The importance of the platform economy has surged as the pandemic accelerated rapid digital adoption across many verticals and the concept of work shifted to more flexible offerings in the face of uncertainty. With lockdowns shutting down in-person fitness centers, fitness professionals were forced to swiftly embrace the creator economy or expand their existing offerings to focus on digital. Talent Hack is an end-to-end software platform that enables fitness and wellness creators to manage their business online whether it’s offering streaming live classes, providing on-demand content, selling bundled classes, or even networking with peers to learn best practices. Traditionally, those in the fitness industry have been largely dependent on the gyms or studios they worked for and perhaps social media for distribution and discovery. With Talent Hack, they are able to build their own platform-oriented business, developing more meaningful relationships with their audience/customers, while collecting incredibly valuable data along the way.
AlleyWatch caught up with Talent Hack CEO and Founder Alexandra Bonetti to learn more about how her experience as a fitness studio owner inspired the business, the company’s future plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $21.7M, and much, much more.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised a $17M Series A led by Emergence Capital, with follow-on participation from Global Founders Capital.
Tell us about the product or service that Talent Hack offers.
Talent Hack is the tech stack that empowers fitness and wellness creators to achieve financial success. We have a full-stack product where talent can sell their on-demand classes, curate their content offerings, build community, find jobs, secure brand partnerships, and level up with tailored education. In addition, , we offer built-in marketing technology and automation to grow their business, so wellness creators can focus on creating.
What inspired the start of Talent Hack?
I previously owned and operated fitness studios for almost a decade. During that time, my biggest surprise was that the most important product I was selling was not the workout, but rather the connection between talent and our clients. And although talent was the engine running the industry, they had very little ability to drive their own independent career growth. So I set out to solve that gap by building a tech stack and education platform that propels the talent of the industry forward.
How is Talent Hack different?
The most important difference is we are industry natives and driven wholly around that mission. We don’t just build business tools for talent, we think about their career holistically and offer products that solve their most pressing business needs so they can focus on what they love to do. The technology we build doesn’t replace human connection, instead, it amplifies and elevates it because we believe it’s our industry’s superpower.
What market does Talent Hack target and how big is it?
We focus on the entire fitness and wellness vertical, which is conservatively a $4.3T market.
What are your post-COVID office plans?
We are a hybrid team, and over 60% of our team is distributed around not only the US but also around the world. For our NYC team, we are slowly moving back into our NY HQ, starting with a two-day-a-week schedule this week. I’m excited to be able to see some of our team members IRL on a regular basis.
What was the funding process like?
We were very lucky to receive early interest from a lot of great investors. Ultimately, we were most focused on finding a partner who was aligned with our values, big vision, and mission. We found that in Carlotta Siniscalco and Santi Subotovsky at Emergence Capital.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC?
Charlie Bird.
