“Our main users were women and they said the guys at their gym were pervs or muscly and intimidating; or it was a scary concept – what should be like going to a doctor is more like trying to work out in front of the strongest guy in class,” Uwadiae says.
Three people turned up to WeGym’s first group session, which was led by a friend of Uwadiae, and two went to the next one. His new business was up and running.
In the months that followed, Uwadiae taught himself to code so he could improve the website during the day. At night he would sneak around London in a hoodie to put up posters advertising WeGym, which would get ripped down again the next morning.
“I would put up posters for three or four hours until 2am or 3am, go home, sleep, get up at 8am and take bookings. We got five or six customers the first time I did it, then 10 after the next one.
“We have the opportunity to change the narrative around who can access a personal trainer and what the product of a personal trainer is. We’ve democratised it in a small way, for a small subset of people.