Ben Parzybok always liked to walk.  Not just casually, but not Olympic speed walking either.  Lean and fit, he liked to walk for health and relaxation.  Coming from a competitive family, Ben kept a pedometer on him at all times and began tracking his mileage on his computer, making a game of it with other family members.  As the games increased in intensity, Ben wrote some simple software to make tracking easier and soon found others wanted to use his software. 

Enter David Mays.  A marketing guru and the “business side” Ben needed to launch their company, Walker Tracker of Portland, Oregon.  The two now have people walking for individual goals, walking as teams competing to raise money for charity, inter-company challenges and as many reasons as people can think of to have fun and get healthy.

Their payoff?  Financially, the site is beginning to get traction with numbers of viewers.  And with the quality of viewers they can begin leveraging their exposure.  But their real payoff is the feedback from the customers they love.  People comment constantly how they have lost weight, feel better, have more energy and finally have the discipline to stick with it thanks to their company.  Doing good things is good business.

Walker Tracker custom walking programs are for your worksite, community or organization. With competitions, groups, goal tracking, points/levels, data charting and great community features that keep your members inspired to walk more – a Walker Tracker walking program will help motivate your members to higher levels of wellness. And as the administrator – you will have a range of controls to manage, customize and analyze the effectiveness of your your walking program.

Part 2

by Thubten Comerford and Michael Coates

This interview was sponsored by Startup Nights PDX.