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Vea Fitness founder Jonathan Maxim has worn many hats in the past, that of an app designer, growth hacker, digital marketer and more. Now he is summoning all that knowledge and skills to build his young startup.

Headquartered in Philadelphia, Maxim’s startup has built a powerful app that works on platforms such as Fitbit and Apple Watch, and is finding creative ways to inspire people to work out, among them financial rewards. Vea has partnered with the City of Philadelphia and Snap Kitchen, among others, to promote the concept, while tweaking its business model to create a winning model.

“The essence of Vea is helping people find their motivation to work out and then providing them different…incentives and motivators,” Maxim, who previously worked in a Fortune 50 firm, told Brian Neary in an interview.

“…down the road there is a very high likelihood that we could become acquired by one of those large brands, but for now we’re really focused on building up the consumer experience, making the app truly motivational and flying on the experience,” said Maxim, who studied graphic design and user interface, besides earning an MBA at San Diego State University.

BRIAN NEARY: Can you tell us about the current focus of the app and the company?

JONATHAN MAXIM: There were some acquisitions in our industry. MapMyFitness was acquired by Under Armour and I actually cited that acquisition in some of my business documentation because Kevin Plank came out and said that fitness apps, Connected Fitness apps, drive 26% more for purchase from people who came from the app at their stores versus somebody who didn’t. So people coming through Connected Fitness apps have a tendency to spend more when they buy; and that’s mainly because it’s a personalized experience within that app. And so that actually revealed a great opportunity for us being that we connect fitness activity with purchase behavior and that Venn diagram is kind of where we play in this game and so we were inspired by that experience.

We also watched RunKeeper get acquired by ASICS. The reality is that some companies, you know there is tradeoff when you’re acquired like that. ASICS buys RunKeeper and RunKeeper can no longer promote other companies in its app experience. It will just be able to promote ASICS and that’s what they do, they do most of their marketing through that RunKeeper platform now.

We have stayed agnostic in that sense. We still work with New Balance, CORE hydration, and several other large companies, and we have the ability to market them all, and to potentially monetize that versus being acquired by one and being kind of stuck with that brand as your marketing experience, but I think down the road there is a very high likelihood that we could become acquired by one of those large brands, but for now we’re really focused on building up the consumer experience, making the app truly motivational and fun on the experience versus trying to groom ourselves for acquisition at this stage.

BRIAN NEARY: What are you most proud of, having created your company and app and seeing what it does?

JONATHAN MAXIM: I would consider myself a very passionate person when it comes to specifically fitness. I mean, I’m very enthusiastic about the good energy that is produced, the cycle of motivation and healthy habit building. When I began working out in college, it changed my life, I mean it affects your confidence, it affects your poise, your energy levels, and really I wanted to share that motivation on a grand scale. How can we just motivate people beyond borders, not restricted to one-on-one personal training session? How can we use technology to magnify that, and so I think my passion and my pursuits are around inspiring people, but that’s a dynamic thing, it may change. I think that we need to be open to growing our own personal perspectives, but for now it’s definitely in inspiring people to workout.

Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn

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Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

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