Tomorrow Health

Natalia Karbasova

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Entrepreneurship

Where health goes next. Natalia Karbasova talks to the CEOs, founders, and investors building the future of health, fitness, and wellness technology. From gym floors to boardrooms, from wearables to longevity - the conversations that shape a $7 trillion industry.

2d ago

Neo: The gym priced like an airline

Kids slipped in at 5:59 pm to beat peak pricing. Felipe Apablaza, CEO of Grupo Wellness, turned that into a gym with no membership. Felipe Apablaza runs DMOOV, a membership club chain in Chile, and Neo, a gym with no membership at all: you pay per visit and the price moves with demand. His co-founder came from airline revenue management. He says 40% of Neo's users were not going to any gym before, which raises the question of who the monthly contract leaves out. In this conversation: Why kids walking in at 5:59 pushed DMOOV towards peak-hour pricHow a 90-person cap and a twelve-visit ceiling shape what members payWho comes to a gym that has no membership, and what it costs to bring them inWhy a free app, not the gym, is Neo's acquisition channelHow he plans to take pay-per-visit into other operators' clubsSeason 2 of Tomorrow Health is sponsored by Zing Coach - every gym member, personally coached. Chapters: 00:00 Why the monthly contract is wearing out 00:10 Grupo Wellness, Neo and three things to listen for 01:12 Six companies and a sports city 02:25 DMOOV: one price, every training space 03:43 Ten million in revenue, seven from DMOOV 03:57 Why build a second gym brand 04:42 Kids at 5:59 and an airline revenue manager 05:58 What Gen Z does on a gym floor 06:19 Three things Gen Z wants 06:38 Strength, mirrors and DJ nights 07:36 Pay per visit, 90 people at a time 08:41 From 12 to 55 dollars a month 09:03 A 3.50 average check-in, benchmarked on Smart Fit 09:28 13,000 visitors and 40% new to gyms 10:36 Who the 40% are, and what they cost to acquire 11:25 The free app as acquisition channel 12:28 Nine gyms in Chile, then Peru, Colombia and Argentina 12:59 Why the gym itself is a commodity 13:40 How dynamic pricing flattened the peaks 14:53 What changes in Europe and the US 16:05 Building a technology company out of a gym 17:28 Plugging into the CRMs gyms already use 18:17 Why Latin America is a year behind 19:06 Price points decide Latin America 19:57 What the industry gets wrong about technology 20:26 One decision: four visits a month, not twelve Links: * Felipe Apablaza on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felipeapablaza/ * Neo Plex: https://www.neoplex.cl * Zing Coach, season sponsor: https://zing.coach/ * Natalia Karbasova on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karbasova/ * Tomorrow Health: https://tomorrow-health.com * Get episode alerts: https://tomorrow-health.com/#subscribe * Apply to join FitTech Club: https://fittechclub.com/
Oct 9

FitActive: The upsell is software

192 clubs, 500,000 members, 19.90 euros a month. FitActive founder Eduardo Montefusco on why the next margin comes from software, not square metres. A FitActive club costs around a million euros to build today, roughly double what it cost ten years ago, and the membership price has not moved. Montefusco runs 192 clubs across seven countries and owns all or most of every one of them, having stopped signing franchise partners altogether on 1 January 2025. In this conversation: Why the word franchise was never the right one for what he builtWhat 51 per cent lets him do in eight days that a franchise agreement does notWhy his banks wanted him to stop taking partnersWhy 19.90 stays fixed while everything around it gets more expensiveWhat he expects AI to do to a retention rate that has already moved from 32 to 38Season 2 of Tomorrow Health is sponsored by Zing Coach - every gym member, personally coached. Chapters: 00:00 Why he does not need franchisees 01:09 192 clubs, seven countries, 500,000 members 01:53 Why this is not a franchise, and the eight-day clause 03:59 Why partners open a second club 05:27 What a single club costs to build 06:31 Stopping franchising, and what the banks wanted 07:24 Breakeven at 2.1 members per square metre 08:44 Retention at 38 per cent and the AI bet 10:53 Costs doubled, revenue did not 11:53 Selling more to the same member 12:33 What travels to Spain and Brazil 13:50 Where the company goes in five years 14:26 Two tax regimes and a distorted market 15:56 The one decision he would make this quarter Links: Eduardo Montefusco on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardo-montefusco-53155521/FitActive: https://www.fitactive.it/Zing Coach, season sponsor: https://zing.coach/Natalia Karbasova on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karbasova/Tomorrow Health: https://tomorrow-health.comGet episode alerts: https://tomorrow-health.com/#subscribeApply to join FitTech Club: https://fittechclub.com/
Oct 2

BeWell Brands: A gym is a database

A gym is a database. Elaine Jobson, CEO of BeWell Brands and Jetts Fitness, on why Gen Z is rewriting the budget-gym model. Elaine Jobson led the management buyout of Jetts Fitness in 2022, then built BeWell Brands on top of it: a franchise house that runs the same franchise engine across gym, recovery and group-exercise brands. On her count, Jetts runs 130 gyms in Australia and about 200 overall, with clubs in the UK, the Netherlands and now India. She puts the group at well over 100 million dollars in revenue, and says it is not even halfway. Her argument is that Gen Z, now the majority of new members on her numbers, wants a gym worth filming from every angle and will pay a bit more for it. The big budget chains, she says, can only change at the pace of their refurbishment cycles. She also explains why Jetts runs no contracts at all, why she will not put water into a gym nobody staffs overnight, and which market she is looking at for the first time. 🧠 What you will hear: Why the membership system holds almost all the IP of a gymHow Jetts changes around 30% of its concept from Delhi to LondonWhat never changes, and how she takes the word love to a boardroomWhy she says contracts only help the business, and what she does insteadWhat makes the US interesting for the first timeWhy the budget chains will struggle to keep up with Gen ZWhat the industry gets wrong about unit numbers⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00 A gym is effectively a database 00:11 Jetts, BeWell and three things to listen for 01:09 More products on the same shelf 02:16 Jetts, O-Studio and Fitesque by the numbers 03:22 Why franchise 03:33 Over 100 million and not halfway 03:49 Where the franchisee's dollar goes 04:26 The tech stack behind a 24-hour gym 05:09 Why every CEO loses sleep over security 06:01 HYROX: a trend more than an innovation 06:32 Why Jetts is not bleeding edge 07:11 No water in a gym nobody staffs 08:26 What changes between Delhi, London and Australia 10:04 The 70% that never changes 10:22 How to measure love in a boardroom 11:15 A Net Promoter Score that never dips 11:59 Contracts only help the business 13:19 Members who leave and come back 14:21 The Middle East, and the US for the first time 14:48 Gen Z is the majority of new members 15:48 Accessible premium versus the budget chains 16:50 Filmability in a design brief 17:45 Why HVLP is not going anywhere 18:25 Social strength 19:23 Why budget chains can't move fast enough 20:00 The obsession with unit numbers 20:51 One decision: how much to invest in AI 🌐 Links: Elaine Jobson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elaine-jobson-72a8a33BeWell Brands: https://www.bewellbrands.com.au/Jetts Fitness: https://www.jetts.com.au/Natalia Karbasova on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karbasova/Tomorrow Health: https://tomorrow-health.comGet episode alerts: https://tomorrow-health.com/#subscribeApply to join FitTech Club: https://fittechclub.com/This episode is sponsored by Zing.Coach: Every member, personally coached. Learn more: https://zing.coach/
Sep 24

VivaGym: The moments that decide retention

Juan del Río ran VivaGym for nine years. He joined in 2016, when it had fifteen gyms in Spain. By the time he handed over, on his own count, it was around three hundred clubs across Spain and Portugal. In this episode he sets out a framework he calls moments of truth: the specific points in a member's life where intervention decides whether they stay. The first visit. The month usage drops. The anniversary nobody notices. The member still paying who stopped coming two weeks ago. I put it to him that this sounds like a people problem rather than a technology one. He disagrees, and his answer is the clearest case I have heard for why a gym floor needs software. He also puts a number on what makes a club work, warns that his own segment has taken quantum leaps in pricing, and names the growth he wishes he had not slowed down. What you will hear: - What a low-cost club needs before it works, and why 400 members is a dead room - How he clusters moments of truth so a club of 250 addresses only the fifteen who need it - Why he refuses to choose between quality and quantity - Opening versus acquiring, and why he would not trade one for the other - What broke first between fifteen clubs and three hundred - Why he replaced the membership system, the CRM and the apps during the pandemic - The most costly mistake of his tenure 00:00 Speed is the only real competitor 00:24 Nine years, fifteen gyms to three hundred 01:32 What caught his attention in fitness 02:10 What changed in how he runs the business 02:57 Moments of truth, defined 04:12 What you actually do with them 04:44 People problem or technology problem 06:45 Why speed beat every competitor 07:32 The ladder: 100, 300, a million members, a thousand gyms 09:41 Franchise or own the clubs 10:34 What one club needs before it works 11:47 Cost structure and inflation 12:42 Build or buy 13:16 What breaks first at scale 14:16 Quantum leaps in pricing 15:07 Why Spaniards use their gyms more 15:37 Who walks in now 16:22 Health beyond the gym floor 16:59 The mistake he would undo 17:19 What everyone gets wrong 17:34 One piece of advice to an operator 18:18 The back-to-school quarter Links: - VivaGym: https://vivagym.es - Natalia Karbasova on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karbasova/ - Tomorrow Health: https://tomorrow-health.com - Get episode alerts: https://tomorrow-health.com/#subscribe - Apply to join FitTech Club: https://fittechclub.com/
Sep 17

NYSC: The member nobody budgets for

120,000 members and a 70% use rate. NYSC CEO Bill McMenamy on what it costs when members actually turn up. Most club economics quietly depend on members who never come. Bill McMenamy built the opposite: a majority of his members check in more than 16 times a month, his use rate is above 70%, and he is candid that it costs him more in repairs, maintenance and capital than a half-empty gym would. He took over New York Sports Club in 2022, straight out of Chapter 11, with a fifty-year-old name and, in his words, no website, no app, no CRM and no equipment worth having. He came from Gap and from pharma, not from fitness. Today he runs 32 clubs across four cities, ten public partnerships, the boutique brand Fhitting Room, and 120,000 members. In this conversation: Why a full gym is more expensive to run than an empty one, and why he wants it anywayWhat the club everyone told him not to invest in now returnsWhy he refuses to measure ten partnerships on ROI, and what he looks at insteadWhat a human coach is for once software writes the training planWhy he is about to stop charging members for something they pay for today This season of Tomorrow Health is brought to you by Zing Coach. Chapters: 00:00 Cold open 00:16 Intro 01:16 Fitness is immature in its use of data 02:51 Three kinds of member, one building 04:26 The club nobody wanted 05:27 Rebuilding a brand that had nothing left 06:55 From three visits a month to sixteen 07:40 Why he refuses to measure partnerships on ROI 08:29 Selling units is not selling solutions 09:27 What a coach is for once software writes the plan 12:48 Why he is about to stop charging for the app 13:56 Which health markers are worth optimising 14:40 Insurance will write the exercise prescription 15:41 Subscription rules are about to change the model 16:48 Why a boutique does not work inside a big box 18:41 Invest in your people this quarter Links: Bill McMenamy on LinkedInNew York Sports ClubNatalia Karbasova on LinkedInTomorrow HealthGet episode alertsApply to join FitTech Club
Sep 10

Smart Fit: The Visa of fitness

One in 75 Latin Americans passes through Smart Fit's platform. Founder Edgard Corona on why he built his own aggregator. Every large gym chain watched corporate benefit platforms take a share of their members and negotiated over the terms. Edgard Corona built his own instead, lost money on it for years, and now holds more than a third of that market in Brazil. He founded Smart Fit in 1996 and built it into the largest fitness operator in Latin America, more than 2,000 clubs across 16 countries, and moved to chairman in March when his son took over as chief executive. The season was brought to you by Zing Coach. In this conversation: Why the cost of money in Latin America, not strategy, decides how many clubs he ownsWhat a low-cost operator has to change before it can open in MoroccoWhy a gym group is buying its own NVIDIA hardware instead of renting computeWhat he thinks every large chain got wrong about aggregators, and what it cost themWhere the model behind all of this actually came from, and it is not fitnessWhat has to be true before a gym chain can call itself a health company Chapters: 00:00 One in 75 Latin Americans is on the platform 00:27 Who he is and what he is building 01:23 What Smart Fit actually is, and where it goes next 02:38 Why he owns eight in ten clubs instead of franchising 03:24 What travels into a new market and what does not 04:15 Where new concepts get tested before they reach a budget club 04:59 The part of the experience nobody is building yet 05:21 Why a gym chain built its own aggregator 07:09 What it takes to put a rival gym on your platform 08:19 Build or buy, and the cost of capital behind it 09:35 The mistake he thinks the industry made 10:11 The members who had never trained anywhere 11:13 What stops a gym chain becoming a health company 11:52 What he took from Life Time, and the wearable plan 13:55 From fingerprints to face recognition at the door 14:37 Ten years out 15:03 One decision Links: Edgard Corona on LinkedInNatalia Karbasova on LinkedInTomorrow Health websiteApply to join FitTech ClubZing Coach
Sep 8

Zing Coach: The trainer you can't hire (Season 2 opening)

Season 2 opener, brought to you by Zing Coach. Only 22 percent of people ever try a personal trainer, says Zing Coach CEO Anton Marchanka. Personal training is the most effective retention tool a club has, and almost nobody buys it. Anton Marchanka puts the lifetime trial rate at around 22 percent, and says the reason is structural: there are not enough trainers to meet the demand, and the ones who exist cost more than the membership. He runs Zing Coach, which built a consumer AI coaching app and now licenses the model into clubs including New York Sports Clubs, and he ran Daily Burn before that, so he has operated both sides of that line. In this conversation: Why he charges operators per active member rather than per location, and why the price per member falls as usage risesWhat Zing Coach had to unlearn from the consumer business before the first club deployment workedWhy high-value-low-price clubs and boutiques buy the same product for opposite reasonsWho the product does not work for, in his own wordsWhat integration actually costs an operator, in a number he gives on the record Chapters: 00:00 The 22 percent who ever try a personal trainer 00:52 Why Daily Burn pushed him off the mobile-only path 02:43 What 850,000 paying users showed about retention 03:50 Not enough trainers, and too expensive 05:18 What selling into gyms forced him to unlearn 06:59 Who this does not work for 07:18 Charging per active member, not per location 09:03 Why budget clubs and boutiques buy this for opposite reasons 12:04 The consumer app as a testing ground 13:02 Strength training, AI adoption and community 15:27 What integration actually costs 15:58 What operators get wrong on day one 18:08 The gym floor as a guided experience Links: Anton Marchanka on LinkedInNatalia Karbasova on LinkedInTomorrow Health websiteApply to join FitTech Club
Aug 27

Haelsi: The patient is not the buyer

A prescribed health app in Germany sells for 200 euros. Adham Kassab, COO of haelsi, on where 120 of it goes. Germany lets public health insurers pay for a prescribed app. That sounds like the easiest distribution deal in consumer health until you price the entry: an information security certification, an audit, a randomised controlled trial, ongoing reporting, and a further charge every time you change the product. And once you are listed, the person using the app is not the person paying for it. Adham Kassab ran Selfapy, one of Germany's best known prescribed digital therapy companies for mental health, through its sale to MEDICE. He is now Chief Operations Officer at haelsi in Vienna, a network of health centres that sells corporate memberships, rents capacity to doctors and builds its own digital services on top. He has run the software side and the physical side of the same market. In this conversation: - Why prescribed health apps in Germany cluster around the same price, and what is actually left per order - Why "customer" is the wrong word in healthcare, and which of the three stakeholders blocks the deal - Why most digital health products have not reached profitable unit economics - Why doctors stopped being persuaded by downloads, retention and engagement - What the fitness industry has to prove before an insurer will pay for strength training, and the one step a gym operator can take this week Recorded in early 2026. Chapters: 00:00 Three people in a restaurant: who is the customer 00:12 Unit economics and how fitness gets paid, in brief 01:26 What Selfapy is, in plain terms 03:12 Three tiers of health app, and only one gets reimbursed 04:40 One orders, one eats, one pays, and what listing costs 06:10 200 euros per prescription, 80 euros of margin 07:18 haelsi: centres, corporate memberships and doctor rentals 09:39 GLP-1, muscle loss and why there are no fitness partners 11:05 Why doctors do not prescribe strength training 11:31 What fitness has to prove, and one step to take this week 14:29 What a clinic chain and a therapy app share 15:40 Outcome-based reimbursement changes the top metric 16:53 Big tech in health: more potential, not more effectiveness 17:26 Consumerization is not reversible 18:15 Pulse check: seven questions, seven answers Links: Adham Kassab on LinkedInHaelsi Natalia Karbasova on LinkedInTomorrow HealthApply to join FitTech Club

Where health goes next. Natalia Karbasova talks to the CEOs, founders, and investors building the future of health, fitness, and wellness technology. From gym floors to boardrooms, from wearables to longevity - the conversations that shape a $7 trillion industry.

Creator

Natalia Karbasova
Years Active

2026
Episodes

13
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2026 Natalia Karbasova
Show Website

Tomorrow Health