India’s leading fitness startup becomes a Harvard case study

Image: goqii

GOQii, India’s No. 1 health and fitness startup, is now a case study on the famed Harvard Business Publishing platform, a subsidiary of Harvard University that brings out books, magazines and leadership studies for MBA students.

It is only the third Indian startup after Flipkart (India’s largest online retailer and Amazon rival) and Paytm (India’s biggest mobile payments firm backed by China’s Alibaba Group) to feature as a Harvard case study.

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On the surface, GOQii is a fitness band that competes with the likes of Fitbit, Xiaomi’s Mi Band, Nike’s FuelBand, Jawbone and so on. But there’s more to it.

GOQii is actually a service on top of a wearable device. The ecosystem consists of personalized health coaches, trainers, nutritionists, behavioral psychologists, etc, who are available 24×7 on the cloud, and help users interpret their body data and make changes to their health and lifestyle.

Most recently, GOQii has also enrolled diagnostic centers and hospital chains on its platform, and will soon tie up with health insurance services too.

Image: GOQII

“Our business model is very different than the traditional hardware companies since we focus on a subscription model with much higher engagement and lifetime value,” Vishal Gondal, founder and CEO, GOQii, tells Mashable.

“Hence, it won’t be fair to compare us to Xiaomi or Fitbit. In fact, our platform integrates with data from multiple wearable and apps,” he says.

The Harvard case study titled Envisioning a New Fitness Future will capture GOQii’s entire evolution from a fitness band to a complete health ecosystem.

The case is divided into two parts:

(1) Part A details GOQii’s journey from its incorporation in 2014 until April 2016.

(2) Part B deals with its broadened service offering that ties doctors, diagnostic centers, hospitals, payments, etc.

Students will obtain lessons on Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, Healthcare and Technology through the GOQii case study.

“It is a proud moment for us that the student community is looking at the success of GOQii as a benchmark for their management program. This case study reinstates our vision of healthy living and preventive healthcare,” says Gondal.

GOQii retails on Amazon in India and the US; the band comes bundled with a 3-month service subscription at $49.

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Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/04/03/top-health-fitness-startup-harvard-case-study/