🇩🇰 Du finder den danske version af denne artikel her.

Markus Evers, Peter Vahl Kristoffersen and Thomas Egelund have built, in record time, the platform they felt the market was missing: Coachway. The all-in-one solution brings training programmes, nutrition, check-ins, messaging and payments together in one place for online fitness coaches. In less than nine months, the founders bootstrapped the business to DKK 3.5 million in ARR and 200 customers.

Now, their ambition is to make the Danish platform one of the leading players in the Nordics, before breaking into the US market next year.

But it all started with a frustration.

Markus and Peter knew the industry from the inside. They had worked together at Zenfit, another platform for online coaches, and remained part of its journey until Lenus acquired the company in autumn 2021.

As the new organisation took shape, however, Markus and Peter chose not to continue. Both believed strongly in the market, but they also sensed that there was another way of doing things. Existing solutions, they felt, were becoming increasingly corporate, while prices continued to rise.

Why not simply build something better ourselves?

That question marked the beginning of Coachway, a platform that has quickly found its place in the market. Here, we take a closer look at the three founders.

From left: Peter Vahl Kristoffersen, Co-Founder & Head of Management; Thomas Egelund, Co-Founder & CTO
and Markus Evers, Co-Founder & CEO.

Today, the founding team consists of Markus Evers, Peter Vahl Kristoffersen and Thomas Egelund. Despite having been on their new journey for just nine months, they already have customers outside Denmark and have built a profitable business with more than 200 coaches on the platform.

But the story of Coachway begins neither with a major investment nor a large team.

In early 2023, Markus and Peter had each started building their own marketing agencies, helping online coaches grow their businesses. They soon decided to join forces, running EmpowrCoach until December 2025, when they launched the platform and changed its name to Coachway.

The ambition was clear, to move from a traditional marketing agency to a complete powerhouse, combining the agency with a software platform under one roof.

Before long, a new question emerged, should they continue working with other people’s solutions, or build the platform they believed the market was missing?

They chose the latter.

This was also when Thomas Egelund entered the picture.

Thomas, how did you end up becoming part of Coachway?

“Peter reached out to me on LinkedIn. At the time, I was working as a senior software engineer at a larger company, and after my time as co-founder of Quickorder, which we closed down in 2022, I had started feeling the pull to build something again.

“I was looking for new challenges and had a few conversations elsewhere. But I remember being really hooked on this from the beginning. I could see the potential in their plan, so we moved pretty quickly.”

Thomas uses a simple metaphor to describe the way they approach building Coachway:

“If you had asked people in the 1800s what was missing from the horse-drawn carriage, they would have said a faster horse. Instead, someone invented the car.”

That way of thinking lies at the heart of Coachway. Rather than simply building a slightly better version of what already exists, the founders have set out to rethink how online coaches work.

In short, Coachway is an all-in-one platform for online coaches.

It allows coaches to manage training programmes, nutrition, client data, check-ins, messaging and payments, while clients have access to their own dedicated app. The idea is not simply to digitise a coach’s business, but to make it scalable in a way the founders believe the market has yet to see.

Markus Evers explains:

“We’re an all-in-one platform for coaches, helping them support their clients. Simplicity is a crucial part of the product. Rather than positioning ourselves around replacing PDFs with digital solutions, as many competitors do, we’re focused on building something that takes the entire experience to the next level.”

Platforms are nothing new. But Coachway believes there is still room to make the experience both better and simpler.

Today, the platform is designed for coaches looking to scale their businesses without losing the personal relationship with their clients. However, technology is not the only thing the three founders talk about when describing Coachway.

They also want to build a brand. Markus puts it plainly:

“We don’t want to be just a SaaS platform. We want to build a brand around it in a way that hasn’t been seen before.”

It may sound like a considerable ambition for a software company, but to the founders, it makes perfect sense.

They point to companies such as Les Deux and Oversized Lifting Club as examples of brands that have managed to create something extending beyond the product itself.

For Coachway, that also means focusing on the relationship with the coaches using the platform.

Markus explains:

“When you write to us, you get hold of us. Personally. We feel that’s something that has been lost with other platforms. It’s an important part of our strategy. Being so close to our customers means we hear first-hand what works and what doesn’t, and can use that feedback quickly in the development of our product. It creates a great deal of momentum.”

Photo: Building a brand is a central part of Coachway’s ambition.
Here, the team gathers for an event with NRTHRN Strong in Nordhavn.

For the three young founders, Coachway is ultimately about more than building yet another Danish software company. From the outset, they have had a clear ambition to create something that can grow far beyond Denmark.

Peter Vahl Kristoffersen explains that 85 per cent of the business currently comes from Scandinavia, with Norway representing the largest market.

He continues:

“The Nordic market is, of course, an important part of the plan. We want to conquer Scandinavia. But our sights are already set further afield. We already have American customers, and the US is a natural next step. If we don’t break through in the US, we’ll never become the biggest in the industry or in online coaching. That’s simply the reality.”

The plan, then, is not merely to test the American market. Coachway is already looking towards opening a US office in the foreseeable future.

But Peter is quick to emphasise:

“Even with these ambitions, there’s one thing that must not change. We will continue to stay close to our customers, move quickly and build around the realities coaches face. But we have just one goal when we come to work. We want to be the biggest, we want to be the best.”