Karly Pavlinac, a 2017 North Carolina State University graduate, is turning a frustration with step-by-step fitness instructions into a startup \u2013 WAAM, an app that provides top fitness trainers a toolbox for monetizing their fan base.<\/p>\n
WAAM stands for \u201cWe Are A Movement,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is creating a community of encouragement around fitness \u2013 the movements and workouts from your top trainer. All workout types and styles, including ballet, football agility, strength training, CrossFit and adaptive. You can log in and hear what they have to say, how they start their day, how they get inspired,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really want this to be a platform where you can log in, work with those top trainers, and feel like there\u2019s something there for you, whether you\u2019re a beginner or really advanced,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pavlinac came up with the idea in the summer of 2017, just prior to her last semester at NC State. She was living on a farm in Hawaii and working part-time with a design firm as an architectural project design intern. With the other half of her time, she was a stand up Paddleboard Yoga instructor, teaching clients how to take their yoga routines to the water\u00a0.<\/p>\n
It was while in yoga teacher training, in preparation for her summer in Hawaii, that Pavlinac became frustrated \u2013 and decided to create a solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was getting the instructions \u2013 put your leg here, your arm there \u2013 and writing those down,\u201d she said, but when reviewing her notes, she discovered the written instructions were not clear. \u201cIf I had a video library (showing the routines and instructions), I could go back and make that into a class,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how the idea was born, and that\u2019s how it functions, with video demos, a timer and reps, so you can follow along,\u201d she said. \u201cTrainers can shoot (the video) or we shoot it for them. They can keep that library and continue to make more classes \u2013 and make their lives easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an industrial and product design student in NC State\u2019s College of Design, Pavlinac knew the steps to developing the solution to her frustration. As a business student \u2013 which included a semester studying accounting and finance at the EBS Business School in Reutlingen, Germany, an NC State Poole College global academic programs partner \u2013 she had a foundation in business processes, including how to monetize an idea.<\/p>\n
While finishing her last semester at NC State, Pavlinac said she found herself in class, thinking about her business concept \u2013\u201cokay, am I actually going to do this? So I went out and figured out how to do it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The \u2018how to\u2019 included a few tough lessons. One came from losing a startup loan to an app development team that took the money but did not deliver. She then sent an email message to NC State computer science majors, seeking a developer for her app. \u201cI found somebody, and that\u2019s when I realized you need a full team of developers; one person can\u2019t do it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In spring 2018, she applied and was accepted into the Andrews Launch Accelerator for the summer 2018 session; her startup at the time was named BnaFIT, but later changed it to WAAM, which better described the business concept.<\/p>\n
Being in the Launch Accelerator \u201cwas great \u2013 the mentorship, weekly sessions teaching us different business tactics, ideas \u2013 that was really helpful, a game changer,\u201d she said. \u201cI learned a lot. Going through that program really gave me a chance to get this off the ground,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
When her developer left to take \u201ca real job,\u201d she said, \u201cit was kind of me by myself, so having that community and other developers in the Accelerator to talk to, and the mentors, was a big part of our success and a big part of my sanity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Since then, Pavlinac has secured a $300,000 investment from Cofounders Capital and has hired \u201ctwo very talented developers \u2013 Brian Marks, WAAM chief technology officer who had founded WebAssign while at NC State, a web app that the university continues to use to use, and developer Ziwa Mukungu.<\/p>\n
She had met Cofounders Capital investor David Gardner through the Andrews Launch Accelerator, initially as a guest speaker and then as a sounding board and an investor. \u201cWe\u2019re all full time and because of the recent funding, we\u2019re able to have salaries,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pavlinac projects that WAAM will be in the app store this fall. The startup is currently recruiting trainers and \u201chas a wait list campaign where you can sign up and be one of our beta testers for the next couple of months while we\u2019re getting this out there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Read more at the WAAM website<\/a>.<\/p>\n This post was originally published<\/a> in Poole College of Management News.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false,"raw":"Karly Pavlinac, a 2017 North Carolina State University graduate, is turning a frustration with step-by-step fitness instructions into a startup \u2013 WAAM, an app that provides top fitness trainers a toolbox for monetizing their fan base.\n\nWAAM stands for \u201cWe Are A Movement,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is creating a community of encouragement around fitness \u2013 the movements and workouts from your top trainer. All workout types and styles, including ballet, football agility, strength training, CrossFit and adaptive. You can log in and hear what they have to say, how they start their day, how they get inspired,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cWe really want this to be a platform where you can log in, work with those top trainers, and feel like there\u2019s something there for you, whether you\u2019re a beginner or really advanced,\u201d she said.\n\nPavlinac came up with the idea in the summer of 2017, just prior to her last semester at NC State. She was living on a farm in Hawaii and working part-time with a design firm as an architectural project design intern. With the other half of her time, she was a stand up Paddleboard Yoga instructor, teaching clients how to take their yoga routines to the water\u00a0.\n\nIt was while in yoga teacher training, in preparation for her summer in Hawaii, that Pavlinac became frustrated \u2013 and decided to create a solution.\n\n\u201cI was getting the instructions \u2013 put your leg here, your arm there \u2013 and writing those down,\u201d she said, but when reviewing her notes, she discovered the written instructions were not clear. \u201cIf I had a video library (showing the routines and instructions), I could go back and make that into a class,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s how the idea was born, and that\u2019s how it functions, with video demos, a timer and reps, so you can follow along,\u201d she said. \u201cTrainers can shoot (the video) or we shoot it for them. They can keep that library and continue to make more classes \u2013 and make their lives easier.\u201d\n\nAs an industrial and product design student in NC State\u2019s College of Design, Pavlinac knew the steps to developing the solution to her frustration. As a business student \u2013 which included a semester studying accounting and finance at the EBS Business School in Reutlingen, Germany, an NC State Poole College global academic programs partner \u2013 she had a foundation in business processes, including how to monetize an idea.\n\nWhile finishing her last semester at NC State, Pavlinac said she found herself in class, thinking about her business concept \u2013\u201cokay, am I actually going to do this? So I went out and figured out how to do it,\u201d she said.\n\nThe \u2018how to\u2019 included a few tough lessons. One came from losing a startup loan to an app development team that took the money but did not deliver. She then sent an email message to NC State computer science majors, seeking a developer for her app. \u201cI found somebody, and that\u2019s when I realized you need a full team of developers; one person can\u2019t do it,\u201d she said.\n\nIn spring 2018, she applied and was accepted into the Andrews Launch Accelerator for the summer 2018 session; her startup at the time was named BnaFIT, but later changed it to WAAM, which better described the business concept.\n\nBeing in the Launch Accelerator \u201cwas great \u2013 the mentorship, weekly sessions teaching us different business tactics, ideas \u2013 that was really helpful, a game changer,\u201d she said. \u201cI learned a lot. Going through that program really gave me a chance to get this off the ground,\u201d she said.\n\nWhen her developer left to take \u201ca real job,\u201d she said, \u201cit was kind of me by myself, so having that community and other developers in the Accelerator to talk to, and the mentors, was a big part of our success and a big part of my sanity,\u201d she said.\n\nSince then, Pavlinac has secured a $300,000 investment from Cofounders Capital and has hired \u201ctwo very talented developers \u2013 Brian Marks, WAAM chief technology officer who had founded WebAssign while at NC State, a web app that the university continues to use to use, and developer Ziwa Mukungu.\n\nShe had met Cofounders Capital investor David Gardner through the Andrews Launch Accelerator, initially as a guest speaker and then as a sounding board and an investor. \u201cWe\u2019re all full time and because of the recent funding, we\u2019re able to have salaries,\u201d she said.\n\nPavlinac projects that WAAM will be in the app store this fall. The startup is currently recruiting trainers and \u201chas a wait list campaign where you can sign up and be one of our beta testers for the next couple of months while we\u2019re getting this out there,\u201d she said.\n\nRead more at the WAAM website<\/a>."},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NC State alumna Karly Pavlinac is creating a community of encouragement around fitness, and enabling top trainers to monetize their fan base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":18581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"ncstate_wire","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[19,20,6],"class_list":["post-18580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-experience","category-research-innovation","tag-_featured","tag-design-studies","tag-industrial-design"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}