This story is part of Bplans’ “How I Did It” series—true stories of real businesses getting started, solving problems and finding success. Read the previous story here.
Chardét at Corpão Bootcamp:
“The greatest difficulty in acquiring customers for my Corpão Brazilian Bootcamp fitness classes stemmed from a limited budget, which forced me to be extremely resourceful. My initial strategy was to build awareness through a large, public event that would showcase our services—I designed a free bootcamp class called Jumpstart Verão (Portuguese for ‘summer’), complete with live Brazilian music, to be held in Central Park.
“In order to build momentum around this event, I sought a partnership with VitaCoco, the Brazilian coconut water. The idea was that we would distribute the drink to participants as well as onlookers, along with information about Corpão. I advertised the free event via Facebook ads, professional and personal networks and through a targeted group on Meetup.com.
“The results were astounding! The event had the desired effect of creating word-of-mouth referrals, and I was also able to use the event as leverage to convince both LivingSocial and Groupon to feature my classes.”
Chardét Durbin founded Corpão Brazilian Bootcamp because she wanted to bring a Brazilian philosophy to New York workouts—being fit doesn’t mean being skinny! She leads a high-intensity workout combining yoga, kickboxing and capoeira with bodyweight exercises.
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