The ever-growing digital world has provided a vast array for opportunities for businesses looking to improve and automate their processes, effectively cutting time and costs over the long-term.
Today, we are interviewing Eran Galperin, Founder and CEO of Gymdesk – top-notch gym management software designed to help gyms cut on administrative load, grow, and become more efficient with their operations.
What is Gymdesk?
Gymdesk provides online management software to gyms and other fitness and wellness businesses.
How did you come up with the idea for Gymdesk?
I had close to 15 years of experience with building software and software businesses when I started Gymdesk. After exiting my previous venture, I wanted to build something that I’m more passionate about.
I’ve been training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for about 9 years at the time, and have seen the back office of many Jiu Jitsu schools. I felt there was a gap there for a user friendly solution and Gymdesk is the result of that.
What challenges did you have to overcome at the beginning of your journey with Gymdesk?
Starting a new business is always a challenge, especially since I come from a technical background, I did not have a lot of experience with customer acquisition.
It took a good 4 years for Gymdesk to reach product-market fit. Through the first 4 years, I learned a lot about what our customers actually need and continuously implemented it back into the product. There were many times that I wasn’t sure I had anything really. But once we reached an inflection point, things became much easier.
How have your priorities changed from when you first started?
At the beginning, all I wanted to do was build a product that people would like to use, and I believe we’ve achieved that.
Now I’m focused on building a company where it used to be a one man operation – from customer service, to operations and marketing, making sure everything is running smoothly and effectively.
What is your favourite thing about running your own business?
When you run your own business, you get to decide how to do things, which is incredibly freeing. You get to decide the direction of the product and the culture of the company. It makes work much more fulfilling.
Which is your favourite Gymdesk feature?
This is like asking who is your favourite kid 🙂 Seriously though, there’s plenty of features I like a lot and had a lot of fun working on, but the first that comes to mind is our mass check-in feature, where you can quickly check-in entire classes with a couple of clicks and it’s very visually pleasing.
What makes Gymdesk different?
Most of our competitors have been around for a while, and it shows heavily in their software. They might have a great marketing website, but almost none of that translates to the product which looks like very outdated accounting software.
I focused from the ground up on making Gymdesk feel both modern and user friendly. We have an amazing UI/UX designer, and with my background in product management we have a very strong flow for simplifying and streamlining complex interactions.
This is the feedback we get from our users all the time – how much easier it is to use than any of our competitors.
In your opinion, what is the #1 factor that determines if a gym will become successful?
It’s a combination of things. You need to be able to attract new members and retain existing ones. You need to maintain a positive cashflow, which means managing your expenses and making sure you’re pricing your services correctly.
Once you have your fundamentals in order, balancing your member growth and churn to make sure you’re always growing and never shrinking is the key to making a gym into a successful business.
If you had to give one piece of advice for new gym owners, what would it be?
Figure out your budget ahead of time, and plan accordingly around that. You really have to think through all the aspects of starting and running a gym for a few months, as it would take time to start generating significant revenue.
We actually wrote a guide on our blog about how to open a new gym as a first time owner.
About Eran Galperin
Eran has been building software businesses for close to 20 years, as a software developer, product manager and entrepreneur. Eran founded Gymdesk in 2016 to build a modern software solution for managing gyms and martial arts schools.
