Moxie, an online fitness platform launching today, claims to have the largest selection of live fitness and yoga classes in the world, with nearly 5,000 options.
The online gym offers specially licensed music and easy scheduling options. Unlike most gyms, Moxie’s founder says it will only charge 15 percent of its instructors to use the service. The virtual gym launches at a time when physical gyms and trainers are struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Traditional gyms went from a billion-dollar industry before COVID-19 “to zero overnight,” Moxie founder and CEO Jason Goldberg said in a video interview. “Suddenly, the 500,000 fitness instructors in the U.S. couldn’t make money. And their customers were left looking for a solution to keep doing what they love, how to stay in shape.”
Goldberg didn’t set out to become a fitness entrepreneur. When the pandemic began, he was running a business software company. Then he saw his business go downhill. “I’m a gym fanatic myself, and my team did some soul searching and we said, ‘What are we going to miss the most if we’re in lockdown for the next six to 12 months?’” he said. “And we all said, ‘How are we going to get our group fitness fix?’”