My journey with Fit Rewards started a few years back when I got hit by a car. Six weeks in ICU, life-saving emergency surgery, and a recovery long enough that walking a few metres felt like a marathon. The gym rehab was slow, but what I noticed almost instantly were the mental health benefits. Being active pulled me through some very dark times. It gave me a reason to get up each day, and it formed a belief I hold to this day: physical activity is one of the most underrated mental health interventions accessible to everyone. It changes individuals. It changes communities. If enough people do it consistently, I really believe it could change the trajectory of nations.

Getting from the recovery room to where we are as a business today was far from a straight line. I had spent twenty years as a chef before all of this. Kitchens teach you a lot about discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, all of which turn out to be highly transferable in the startup world. When I recovered I knew my next chapter belonged elsewhere. I had (and still have) a lot of ideas, but back then I knew almost nothing about how to turn any of them into a real company. What saved me from staying stuck was getting accepted into Creative HQ's Impact Accelerator here in Wellington, and it was there that I met my co-founder Benji Pritchard. From that moment on it has been three years of learning by doing, and making a fair few mistakes along the way. The beauty of bringing more people into the team is that those mistakes get fewer as more people help solve the problems. Today we are a team spread across Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia, and we are only just getting started.

What we are building is a healthy lifestyle rewards platform. Fit Rewards gives you real-world value for being active. You move, we reward you, and you spend those rewards on things you actually want, from brands you already align with. That is the mechanic. The mission is bigger. We want to make being active the easiest choice a person makes each day, because the ripple effect is enormous. Healthier individuals cost the health system less. Healthier employees show up with more in the tank. Healthier communities are more connected, more ambitious, and frankly more fun to live in. Our ambition is to build the world's best healthy lifestyle rewards platform, starting here in New Zealand and Australia.

There are a few people I have to thank before I sign off, because none of this exists without them. Our Champion members, who put up with a fourteen-month beta and sent us honest feedback when the app was clearly still figuring itself out. Our first investors, who backed a former chef with an idea and not much else. Our reward partners, who saw the vision early and stayed patient while we built the next version of our app. And everyone past and present who has been a part of the team. Nothing great is done alone, and I am grateful to have met you all on this journey.

If you are reading this and you haven't started your fitness journey, please, start today. Find an activity that makes you happy and give it an honest go.

See you out there.

Scotty Diamond Co-Founder & CEO, Fit Rewards

← Back to all articles