When you think about Zumba, you imagine people wearing brightly colored cargo pants and pumping their fists.
You think about the dance fitness craze.
But Zumba isn't just about fitness — it's an entire franchise that turns dance instructors into entrepreneurs selling apparel and CDs.
A decade ago, Alberto Perlman decided to launch Zumba so that he could sell the classes as VHS tapes on late night infomercials.
In 2012, Zumba was named "Company of the Year," by Inc.com and is currently the largest fitness brand in the world.
It all started when an aerobics instructor forgot his music at home...
In 1986, Alberto "Beto" Perez was teaching an aerobics class and forgot his music at home. He had to use whatever he had, which happened to be a fun dance mix incorporating a variety of dance moves, including hip-hop, salsa, martial arts and even Bollywood style.
It was a huge hit with his students.
In 2001, he moved from Colombia to the United States and continued to teach.
In 2001, soon-to-be Zumba founder Alberto Pullman heard about Beto's classes from his mother.
"I go to my mom's house for dinner and she was talking about her dancing class," Perlman told us. "She said it was the only thing she'd ever done that didn't feel like exercising."
Perlman became intrigued when his mother told him that the instructor had a way of integrating "the Saturday night feel" into an exercise class.
After his visit to the class, 25-year-old Perlman was convinced he needed to "take this to more people."
When Perlman visited his first Zumba class, it wasn't called Zumba yet and there were "120 people packed in like sardines," he told Leigh Buchanan at Inc.com.
The 25-year-old Perlman thought that he and his childhood friend Alberto Aghion could start a company that provided infomercials and that Zumba could be their first featured product.
"We never thought it was going to become what it did become," Perlman said.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider