#282: Rishi Mandal, Co-Founder and CEO of Future, an Online Personal Training Platform, on Making Fitness Accessible and Affordable, Scaling 1:1 Connections, and Lessons from His 15 Years in Tech

Rishi Mandal is the co-founder and CEO of Future, backed by Kleiner Perkins and Founders Fund. Future is an online personal training platform that pairs clients with their own world-class coach. Future is creating the most personal training experience ever by using a combination of technology, content, and elite personal trainers to empower members through fitness. Their custom-made training plans with personalized audio coaching are designed to keep you coming back. With Future, you can reach your goals at home, in the gym, or at your group fitness classes, when and where it’s most convenient for you. Their team comes from Apple, Google, Airbnb, Square, Fitbit, the NCAA, and the NBA. Rishi was previously the CEO of Sosh (acquired by Postmates) and a product leader at Google. Prior to tech, Rishi was an astrophysics researcher at NASA and Stanford University.

Some of the Topics Covered by Rishi Mandal in this Episode

• What Future is and why Rishi decided to start it
• How Rishi identified the problem he wanted to tackle with Future and the discovery process that followed
• The shift and benefit as a coach using Future
• Future's focus on diversity when recruiting coaches
• How they approached customer acquisition and how it has shifted
• Building the coach-trainee connection digitally
• Underbuilding the original product to test its validity and product market fit
• The big vision for Future and how they're getting there by building the business in phases
• How they designed Future's pricing model and business model
• Rishi's insights on planning and fundraising
• How Rishi views relationship building

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