What is your startup? My start up is Happy Healthy Hoops. We are a fitness company that is passionate about fitness through fun. We run a variety of Hoop Fitness classes, sell hoops and create videos so people can hoop at home.
What was the inspiration behind your startup?I started hooping after I saw a circus performance in London. At the time I was 10 years into an accounting career which I didn’t love and couldn’t hoop to save my life. Inspired by the performance that I just couldn’t get out of my head I bought myself a hoop. I was so rubbish to start with but slowly I got better and eventually I was teaching all my friends. I lost 5kg in the first 5 months and after a little research I realise that hooping burns an incredible number of calories (400-600 per hour) so started to develop HoopFit (Happy Healthy Hoop’s signature class).
Now its my students who inspire me. HoopFit students do lunges, squats, jumps but they don’t think of it as exercise because it is so much fun. I see adults squealing with excitement when they master new tricks. You’ll never see that kind of excitement running on a treadmill, yet HoopFit burns just as many calories. ‘Fitness through fun’ is our motto and I see that in my students every day.
What are your goals for the next month? I’d like to have a clear business structure and strategy for Happy Healthy Hoops. There is a lot going on and I need to be strategic in the way I tackle things so that I am able to achieve my goals.
Where do you expect your startup to be in 3 months time?In 3 months I would like us to have a product ready to go to the market with. Whether that product is a travel hoop with a dvd or a teacher training programme I’m not sure yet but making a decision about what direction to go in first is really key to the businesses success.
