Wellness startup Habuild aims to promote healthy living and habit building through yoga

In light of people’s common struggle to maintain New Year’s resolutions, a 21-day online yoga challenge was held in January by wellness startup Habuild. 

From January 2 to 22, over 4.5 lakh users from 92 countries joined the event. The challenge would start as early as 6:30 am and go on till 7 pm with people doing various asanas or yoga exercises from the comfort of their homes. 

The goal was simple: inspire individuals to embrace physical activity and stick to their wellness goals and not quit midway. 

On January 12, the event created a Guinness World Record for the most number of yoga participants in the world (2,46,252) in a single session. Incidentally, January 12 marks Quitters Day—when people are most likely to call it quits on their resolutions.

“Health is the primary need and focus of our lives. However, we understand the common struggle of maintaining a consistent routine. That’s where we stepped in with our platform to carry out this challenge,” says Saurabh Bothra, Co-founder of Habuild. 

Nagpur-based Habuild is a wellness platform that aims to promote physical and mental well-being and help people adopt a healthy lifestyle by cultivating lifelong habits such as yoga, meditation and Zumba. 

The wellness platform, which operates via a messaging automation tool integrated on WhatsApp, was founded in March 2020 by IIT alumni Saurabh Bothra, Trishala Bothra, and Anshul Agrawal. 

“It all began when I started taking yoga classes for my peers while studying in IIT.  I noticed a common problem—people struggled to stick to their fitness routines,” says Bothra.

What started as a hobby, teaching yoga to his friends, soon turned into a venture motivating thousands of people to make exercise a consistent part of daily life. 

“I don’t have time, We already do so many house chores, I am too tired to work out. These reasons are roadblocks preventing people from a regular exercise routine. This realisation became our eureka moment at Habuild,” explains Bothra. 

Cultivating good habits for life

The startup offers community-based programmes wherein users practise yoga every day to maintain good health. It also provides personalised support in adopting healthier eating habits, regular exercise, and mindfulness practices such as mindful journalling, juice fasts, gut cleanse, kitchen gardening, and marma healing, with the guidance of experts. 

Habuild delivers its programmes online in English and Hindi, primarily through YouTube and Zoom. 

The journey of every user is personalised on WhatsApp with attendance tracking and content that varies based on specific needs. To keep users motivated, the startup hosts monthly challenges that emphasise the importance of habit building. 

Habuild convinces users to stick to their routine by sending automated texts on WhatsApp, providing details on how many classes they have missed or might miss during a week, and offering continuous chat support to users to address inquiries on yoga, general health, and specific physical ailments. 

“Depending on the nature of the query, users have access to complimentary consultations with our team of experts, including yoga specialists, nutritionists, and physiotherapists,” says Bothra. 

One of the habit-building concepts at Habuild is ‘No-Zero Days’, wherein users are encouraged to engage in some form of exercise to prevent ‘zero days’ (days in which one has done absolutely nothing towards their fitness goal) and gradually build consistency. 

It can be any small fitness activity—be it a five-minute walk, five Surya Namaskars, or a quick five-minute Tabata exercise. 

The platform encourages people to practise yoga at their own pace from the comfort of their homes. The exercises offered by Habuild are beginner friendly without any age barrier, involving a combination of asanas. 

“We provide a variety of options, including easy, challenging, advanced, and innovative exercises, to keep our users committed,” notes Bothra. 

The rule is to activate each muscle set at least twice a week, he adds. 

Ease of access and use 

The Habuild community primarily consists of middle-aged women, including users from smaller towns who may not be that comfortable with complex technology. 

The startup’s goal is to make its platform easy to access for people who may depend on their children for assistance with technology. The process is designed to be simple, wherein users tap on a WhatsApplink to join the classes, access their own dashboard through a personalised link, and be informed on the community programmes.

To ensure smooth operations, Habuild leverages technology such as Whatsapp Business API to provide users communication and timely updates on programme schedules. 

“This tool helps us stay connected with our customers,” says Bothra. 

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Growth and market potential 

The startup started out with just three users but has now expanded to over 2 million members across 38 nations, including the United States, Canada, Dubai and Singapore. About 85% of Habuild’s users are from India.

This happened through sheer word-of-mouth publicity and referrals, says Bothra. 

“Our primary mode of promotion relies solely on our audience. We encourage users to share yoga benefits with friends and family for free, and in return, they receive additional days of membership with Habuild,” he elaborates, adding that Habuild is witnessing growing interest and adoption from Tier II and III cities and rural areas too. 

Habuild offers a range of membership plans—12-month plan for Rs 3999, 6 months at Rs 2999, and 3 months at Rs 1999.

The Indian health and fitness market is expected to witness a growth of 11.57% from 2022 to 2027, reaching a market volume of $31.97 million by 2027, says a report by Statista. Satvic Movement and Baba Ramdev’s Divya Yoga are some of the other players in the space. 

Going forward, Habuild plans to introduce yoga programmes for children and conduct targeted initiatives for diseases such as diabetes, PCOD (polycystic ovarian disease), and hypertension.