few years later.
Colin Szopa, CEO and Co-Founder of Plankk
It was at this point that the PetroFeed investors made a very Calgarian decision: instead of taking pennies on the dollar and watching the company disappear, they took Szopa up on his offer to buy the company and roll it into his new tech venture, Plankk. Now all those oil & gas investors are backing the world’s most ambitious fitness platform, which helps health and wellness influencers bring training and nutrition guides to clients worldwide.
PLANKK IS BORN
It was when an acquaintance approached Szopa with a problem he was facing as a trainer, that the idea came to him. This friend was providing clients with training and nutrition guidance through PDFs created at home, but it was time to scale, and to do that - he needed more than a couple of stale PDFs. What he needed was an app.
Four years on, Plankk has launched more than 62 products bringing some of the world’s top fitness influencer brands to life and building a global audience of more than 165 million people. With subscribers doubling since the pandemic hit, this YYC startup is truly revolutionizing the way we see exercise at a time when brick and mortar gyms feel less accessible than ever.
What Szopa and the Plankk team has done is create a single platform that can support multiple apps. A fitness app that makes fitness apps, if you will. Influencers selling their exercise and nutrition programs through eBooks or PDFs can make a swift transition to mobile by tapping into the software developers and designers that make up Plankk’s team, based just behind Central Memorial Park.
“We offer those working with us a true partnership - we’re not just their app developers”, says Szopa. And he’s right. From writing content and managing the marketing strategy for launch, to photoshoots for app imagery and producing CRM templates - Plankk doesn’t churn out apps upon apps, it focuses on strategic digital brand building and creating lasting partnerships in the process. Apps aren’t Plankk branded either, it really is all about creating a personal brand for these influencers and in turn, bringing them closer to the community they’ve worked hard to build.
“Plankk brings brands to life. We aren’t just a tech partner, we’re a content partner, a full-suite agency rolling out videos, social marketing, paid ads, graphic design and of course, apps.”
The startup’s most recent app launch at the beginning of 2020 has already amassed tens of thousands of followers and is the perfect example of the partnership ethos Szopa and the Plankk team is so passionate about.
Called Pretty Muscles, Plankk’s app for influencer and celebrity trainer Erin Oprea offers her followers the opportunity to follow her favourite workouts that she has done with the likes of Carrie Underwood and Kasey Musgraves. Plankk built the app and marketed the launch from scratch, from software development to content creation and everything in between, seeing it ranked in the top 50 of the App Store’s health and fitness apps. Plankk also went one step further with a service now offered to all Plankk partners - a personal growth ninja.
No, growth ninjas don’t travel the country karate-chopping competition. They’re on the team to monitor growth statistics, not just on the app but on social media to see what kinds of posts perform best and optimal times to engage with the influencer’s community to help form approaches moving forward.
Szopa believes this is the future of targeted advertising - and the fitness industry as a whole.
“By being multi-stream, we’re capturing a ton of the market. Our product is unique. People can cultivate a relationship with their favourite personalities - they get to know them through Instagram, TikTok, and then go work out with them whenever they want.”
Plankk’s SmartFitness Exercise Library
NOT JUST FOR INFLUENCERS
Plankk’s most recent offering is SmartFitness, born out of the early days of the pandemic when Plankk landed a partnership deal with the International Sports and Sciences Association (ISSA), one of the world's largest online personal training accreditation platforms. ISSA accredits over 100,000 personal trainers a year who are in need of a platform to help them train their clients once they begin their new career path. And SmartFitness does exactly that.
As the pandemic sent ripples through the fitness industry, Plankk started investigating and found that 59% of people are not going to renew their gym membership post-pandemic. Fueled by this knowledge and the surge in digital fitness popularity, Plankk evolved its offering to provide digital solutions for connecting all trainers with their clients, who were previously seeing 75 cents of every dollar they made taken by the gyms they trained at. Szopa says he thought to himself, “if we’re doing it for influencers, why can’t we do it for ordinary trainers trying to build their career?”. SmartFitness now has thousands of trainers using the platform to connect with their clients, giving them the opportunity to make a more decent living than they did before.
“Our goal is to truly disrupt bricks-and-mortar fitness studios,” says Szopa. But despite moves like the SmartFitness launch, he’s not talking about eliminating them completely. In fact, gym franchises around North America are excited about diversifying what they can offer their members.
GOING GLOBAL
Plankk has been approached by fitness centres across North America who want to be able to offer members access to fitness content that doesn’t require 550,000 members going to their gym.
“We are the chosen tech partner for bricks-and-mortar gyms that don’t know how to get into the software game,” says Szopa. “Gyms want to give attendees of their boutique fitness classes a similar experience of quality, but more accessible. A 30-minute workout at home is the most approachable option.” That’s why some of the top gyms across the world are choosing to work with Plankk.
And when we say the world, we mean it. Plankk’s client list currently spans the US, Australia, Brazil and Dubai. With users in as many as 50 plus countries, 92 per cent of revenues come from beyond Canada’s borders. But Szopa says he’s consistent in acknowledging Plankk’s Canadian identity and channeling the business back into this country.
According to Szopa, working with so many international partners is providing them with a unique opportunity to promote Calgary. “Our work means we can promote Canada and our province to international audiences. For example, we’re working with Travel Alberta and Tourism Calgary to hopefully bring our influencer partners to a future Stampede.”
Plankk’s SmartFitness Workout Builder
SOMETHING ABOUT CALGARY
The company has had opportunities to move closer to their majorly US client base, but Szopa’s not ready to leave Calgary and the talent and creativity that’s brewing in the city.
“We could easily be headquartered in Los Angeles or Nashville, but we want to stay in Calgary to be part of the changing energy here. Take Austin 10-15 years ago, it didn’t have the tech presence it has now. We want a part of that - it’s taken its time, but it’s starting to happen.”
It’s the entrepreneurial nature of this province that Szopa is most fond of. “Good tech ecosystems depend on that entrepreneurial attitude, interest, creativity, and talent. Talent like developers, especially mobile developers, are in big demand - more jobs help raise the bar for the city.”
And that Calgarian lifestyle is a big selling point too. “Compared to Vancouver and Toronto, the cost of living and the lifestyle here is great.” So great, the team recently recruited their Chief Product Officer from Toronto. After flying him out for the Stampede last year, he was so enamored by the Calgary energy, that surprise, surprise - he stayed.
“There’s a willingness to learn here too. You’ve got a lot to choose from when it comes to junior to mid-level hires here and the funding and training programs on offer in Alberta takes the burden off of us on job training.”
“We could easily be headquartered in Los Angeles or Nashville, but we want to stay in Calgary to be part of the changing energy here.”
WHAT’S NEXT
The Plankk team is showing no signs of slowing down, as it grows into the effects of the global pandemic. In fact, Szopa says the COVID crisis has helped their business hit its stride with subscribers doubling and the launch of a brand new platform.
“People are interested in the other ways you can invest in your health. There are more brands and people looking at alternative ways to improve their wellness than ever before. Our focus is looking at how we continue to bring brands and personal trainers closer to their community with our technology.
“We are a tech and software company first and always will be, but we’re excited to use that expertise to continue growing and diversifying our offer.”
For more information on Plankk, visit www.plankk.com.