A successful mobile app developer and longtime personal trainer has bought Scotts Valley Gym.
Erik Florio, the owner of Whagaa Software, which produced the highly popular GoLearn Skateboarding app for mobile devices and 18 other fitness-related apps, has turned his love of fitness into ownership of a local gym.
Florio purchased the gym this month from longtime owner Dawn Iuliano after the gym where he worked, Scotts Valley Fitness Center, closed.
Local residents used to know Florio’s new gym as World Gym. But it changed its name in January, when World Gym was bought out by another fitness company. It is located at 105 Whispering Pines Drive in Scotts Valley.
Florio, 42, has an amazing success story.
When personal digital assistants became popular in the early 2000s, Florio said, he and several friends came up with the idea of a personal training application that people could take anywhere.
The idea didn’t catch on initially. They had some success, however, and secured Seagate Technology as a customer.
“We couldn’t get a lot of people to buy in,” Florio said, so the company went to Apple, which was on the verge of the first iPhone.
The first contact did not net success, but Apple’s people said they would let Florio know if they wanted the app.
Soon after, that’s exactly what happened, and the app went into development.
“We actually developed the first fitness apps for the iPhone,” Florio said.
Within a short time, Whagaa had six of the earliest fitness apps on the market. Today, covering topics from skateboarding to running, cycling, swimming, cooking and even pole dancing, the company has blossomed into a mainstream fitness app provider.
The company has been featured on tech websites and in local and national newspapers, and the skateboarding app was featured by Apple on iTunes. It won an excellence award from iPhoneFootprint.com in 2008.
Florio said that between the company’s paid and free apps, more than 250,000 copies of the GoLearn Skateboarding app have been downloaded.
“We’ve done pretty good,” Florio said.
His love of fitness and his 17 years working as a personal trainer warranted the purchase of Scotts Valley Gym, he said.
The building has 8,000 square feet of workout space, including free weights, elliptical machines and weight machines. The upstairs area is used for classes.
“I want to make sure the standard of training is always really high,” Florio said.
His focus is to make sure the staff is consistent and professional with every member. Along with a new aerobics floor, he has started to add classes, including Zumba, yoga, step and kickboxing, and hopes to integrate his apps into the gym using members’ iPads and iPhones.
“It’s something I’ve been working on for a while,” he said. “It’s kind of a first that I’ve seen.”
Florio, who bench-pressed 405 pounds as a 225-pound man in his 20s, also has a personal goal to get back into shape.
“I want to get back into it; that’s my mission,” Florio said. “If I have a gym, I can at least do that much.”
For information: 439-9400.
