Talk to people in start-ups and one of the first questions is usually about the so-called ‘lightbulb’ moment. For Cara Davies, the fitness-obsessed CEO of Steppen, it was the regular trips to the gym, but then having no real clue what to do once she walked through the door.In the latest Lap of Caulfield Park , Davies tells Ashley Browne about the genesis of the app that is making fitness training more accessible than ever for young people. “I would walk into the gym and I had no idea what to do. No idea. I would look around the gym all the time and do the same work out, copying what other people were doing and felt really lost.“And I worked out that was common for a lor of people. At the same time, I had mate who was really into fitness and I thought it would be really great to do what she’s doing and just copy that when I went to the gym.”Davies was typical of many youngsters. Keen to work out regularly, but not necessarily having the means to pay for it. Gym memberships can be expensive, as are personal trainers, but what she understood is cheap and accessible is content about fitness.So, with the help of friends Jake Carp and Dave Slutzkin, she used the extra downtime she had last year due to the Melbourne lockdown to create Steppen.“Existing fitness apps are paywalled, so young people won’t pay for that, so they turn to Instagram and TikTok to find fitness contest. We are leaning into that and creating a platform to find workouts, share workouts and complete workouts.“Find the perfect content to achieve your goals,” she said.What is remarkable about Davies is that she is just 22. She dropped out of her software engineering course to work full time on the app and to build the business. For now, she is earning no income from the business. And on the podcast, she talks about the challenges and excitement of attracting seed capital. Among the early investors is Afterpay co-founder Anthony Eisen.Davies did an unpaid internship at the form last summer, was given the opportunity to pitch her idea to Eisen. “He’s a very busy man and I knew I had one shot, but I knew what I wanted to say,” she recalled. Eisen liked what he heard – Davies didn’t present him with any sort of pitch document – and he came on board.And with that, Steppen was on its way and it has lofty plans for the future. It likely won’t get Gen Z types of take their eyes off their screens, but at least it might get them fit. 

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