Case Study: How PGC Supported Cure.fit in Their US Expansion
We caught up with Shalabh Malhotra, Business Operations at Cure.fit, India’s top fitness and well-being startup, to discuss their successful North American expansion and experience of working with PGC. Press play in the video above to watch the full interview or keep reading for the main takeaways.
Company Overview
Company description: Cure.fit is a health and fitness company offering digital and offline experiences across fitness, nutrition, and mental well-being. The business started five years ago at the time of writing and has approximately 225 fitness centers. Post-pandemic they have launched into digital fitness, and offer live streaming doctor consultations, therapy, and health services that can be delivered over a video call.
Global headcount: Cure.fit’s headquarters has approximately 400-450 staff members. In addition to this, there are trainers, support staff, and center managers which equate to an extra 1300 more workers on the operations side.
HQ: Bangalore, Karnataka.
Why did you decide to hire employees in the US?
The US is one of the top markets worldwide
Post pandemic, a lot of our focus shifted to how do we expand our digital offering where we were seeing a lot of traction in India. We were keeping tabs on other companies with similar offerings globally. That's when we saw the huge uptake of digital in all other countries across the world due to the predominance of people working out remotely. We started studying the international market due to our success in Indian and it was pretty evident that the US was one of the top markets within our space.
The innovation that was happening, market size, and competition were intense in the US, but there were a lot of people and companies adopting fitness. So we concluded that the US would be a really good market to try and enter. We developed some proprietary product features on our digital fitness site that we thought would take it to the international market and still have that unique selling proposition, which we are promoting quite a lot. The US was a growing market, so it was obvious to us that we wanted to expand our footprint there and get people on the ground.
Why did you end up using PGC as your employer of record to employ workers in the US rather than setting up an entity?
The importance of localizing your product offering and internal procedures in the US
For the last five years, we have been focusing on India, largely all of our team is based in India. We understand the Indian market, HR laws, and culture. To set up a business in the US, we felt the need to localize everything. For example, localizing what the product is, as well as how we communicate and market the offering. We knew that the same communication wouldn’t necessarily work in the US due to the cultural differences with India.
We realized early on to be successful, it's important to localize everything. We did a lot of research online but there is a lot you need to know when entering and building a business in the US. We wanted to make sure we had a dedicated team of US staff who knew the market from a marketing and product point of view. We were super clear on building a team in the US but we still wanted to be accessible. There are so many different laws in the US when employing workers, for example, basic medical insurance or 401k, which we were not aware of. It was a learning curve for all of us.
We had the choice of setting up our own US entity but heard great reviews about PGC, that's why we used them as our US employer of record. The guidance that the team has been able to give us, from onboarding employees, paperwork, and everything in between when employing workers in the US, they have been a true partner throughout the process.
What type of roles did you want to hire first in the US?
Our first hire in the US was within marketing to lead our US marketing and growth efforts. Another employee we hired, in the beginning, was within the fitness, business development, and partnerships side.
What advice would you give businesses employing remote workers in the US?
Adjusting to the US timezone
The US time zone is a big shift, therefore you should require flexibility from your employees based in your home country. For example, some of our employees start early at 6:30-7:00 AM at times and work late at night to connect with the US teams. Understand what time shifts people are comfortable working and try to figure out slots that work for everyone.
The importance of trust
If you're expanding globally, I think you need to give the employees you’re hiring a lot of trust and freedom. The best way forward is to experiment and learn, you might fail, you might succeed. That's okay. That's part of the process when expanding globally. It’s super important to get the right staff employed.
What are the next steps for your business in the US? Do you have any further growth plans?
Equal our competitors
Right now we're in the product-building phase in the US and we have tried out a bunch of things. A few things have clicked well, and we're just doubling down on that. There are so many brilliant players in the US market, so we are trying to equal our competitors.
Finding our niche in the US
It's important to find our niche in the US market, to some extent we have figured it out but it's not cemented yet. Within the next six months, we want to strengthen our product on that front and slowly but surely just scale our business within the US. I think post-2022, we should be looking to scale up significantly within the US market.
Learn how we can support your US business expansion plans
As a US Employer of Record, we employ your US employees for you, offering a fully-outsourced solution. We take on the risks and responsibilities of employment, including payroll, tax filings, benefit plans, healthcare, employment compliance, and onboarding requirements. All without a local entity. Leaving you to concentrate on what really matters, growing your business in the US.