Starting a company in the pandemic, leveraging no-code solutions, and finding co-founders online :: The indifit.co story with Cheryl Kemp

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Cheryl Kemp (founder of https://indifit.co/) and I discuss her journey of starting a company at the beginning of the pandemic, finding co-founders, leveraging no-code technology to validate her idea, pivoting into a completely different business model, providing software for fitness instructors, experimenting with growth strategies, and raising money in 2021. 

Visit https://satchel.works/@wclittle/ventures-episode-30 for detailed notes and links to resources (videos, articles, etc…) mentioned. 

You can watch this episode via video here. 

In this episode we cover the following:  

1:45 - Cheryl quick intro, background, and high-level description of Indifit.

3:16 - Did Cheryl have the entrepreneurial drive as a kid or did it come later in life? 

5:31 - Will’s story of selling pictures of aircraft carriers as a kid.  

6:06 - What kind of work did Cheryl do earlier in her career? 

8:03 - Appreciation for entrepreneurs that start restaurants & cafes. 

9:02 - Where did the idea of Indifit come from? (Cheryl mentioned this program: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/cleo-capitals-sarah-kunst-launches-a-fellowship-for-laid-off-workers/) 

16:22 - Was the program ongoing or a one-time thing? 

16:50 - How did Cheryl go through the process of building and validating the idea?

19:14 - Discussion about the Indifit business model

22:00 - A discussion about the no-code/low-code movement. e.g. https://www.sharetribe.com/ 

24:08 - How is indifit going? How are Cheryl and her team doing? 

28:20 - How are Cheryl and her team building trust/culture remotely? 

31:57 - Was there an “aha” moment with regard to Indifit’s pivot to sell software for instructors rather than be a marketplace? 

36:19 - Did Indifit’s no-code approach help with their pivot? How did she surface the data to know when to pivot? 

38:29 - How is Cheryl thinking about their growth strategy from here?

43:05 - Fundraising conversation. What has the process been like to court investors? 

47:54 - Commentary about the VC industry in general and strategically finding the right investors.

57:22 - What is the best way to follow Cheryl and Indifit online? (Go to https://cheryl-kemp.com and https://indifit.co/ ) 

Special thanks to our sponsor: https://www.startuprocket.com