About Student Body
We started as students.
We moved to Porto in 2023 and, like a lot of people new to a city, found our community through movement: a Wednesday morning yoga class, then cycling a few times a week. The instructors we kept going back to soon became part of our lives.
Porto · where it beganWhy we started.
It started with a Wednesday morning yoga class near our home in Boavista. The same faces every week, a studio that felt warm and familiar, and an hour away from our own thoughts. Then cycling, then classes with new instructors all over the city.
We noticed how much the instructor shapes the experience. Two classes with the same name can feel completely different depending on who's teaching: their music, their energy, how they run the room. Finding the right instructor mattered more to us than finding the right class name.
Then one of our favorite instructors left the studio where we took her classes. We ended up messaging her on Instagram just to find out where she'd gone. We had built a relationship with her, not just the studio, but there was nowhere obvious for it to continue.
Most systems in fitness are built around a venue or a transaction. We wanted to build around the relationship: a place where the instructor is the thread connecting their classes, wherever they happen, and where students can understand the person and the class before they walk into the room. Ultimately, it's about getting the right people into the right room together.
What we believe
A few things we hold to.
Instructors are the through-line
Students may discover movement through a studio, but they come back because of an instructor. The people doing the teaching deserve tools built around the role they actually play.
Relationships over transactions
A booking is useful. A lasting student relationship is invaluable. We help build continuity—not just fill the next class.
Technology stays in the background
Great technology gets out of the way. Our job is to remove friction so instructors can teach and students can move.
Local communities matter
Every city has people building movement communities. As we grow, we want to start locally, get to know the instructors already there, and let each place keep its own personality, not flatten everything into one global marketplace.
How we're built
Not a social network.
Student Body is here to help people find each other in real life—not keep them scrolling. That means there are a few things we won’t do:
- Monetize your attention or engineer engagement.
- Sell your data.
- Turn your attention into advertising inventory.
- Hide great classes behind engagement algorithms.
We'd rather you close the app and go to class. The best thing we can do is get you into the room, then get out of the way.
The team
The people behind it.
We met in New York in 2012, working together at the haircare brand amika, and we've been building things together ever since, including our own branding and eCommerce agency, Concept & Cadence. We don't come from fitness backgrounds, but we know what it takes to build an independent business: an enormous amount of work, determination and, honestly, courage. If we can make some part of that easier for instructors, that's where we want to be.
Kelly Cox
Co-founder
Kelly studied Advertising and Marketing Communications at FIT in New York and spent nearly a decade in professional beauty with brands including amika, ghd and Wet Brush, working closely with salons and independent stylists. She leads Student Body's brand, strategy and community.
Luke Ragno
Co-founder
Luke has a master's degree in Graphic Design from FHNW in Basel, and a background in design, digital products and technology. He believes good technology should solve problems without becoming one, and leads Student Body's product and engineering.
Where we draw the line
What we're not building.
- A marketplace that treats instructors like inventory.
- A subscription that owns the relationship between instructors and students.
- A replacement for studios. We exist to strengthen them, not replace them.
Our role is simple: help the people already building movement communities do more of what they do best.
Why the name
A student body is a community of people learning together. It's also, quite literally, a body that learns.
Movement is both physical and communal. Growth happens through practice, repetition, and showing up alongside other people. Student Body is a reminder that learning has always been something we do together.
Where we're headed
We're not here to dominate movement — we're here to connect it.
Built in Porto, and shaped by the people and places around us. There's still so much we want to build here. We hope you'll find your people too.
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