In episode 19 of PEP Talk, Simon interviews Jack Tang. Jack is the co-founder and CEO of Urban (formerly known as Urban Massage), the on-demand app on a mission to empower people through wellness. Founded in 2014, it is now the leading at-home massage, fitness and wellness platform. They have built a network of over 2,500 wellness professionals offering at-home massage, physiotherapy, osteopathy and beauty treatments.
What started as a way to book wellness online become much more. Jack and co-founder Giles Williams discovered an industry that was broken: practitioners typically took home only 20% of booking revenue and worked long hours to make ends meet. Meanwhile, customers had little other than a salon’s reputation to go off of before making a booking with a specific practitioner. Since then, the duo envisioned a platform that would benefit practitioners and customers alike. On Urban, practitioners take home 72% of bookings. And customers are able to choose between trusted, pre-vetted practitioners, thanks to detailed profiles with personal bios, ratings and reviews.
To date, Urban has enabled the delivery of 300,000+ treatments generating economic value of more than £25M. Urban currently operates in London, Paris, Birmingham and Manchester, and is backed by London's leading VC funds including Felix Capital, Passion Capital and LCIF. Jack is a Forbes 30 under 30 honouree and co-founded Urban in 2014 following the successful sale of his first start-up which became the UK’s largest student job portal.