When was zumba started

The Zumba co-founder soon found a job dancing at a club. The owners of the club enjoyed his dancing so they gave him a business card and asked him to teach classes through an agency. One day, he arrived to his aerobics class and realized that he forgot the music that he normally used for the class.

Luckily, Perez says, he would often record music from the radio onto a cassette tape. Perez took a deep breath, turned to his class and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the class today is different.

I prepared this class for a long time and I think that you are ready. Though the students were very receptive, Perez, then 16, says he was extremely nervous. Still, he popped the cassette tape into the player and began to improvise. People [were] happy. People sweating," says Perez. So in he moved - illegally - to Miami.

He said that the beginning of his life in the US wasn't easy because he didn't speak enough English and didn't bring enough money with him. Matters improved though as soon as he started teaching his Latin music-fuelled exercise classes. It was so different to anything else that existed at the time," says Beto. While his classes were full, he didn't have any idea that he could turn what he did into a wider business.

Thankfully, one of his students introduced him to her son Alberto Perlman, and his friend Alberto Aghion. Both Colombian Americans, they saw the commercial potential of what Beto was doing, and so the three went into business together. The brand name Zumba, a made-up word, was created in More The Boss features:.

The three men initially wanted to sell home fitness videos starring Beto. But short of cash, they had to be creative. Soon people started contacting them to know how they could become Zumba trained instructors, with people signing up in This then rose to a year later, and skyrocketed after that.

Today Zumba has more than , instructors around the world. With other revenue streams coming from clothing sales, music compilations and even computer games that allow users to practise their Zumba moves, the company's annual revenues are said to be in the hundreds of millions. The company won't reveal the exact figure though.

Entrepreneurship expert Jay Maharjan says that Zumba continues to be so popular because its "fun" and "health-conscious business model" has "transcended cultures and reached more than countries".

Later this year, a giant Zumba class is to be given on the White House lawn. Here, we take a look at its amazing growth. Perez is approached by aspiring entrepreneurs Alberto Perlman and Alberto Aghion to create a global company based on his fitness philosophy. Perlman and Aghion secure a deal with an infomercial company. Their initial success prompts a demand for more Zumba instructors, so they create an instructor training program.

The Zumba program is been featured on millions of boxes of Kellogg's Special K around the world.