In today’s episode, Joe Vennare is joined by Lauren Foundos of FORTË.
In this conversation, the two talk about:
- Using content to scale beyond the four walls of a studio or gym
- How FORTË created a turnkey solution for studios to live-stream classes
- The company’s new plan to go beyond a marketplace and become the technology infrastructure for streaming fitness content
About Lauren Foundos:
Lauren Foundos, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of FORTË since 2015. FORTË streams live and on-demand, cutting-edge fitness classes from well-known boutique studios worldwide directly to you. FORTË is a tech company (b2b) and a subscription based fitness streaming platform (b2c). FORTË builds hardware and software that is installed into their partner studios, which enables them to seamlessly live stream classes directly to the FORTË platform. Their Netflix-style hub showcases leading boutique fitness studios and coaches worldwide with a variety of classes ranging from meditation, to boxing, yoga, HIIT, and more.
Before launching her own company, FORTË, Lauren spent a decade working on Wall Street, with the last five years in finance on the trading floor as an Institutional US Government Bond Broker at Whitaker Securities where she helped to dramatically increase UST Short Coupon and Bill desk revenues. Prior to that she worked at Deutsche Bank in Synthetic Equities and Cloudview Capital Management, a global-macro hedge fund, on their trading desk. Lauren graduated from the University of Maryland in 2006, with a BA in communications and concentration in business. She earned ACC Academic Honor Roll, and Intercollegiate Athletic Honor Roll during her time at Maryland. Lauren is a two-time all-American field hockey player, she played in the Junior Olympics, and went on to play Division I at the University of Maryland, the nation’s top ranked program. She plays the piano, violin, has two older brothers, adores her parents, and loves to ski.
Lauren won the NBC/Comcast Innovation Award at the NAMIC National Conference for her FORTË pitch presentation. She also spoke at the Collision Conference, CES, MotionSoft, the Club Industry Show, as well as, appeared on Verizon’s GO90 TV Show.