Meet the Founder: Marni Nicole, Fit With Her

Tell me more about where the idea for Fit With Her came from. 

I’ve been an exercise physiologist and personal trainer for over 15 years. I was finding that making my own health and fitness a priority after the birth of my first child was really challenging and I was putting on weight. I wanted to find a solution, that would make eating well and exercising, fit in with the crazy life that we women lead.be and what they thought they needed to get there.  I got my old school scissors and some blue-tack out and stuck the answers up in groups on a wall until patterns started to emerge. I then began developing my first draft of the Fit With Her membership around what I’d found.

I’ve been an exercise physiologist and personal trainer for over 15 years. I was finding that making my own health and fitness a priority after the birth of my first child was really challenging and I was putting on weight. I wanted to find a solution, that would make eating well and exercising, fit in with the crazy life that we women lead.

What were you doing prior to starting the business? Did you start it as a side-hustle or did you go all-in from the get-go?

I have been running my own Exercise Physiology and Personal Training clinics for more than 15 years. I had begun developing exercise products and online exercise solutions and this became my sole focus with the shutdown of the fitness industry in Melbourne during the COVID-19 lockdowns. I’m pretty much “all in” but my favourite job title is still mum of my now 3-year-old boy.

Is it still your side hustle? If so, how do you manage the time spent on the business and time spent at ‘work’? 

Well, I still see some of my clients from my face-to-face business but I’m pretty much full-time on Fit With Her, in amongst being a full-time mum. My son has just started two days a week in family daycare, which is good for his socialisation, and gives me a bit of headspace for Fit With Her. Truth be told though, many of the hours I find to get done what needs to be done is after my son has gone to bed or when Daddy can take over. My meeting with my developers usually start at 8:30 pm at night (they are in Europe).

What problem is Fit With Her solving? 

Women wear so many hats these days: mum, partner, career woman, daughter, sister, taxi driver, the list goes on …

The problem that I faced, like so many other women, was that I didn’t have the time or the headspace to prioritise my own health, fitness and wellbeing, despite really wanting to.

Fit With Her solves this problem. We make it easy for busy women everywhere to prioritise their own health and fitness.  We have live and on-demand exercise classes, meal plans and recipes customised to you and your goals with ingredients delivered to your door and a fantastic mindset journal and community to make sure you always feel surrounded by an amazing collective of women.

How long had you been running the business before applying for Atto 2020? 

I have been running my own exercise clinics for over 15 years and had been working on exercise products but the Fit With Her solution came to me in a brainwave in June 2020 in the middle of lockdown. So, I had been working on this specific solution for a few months.

What was the first thing you did to get Fit With her up and running? 

I conducted some detailed customer research to determine how my potential members were currently feeling about their health, fitness, wellbeing and bodies, where they wanted to be and what they thought they needed to get there.  I got my old school scissors and some blue-tack out and stuck the answers up in groups on a wall until patterns started to emerge. I then began developing my first draft of the Fit With Her membership around what I’d found.

Was being a startup founder always part of your career plan? If not, what was?!

In a weird way, yes. Not a tech start-up founder, I never thought of that, but my parents ran their own business from home while I was growing up and so I feel like running my own business is in my roots. I started my exercise clinic business when I was 23. I’m also a professionally trained actor.  I feel like Fit With Her is the merging of my skill sets business, exercise and being comfortable in front of a camera.

What would be the one piece of advice you’d give to other female founders looking to take the leap into something new?

I couldn’t get it down to one piece of advice so here’s four:

1. Get educated (read books, do programs like Atto).

2. Believe in yourself and commit to your dreams.

3. Step outside your comfort zone and take action, nothing changes unless you do. You will learn so much more by doing. You’re not going to get closer to that elusive perfection keeping it in your head. 

4. Get help from others be that mentors (like Atto has), contractors, co-founders etc. You want to work with people that take you to a whole new level. It can feel intimidating working with people that know so much more than you do but, unless you want to spend 10+ years learning what they know, they are the people you need to be working with.

What does 2021 (and beyond) have in store for you as a founder? What’s your next step for Fit With Her?

We are about to launch our first “21 day Instagram challenge” to increase awareness of Fit With Her and start helping people. At the same time, we will be starting alpha testing of the software. We will then progress to beta testing and then launch the full membership. It’s a big 2021 for us!

How do you think the accelerator program helped you progress your business? 

The Atto program helped me and my business in many ways. Having someone with experience objectively evaluate your plans is invaluable. I also gained confidence and education with the webinars that were offered. At times I’d think “yeah, that’s what I thought” but it was good to have those thoughts confirmed by people I respect. At other times the education made me realise I was completely unaware of an aspect of software development, obviously, it’s helpful to be made aware of the holes in your knowledge.

Join the waitlist to be one of the first to get access to Fit With Her via the website here.

And follow Fit With Her on social media: Facebook and Instagram.