Supernatural's head of fitness on rebooting the VR exercise app after leaving Meta

What happened

Supernatural It's rare for tech companies to get a second chance at life, but that's the story of the VR exercise platform Supernatural . After Meta announced that it was cutting the company's staff and pausing new content for the exercise app in January Supernatural made the surprising revelation that it will be relaunching later this year as an independent company. While it's getting a bit more expensive — back to its original launch pricing of $20 a month or $200 a year — that probably won't deter the company's superfans, many of whom were heartbroken about the app's potential shutdown.

Practical impact for readers

So what's next for Supernatural ? Leanne Pedante, one of Supernatural's founding coaches and its current Head of Fitness, says the company is currently working on bringing back everything its existing users love with its reboot. "We have a library of over 3,000 workouts that we've built over the years — all of that comes back," she said in an interview on the Engadget Podcast. "The same coaches, the same beautiful environments. We're working on our music negotiations right now. We'll also start releasing new content, which hasn't been happening for quite a while now.

Details worth verifying

Based on her conversations with Supernatural's community, Pedante says many members are onboard with the new plan, even given the price hikes. (Members of the Supernatural subreddit aren't as pleased . ) New and existing subscribers can. The people who should stay closest to this beat are digital channel managers, online sellers, marketers, community operators, and teams living on traffic or conversion. The next step is to see whether the current signals harden into a durable change or fade as a short-lived experiment.

Who should act or wait

"The other thing that's been really cool is that because we're a small team now. essentially we're a flat organization," she added. "There's no bureaucracy. We can move really fast. And so immediately we were able to respond to people talking about there being a [paywall] barrier by creating a Supernatural scholarship program. The next step is to see whether the current signals harden into a durable change or fade as a short-lived experiment. That is why the useful reading move is not to stop at the headline, but to compare the promise, the workflow change, and the likely cost before deciding anything.

What is still unclear

In its FAQ , the company says that limited scholarships will be offered quarterly to members undergoing financial hardships. They'll be reviewed by Supernatural's team to "grant support where it's needed most. " Some members have also suggested that they'd want to pay for someone else's membership. That is why the useful reading move is not to stop at the headline, but to compare the promise, the workflow change, and the likely cost before deciding anything.

Source notes

Engadget