This post is part of a series of interviews with talented, successful entrepreneurs sharing the stories behind their growth, their struggles and their victories.
Perky Athletics is a website and an app where you sign up for group fitness classes taught by freelance instructors in unique, fun venues. Perky’s founder, Rebecca Perkins, sat down with us to share her story of the early days of building a tech company as a non-technical founder.
What drove you to become an entrepreneur and to found Perky Athletics?
I recognized a gap in the fitness industry, which was the ability to connect participants to unique classes being held by fitness freelancers or fitness entrepreneurs. From there, the Perky platform was born.
We partner with unique venues throughout various cities and help freelancers set up their classes in these venues. We have also been branching out to host unique fitness events, offering something different to our participants. We are skipping the gym, but not the workout!
What’s different and unique about Perky? What makes it different from other fitness apps, like ClassPass?
Perky focuses on freelance fitness classes hosted in unique venues. We host yoga classes at boutique retailers (editor’s note: such as Toronto eyewear store Ollie Quinn), host pilates classes in brewpubs or cider houses, and use other gyms and spaces that wouldn’t normally be accessible to freelancers and in many cases, wouldn’t normally be used for fitness classes.
We’re different from other fitness apps because they focus on classes from various fitness studios.We aren’t competing with apps like ClassPass because we have a completely different business structure.
What do you love about being an entrepreneur?
I love having the ability to completely determine our strategic direction. If I test something and find that it doesn’t work, I can pivot until it does. I find it exciting to secure new business opportunities and drive the business forward.
What do you find particularly challenging about being an entrepreneur and growing a business?
As an entrepreneur, you must have an unwavering belief in yourself and your idea. I do, but that is something you must work and strive to remember daily.
Of course, growing a business is challenging because you face unknown problems every day that you couldn’t have predicted! You have to take these in stride, and never let go in the belief of your idea.
What kind of marketing strategies have you employed that didn’t quite pan out the way you expected them to?
Unless you have a huge social media budget to work with, I find that paid social doesn’t work. It was surprising to me that my paid social efforts didn’t help me acquire new participants or instructors.
I believe at this stage of business, the more successful way to acquire new customers is via word-of-mouth marketing. I do believe that social media will be extremely impactful when I have the correct amount of money to put behind it, but at this stage of business growth, it doesn’t make sense for me.
You won your place in the Build Your Dream Accelerator Program, which is based out of Toronto co-working space Make Lemonade. How has that opportunity changed your business?
Each of the 10 companies who were accepted into the BYD Accelerator received a fixed desk at the Make Lemonade office and three business mentors, including Uplevel’s own founder, Katrina McKay, who’s the business growth advisor!
Having an office space to go to every day not only makes such a difference in productivity, but Make Lemonade also houses a great group of people to collaborate with every day. I love being a part of the very supportive community in Make Lemonade!
The mentors advise, support and help us with our business strategies. They are so personally invested in all 10 companies and have been very successful thus far at providing support to all companies.
“As an entrepreneur, you must have an unwavering belief in yourself and your idea…that is something you must strive to remember daily.”
In addition to working with Katrina in the BYD program, Uplevel also did some media outreach for you. Why did you decide to delegate some of the admin work in your business? What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs who may be thinking about doing the same?
I had Uplevel manage media outreach for a large event we ran for the public and for influencers. The team was easy to work with and very efficient!
Right now, I am the only person working for Perky. As a result, admin work can sometimes build up and take precedence over what is really important, like strategic direction and driving the company forward.
For entrepreneurs who have admin work that is preventing them from focusing on strategy, yet aren’t at the point where they can hire another employee for the company, I would highly recommend hiring a VA, and of course, I’m partial to Uplevel Solutions. VA’s can help you offload all of the “admin stuff”, so you can focus on what is important.
[Editor’s Note: Check out Uplevel Solutions’ Plans & Pricing Here]
If you hadn’t started Perky, what would you be doing with your life?
I love tech, and creativity, so I’m not sure exactly what I would be doing if I wasn’t building Perky, but I would definitely still be an entrepreneur and look to combine my love of innovation and the arts. I am inspired by identifying opportunities and then creating something from nothing.
Very important question: beer and pizza (and with or without pineapple) or champagne and cake?
I need to add in a very important third category that you missed: red wine and chocolate. Hands down!
