For Mohammad Aqib, Co-founder of Slovic, fitness was never meant to be the preserve of gym-goers, athletes or those with the time and money to build elaborate workout routines. He believes the real opportunity lies in bridging the gap between doing nothing and spending two hours at the gym. “People should have the option of, if they’re not exercising at all, spending at least 20 minutes exercising in a day,” Aqib says. That belief lies at the heart of Slovic, which Aqib co-founded with Shashwat in 2021, drawing on their experience building feminine wellness brand Azah and their own growing interest in fitness.
The timing also worked in the founders’ favour. During the second wave of COVID, growing awareness around health and the absence of shortcuts to fitness reinforced the need for exercise to be more accessible and easier to incorporate into daily life. Home fitness offered a practical solution, particularly in a country where long commutes and demanding workdays often leave little time for the gym. For Aqib, the opportunity still lies in reaching consumers beyond young, urban gym-goers. Older adults, women balancing work and household responsibilities, and those unable to commit to conventional workout routines represent an underserved audience. “There is a big, real, relatable middle,” he says, referring to those who fall between the extremes of aspiring to be an athlete and not exercising at all.
That thought eventually took shape in Slovic’s ‘Gym Ghar Lao’ proposition. Rather than presenting home fitness as an aspirational lifestyle, the brand set out to make it practical and achievable, regardless of time, budget or space constraints. Aqib points to how consumers could start working out at home with as little as ₹500 and in just a few minutes, lowering the barriers to getting started. The same philosophy informs Slovic’s marketing. Its user-generated content (UGC) strategy was partly a practical response to the challenges of competing with international brands with far larger marketing budgets. But it also reflected the kind of brand Slovic wanted to build: one that showed ordinary people incorporating fitness into their lives, rather than relying solely on highly trained athletes.
Pull-ups have become a defining feature of this approach, helping bring what was once a niche exercise into the brand’s mainstream communication. Pull-up bars are Slovic’s largest product category, and its content has even featured women performing pull-ups in sarees. The company currently operates entirely online, with its business split evenly between Tier-1 and Tier-2 markets. Amazon and Blinkit are among its biggest sales channels.
Tiger Shroff’s association marked another step in the brand’s growth journey. After years of building through user-generated content and organic engagement, Slovic wanted wider recognition and category leadership. Aqib says the team’s own feedback repeatedly pointed towards Shroff as the most natural fit for a fitness-led brand. The company says it is now trending at an annual run rate of around ₹250-300 crore, growing close to three times year-on-year. Aqib attributes this to the fitness category’s tailwinds and, more importantly, to Slovic’s bet that fitness should not be a ‘Tier-1 elitist phenomena.’ The company identified demand in Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets and focused on making products more accessible.
That accessibility-first approach is now feeding Slovic’s next phase. The company has expanded beyond home workouts into cricket, football and badminton, with cardio and other sports categories on the roadmap. Aqib believes consumers would rather build trust with one fitness brand than navigate multiple brands for different products. While digital remains the brand’s natural playground, Aqib sees offline as increasingly important. College fitness events are already part of the mix, while billboards, partnerships and offline sales are being considered. For a category rooted in physical activity, he argues, the brand ultimately has to meet consumers where they are actually running, playing and exercising.
For Aqib, however, the bigger message remains simple: “Fitness does not need to begin with an ambitious goal or an expensive membership. It can begin with a 10-minute walk, a short workout or a pull-up bar at home.” Referring to a takeaway from the book Outlive by Peter Attia, Aqib explains that if you had a magic pill to cure all problems/diseases then it would be the most sold drug in the world. He concludes, “That drug already exists. It is exercise.”
