How wellness platforms like Shyft used Zoom to thrive during the pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic made Zoom one of the popular and most used video collaborative tools in the world. But its technology and integration is also helping wellness apps such as Shyft scale up and reach new consumers. According to Anand Bala, SMB Lead for India and SAARC at Zoom Video Communications, there has been increased adoption of collaboration platforms such as theirs across the wellness industry.
“One reason is definitely because of the ability to scale and reach out to more customers, patients. Plus the ease of use that a platform like Zoom provides ensures they can get their integration done much faster. Our software development kit (SDK) is key, and it makes it easy for companies to integrate with their application,” Bala told over a video call.
In fact, Shyft (formerly Mindhouse) started as an offline wellness platform, just before the pandemic. But just three months in and the pandemic struck. For the wellness brand, which focuses on providing yoga, nutrition and meditation lessons via live Zoom classes on its app, the pandemic meant a 360-degree pivot in approach.
Anand Bala, SMB Lead for India and SAARC at Zoom Video Communications
What helped them thrive in the last two years: going online and integrating with Zoom. “We had to move online. We wanted the experience for our offline users to be super smooth. The reason we chose Zoom was the ease of use. We weren’t also sure how long this is going to last, but it’s been two years now,” Pooja Khanna, co-founder at Shyft, told .
The way Zoom views it, they can help players like Shyft scale up fast since they are built for video. “The video and audio quality is phenomenal. Our partners like Shyft can in turn focus on their strengths, in this case, being wellness,” Bala said, stressing that the ease of use component is critical for their business customers.
Pooja Khanna, co-founder for the Shyft platform.
According to Khanna, there is an overall indication that consumer behaviour has shifted drastically in the past two years. Users want to rely on online platforms for their daily wellness as it is more convenient.

“We actually saw a slight dip towards the end of 2020 when things opened up for the first time. But in 2021, we only saw an increase. People started to adjust to online platforms being more accessible and more convenient to them. And that is a true indication of that consumer behaviour,” she said, adding that the new model also means there is no travel time involved for users in getting to the wellness studio, which is a break from the pre-pandemic times.
What the Shyft app looks like.
The company claims to be doing about 200 live sessions every day combined between yoga and nutrition, and each class has anywhere between 10 to 35 people, which it expects to double soon.
Switching to Zoom and online also meant access to a new pool of talent for the wellness platform, with instructors now spread all across the country, something that was limited in the offline model. “We have 70 instructors right now. They are in you know, tier-2 and tier-3 towns. And it has given us access to a really large pool of people. With offline, that is actually one challenge we used to face for talent since you could only hire people who are in that city,” said Khanna.
For Zoom, the idea is to ensure that such integrations with other platforms remain a very seamless experience and the platform doesn’t have to worry about the video experience. “We’re very carefully lening to customers and building our developer integrations around these feedbacks,” Bala said. “The way we handle data packets and the way we are engineered to do that is I think they will be a very, low data packet loss,” Bala pointed out.
But what happens once the pandemic ends? Zoom knows that there’s been a cultural shift and they are confident of continuing to scale up in 2022. In their view, the future will be hybrid and many workplaces, including companies such as Shyft, will continue to rely on collaborative tools such as theirs to stay connected with employees.
“You will find that hybrid a given now that employees are going to be spread all over. Collaboration tools such as ours also provide a way through which you can connect with a wider range of customers too,” Bala pointed out.