Milestone birthdays are often an excuse to celebrate a little more than usual. Some of us plan bucket list trips. Others might book a caterer for a birthday blowout. With Soodeh Farokhi’s 40th birthday on the horizon, the three-time serial tech entrepreneur decided to treat herself by launching NexScale, a new venture inspired by her passion for longevity and preventative health.
Farokhi founded her first startup in her native Iran before leaving in 2013 to pursue a PhD in computer science at the Vienna University of Technology. She moved to Quebec, Canada in 2016, where she launched her second startup along with starting her family. Her first venture was a software services company focused on business process automation, her second one was a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) with artificial intelligence (AI) at its core.
“I’m very mindful about enjoying life and I believe the future is better than what we think,” Farokhi said. “I’ve been exploring the longevity space for a few years, and for my birthday, I gave myself the gift of combining more than 17 years of professional experience building software products with my passion for wellness and fitness to expand human longevity at scale.”
While advances in preventative screening and care have the potential to increase our lifespans, Farokhi said two of the best ways to improve longevity continue to be physical exercise and being part of an active community that supports mental health.
“My vision is expanding human longevity, and I’m doing it by scaling wellness and fitness businesses, because they're the ones actually helping community members build physical and mental health and a sense of belonging,” she said.
Like many small businesses, fitness and wellness studio owners often do not have the time, budget, or expertise to explore new technologies like AI and automation. Farokhi said these owners can feel left behind and get stuck in something she calls the burnout-scaling loop because retention is unmanaged.
“They want to grow their gym or studio, so they invite more members, spend heavily on lead generation, sometimes hundreds of dollars a day on Instagram ads and costly onboarding,” she said. “But the core problem any fitness or wellness studio faces is member retention. The Global Health & Fitness Association reported that nearly 50% of new members leave within three to six months of joining. So it feels impossible to scale, because every new lead you bring in at high cost walks right back out.”
NexScale takes the retention problem off the owner's plate. The platform plugs into the tools studios already use — Mindbody, Mariana Tek, PushPress, and others — to power its AI business partner they call Chloe.
“Chloe is the most knowledgeable partner in the business because it sees all the data. If Chloe sees a member losing interest before they cancel, it triggers an action — either alerting the owner or acting itself if the owner wants. The payoff is real. Studios keep at least five percent more of their members. For a 300-member studio at $200 a month, that's roughly $36,000 a year that would have otherwise walked out the door,” she said.
Farokhi added that the first 90 days of a gym membership is the most critical period.
“Whether someone becomes a loyal member or not is largely determined in that window. From the moment someone joins, Chloe takes care of them, instead of leaving follow-up to an already-stretched front desk,” she added.
What began as a 40th birthday gift to herself has become a gift she's giving back to studio owners trying to scale, to members trying to stay in motion, and to a community whose longer, healthier lives now depend, in some small way, on Chloe.
Building the business in Markham was an easy choice for the Thornhill resident. Farokhi can often be found running the trail at Royal Orchard Park or spending time with her two young children at the Thornhill Community Centre.
"As an Iranian-Canadian, I feel at home in Thornhill. There's a strong Iranian community and a thriving entrepreneurial scene here," she said. "Beyond that, my values are deeply aligned with Canadian values. I belong here, and I want to bring innovation to the local businesses I admire."
