Zen eyes growth with online class platform for yoga teachers

Brazil-based startup Zen will launch a new online class platform focused on yoga teachers, which should increase the company’s revenue by more than 40% in 2022. The product boosts the firm’s offering, which also includes a homonymous meditation app that has reached over 4 million downloads and Zen Wellness, an online platform offering classes including yoga, recorded and produced by the company.

Founded by Christian Wolthers, who left the company last year to focus on the equity crowdfunding platform Vegan Business – and digital influencer Juliana Goes, Zen’s current CEO is co-founder Matheus Benatti, who took over in November 2021.

“[The increasing demand for] meditation apps was the evidence of the extent of the impact of the pandemic on people all over the world. There was a significant demand for yoga classes, but at that time [at the start of the crisis], Zen was an audio-based experience and could not support video content”, said Benatti, in an interview with Startups.

The company then invested in a studio and production facilities, as well as instructors. Zen Wellness was then launched in November 2020, with yoga, pilates, and meditation classes broadcast through the platform, which currently has over a thousand users. Partners such as corporate wellness firm Gympass consume Zen’s content through APIs.

“When we launched Zen Wellness, we were approached by a lot of instructors, who wanted to understand the experience and how they could teach through our platform. However, the idea was not to create a marketplace”, explains Benatti. “On the other hand, the sound and broadcast quality, as well as the user experience that we provided was completely different from what the instructors were able to offer. So we decided to test the hypothesis of a product that would address those issues.”

Improving online classes

Zen started the process of validating a product based on technology and services to support online classes teachers in September 2021. The company built a prototype with the help of some instructors, and within a week, the MyMat proposal was created.

With marketing tools and student billing management features, MyMat will be launched in March. The product is an alternative to Zoom, a videoconferencing platform many yoga instructors resorted to as classes went online. According to Benatti, this solution posed a series of difficulties.

“Many teachers want to play music during classes. However, Zoom’s technology distorts ambient sound, resulting in a muffled sound. Students would join class with their mics on or turn their mics on during meditation sessions, and all that disturbs the experience. We mapped all of these issues with professionals so that MyMat could address these and other needs”, he noted.