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Hello! I'm Devangi, building ÆXLRT. I'm on a mission to transform the way people…
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Devangi Agarwal shared thisI was wrong about my product. A while ago, I concluded that the audio stories in our fitness product were not compelling enough for people to use. So I stopped making new ones. I put the most of them behind a paywall. And shifted all my attention to building virtual fitness games. I thought this was the “pivot.” Everyone talks about pivoting like it’s a badge of good founders. So I told myself this was mine. Then during one feedback call with users. I asked the person with the highest step count in the game what he did to push his numbers. He said, “I was using the audio stories.” I was confused. And he continued: “I want to use them to push my steps further.” That made me realise that the audio stories were compelling - but I needed to bring them to the app with the games before they would use the audio stories. Thank you to Bharathidasan Institute of Management Tiruchirapalli for trying the product and sharing such thoughtful feedback for ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Fitness And thank you Dr. Asit K Barma for making this possible.
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Devangi Agarwal shared this“I walked in the afternoon to protect my territory”, “I had to cut down on Netflix time to get more steps in at night”, “I wish the game lasted longer.” These were some of the things people said on our feedback call after a 7-day pilot with the Health Champions at Freo. People walked 123% more on average. But honestly, the more interesting part was seeing how seriously people started taking the game. They cared about the player profiles they got based on how they played. People liked that we noticed their strategies and play styles. The game stopped feeling like a fitness challenge and became something they wanted to win. The feedback call itself was probably my favourite part. People were debating tactics, calling out suspicious gameplay, explaining why they made certain moves. In between all that, they also helped us spot friction points and even uncovered a bug in the app ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Fitness Turns out when movement affects status, competition and identity, people don’t need as much external motivation. Huge thanks to Sandeep Banu for making this happen, everyone at Freo for being such great players, and Pankaj Anand Rai for the introduction.
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Devangi Agarwal shared thisIf you’ve ever ignored an HR email about wellness… ….you are not the problem. Most companies struggle with delivering real value to their employees. That’s where Sandeep Banu and the wellness team at Freo are doing something fundamentally different. They don’t see wellness as a checklist of perks, but as an opportunity for collaborative change in their lives at work and beyond. Here’s how they are changing the language of corporate wellness programmes: 1. They don’t push change. They seed it. Instead of top-down mandates, they identify internal influencers, people others naturally follow. These individuals model habits that define the company culture which creates an environment conducive to adopt change. 2 They don’t just share information. They create experiences. Across three eye check-ups last year, they uncovered powerful insights: how many employees were wearing incorrect prescriptions, and how many were introduced to glasses for the first time. The findings went beyond data, offering a deeply human perspective on the everyday challenges of maintaining good eye health 3. They don’t guess. They ask. Surveys aren’t just sent and forgotten; insights are actively discussed in meetings. Every initiative is shaped by real employee needs, with outcomes designed to positively influence both wellbeing and productivity. P.S. ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Fitness is starting a pilot with Freo to build lasting fitness habits among employees using virtual fitness games. More on that soon. Part (2/3)
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Devangi Agarwal shared thisYou are losing $8,000+ per unhealthy employee per year. Don't believe me? Use this calculator by Avidon Health to calculate ‘The True Cost of Unhealthy Habits at Work’. (Link in comments.) You'll see exactly how inactivity, stress, poor sleep, and depression drain your company through healthcare costs and productivity losses. The dollar impact of some of these are staggering. Most companies respond with an annual gym membership discount. Or the once-a-year marathon bandaid. Sadly, this isn't a problem you can throw money at. It's a problem that requires you to get your hands dirty. By genuinely getting involved. Can it actually be done? Yes. In the next post, I'll talk about a company doing just that. And we at ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Wellness are enabling companies that want to plug this loss. Part (1/3)
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Devangi Agarwal shared thisEvery time someone asks why I started ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Wellness. I know it is a test. A test to see if my “origin story” is inspiring enough. So I started building one. Attempt 1: “90% of the people abandon their fitness journey within 90 days. People are always looking for different ways to restart their fitness journey. So, there is a clear market opportunity here.” Some immediately knew this was a problem worth solving. Some agreed that it was a problem but thought it was unsolvable. Attempt 2: “I was in New York, saw everyone running all the time. It was indeed the cheapest way to stay fit. But the thought of running 5k overwhelmed me. So I built something for people like me to be able to run without the mental burden of it.” Some identified with the problem, others felt that fitness was not supposed to be easy. Attempt 3: “I used to row competitively. But, as an adult, fitness became hard as I found no time to workout and was unable to find joy at the gym. So, I wanted to build something that could make fitness fun.” More people liked this story. But some still thought it was not an inspiring story. Attempt 4: “When was the last time you worked out?” Once they answer, I pick a story based on their experience. Which makes me wonder if different things inspire different people. So I’m curious. What actually makes an origin story credible to you? P.S. Below is Ethan Blauner was one of the first people to encourage me to build this.
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Devangi Agarwal shared thisMy VC friends and entrepreneur friends can't seem to agree on this. I gave a 30 day pilot to a corporation. And they came back asking for another free trial. Should I continue with the free trial? or should I ask to be paid? My VC friends say: Give it free for a year. That’s how long it takes for a large company to build enough trust to actually pay. My founder friends say: Don’t fall for it. Corporates will try to push prices down or stretch “free” for as long as you allow it. ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Wellness is bootstrapped. We can afford one month free. Maybe three months, if there’s a clear test with defined use cases. Our reasoning for a free pilot was simple - if they use it and see value, they’ll come back and pay. 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 - 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚 𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭… 𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝? TLDR: I build virtual fitness games for corporations and am trying to figure out whether extending free trials leads to conversions or just delays the inevitable.
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Devangi Agarwal shared this“Make it for our school kids, they will love it".. Just because it is a game, doesn't mean it is for children. This is what was going on in my head when my advisors and educator connections asked me to test ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Wellness with children between 5 and 18 years of age. When I built ÆXLRT, I had a clear picture of who it was for. A millennial with no time to waste. Someone who is wearing a smartwatch but doesn't know how to use the data. Someone who wants to be a part of communities built around shared hobbies. And someone who is quietly desperate for something that makes the effort of staying fit feel lighter. The product made sense for that person in my head and it still does. But backing up to the advice I was getting - their logic was straightforward. Children love gaming, physical play already comes naturally to them, and if the two converge the engagement almost takes care of itself. Just like Pokemon Go. My reservations are just as straightforward. It is true, some children do have smartwatches like WatchOut, Noise Junior or imoo India. But most don't have wearables or phones on them while they're being physically active, which means the data layer that makes ÆXLRT work is absent. And children who are already playing running games during lunch breaks and after school - do they actually need a product to motivate movement, or are they already doing the thing we're trying to solve for? Despite my reservations I am running one pilot. The Central District Taekwondo Association is hosting a championship and we are running ÆXLRT parallel to it. 300+ children, between their bouts they will play a virtual game where 10 players compete to cover distance and capture cities. Hold three cities before anyone else and you win. Each session lasts a couple of hours. This brings me to the real question I am sitting with: what is the one indicator that would tell me whether this audience is worth pursuing further? (Image from last year's event)
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Devangi Agarwal shared thisWho in the below video is doing a more effective workout? . . . A weighted walk can be more effective than a jog, and the reason comes down to Zone 2. It is the heart rate range where your body builds cardiovascular capacity and burns fat efficiently without tipping into stress and exhaustion. When you walk with weight on your back your body is working against a constant, controllable load rather than chasing a pace, and your heart rate climbs steadily and stays there. Add an incline and the effect compounds as your legs, back and core all come under load together. Because it is low impact it carries almost zero injury risk, which means it is something you can genuinely do for the rest of your life. This is why military training has included rucking for decades and why Ruc Fit builds weighted rucking packs and is actively driving awareness around it. From India's first Ruckathon in Juhu to Ruck & Relay, a weighted relay race at peakst8 festival. The challenge is that staying in Zone 2 while rucking still requires you to maintain the right pace or incline, and without real-time feedback most people drift out of the zone without noticing, which quietly defeats the purpose. That's the problem ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Wellness solves. We build performance-adaptive audio stories that respond to whether you're actually in the zone. So when drift out and the story shifts and when you stay consistent the narrative rewards you for it. Your body drives the plot. Low intensity, high efficiency - it was always the smarter way to train.
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Devangi Agarwal shared thisI met someone at a run club who flashed his watch at me at the end and said, “What was your pace? Mine was 6:05.” More people are running. But almost all the conversation is about distance and pace and not heart rate. Which is strange because heart rate is right there on the watch. And zone-based training is supposed to help you improve faster. So why isn’t anyone talking about it? Maybe it’s a trust issue. The Economist reported that max heart rate estimates can be off by as much as 20 bpm. Maybe it’s a feedback problem. Heart rate is a proxy for effort. And only with real-time feedback, can you adjust your effort to train more efficiently. But how can it be made compelling? Orangetheory Fitness solves this by making heart rate visible. Your zone shows up on a screen. It changes colour as you push harder. You can see your effort. At ÆXLRT – Immersive Corporate Wellness, we’re taking that a step further. We’re turning heart rate zones into gameplay. You’re chasing an assassin and you only catch them when you hit 80% of your max heart rate. So the goals shifts from pace to training in your optimal heart rate. It could be 6km/hr for someone and 10km/hr for someone (live chase video below) So maybe the real question is: What would make heart rate training feel immediately meaningful?
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Devangi Agarwal liked thisDevangi Agarwal liked thisHello Assam, The sun is shining bright on the tea estate ☀️ Soon, this estate will generate its own energy for the next 25 years. The full reveal is coming soon - stay tuned! #SolarEnergy #GroundMountedSolar #SolarIndia #RenewableEnergy #SolarEPC #TeaIndustry #AvcoEnergy
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Devangi Agarwal liked thisDevangi Agarwal liked thisTeam Finarb is growing and how! Kingshuk Mitra has joined us as Head of Product. An IIT-Kgp and IIM-B alumnus, Kingshuk is a multi-disciplinary, multi-industry problem-solver with over 12 years of experience in Strategy Consulting, Growth, Organic & Performance Marketing, Brand Building, Analytics, Strategic Ops, Business Development, and Entrepreneurship. Before Finarb, he built and scaled at CARS24, Kearney, Capital One, Barclays Capital, InMobi, Jio Embibe, and ImpactGuru. We are glad to have you with us, Kingshuk! #WelcomeToTheTeam #Finarb #NewBeginnings #Growth
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Devangi Agarwal liked thisDevangi Agarwal liked thisDolly Jain is a school dropout from Guwahati who drapes sarees for a living. Her client list includes Nita Ambani, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, and Gigi Hadid. According to multiple reports, she charges Rs 35,000 to Rs 2 lakh to drape a single saree for a single event. Draping a saree, something our grandmom did in four minutes every morning, is now a specialised profession that can pay more per hour than most MBAs! With the economy not being able to serve its demand for 'white collar' jobs, the so called 'AltProfessions' are coming up! These can be oddly niche and often very lucrative Saree drapers. As above. During peak wedding season, an avg booked-out draper out-earns a mid-level corporate manager (upwards of 30/40L INR) Baby proofers: Affluent parents in Gurgaon and Bandra now hire professionals to crawl through their homes on hands and knees, identifying every hazard a toddler could find, then installing guards, locks, and protectors from sharp edges A single home assessment and installation runs ~ INR 50,000. Depending on util, one can make between INR 10LPA to 100LPA Q graders: Certified coffee tasters who score beans on a 100-point scale, exactly like sommeliers grade wine. The Q Grader exam, administered by the Coffee Quality Institute, comprises 22 tests over six days. India has roughly 25 certified Q graders. Mithilesh Vazalwar from Nagpur is one of them, also the first Indian Aeropress Champion. With India's specialty coffee scene booming, think Blue Tokai, Third Wave, the estates of Coorg and Chikmagalur, experienced Q graders earn ~ 12-25 INR lakh a year. Pet bakers: Bakers who bake birthday cakes for dogs using pet-safe ingredients. Sounds absurd until one hears the numbers. Margins > 80%! Moreover celebrating a pet birthday is a huge instagram event for the insecure and lonely. Professional organisers: Inspired by Marie Kondo (Netflix) wave, these are people who walk into your home and completely re-engineer your wardrobe, kitchen, and storage. The clientele is largely time-poor, dual-income urban families. Projects run Rs 30k-50k INR each, and the established names have waiting lists. On the demand side (consumers of these services), - Rising disposable income creates willingness to pay for things people used to do themselves - And the slow death of the joint family means the knowledge that used to be passed down for free now has to be bought - Being time poor in difficult jobs further establishes the need Also, most of these professions can only be enabled by AI! Difficult to replace! #business #urbanindia #strategy The most interesting careers of the next decade probably might not need a degree! What do you think?
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Devangi Agarwal liked thisDevangi Agarwal liked thisMost people don't realise that startups will humble the shit out of you. One day you’re announcing a fundraise and maybe twelve months later you will run out of money. And your employees will see you clueless and your investors will think you dint execute well. Everyone who wanted to meet you and do podcasts will stop replying. You’ll run out of money, confidence, ideas, and sometimes all three at once. The fear that you may look stupid someday because of entrepreneurship is real. You cant fight that but will have to survive to figure what kind of founder you become when there is nothing impressive left to show. Entrepreneurship eventually introduces everyone around you to the version of you that has no answers.
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Devangi Agarwal liked thisDevangi Agarwal liked this#GoodMondayMorning Today, as we celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi, if you walk past an idol maker's stall, you will spot a quieter scene. A few handcrafted Ganesha idols still left on the shelf, unchosen and never worshipped. For the artisan who poured weeks of devotion into shaping them, it is quietly heartbreaking. There exists a deeper parallel. God must feel that same heartbreak looking at orphanages filled with children still waiting for a home, a family, and the warmth of parents. Every child deserves to be welcomed, cherished, and loved. If you have room in your heart, consider adoption instead of/besides procreation. On a lighter note, it really does seem to come down to a cosmic demand and supply failure. The demand for love and blessings is infinite, yet the distribution of welcoming homes hits a bottleneck. Can we ever fix that market imbalance. Pic 1: Generated through Gemini Pic 2: A time when the artisan is pouring their heart into an idol #GaneshChaturthi #Adoption Where Are India's Children #E39
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Devangi Agarwal reacted on thisDevangi Agarwal reacted on thisIt’s been 2 weeks but I’m mentally still there - Aspire’s Founders Night: Breaking Orbit was my first one, and I flew in from Bangalore for it. The room was a real mix. Founders, investors and the people who hold an ecosystem together, from a dozen different countries. Two things I didn't expect. First, how many of them were building for two or three markets already. Cross-border wasn't something they were planning for, it was how they'd started. Second, how many Indian founders I ran into who had set up base in Singapore, several of them already incorporated in the US as well. It was a great evening with some memorable conversations. Thank you to everyone I got to meet, and to the team who put it together!
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Devangi Agarwal reacted on thisStoked to have been recognised..makes the journey worthwhile and fulfilling. Thank you Indian Startup TimesDevangi Agarwal reacted on thisHonoured to recognise a leader whose vision, leadership, and contribution continue to shape India’s private capital ecosystem. It was a privilege to present this memento as part of the felicitation ceremony, celebrating leaders who are driving the next wave of investment and growth in India. Congratulations on this well-deserved honour! #IndianStartupTimes #InvestmentLeadership #VentureCapital #FamilyOffice R Chandra plutos ONE Hemangi Desai Trifecta Capital
Experience
Education
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Indian School of Business
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Activities and Societies: Events Head, Artha ISB Finance Conclave Alumni Coordinator at Alumni Affairs Council
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Projects
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Hindi
Native or bilingual proficiency
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English
Full professional proficiency
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Bengali
Limited working proficiency
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Sanskrit
Elementary proficiency
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