During the 2020 global pandemic, “home” became synonymous with safety. A lesser-known fact is that it also became closely identified with health.
After much of the population was forced indoors, a home fitness boom brought many exercise products into personal residences — the Washington Post reported that industry revenue more than doubled to $2.3 billion during an eight-month stretch in 2020 alone. As the boom extends well into 2021, a company that continues to make large inroads is Ergatta, a Brooklyn-based startup focused on “gamifying” fitness through its innovative indoor rowing machine.
“Our members told us over and over that they find game-based, competitive workouts more motivating than the ubiquitous, instructor-led classes,” said Saaj Parikh, Ergatta’s growth marketing manager. “We’re only halfway through 2021 and we’ve already tripled our member base since last year.”
Parikh believes that Ergatta’s rapid growth creates the ideal opportunity for new employees to develop their careers and connect with the company’s passionate mission and culture. After a $30 million Series A funding round in April, Ergatta’s plans to double their workforce will create ample opportunities for motivated new talent to step forward.
To learn more, Built In NYC sat down with Parikh to discuss how his personal career has evolved with the company, and why Ergatta is an ideal place for new employees to develop and grow.
The Ergatta Team's Beliefs
- Access to a motivating, convenient daily fitness routine is genuinely transformative.
- There is more to fitness than classes and celebrity instructors.
- Elegant and thoughtful design changes everything.
Describe Ergatta’s growth since you started. What have you seen?
Ergatta has grown tremendously since I started almost a year ago, both in terms of company growth and employee headcount. Providing a unique workout experience is a core part of our product and has brought so many new members to our platform. This was really driven home for me when we grew past the single screen Zoom grid for company all-hands meetings!
As the company has scaled, what personal opportunities were unlocked for you and for your colleagues?
Being at a startup with a fast-growth trajectory means more opportunity and less complexity to step into a position to lead and make an impact. You are exposed to big challenges quickly and get a more holistic view of the playing field and how a business operates.
I was tapped to lead a major website integration earlier than I was probably ready, as nobody else in the company had that expertise. There was definitely a bit of a learning curve, but the experience helped me better understand parts of business operations and fulfillment that I was completely unfamiliar with.
In another instance, a group of us decided to make an effort to cultivate a fun team culture by launching a social committee to plan everything from 15-minute team Zoom activities throughout the week to bigger events like our first annual company offsite get-together scheduled for later this summer. This has allowed us to casually connect and have more meaningful interactions, reducing the anonymity you might find with a remote workforce.
Overall, my role involves a fun mix of creative development, data analysis and marketing strategy. There’s no typical day, but I can usually be found making campaign optimizations in ad platforms, iterating on creative ideas or helping to solidify annual budget plans.
Being at a startup with a fast-growth trajectory means more opportunity and less complexity to step into a position to lead and make an impact.”
How have your company’s leaders helped you pursue new opportunities?
Ergatta’s leadership has encouraged me to invest in my own personal development by offering support for external courses and networking opportunities. While sometimes taken for granted at larger companies with generous people development budgets, Ergatta’s leadership has made an effort early on to make it a priority to invest in their employees' career development.
How are employees encouraged to make a real impact on Ergatta’s success?
Good ideas can come from anywhere. Ergatta encourages all employees to speak up about what can be done to make the business run more smoothly and better meet our members’ needs. Everything from new product features to marketing creative is developed through a collaborative effort. We recently had a very successful open forum session in which a number of Ergatta employees across all departments presented new ideas for the product — we discussed as a group and then voted on favorites to be added to the roadmap. We also regularly chat with our members to solicit feedback and feature requests to incorporate into the product experience.
Have you had a direct impact on Ergatta’s success?
As the growth lead, I hope so! I’ve been fortunate enough to gain the trust of leadership to help make key decisions that influence where we spend our marketing dollars and resources in order to reach our target audience and grow our member base. Recently, I pitched our team on some big new channel bets like influencer marketing and streaming TV ads that will help diversify our marketing channel mix and expand the people we reach with our campaigns.
Being at a startup that is making home fitness workouts more accessible, efficient and motivating is rewarding on its own. However, my particular focus is on defining the marketing strategy and initiatives that will get us to the next level of growth, and seeing those tangible results makes it even more rewarding.
Being at a startup that is making home fitness workouts more accessible, efficient and motivating is rewarding on its own. ”
Lastly, what do you brag to your friends about regarding your job?
The people — I can’t emphasize this enough! I’ve been in roles before where I don’t look forward to one-on-one meetings or team brainstorms, but the people at Ergatta are open, direct and always come with collaborative intent. The day-to-day interactions make all the difference.
