RetroFit - A New Business Model Represents The Coming Golden Age Of Wellness - The Future Is Here

Reading the Wall Street Journal today I noted an article on the upcoming Christmas holiday sales outlook, "Early Sales Pay Off, For Now, Retailer See Strong Weekend Traffic but Worry Spending Could Falter; Online Booms. Ahh the bricks and mortar retail business. Changing business models and the rise of online shopping have and will continue to recreate how people buy stuff. Its also changing consumer expectations about how they interact with brands using technology as I recently addressed in this post.

My theory is there are strong paralells between what retail has experienced and what's to come for health clubs. However, there is a difference between theory and reality . In sharing trends like my recent 2013 Health, Fitness and Wellness Trend Report (get your FREE copy here) examples of how technology is impacting the health club and fitness industry abound. In the recent report NEWISM, creative destruction is also cited as a key trend. One can only imagine how I feel when VC firms like Draper Fisher Jurvetson lead an $8 million Series A funding round for business models like Retrofit. Its as interesting and exciting as when I learned about WellnessFX . Seems the future is really here.

Retrofit crafts 12-month weight loss programs for customers based on data collected via wireless tracking devices such as a scale and pedometer. Clients consult with dietitians, behavior coaches and exercise physiologists via Skype. The company says its customers will lose at least 10 or 15 percent of their current weight, depending on the program they select, and keep it off for12 months.

Here is what a RetroFit client had to say about the product on the Retrofit web site:

"Retrofit is a game-changer for the weight loss industry," said Brad Feld, a Retrofit client and Managing Director of Foundry Group. "A private team of wellness experts helped me re-program some bad patterns so I could lose those 'last 20 pounds' I had been talking about for a decade. Retrofit provided a positive and powerful feedback loop for success. Not only does the program help you lose weight, but also it helps you establish the skills to keep the weight off for life."

New emerging business models like RetroFit represent the  "Golden Age" of fitness and increasingly wellness, as I call it . Technology, changing consumers and globalism are going to change the fitness and health club business greatly and RetroFit is a good example of how that will be done.

So what do you think ? Watch the video overview below and tell me , Bryan O'Rourke, does RetroFit represent an emerging golden future of wellness ? I'd appreciate hearing from you.

About the author:

Bryan O’Rourke is a health club industry expert, technologist, financier, and shareholder and executive in several fitness companies. He advises several successful global brands, serves as a member of the GGFA Think Tank and serves as CEO of the Fitness Industry Technology Council. To learn more contact Bryan here today .