#341: Katie Reed of Balanced, on Early Decision-Making to Enable Long-Term Quality and Scalability, Raising VC to Become a Market Leader, and Envisioning a World We All Want to Age In

Katie Reed is the Co-Founder and CEO of Balanced, a digital fitness platform to build a healthspan that matches our new lifespans. They are committed to helping older adults maintain vibrancy in their lives, with an exercise platform that promises community, joy, and a personalized experience to rebel against the decline of aging. Balanced meets older adults where they are with their heterogeneous profiles by taking into account chronic conditions, injuries, pain, and physical ability.

Balanced was inspired by Katie and Kelly's families during COVID-19. While living with her grandmother during quarantine, Katie was distraught with the state of digital fitness for folks like her grandmother. At the same time, Kelly was virtually training her grandparents with cardio boxing via Facetime. With backgrounds in technology, startups, and fitness, the two knew that they could create a digital fitness experience to inspire and build community with healthy outcomes that all older adults deserve.

Founded in 2021 and headquartered in New York City, Balanced has a growing number of fitness programs and content across its platform, available to members at anytime, from anywhere. Their world-class trainers teach live and on-demand classes across multiple fitness modalities with on-screen modifications, including pilates, strength training, cardio boxing, yoga, stretching, dance cardio, and walking.

Topics Covered by Katie Reed in this Episode

• What Balanced is
• How Katie’s grandparents inspired her to found Balanced
• Initial testing for Balance
• How they networked to conduct original testing among both communities and trainers
• From bootstrapping to deciding to raise VC in order to become a market leader
• Building out production and branding after piloting their program
• Early decision-making to enable long-term quality and scalability
• Building out their MVP
• Capital deployment from their pre-seed round and positioning themselves to be a supplemental benefit for Medicare Advantage Plans
• Katie’s experience fundraising as a first-time founder and selling a vision that resonates
• Building out the team for Balanced
• Katie’s tips for finding great founding engineers
• How they’re using the funds with their most recent raise
• The Balanced user experience
• How they’re approaching motivation and adherence to the program
• What Katie’s biggest challenges have been building Balanced as a first-time founder
• How Katie manages her time and takes care of herself
• What’s next for Balanced
• Where Katie sees potential in the market of aging adults

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