WoW Woman in FemTech | Michelle Caira, founder and CEO of Fit Mama Fitness Inc

Michelle Caira is a founder and CEO of Fit Mama Fitness Inc, an AI-powered app that hosts personal training plans, programs, science-backed content, professional advice, fitness videos, support network, community, live webinars, local events, and the option to schedule one-to-one meetings with a personal trainer, nutritionist, psychologist.

Fit Mama Fitness Inc is a one-stop-shop holistically focusing on enhancing the lives of its consumers– in body and mind.

Michelle has over 24 years in corporate banking and startup industries, a BA (Hons) degree in Financial Services, Chartered Banker accreditation, and a Master Personal Trainer with accreditation in prenatal, antenatal and postpartum health and fitness.

She received the honor of B.C. Small Business Awards Nominee and twice for the Women of Influence Nominations through RBC.

Tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.

My background is in banking and finance, as my first career, and from 2010 I retrained as a personal trainer and started working with new mothers, through an in-person fitness class called Fit Mama. After a few years, I recognized a gap in the fitness market for a mother-centric app and started to work on what that could look like. Initially, I was looking at fitness as the only app, but since 2017 this has evolved to become a trifecta approach: fitness, health, wellness. The idea is to work on these three elements in a holistic way – and to be the number one app for mothers. 

As I come from a business background and not tech – I really had to learn everything from scratch. I’ve used no-code tools to get Fit Mama to where it is today! Everything from setting up automation using MailChimp, creating personal training courses on Thinkific and Mighty Networks, using Zapier to link everything together, Telegram for testing some channels and community groups, and in the old days – Facebook and WhatsApp. 

The initial project, back in 2017-2018, was to flesh out the 90 Day Personal Training plan content and test it with a client. Then it was to create a Fit Mama Club, which would become our subscription-based model. And then to use both products to see how clients would react. Do they purchase one over the other? Can both scale? Churn rates for the subscription model? And so on. 

By 2019, I had on-boarded around 60 clients to a community (using Mighty Networks) but was seeing nothing but tumbleweed. The same few clients would engage, even though the content was delivered daily. I built up the community to around 111 members through testing an existing community and offering them access to the Club for free for one year – again to test if an existing community could bring life to Fit Mama. It did, for a minute! Then it fell flat again. 

What was going wrong? I joined a few MN communities myself and then realised that MN was yet another “app” on my phone and actually wasn’t too easy to navigate. I found the friction points for my clients were too high to bother logging into the app. 

I moved some of my clients over to a Telegram channel and group – to test that – and it’s working! 

Since 2010 I have been building communities here, there, and everywhere. The biggest one has just under 1,000 members and is used to link local people with the sport (Sports Buddies), and another one is a mother support group with around 350 mothers on there. I also built up a great community, in-person, when I lived and worked in Switzerland. I’m a huge believer in word-of-mouth, grassroots, organic growth. 

How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?

The fitness industry was easy to get into and the postpartum fitness industry even easier. I found my calling very early in my time as a PT and became obsessed with pregnancy and postpartum chapters in a woman’s life. The tech industry is really interesting. I was living in Switzerland when I first launched the Fit Mama in-person classes, but when it came to the tech build I could not see how or where I could go to get the business started. I approached one developer at EPFL (university in Lausanne) and was pretty much laughed out of the building (“no desire to build this app”). I decided to relocate to Vancouver on a temporary work permit (as a single mother!) after researching tech communities that were female founder-friendly. It was just perfect! 

I managed to bag an all-access ticket for the Vancouver Start Up Week – and basically went to 5 or 6 sessions per day, scrawling notes at every session. There I learned a lot about everything, including women in tech and the barriers that we face – but also the close-knit group of women who were very friendly and open to help. I joined a consortium called Women In Tech and was invited to be a speaker at one of their panel sessions – and through that was also invited to a Microsoft Women in Tech event. I found the industry, in Vancouver, very welcoming and easy to access. 

How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle? What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in? 

It’s hard to say as the in-person business kind of merged into the app concept… but if I look at when I moved to work on FM full time, it would be around 2017/2018. That’s when everything else took a back seat and I worked solely on getting the minimum viable product and some clients on-board. The biggest obstacles are trying to get traction and clients when you’re at the bare-bones MVP stage. So your product is just a very basic “thing” to get you started, but you need to sell that to get traction. It’s a chicken and egg situation. 

The challenges are definitely in the fund-raising space. If you have a good network, but not one that is an “investors” network, then you really are at the cold-calling stage. That is very tough. The one thing I need is the version one app developed – but that needs a developer, who needs to be paid. To get that funding would be great. 

What are your biggest achievements to date?

Definitely getting the nominations for three different awards, moving to Vancouver was a big gamble, but paid off. I’m a single mother, sole founder, and it is not easy to achieve anything – so every single little win stacks up in my book! 

What are the projects you are currently working on?

The primary focus is on pre-seed fundraise. I switch on my laptop every day and open my investor tracker spreading, business plan, pitch deck, and investor deck. Then I open Twitter, Telegram, and LinkedIn – and spend the day scraping my data to find the next best angel to connect with. I’m also filming some fitness videos to add to my content – and dipping in with my existing client base. I’m also tracking the femtech world – so engaging in discussions on Twitter or LinkedIn, attending femtech and fittech events, and also checking out what other companies are doing – recent press releases, etc. And I look at the deals that have been announced in the angels and VC space – just to see if more femtech companies are gaining exposure. 

Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why? 

100% important to me. The main reason is that so far everything seems to have been built and developed with men in mind. We’re now seeing some amazing femtech coming out – and that’s because more women are getting involved in tech. I don’t think we would be seeing so many amazing companies gain funding and traction without women in tech. It’s about time and definitely works for my company – which is female-centric. It’s not that men can’t do a menstrual cycle tracking app, or develop a pregnancy fitness app – so it’s not to exclude men, but it is definitely time for women to be backed – both in education, training and being funded. 

What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see it heading?

We are seeing, today, more fitness companies taking a keen interest in menstrual cycle tracking for workouts. That’s the first thing. Next, we’ll be able to take this a stage further and look at AI that can be used to recommend workouts, health actions, and welfare – for women. Which is not out there yet. We also need to use health tech to understand what is happening to the female body pre-conception through to the end of postpartum – everything from breastfeeding, split abs, weak pelvic floors, C-section healing, and so on. 

That’s the zone that I’m keen to look at. I’m also really interested in dovetailing fitness and wellness with the horrific maternal mortality rates, particularly in the US, and finding a solution (s) to help with this. And next up will be the perimenopause and menopause stages – there is very little out there at the moment – both in terms of companies building and investors funding – but you can feel the momentum building. This will be a huge space in the next five years. 

Women in Tech will grow so much through funding into education, grants, and a flywheel – women who have benefitted from grants, investment, scholarships, will pay it back. 

What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?

Be very clear on what you are trying to build – and be very clear on what you can do to build it, outsourcing what you can’t do to the very best person you can afford. Don’t waste too much time trying to be everything to your business. If you’re the tech person, then go for it! If you’re a business person, like me, then find whatever tech you can that can build an MVP then get the funding to build your tech team. 

Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?

I absolutely love reading anything that comes from Ida Tin (Clue), Allyson Kapin (Women who Tech), Melody Biringer (Women in Tech Regatta).

Connect with Michelle on her LinkedIn.

Find out more about Fit Mama Fitness Inc on their website.

Follow Fit Mama Fitness Inc on Twitter.

Join Fit Mama Fitness Inc LinkedIn group.

This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder, and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic and read her stories for Forbes here.