Health and Wealth: How Matthew Mansell Created the Next Fitness Unicorn

If you look closely, there’s a thread that runs directly between fitness and finance. In fact, two of the most important parts of life are the health of your body and the health of your wallet. And Athlo founder Matthew Mansell thinks you can help both at the same time — he’s started the next fitness unicorn.

Matthew Mansell spent the first part of his life focused on sport. His talents got him further than most: an offer to play professional rugby for a team in France. He describes that time as an “incredible experience” he knew couldn’t last.

After two years, his contract was up and he turned his sights to finance. He realised his heart was still with sports and quit the sector without much of a plan.

“I had nothing to move into,” Matthew Mansell said. And without funds, he had to cut back on his hobbies. “I had a tennis membership. I had a gym membership. I had multiple packages at different boutique fitness studios here in London. But financially, I couldn’t afford to carry on with them, so I cancelled everything.”

The Spark of an Idea

With no job and no money, Athlo founder Matthew Mansell had nothing but time. And as he walked across London, he noticed something.

The tennis courts, which were always crowded when he tried to play before or after work, sat empty during the day. For a sports enthusiast without a membership, he ached to play a match. He hated that he had to look at deserted courts, but he couldn’t afford to invest in a full membership.

Then, over a beer with a friend, everything changed. The idea that would become Athlo, the next fitness unicorn, slowly began to emerge.

“I'm really fortunate that a number of my friends own boutique gyms or boutique studios here in London. I was listening to one of them talk about their pain points one day. And the pain points that these gym brands have with market aggregators. It got me thinking, there’s got to be a better solution that suits everyone here,” he explained.

Athlo Is Born

It dawned on Matthew Mansell that he could merge two ideas and come up with something completely new. In the words of startup culture, he could disrupt the fitness game.

He founded a company with that in mind. Athlo is an app that brings the sharing economy to fitness centres. Instead of users sharing their homes or cars, they’re sharing their gym memberships.

“What we consider we’ve done is solved that conundrum by creating a product [with which] everyone wins,” Athlo founder Matthew Mansell stated.

Athlo users can sell their spaces in fitness classes, allow others to borrow their gym memberships while they’re away, and get access to other member gyms at discounted rates. This is ideal for commuters, people wanting to try new workouts and those on holiday, Matthew Mansell said.

“At the end of the day, we’re offering a product with individuals in mind and gym partners in mind. We want it to suit everyone,” the Athlo founder explained. “A lot of the comments that we get from the gym partners are, ‘What’s the downside? Why wouldn’t I use this?’ We don’t charge them a fee, nor are our users charged a subscription fee like other aggregators, so it’s a win-win scenario to join our ecosystem, where everyone eats off that same plate and everyone’s happy.”

See more recent Athlo news here: https://techround.co.uk/startups/startup-of-the-week-athlo/