Grupo Zentir
IE Business School
Industry: Health and Wellness
Founding Student Name(s): Eduardo Podoswa & Karen Rosales
Brief Description of Solution: Grupo Zentir is a community-driven wellness platform that designs and delivers high quality experiences with movement, mindfulness, and connection across Madrid. We partner with leading brands and venues to create curated events that help people build real relationships and healthier habits, supported by a thoughtful service design that ensures meaningful connection.
Funding Dollars: $0 External capital & fully bootstrapped (Reinvesting operating revenue)
What led you to launch this venture? I (Eduardo Podoswa) kept meeting talented people who felt disconnected from each other. There were plenty of activities in the city, but very few spaces where you could meet others with honesty, move your body, care for your mind, and feel part of something real. We launched Grupo Zentir to solve that gap. Our mission is simple and personal. We create consistent, welcoming experiences where community and well-being reinforce each other.
What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Forging brand partnerships with Lululemon and Columbia and turning those collaborations into repeat, sold out events. These partners trusted us with their communities and we delivered. Along the way, we have built a growing member base in Madrid, staged more than 140 curated experiences for more than 3,000 international members, with strong attendance and retention – and have proven that premium quality can scale without losing a sense of intimacy.
How has your business-related major helped you further this startup venture? IE gave me a practical toolkit that I use every week. Customer discovery helped us shape programming around real needs. Lean testing allowed us to iterate formats quickly and invest only where traction was clear. Managerial accounting and unit economics sharpened our pricing and capacity planning. Strategy and OKRs keep the team focused on the few goals that truly move the business forward.
Which business class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Marketing and Entrepreneurship were the most transformative. The single biggest lesson was to start with the customer’s problem, not with my idea. Validate early, build only what creates unmistakable value, and measure success through real behaviors such as attendance, repeat participation and partner renewals rather than vanity metrics.
What business professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Operations Professor Gamaliel Martínez. His approach to operations gave us the language and tools to scale quality. Service blueprinting, bottleneck analysis, and capacity planning helped us standardize the experience, schedule intelligently, and negotiate clear service levels with partners. His guidance turned our events into a repeatable product without losing the human touch that defines our brand.
What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? Simon Sinek. His book Start With Why pushed me to articulate a purpose that guides every decision. Our “why” is connection through conscious wellness. Returning to that center helps us choose partners, design experiences, and communicate with clarity. It keeps growth aligned with meaning and reminds us that trust is our most important KPI.
What is your long-term goal with your startup? We want to become Europe’s leading wellness platform, present in major cities with a strong partner ecosystem and a membership model that delivers continuous value. We aim to connect millions of people through high impact, evidence informed experiences and to show measurable improvements in wellbeing and community belonging.
How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? Madrid has been an accelerator for us. The ecosystem offers frequent networking, generous peer support, and constant opportunities to pitch and learn. Mentors such as Uri Levine challenged us to sharpen problem solution fit and shorten our learning cycles. IE’s Venture Lab path and the broader community opened doors to venues, coaches and brand partners that helped us grow faster and smarter.
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