Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Joe Vennare on the Trends and Future of the Business of Fitness

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

In this episode, I’m analyzing trends in the fitness industry and peering into the crystal ball with Joe Vennare to speculate on the future of health and wellness. Joe is a great guest to interview about these topics because he’s the co-founder of Fitt Insider, a platform that offers industry news and analysis of the business side of fitness and wellness. Specifically, Fitt Insider helps industry operators stay informed, make better decisions, and seize opportunities (especially in regards to startups and investments) through a weekly newsletter, podcast, and jobs board. Joe is a content strategist who’s been in the industry for more than a decade and leads Fitt Insider’s research and media efforts. I wanted to get him on the show because Fitt Insider’s goal is closely aligned with my own: to help millions of people live healthier, happier, better lives. By being a resource to help startups grow and advancing the conversation around wellness itself, Joe and his team can help facilitate massive change in the industry. In our chat, Joe and I talk about . . . Trends in fitness industry including wearables and subscriptions, and where technology and personalization may be headed in the future Offering legitimate value versus using “sexy” marketing to make money Virtual reality’s role in fitness The gamification of apps and services Surprising wins and flops in the fitness space How the supplement industry has changed and where it might go in the future And more . . . So if you want to learn about the business side of fitness and how the industry has changed over time and where it may be headed in the future, you’re going to enjoy this discussion! Timestamps: 0:00 - My free quiz to answer all your diet questions: www.muscleforlife.show/dietquiz 2:57 - What are some of the most interesting things you’ve seen in this industry and where do you think things are headed? 8:20 - What are some new, upcoming trends that you see on the business side of the fitness industry? 17:44 - How much of that is legitimate value versus complicated marketing? 25:32 - What are your thoughts on new technological tools for health and fitness? 31:50 - What is gamification? 36:50 - Is VR coming to the fitness world? 40:57 - What are some surprising business wins or losses you’ve seen in the fitness industry? 1:00:01 - What are your thoughts on the future on supplementation? Mentioned on the show: Take this free quiz to get science-based answers to all of your diet questions: www.muscleforlife.show/dietquiz Fitt Insider: https://insider.fitt.co/ Joe’s Twitter: ​​https://twitter.com/JoeVennare

Hello, hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to learn about the business side of fitness, currentider, F-I-T-T Insider, which is a platform that offers industry news and analysis of the business side of fitness and wellness. Think morning brew, but for fitness. And so in this interview, Joe and I talk about current trends in the fitness industry, including wearables and subscriptions and where technology and personalization may be headed in the future. We talk about the long-term viability of the marketing strategies of working hard to offer legitimate value versus just using sex and sizzle to make as much money as quickly as you can. Joe and I talk about the intersection of

virtual reality and fitness and where that could go, gamification of different apps and services. Joe shares some surprising wins and flops in the fitness space and more. Before we get into it, how many calories should you eat to reach your fitness goals faster? What about your macros? What types of food should you eat? And how many meals should you eat every day? Well, I created a free 60-second diet quiz that'll answer those questions for you and others, including how much alcohol you should drink, whether you should eat more fatty fish to get enough omega-3 fatty acids, what supplements are worth taking and why, and more. To take the quiz and get your free personalized diet plan, go to muscleforlife.show slash diet quiz,

muscleforlife.show slash diet quiz now, answer the questions and learn what you need to do in the kitchen to lose fat, build muscle and get healthy. Hey Joe, it's nice to meet you. And thanks for taking the time to do this. Yeah, I'm super stoked. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Yeah. We were just talking offline. So I didn't know that you've been kicking around in the fitness space. At least it sounds like as long as I have. And in your previous life, you had a similar business. And I mean, I started with, I guess you could say it was content, right? I started with a book, but then that moved into, that's all I ever really sold initially were books.

And then I had a blog, which you know, Muscle for Life, and then found a way into supplements and so forth. And now you have like uh you know of course everyone's going to compare what you're doing now to morning brew right so a morning brew type of approach to fitness which i thought was clever and i liked what you were doing and so i thought it would be fun to talk to you about the business side a bit of the business side of fitness and some of the interesting things that you've seen in the space since you've been working on Fit Insider and maybe

some predictions and where you think things are headed in the fitness racket. Yeah, for sure. I mean, a ton of stuff to talk about and even just kind of like jamming on workouts and what you're up to in general, still super jacked and keeping up with that as well. Because like you mentioned, my brother and I have been working together for almost 15 years and all of that has centered around health and fitness. And initially that was like coming up and, you know, playing football and wanting to get in shape and learning about it ourselves and all the way to like our first real business, which was like personal training, like training people in the park, you know, teaching group fitness classes at the YMCA, getting all the certifications and just getting in the game at, you know, 20 years old because we were so excited about it and, you know, really enjoyed all the things that people naturally go through, like how you feel when you get in shape and going through that journey and wanting to get better and learn about it. And so from group fitness and personal training to subleasing spaces and figuring out like,

you know, how we make more money per class or per training session, and then eventually opening a gym and, you know, a 12,000 square foot like functional training center and CrossFit gym, and then developing programs and certifications to help other instructors grow their business. So you did that with like all the various certifications, ACE and NASM and SCA, like teaching these courses and getting them accredited

and all that fun stuff. And then, yeah, growing that into what was at the time, right? Like in the mid 2000s, how do we create and distribute content on the internet? And everything from affiliates to drop shipping, to selling information products, You know, that was our kind of foray into, you know, I say like a bridge or a gateway into the technology world, but like even super early on looking at folks like yourself and, you know, Ben Greenfield and a few others who were even early then. Yeah. We sold, uh, PDFs and workout plans and drop ship equipment basically all over the world and did that for I think probably four or five years. And then just fast forward a little bit, keep this story abbreviated a bit, but ended up getting into, we started a

venture-backed technology company. So we were developing software and content, again, all geared towards how to live a healthier lifestyle and do that locally. So we were developing software and content, again, all geared towards how to live a healthier lifestyle and do that locally. So discover these things around you in your city. And that led us to Fit Insider, which is, yeah, the business of fitness and wellness. We have a newsletter podcast, a bunch of resources, jobs board, as well as a early stage investment fund that we invest in technology companies across health, fitness, wellness, kind of very broadly. And yeah, I'll take the comparison to Morning Brew. We're not quite at, you know, whatever, three, five, however many millions of subscribers they have at this point.

I think I just recently, their copy says three. Yeah. But hopefully, yeah, definitely on that trajectory and kind of leveraging that instead of saying like, hey, how do we maximize advertising revenue, which we certainly do, but really building this platform that says, how do we build community around the operators, investors, executives in fitness and wellness, and really kind of put as much value, insight, news, analysis out there into the world that enables us to help people build or navigate or scale their businesses in this space to hopefully impact and benefit people trying to live a healthier lifestyle at the end of the day. Yeah, I love it. I love the progression. I find it, I guess, maybe a little bit personally

endearing when I come across people who have come into fitness the way that you have because it's clearly something that you have gotten into because you wanted to help people. You don't run group fitness classes unless you like helping people get into better shape. You don't personally train people and you don't have any success, at least, unless you actually like helping people get into better shape. You don't personally train people and you don't, you don't have any success at least in it, unless you actually like helping people get into better shape. It's nice to see that. And then now you've taken that and sounds like you've kind of gone from strength to strength and figured out, okay, how do we make a bigger impact? How do we make a bigger impact? How do we make a bigger business? How do we find what do we really like to do? Again, to spread the gospel of health and fitness.

But what are – and it's fun also to, you know, as I was talking to you offline just about this. But it's fun after doing something for a long time also to find a new game that is in line again with your passions, but maybe allows you to do something bigger or something that you've always been interested in, like getting more into the online world and then the tech world. And so that's, that's cool to, to hear. And so, so speaking So speaking then to your current venture, what are some trends right now that you've seen in the business of fitness? What are some of the things that are – or that wave that you're seeing? You're seeing that the wave is starting to build or maybe it's even starting to crest, but you know, it's not petering out. Like we're just, we're just seeing the beginning of it. You know, as we talk about it now and think about the, the path that it definitely wasn't as linear as it seems in hindsight.

It was very much, it never is. Yeah. Right. But it was very much like heads down and just kind of figuring out what can we do? What's working, what's not working, move to the next thing. And so it's like, it's only in hindsight that it's like, oh, wow, it, it, it really did work out that it was like, how do we go from teaching one person to a group of 10 people to a hundred people to a thousand, so on and so forth to you accelerate that impact. And it's like, now, how do we help a bunch of people who are starting and running companies impact thousands, tens of thousands, millions of people like at scale? So, yeah, it definitely wasn't the original vision, but

nonetheless, here we are. And just thinking about what you talk about, you know, what are the trends, that people are thinking about, what's defining fitness right now. And I think a huge part of the reason that we started Fit Insider and frankly, you know, at least a piece of why it's working is because a lot of what is said or discussed about the industry is very like headline driven, very almost sensationalized, right? Especially when it comes to the business, because you see the Pelotons of the world and Fitbits in the news and all these companies that are wearables and all the technology pieces. And that's certainly important, but kind of like delving deeper into what's actually happening. I kind of always start from the perspective that the vast majority of people

don't exercise at all. They're not gym members. They don't work out. They don't think about, you know, what they're eating. And I say that because that means the industry is relatively untapped, right? There's so much more opportunity and really need to create solutions for all these different people who the existing kind of products don't appeal to them. Like maybe they don't want to go to the gym. They don't want to figure it out at home and work out by themselves. And they're certainly, you know, making call it the wrong decisions when it comes to nutrition and all the things that go along with that. And so, yeah, fitness wise over the last couple of years, we saw this kind of evolution from just the gyms, right? The planet fitnesses of the world, you sign up, you,

you know, probably don't go to be honest. And if you do maybe helping at least. Yeah. I mean, that is the business model. It's built on breakage, meaning like they're signing up more people than could possibly be there at any one time. And so if all those people did come, it'd be bad. Like it wouldn't be good for them. And they know this. And so then you got into this world of boutique fitness where it was much more curated. You know, the amenities were on point. The instructors are, you know, look like you, right? They're out there kind of leading the way and they're super charismatic and delivering a really high quality experience, but it's expensive, right? And it's not for everybody. Um, and then all along from Tybo to P90X to, you know, sweating to the oldies, like this at-home fitness thing, like always existed. And now what we've

started to see is like from the Pelotons of the world, like how do we integrate this in a way into a package or bundle that people want to engage with it? They stick to it. They continue more importantly from a business perspective to pay for it on a monthly basis. So you have this subscription aspect, you know, in addition to the sunk cost of like a $2,000 piece of equipment. Plus what is Peloton? It's like $50 a month or something. It's not cheap. Yeah. As far as monthly subscriptions go, that's high. I mean, what do we pay for Netflix these days?

Like $15 or something? I mean. Exactly. And so like, and they're experimenting with the price kind of like all the time now to figure out what people are willing to pay and how they, you know, maximize the value there. So even in the most recent years, call it up to 2020 pre-pandemic, the biggest innovation wasn't at-home fitness or connected equipment even. It was the bundling of that service into the package, hardware, software,

content, such that they can continue to get you to pay for it on a monthly basis. Oh, by the way, the hope is that you continue to improve over that period of time as well, because if you're, if you adhere to almost any form of exercise long enough, like it's going to work. Um, so people fell in love with it and they've done a fantastic job and they've kind of spawned the creation of, you know, we've called it like the Peloton of X strength training, boutique fitness, cycling, treadmill, so on and so forth, Pilates, boxing, all these different companies have launched in that space. But what you saw happen with the pandemic was when you don't have another option,

when you can't go to the gym, when maybe you can't get your hands on dumbbells or free weights, and these companies that are providing all of these like connected solutions, people rushed out and bought them. And now we're kind of seeing like, obviously, the tide has turned a little bit. The pendulum has sworn. The honeymoon has ended. Yeah. As people are now venturing back out and maybe not exercising at all, not using that equipment or maybe not paying for that subscription anymore. So now we're really entering into like,

if the pandemic pulled demand forward, meaning people who were likely to purchase these products over some period of time, they just did it in that condensed period of time. Now, what's the next thing? What is the next thing that people are willing to pay for or somehow solves that um and what people kind of across the industry talk about right now is one personalization and that means like going beyond so often when people talk about personalization they talk it comes down to like actually preferences so the the the introduction to personalization is preferences, meaning like, what instructor do you like? What modalities do you like?

What music do you like? How many days a week are you working out? And that's like super baseline. That's like not actual personalization. So getting to the place where you can take any number of... That's a good start, though. I mean, you can imagine if you're one of those consumers, you're going to take, even if it's just that level of personalization, you're going to take that over none because if it does actually affect the service. Now, in some cases, this would be fake personalization, right? Where you're taking this survey and you're just going to get the cookie cutter recommendation anyway. But if it truly does go, okay, if this is what you like,

we can craft that experience for you. There's value in that, right? Absolutely. And that is working for people so much so that you see, like if you go into any of these Facebook groups for like a Peloton or Tonal, which is like a connected strength training device, people are raving, right? They love it.

They love that they're essentially getting the recommendations of how much weight to use or maybe which class to take or even a playlist, like it's referring them a playlist and they love the playlist. And so that's smart. You think of what Netflix has been so good at with tweaking their algorithms to find things that you might like. Yeah, absolutely. And like, that's a huge kind of step in the right direction. But I think the potentially more interesting thing and what's going to separate some of these companies when they get into true personalization is like, they know based on maybe my wearable device or a sleep tracker, or because I logged my calories or meals, like how much

activity do I need to do to lose or gain weight? What do, am I recovered enough to be able to do this high intensity interval workout? Should I take today off and they refer me a meditation session instead? Um, am I injury prone or overtraining? Like, and can they give me a protocol for that? And really getting down into those details to say, uh, really take the guesswork out of it for people. Because I think, especially when you are just starting out, it's like you hop on the bike maybe, or you hit the weights and then like, you're super sore and you're like, shit, like, am I supposed to feel this way? Like, should I work out tomorrow? Or how many days do I

take off? And you're probably not eating the right things to recover from that workout. So all of this gets kind of like it all becomes hurdles and you end up not going back that next day or not using the machine again or whatever it is. So if you can remove those those barriers and that friction from the experience through true personalization, I think it unlocks a whole new world when it comes to the end game, right? If you're talking from a business perspective, retaining members, and if you're talking from an outcome perspective, actually making progress towards your goals and adhering to it over a long period of time, that's definitely one of the trends that are kind of like top of mind right now.

And how much of that do you think is legitimate value versus unnecessary complexification for the purposes of marketing? It's a great question, right? Like this, that speaks to the broader kind of contradiction of my life almost when it comes to being in the fitness space and the technology space is that base level, you don't need any of this equipment. You don't need any of this technology. You don't like all the bells and whistles. If you walk, ride your bike, you know, do body weight exercises, maybe swing a kettlebell, eat, you know, clean kind of real food. Halfway decently. Yeah. Sleep, not smoke. Like you're going to be in a great spot. That's where kind of like I am. And I'm like, man, I wish that that worked for everybody. But clearly,

given the rates of obesity, sedentary lifestyle, diabetes, heart disease, so on and so forth, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, diabetes, heart disease, so on and so forth. It doesn't. It's not working. And so that's where I kind of come to this other side, right? I'm pulling in two different directions. What do we need to do? Do we need to come up with the personalization? Do we need to come up with, and we can potentially talk about gamification, right? And what that does for people and does that inspire people to work out more? Do we need to come up with a kind of like turnkey diet, weight loss, nutrition, whether it's meal plans or supplementation or blood tests, like maybe. And so we hope that by creating this content and talking to these founders and funding these companies, like

some of these things are going to break through in a way that you, you know, maybe who would have thought that calm or headspace could mainstream meditation and mental health in the way that they have, uh, who would have thought that Therabody and Hyperice could mainstream, like essentially myofascial release in recovery practices in the way that they have. And so you go down the line and it's like, yeah, that is the hope that you can create these categories. And yes, some of it is marketing hype. No, you don't need these things, but hopefully it does unlock like real value for people. Yeah, I've thought about this in the context of particularly Legion and you see personalization in the world of supplementation where you'll see some of these companies, you're going to take some sort of test.

It might be a blood test. It might be a DNA test. And then they say that, for example, they're going to build you this custom multivitamin specifically for you. The marketing angle, smart. But when you look at the product, is that necessary? No, it's not. And is that even better than a well-formulated multivitamin? I would point to Legion's, not just because it's mine, but I think objectively, if you look at that formulation, I can tell you it's a very expensive product to make. We don't skimp on it. And so I would say that if you compare Legion's triumph, just our quote unquote cookie cutter, I mean, we do have a different formulation for men and women. But if you look at that and you compare that to what you're getting with this fancy personalized multivitamin, you're going to be worse off with the latter.

And I also, I've seen a lot of appeals to science that are dubious where you're getting this dna test and then this you'll also see this in the diet and training recommendation space right where they they are claiming to give very specific diet recommend like even down to avoid these certain types of foods or set your macros up this way um train this way work in these rep ranges uh these volume ranges blah blah blah based on your dna it sounds nice but my understanding is that the science is um is very new and a lot of these supposed correlations between certain gene expressions and then certain physiological differences that would warrant these changes are tenuous to be generous, if not just wholly invented. And so that's one of the reasons why I haven't pursued it. I wish it were otherwise. And if somebody could make a really good evidence-based argument, I'd love to hear it because then I would offer it. It would be in my interest to do that, right?

But I haven't yet simply because although I like the marketing, I don't like the ethics of it. Yeah. And I totally, not only I get that, but I agree with that sentiment. Right. And it's like, there is the, the best case scenario, the hope is that somebody is developing this technology that they are developing a test or a protocol or some way to actually test whatever it is, my blood, my microbiome, my saliva, you name it, and recommend some type of diet or supplements. And I think this is just pushing further down that personalization path. Maybe I'll try to bring it full circle, but so like the hope is that somebody is creating that, but short of doing that, most people are

marketing this, you know, preference based or kind of a cookie cutter template of, Oh, if you check these five boxes, we give you this thing versus this thing. And it's like, it's not really based on me as an individual. It's based on like overall, like general aggregation, curation of like pro versus con or risk factors or like overarching, like super high level things. So it's like kind of, again, where we're trying to go is like saying like, OK, who is developing that biosensor or that wearable or that testing process, whatever, that is like going through some level of clinical validation or trials or if not FDA approval, something along those lines. Right. Or they're at least funding the study of this stuff to say like, oh, this test, this process, this it works. And like, here's how we scale it and here's how we distribute it. So someone like yourself could go to them and be

like, Oh, we're going to use so-and-so's a hundred percent. And I think, so the idea there is, is we've kind of talked about it as like trickle down health that if you, and it's, this is not like, this is applied in other industries like Tesla, for example, where they're trying to fund this super high level premium, whatever car battery software. And they slowly over time bring the price down such that it's like widely available. And there are plenty of other examples, right, of companies that have done this in the fitness and health space. Like there was a time where Gatorade was legitimately for athletes on the field going super hard, formulated for them. And it's like, oh, it works. And so now there's all kinds of things like Too Sugary and all the stuff that goes behind that.

But the idea of hydration and what is healthy hydration and how do you do that? Same thing with a heart rate monitor, for example. It was developed, I think, in Finland for Olympic athletes. And it was like, Oh, this works and it has applications to the consumer kind of market. So like, how do we get it there? And I think, and there are a kind of handful of companies now that are, that are doing this kind of like testing process and developing the protocols, everybody from like a one's called Zoe and they're a microbiome kind of like testing company and

they've developed diets and processes around like what does a true personalized diet actually look like and and what are the benefits when you compare it to uh just i guess you could say smart evidence-based eating which would be eating enough protein and eating several, minimally three, better is probably five or six servings of vegetables per day. Ideally, you have a nice, you eat the rainbow as our moms would say, it actually is a good idea. You throw in some fruit, you throw in some greens, maybe some seeds, some legumes, and you throw in a little bit of indulgence if you want that. And that is a, we have a lot of research on eating like that. And we know that that works really well. And

especially when you combine that with regular exercise, like you mentioned, not smoking, not abusing alcohol. And of course you don't need any special anything to do any of that and so what i would be most interested in is how some of these more forward-looking technologies compare to that baseline even though i understand the argument of what you're alluding to earlier it's almost like the noble lie right where all right fine we are maybe misleading people a little bit as to the importance of this and really the efficacy and how evidence-based it is. But if that's what it takes to convince them to start eating well and to start exercising, if we were to simply dumb it down or make it less sexy, they wouldn't do it. Are we, are we really doing anything wrong? And I understand

that argument, but I liken that though, to just any, any type of argument where you're saying the ends justify the means and that that is used and has been used to justify major atrocities and like sociopaths and psychopaths love that line of thinking. And of course, the counter argument to that though is, well, is it necessary to be dishonest though? Is there another way that it could be done that is honest, that, that produces the same outcome? And so, you know, that's just, uh, the, the, some of the thoughts I've had in just kind of watching how this stuff evolves.

Same. I'm right there with you. And that's the, you know, ultimately, I think part of it too is like you mentioned getting into this industry and personal training and group fitness in the first place from the perspective of just like really wanting to help people. And I think we bring that perspective to the technology industry and to all these different bells and whistles in a way that like other people don't, because I look at it and we constantly part of this game, right. As like sifting through nonsense and being like, this is bullshit. Like nobody's going to use this. It's not going to help. And your background helps with that because you actually understand everything I've been talking about. You're not just dazzled by money. And she's not seeing the results and she's doing the right things. And so like, what does that human side look like? What does the empathy look like?

What does the discipline and consistency look like for people who are doing this? And like, so yeah, there are plenty of times where we just straight up have to say like, this is, this is nonsense. And like, you know, we can't support it or we're not going to. Um, but I, and truth be told, like there are plenty of companies that like, it's way easier to make money than it is to have actual health outcomes. And the, in the consumer space, especially like they are not held accountable to that. And so I guess my answer or kind of caveat to what you were saying, which I completely agree with, right? Like if people did, you know, practice moderation,

ate healthy, ate real foods, like ate vegetables, enough protein, slept enough, did all those things, it would go a long way. I guess on the flip side of that, there are, there's this kind of approach that is called like, sometimes food is medicine. Sometimes it's called like prescribed foods, but like the idea that, you know, 85 plus percent of healthcare spending is related to like chronic diet related conditions. And so once you get to that point, like all of the, like maybe exercise isn't going to work right away, especially for somebody who's like pretty bad off or maybe like moderate diet intervention is not going to work kind of in that same way. So how do we tackle this problem? And this is probably getting too far in the weeds, like healthcare wise, but like, how do we tackle this problem such that healthcare companies and insurers are incentivized to pay for this so we can help get those people healthier?

So like it ends up benefiting all of us. That's a way different like thing than like a personalized supplement that might not be personalized. Right. But that is an approach and an emerging kind of like sector that I think could potentially end up evolving what we're doing from like a diet nutrition. Yeah. And like you mentioned earlier, that is the biggest potential market. And those are the people who need the most help. I mean, talking about these hyper quote unquote personalized supplements,

I would bet that a lot of the people on those subscriptions are in pretty good shape already. And it's nice to help those people, but they don't need nearly as much help as the people you mentioned who currently are very out of shape, very unhealthy, not doing anything, but who would like to do something. They just haven't done it yet, or they're not sure what to do yet. Or maybe you might be able to get to people who are maybe one rung down in terms of their progression. And they're not thinking about it yet, but they're not happy with their situation. They're not ready

to make any major change, but they're getting there. So how do you get them there? And then how do you get the people who want to make a change to do it in a way that is sustainable and is going to keep them going? Right? You mentioned gamification. Is that, I mean, I think everybody listening, I mean, I guess you could quickly explain what that is. And I'd be curious if, you know, I've seen attempts at it in the space, but has anything really stuck? Is there anything that's interesting that is up and coming that has caught your eye yeah it's definitely like and just to maybe tie a ribbon around what we were talking about like we have to break this mold of like selling new and more things to the same group of people it's like we keep we try to come back to that time and time again it's the easiest way to make money. As you mentioned, it really is. Once you have people who are buying stuff from you,

the easiest way to talk about, I mean, you know this, but one of the easiest ways to grow a business is once you have an established customer base is just make more things for them to buy. And there's nothing wrong with that. You can do that in an ethical way. But to your point, it really depends on what are you

trying to do? Are you just trying to make as much money as you can, or are you trying to also have, uh, an impact in, in people's lives and in some of these more alarming trends that we're seeing? Yeah. And so that's a good transition, I think. Um, cause it's something I've been excited about into the gamification space. So there, it is a buzzword, right? There's all different. There have been many attempts at it from like, oh, just simply putting in game dynamics, meaning like, how do you get a badge? Do you get a reward? Do you get a high five from somebody or from an instructor or virtually like all these things that just like in one way or another incentivize you to continue to participate or go on to the next level or,

or, or stay engaged. And so like, I think that was probably the previous call it generation or attempt at gamifying workouts. And the reason why it's interesting, right? When you talk about appealing to a new audience, the, especially among younger generations, Gen Z, et cetera, the level at which they're participating in e-sports, like Call of Duty, online gaming in general, like living kind of in like virtual worlds, whether it's Roblox or, you know, other somewhat early but virtual reality. Like it's a billion dollar industry. It's growing super fast. They have professional teams like focused on this. I don't follow it at all, but I remember seeing a clip. It was like a huge stadium of people to watch. And I was like, wow, this has come a lot. Especially internationally, like people making millions of dollars, like playing online games,

but beyond that, just like spending all of their time there. And so it's like, if their attention is there and they like it, okay, well, how do we use this for, let's call it good in this case, right? Health, uh, getting people moving. And there are a lot of things about that gaming that is addicting, just like social networking. And so like, how do you take those dynamics, put them into something that like makes you healthier in some way. And so the evolution that we've kind of started to see in that space are with companies like, uh, Zwift is a good example. It's a virtual cycling and running game. So it's like an online platform, but instead of going on and seeing a fitness instructor, you are basically a

virtual cyclist and you're, I don't know what the right word for it is. I want to say emoji, but it's not an emoji emoticon or avatar. There you go. Avatar was escaping me is going around the screen and there are different worlds and some of them are recreation. So it looks like, you know, Mario cart, right? But it's cyclists and you're going around the racetrack, you're doing, you know, very popular call like Tour de France segments or popular routes around the world or just like virtual worlds that they've created. And within that game, there's you and all of your stats, like it's hooked up to what's called a power meter or an indoor trainer. So it's translating how hard are you going?

Like what rate are you pedaling? What's your heart rate? Where are, how many miles have you logged? And you can do individual training rides or you can do group rides and races. So your buddy could be around the world. He's also doing it. You're racing him, you're head to head. You're logging these miles.

And so it just becomes this virtual race, just like these cyclists would go outdoors and basically spend an entire weekend or more traveling to this race, going potentially getting a flat tire. It's maybe raining and the event gets rained out. Now you're able to do that anytime, anywhere, basically, um, from, from home or on your bike. That's very cool. I like that because there's no deception. There's no pseudoscience. It's, it's selling fun and it's selling exercise and it delivers obviously for, for, I I've, I've come across that and, uh, I, you know, you know, the popularity better than I do, I do, but I know it's doing quite well.

know you know the popularity better than i do i do but i know it's doing quite well and that's very cool simply because it is uh it's just making exercise more enjoyable and i'm assuming i mean if they haven't already vr has to be coming right so yeah we can talk a little bit about vr uh but just quickly on zwift like insofar as like they're petitioning for it to be an Olympic sport. Um, they have professional races. Um, they sponsor, you know, all different types of events. There's professional cyclists on there. Um, so there's a whole industry around that, you know, basically, yeah, this whole other segment of it where, you know, it brings these people together and like me as maybe an amateur or somebody who's interested in it, like I can compete with these pros or at least see where I stack up against them or maybe even go to a competition. So yeah, there's all types of kind of like more interesting ways in which this escalates, um, to get more

people involved. But yeah, on the topic of VR and I probably should say if it wasn't apparent already, just in terms of, you know, just talking about contradictions and how I think about it, like these things aren't for me. It's like, I have a garage gym that like, I have the full setup. I love going down there and clanging weights around and running around the neighborhood and pushing a sled and doing all those and totally disconnecting from the world. When I do that, no wearables, no smartwatch, no heart rate tracker. And that's my escape. So, but now when you look at something like VR, it's like, who does that appeal to? And it's like, maybe somebody who never picked up a weight before and they don't want to. To, to, to what you had mentioned earlier,

just, just people who otherwise might do nothing. And that just, for whatever reason, that's what makes it click for them. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's cool to see and learn more about, um, the two best examples are probably one company called supernatural, um, which was, it's a VR, basically virtual fitness studio. They make all types of different games from, you know, objects flying at you that you're smashing with a sword and ducking and moving around to like dance games and boxing. And they were recently acquired by Facebook or now Meta for reportedly $400 million. So, uh, yeah, doing super well. And certainly if you follow this space kind of intently, Mark Zuckerberg has talked about how he thinks what what he calls like the peloton of virtual reality is like oculus as a fitness platform basically or at least some

offering within that as being a fitness platform so that's why they bought supernatural and and they're continuing to develop new games and and different features around that. And another one, maybe to FitXR does similar fitness gaming. And Your, Why You Are also does like the fitness gaming and, you know, tracks your calories and the headset and workout progress and all the gamification elements that you would think that go along with that. So yeah, it's definitely growing quickly. And obviously when you have somebody like Facebook making an acquisition of that size in the space, it signals that they think it's going to be quite big, but right now it's still, you know, VR hasn't reached that, that hype cycle or lived up to it in the way that people thought it would. Yeah. I've, uh, I've only, I don't even know which one I put on. Maybe it was the Oculus

and I'm like you, uh, all of this stuff is not really for me personally, but you know, I thought it was pretty cool. I was like, all right, I could see in 10 years, this might be actually impressive, but you know, it's pretty neat. or a loved one or a not so loved one even who might want to learn something new, word of mouth helps really bigly in growing the show. So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. Are there any surprise wins that you've seen that just stand out or maybe or maybe even flops, you know, I I've seen this in the supplement space, for example, when, when that company ghost first, uh, came out,

if I had the chance to invest in it, I probably would have passed. Although maybe if I would have learned who's behind it and how much money they were putting into it, I actually might've thought differently, but all I, I didn't know that initially. And that's an example of something that I would have. I thought that this is going to fail. no steak. It's just gathering up a couple influencers and saying, Hey, I have money. I have girls, I have cars and I drink ghost protein. And I did not think that was going to work. And now, I mean, I'm guessing their revenue is probably North of 80 to a hundred million a year. So I was wrong. I'm sure you have some examples like that both ways, right? I was wrong. I'm sure you have some examples like that both ways, right? Yeah. It's, you know, when I think about like, I don't know, even flops, it's like,

it's not so much that like maybe they went out of business. It's just like maybe more surprising that it didn't work out or maybe didn't work out to the level that it was intended to. So just a couple off the top and this, it speaks to like some broader trends that we're seeing. So more recently you have a company like Lululemon, they acquired mirror, which is like a interactive workout screen that goes in your house. And they also have a subscription and content and a whole bunch of things that go along with that. They paid $500 million for that company. And they're now figuring out what the integration looks like, right? How do we get Lululemon customers to buy mirrors, to subscribe to the content? Do we put them in the stores?

Do we have events that we show them off? All these different things. And they've recently rolled out a pretty aggressive plan to maximize that acquisition. pretty aggressive plan to like maximize that acquisition and obviously like another example of that is like nike who has like the nike training club the nike run club they do so much around like engagement and building this lifestyle of activity and they did it without any hardware right so mirror is like a physical piece of hardware it's thousands of dollars just through to an app basically is how or a series of apps right after they uh you know shut down their fuel band right they were like the original wearable one of the original wearable makers so they moved away from hardware um actually when they saw

what apple was doing so at the time i think it was like 2014 maybe maybe earlier than that. But Tim Cook was on Nike's board and he was obviously at Apple and he was like, hey, we're making like the wearable and we're going to take over the space. And at that time, Nike basically said, OK, we're going to wind down our fuel band and figure out another path forward. So I'll have to say like this crossover of like how do we engage people digitally but also like around health and fitness and this lifestyle one that didn't work out so well under armor spent almost a billion dollars acquiring my fitness pal at amando and a couple other companies they launched a connected shoe they launched like a health kit did not work. Um, so all they ended up selling off, uh, my fitness pal, they wound down almost all of their, you know, kind of digital fitness

offerings and have moved away from this like technology angle as these other companies have ramped up in that space. So to me, I think that's one that kind of stands out as like, did not work. How do you integrate this health fitness lifestyle with like the retail side of it like can we sell people more shoes can we figure out what they're training for can we recommend them products uh so like definitely didn't work and maybe down that path even though it was kind of acquired and it's still a big company. They have a lot of users, but like Fitbit was the preeminent, like wearable before now everybody, you know, Apple, obviously with the Apple watch, but you have companies like Aura and Whoop and others that have like come out and

really taken over that space in a, in a meaningful way. And Fitbit was right there, like way ahead of that didn't develop. I was, I was surprised to see whoops success given where Fitbit was at when it came out. I didn't know enough about the space to like necessarily bet against it, but I just didn't, I didn't see it. And, you know, fast forward to today, it's interesting. Was, was whoops breakthrough, was it via golfers? Is that really where they. Was whoops breakthrough? Was it via golfers? Is that really where they, they had like a, a kind of a big breakthrough around golfers. So everybody from like Rory McIlroy to Justin Thomas and a bunch of others, uh, Tiger woods has like basically been like spotted with it. Uh, and some of those players, athletes invested in the company. So like Rory

McIlroy is an investor. Patrick Mahomes is an investor and a bunch of others at this point as well. So they benefited from like what we've called like the, his heart rate, like his, his recovery the night before, like his performance throughout the game. And like, they basically publish that data as like content marketing into whoop. It's like, it's pretty cool how they did that. I don't pay too close attention, but I think I saw them. They have a podcast, right? Where they, they get Rory on and I'm sure they've gotten Patrick on. And so then, you know, creates more hype around that product. And that's, that's,

um, that's very shareable content as well, because I'm guessing those guys don't do many podcasts. Yeah. Uh, will, will all met as the CEO, he does a great job and they have their, their podcast. But I think in addition to the athlete piece, which was definitely a huge help, it was what they did with they it's called a recovery score. And so like, it's not about like your activity data, right? It's not about how many steps you take. It's not about, you know, how many calories you burned necessarily. They give you this measurement and display of how much strain did you do during the day? And then based on that strain, how recovered are you? did you do during the day? And then based on that strain, how recovered are you?

And then with that recovery, your readiness score. And it's like red, yellow, green, and they display it in the app. And there was a time, especially when they were first starting to catch on that if you typed in whoop on Twitter, for example, it was like screenshots of people's recovery scores. And that concept versus Fit know fitbit which was like an arbitrary which is really unproven at this point like 10 000 steps this idea of like am i ready to perform and strain and all those things i think was a big unlock for them that makes sense and is that solely based on hrv heart rate variability or are there other factors there's other factors but a huge piece of that was heart rate variability so they they also like basically mainstreamed that idea of like now people who nerd out on health optimization and the data and wearables it's super common to talk

about heart rate variability and blood oxygen levels and like REM sleep and like tracking all these things again, beyond calories or steps or like super high level numbers. It's almost like status quo, like table stakes that you have heart rate variability, you know, FIPPIT does it now or a ring does it as well. It's like, you pretty much have to have that to get into the game. Yep. Yep. And, uh, it sounds like also then whoop did a good job paying attention to what was really resonating, uh, which, which maybe was this recovery point

and, and thinking about how do we lean really heavily into this because people like this, which is just good. It's a good business practice. And it was also another way of saying like, how do we make a sleep tracker without calling it a sleep tracker? Yeah. Like more than, yeah. And so all the things that go into that and all the practices, of course, that, that, you know, from meditation to avoiding alcohol to, you know, recover, taking rest days when you need them and and all those various things that again have evolved not only what a wearable is but like what you're measuring and how you're thinking about your health oh by the way you know if you just slept enough and didn't drink alcohol like we talked about before i was just gonna get to that because it is funny, you know, whoop had sent me a band

some time ago and, uh, I, I wore it just for the sleep tracking. Cause I was curious, uh, disturbances. I was kind of just curious, actually the correlation between disturbances, which, um, is just when you're people listening, when you're moving around, you're not awake necessarily, but you're not in that catatonic, sleep state. You're moving around a bit. And I just wanted to see the correlation between the number of disturbances and how rested I felt. And there definitely, there is one, no question, more disturbances means more restless sleep, right? And so I thought that was kind of interesting. The recovery metric, I personally did not find interesting. I do know a bit about HRV and I know that it's

not as simple as like, if you watch the trend, it can be useful. So if your HRV is trending downward, that means that you are falling more and more behind in recovery, I guess you could say. And if it's trending upward, the opposite is true. If it's kind of static, if the trend is static, then you're recovering fine. But to look at an individual reading, it might be quite a bit below your baseline, but that doesn't actually mean that, oh, no, no, you're not recovered well enough to go do your workout today. I mean, I would get occasionally an anomalous, really low recovery just because my HRV fell, even though the previous day was like a rest day. I didn't even lift and I wasn't cutting and I slept fine and I felt great. But according to the device, oh, I was in the red. And on the flip side, I, you know, I, I would have instances where I slept terribly

and do not feel good. And you go PR, you go PR. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or recovery, you know, I'm in the nineties or whatever, and I'm, and I'm green. And then there's that point as well, that, uh, just because you didn't sleep well and you don't feel so great. Yeah. Your workout might feel a bit harder, but you can go and train. Now, if you have a string of like seven nights of terrible sleep, all right, maybe you actually should just chill out and like, you know, give your body a break or something. So anyways, people would ask me about it. And I don't say that necessarily to criticize whoop. Cause I do appreciate them sending me a band. I just, you know, though that was my experience. That's the summary of my experience.

Listen, I'm with you. And like maybe the realistic borderline pessimistic view, and then maybe the optimistic view, like I, you know, unfortunate enough also to like try out a bunch of these devices and, you know, I've had them all at one point in time. I don't use any of them yep yeah i stopped using it because i was like oh well okay that was interesting and so like again for me like i pretty much try to sleep exactly the same every night i eat almost the same things every day i don't drink i don't smoke like i get it i get it like you know when i had an off night like like i know when i had an off night um so there's that level when I had an off night. Um, so there's that level. And so I

don't use them, but then there are people that swear by them and got them totally hooked on their healthy habits, which is fantastic. And then the step beyond that is like, this is, you know, whether it's whoop or any other wearable device or even HRV blood oxygen levels, measuring sleep, you know, you name it. This is a point on a very long, you know, journey to what does it look like to actually you wake up, you step out of bed, you're whatever, you go into the bathroom, the bath mat that you're standing on senses everything like your weight, your body composition, your measures, your heart rate, does everything scans you puts a reading on the mirror. It tells you these things happen, this changed. So you might want to do this. You might want to do that. Like you have the device

that you wear on your wrist. You don't even have to look at your phone again. That's all. It appears maybe on the mirror, on your television screen. Then would you want that? Would you, on your television screen, then would you want that? Would you, I think if it were like that ubiquitous and frictionless, like the thing I don't like about it now is I, you know, you have all these different devices and this is part of a trend slash opportunity in the broader industry is that, you know, so I am the target customer, right. For all of these things. And I have the disposable income. I would probably buy them or try them. And if they worked, I would pay for it forever. But the problem is like, it's still all so siloed that I have to figure out my workout over here. Then I have to come over here and figure out my nutrition and meal plan,

come over here, figure out my mental health, like whatever type of wellness, anxiety, stress, come over here, figure out my sleep. And it's, I'm paying for six different subscriptions and devices and none of it works together and it doesn't sync up and it takes up way too much time. It's like, well, I'm just going to do the like majority, the right things as much as I can. And like, I'll figure it out and get, you know, 80, 20, right? Yep. And that's exactly the point, right? Where like, by just sticking to the simple Luddite approach of doing the things that, you know, work, you know, that's the 20% that gives you 80. And do you want to be messing around with six different apps and data sets and to try to, to try to maybe stretch for another 5%.

Like not really. And I'm not a professional athlete who gets paid millions of dollars to figure this out. And I don't have a team of people working on it. So like, no, I'm not going to do that. I also want to have my life, but if it could happen seamlessly, that just like I woke up the measurements, this, it told me that do this, don't do that. Your food's being delivered at this time, already prepared cooked to the exact specifications like here's your workout this is what you're going to do when you go to the gym like i would yeah i would definitely sign up for

that and i think you know we're certainly a ways away from that but like that's where we're going and this is already happening in some sectors where like you look at remote patient monitoring and just like kind of ubiquitous health sensing in a house or in a room that alerts somebody if, you know, an elderly person falls or if they haven't responded in a period of time, like all these things, it's happening when you look at the broader trends and zoom out across like health and healthcare and wellness more broadly. but like piecing it together. I think there's a huge opportunity, not only for different companies to do that, but when you think about maybe a M and a like mergers and acquisitions or companies coming together or partnering strategic partnerships, like those are the things that

get super interesting beyond like, you know, Peloton, who's, you know, obviously the, the company that springs to mind in this space that they say, Oh, we want to have a hundred million members. Like that's the, our big goal. They have 7 million members, which is like nothing to, you know, uh, write off a hundred million. That's their, their B their B hag, their big, hairy audacious go. Wow. And it's like, well, what if you had whatever, take your 7 million, that's their, their B their B hag, their big, hairy audacious go. Wow. And it's like, well, what if you had whatever, take your 7 million, but you impacted their life across nutrition, stress, wellness, like all of these different recovery, instead of saying like, oh, we want to be the sole fitness brand. Like what if we were the wellness integrated health and wellness

platform? Like, I think somebody will do that and it will be a massive company. Yeah. Yeah. That's an, that's an interesting, you know, I think of some of these more sophisticated nutrition apps that are out there that do a good job managing your calories and macros for you more so than, you know, something like my fitness pal. It's basically on you. You need to know exactly what you're doing. Whereas some of these other apps work with weekly numbers and daily ranges and adjust things based on what actually happens. And you have to input body comp data. But if you do, then it's almost like having a nutrition coach that is there to just tweak things for you. And I don't know of anything in the training space yet that is going to be harder to do, but theoretically, I think it probably can be done. So somebody probably will do it.

And as you mentioned, as you get more of these pieces, eventually they could be stitched together or maybe somebody big is, you know, they're going to develop a lot of these things in house and, and again, offer that all inclusive experience yeah and there there's that opportunity which is like build it and or consolidate it right somebody comes in and buys a bunch of these companies rolls them up or on the other end of the spectrum what it's starting to look like in some areas is like that's what google's going to do that's what Google is going to do. That's what Apple's going to do. And there's a whole list of, you know, privacy and, uh, monopolies and all that stuff that, that has to, uh, data and all that, that comes up when you go down that path.

But when you look at Google buying Fitbit, integrating with Samsung, building their health OS, releasing a pixel Watch, having an entire healthcare in health research, obviously, that kind of signals, how do we do this? And same thing with Apple, from Apple Watch to Apple Fitness Plus to HealthKit, their research kit, you name it, there's been reports that they're doing glucose monitoring, heart rate sensing, a primary care service. Amazon is already doing primary care. They released a health wearable. They released a fitness platform.

Except for those companies, they're so big that it's not interesting for them to go after the $100 billion global fitness market. They want to go after the $4 trillion US healthcare market, the multi-trillion, $100 trillion global healthcare market. It's a separate conversation, but that's what it looks like as a kind of integrated bundle and backing into who's paying for this, how do you incentivize it,

and does it get anybody any healthier besides just spending a bunch of money? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's interesting. Uh, having, having the, the behemoths, uh, come into the space will certainly cause changes. That's, that's for sure because, well, they have enough money to do anything. It just takes, it just takes time, but let's, let's, uh's let's wrap up with talking about supplementation. Is there anything particularly interesting in the supplementation space or, or thoughts as to where you think things might be going?

Let's say good things that are on the horizon, plenty of dumb and bad things. Yeah. I mean, you, you obviously you're the expert in this area, you know, way more than me. And I wish I had a great answer to my own question. I got asked this by somebody who, um, he, he works for a big talent agency and, you know, there's maybe some interesting potential synergies between Legion and this group. We'll see where it goes, but, you know, so he was asking about innovation. He was like, he doesn't know much about the space. So he's like, oh, you know, you have some of these companies and they have these collagen supplements, collagen protein. And they're like, yeah, there's no innovation there. That's actually just bullshit, especially collagen protein. It's just garbage.

And that's, that's what I told him. I mean, I have enough of a relationship with him. I don't have to be diplomatic, so to speak. I can just explain to him like, no, collagen protein is garbage. It's trash to your protein. It's cheap. And there is a big coordinated marketing push behind collagen. You have some big wins and some companies, big acquisitions. But unfortunately, in supplementation, there is so little true innovation because as you mentioned earlier in this interview, that it's much easier to just make a marketing pitch that makes a lot of money. It's much easier to do that than it is to do real research and create something that is truly unique. Yeah. I mean, it always has been to some extent like the wild west when it comes to supplements that like they're not regulated we don't know what's on the like is what's on the label in there like

all the things that come along with that so i'd say like and not as like a cop-out answer but as far as like what's realistic even the idea that companies are now taking and like planning their flag like these are clean ingredients We're sourcing this ethically. We know what's like, we're putting it on the label that this is somehow verified and tested. And there's that clarity and transparency on like the ingredients and all this stuff

and the production and where it comes from. Like that's a huge step from where we were, like just not a couple of years ago. So to have brands doing that and also like removing fillers, removing sugars, removing all the stuff that, again... In my case, just artificial ingredients all together. I know that some people don't care about that, but a lot of my customers, they do care about that. That's one

of the reasons they pick my stuff. And that's huge. That's huge for me personally with the stuff that I choose and use as well. It's like just having that clarity around what I'm'm putting, obviously I care about what I'm putting into my body. So why would I go and take all this junk? But yeah, I think that's probably like the, the most apparent to me. The other one it's, I would say trend wise is what you talked about from like the collagen and a lot of these, like whether or not they work again there's no regulation there's no hydration electrolytes are another that you mentioned that i wish i could sell one and with a clean conscience because we get asked all the time to make one but i've looked at a lot of the research myself i've spoken with people who know a lot more about this stuff, professors who have looked at research. And unfortunately, the best pitch that I could honestly give is if you do long workouts, multiple hours, if you're like an endurance athlete and you're outside in very hot weather, then you might benefit slightly from an electrolyte supplement.

And part of that benefit is only that it's going to encourage you to drink enough water because it makes it tasty. But there's that. And there are a couple of other benefits that you might, it might make it worthwhile, but it also might not because it kind of depends on your physiology and how you respond. You might notice absolutely nothing. Not many people are going to buy that product. Like if you're just a normal person going in the gym, doing your workouts a few hours a week, this has absolutely no relevance to you. Well, that's like at least 80% of my customers. So yeah, it's like most, like the whole conversation, but just taking that a step further, like beyond the supplements themselves and whether or not like personalization

gets to a point where it's actually like effective, um, one, I guess, good thing is like how this has kind of, uh, made its way into just like better for you food and beverage in general, like same thing with supplements, same thing with everything else we've talked about here today. Like there's a lot of snake oil. There's a lot of like slight of hand. There's a lot of claims that aren't backed up, but like in general, the idea that like, oh, we're, we're aware of protein in like this particular food. And now we're, we're adding protein so that it makes it easier to get. We're removing sugars and refined, you know, processed, highly processed artificial ingredients. We're thinking about like what are the quote unquote functional benefits of the things that we're eating.

Like and they're just putting it into different drinks, different foods, different you like you name it. Beverages like in a way that it just makes it widely accessible. So it's like just in me opting for this, whatever drink, like, no, it might not increase my performance. No, it's not going to make me superhuman, but it's like, it's better than me drinking sugary soda. It's better than me eating like white bread, like whatever it was that I was going to do otherwise. So I, you know, I'm someone who's like, again, I eat the same thing every day. I'm super boring. Like, I don't really think about the taste as maybe weird as that sounds. But like for other people who it's like, we just made it moderately better. And like the ingredients, it does have a higher protein content or it does have lower sugar or did switch out this whatever artificial ingredient, like that's coming from the awareness and like the overall growth of like the supplement industry and like the recognition that these things are healthier and we're not getting enough of them in our diet. So like, how do we give it to people in a more

accessible way? So it's not like directly on the nose supplementation, but I think it's a super interesting and impactful kind of like trickle down. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's definitely being driven by, by market forces, by people caring more about that stuff. And, you know, that's something I've talked about from the beginning is, you know, as consumers, um, you're, you're voting with your dollars, as they say, I mean, there's a lot of truth in that. So you as an educated consumer, making a choice to, uh, support a company that's doing some of these things that, that these positive things you just mentioned, well, if enough individual people do that, other businesses start to take notice and then the whole industry starts to shift. And I agree with you that, that, that, that shift is occurring at a occurring at a kind of macro level, and that's encouraging.

There's more talk, at least, about science-based formulations. Some of it is disingenuous, but some of it is not. I'm not the only one making good evidence-based products, and that's nice to see as well. And something else that – this is something that I've thought about and at an individual product level, although I'm, I would not say that any of my products are, are innovative. I don't think that's the right word. However, because I'm willing to spend a lot more on my products than most of my, my competitors, I am able to make unique formulations that contain ingredients that are not normally

seen. Like in my joint supplement, there is a form of type two collagen that has good research for improving health and function in joints in both healthy joints and dysfunctional joints, which is pretty unique, but it's very expensive off the top of my head. I don't know the exact number, but I'm going to guess just that ingredient alone. I want to say it cost me around $8 a bottle just to put that ingredient in it. But that is an ingredient that I got excited about because it's unique in its mechanism. The research is solid. its mechanism. The research is solid. And again, it can benefit people with healthy joints and prevent development of arthritis just through a reaction that it's basically like it's an immune,

so it's like an autoimmune reaction that eats away at joint cartilage over time. So through choosing those types of ingredients and saying, yeah, I'm willing to accept a lower margin on this product. Whereas normally the pill products are the super high margin and the powders are low error and then protein super low. That's the normal model protein. You might not even make much money on pre-workout. You might not make much money on, but those get you your customers. Then you sell them pills that have huge margins. That's normally how it works. Right. And something else that, you know, I've, uh, I've also tried to do is, and I'd be curious as to your thoughts, just in, it's really just kind of a business strategy is, uh, as you know,

and as obviously people listen, you know, I put a lot of emphasis on educating people and helping people understand that supplements are supplementary by definition. And even the best supplements can only do so much. I would love for you to find your way to my powder or pill, but then understand the limitations of any of these products, this whole category, and then understand what you really need to know and do to get the result that you want. Because you're not buying the pill or powder just to have a pill or powder swallow. There's some sort of result. have a pill or powder to swallow, there's some sort of result, you know? So, you know, I've tried to, I've tried to distinguish myself and Legion more at a brand level than trying to do some of these other things that we've talked about to, to lead people to believe that my pre-workout is just so utterly unique and personalized or, you know, proprietary science or anything like that, simply because there's no honest way to do it that way. But the other way it can be done, honestly, you know?

Yeah. And I think that's part of what you've done from the beginning, almost how it, it grew very authentically and organically is like you, again, we got into this because we wanted to help people. and so we created content about that you wrote books about it we had websites about like you create whatever content marketing around it you build the brand around it you personally all like are the front man in some ways for that like um so it's very much ingrained in like what you were preaching and like not in a in a bad way but like kind of like adding value to the people to talk about what this lifestyle is how you go about it oh by the way you live it personally and it's it's

crazy not only around supplements and nutrition but across the industry in general it's like how like competing with folks who do have whatever the professional athlete investors and do have endorsements from xyz you know celebrity and celebrity. And like, you look at it, you're like, man, it's, it's tough. It's sad to like, consumers are getting tricked by that. Like in so many different ways, just be just because XYZ person was like, oh, they founded the company or they put their name on it or, you know, what have you. And so I think there's that aspect of just being authentic and being genuine about wanting to help people kind of from the content that you put out from the brand to the ingredients to the margins. Like at the end of the day, in some ways it's like only, you know, that in your,

in your heart of hearts, like, and you have to be like, have the conviction to be like, this is just how I'm doing business. And I don't care that if, you know, I could save myself $8 a bottle on these pills, but like, I'm not going to do it because I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. And consumers have to understand this fact that like, in some ways, whether it's wearables or subscriptions or supplements, like all of those things are optimizing, they're tweaking, they're dialing in, they're like percentage gains that are getting you closer it's like there's no point in optimizing if you're not doing the foundational things consistently and you know showing up every day in the gym showing up every day and eating the right foods

sleeping like all the things we've talked about almost you know kicking a dead horse at this point but like yeah that the standardization of all that has to come first. Right. Or what are you optimizing? Exactly. There's there's you can't, you know, do the final one percent if you haven't done the baseline ninety nine percent and do that every day for years and years and years, basically. And so, yeah, I think it's and it's important to say that. And it's it's cool that you get on podcasts like this and in the content and everything else and like say that, like, hey, guys, I would love to sell you this thing, but like it's cool that you get on podcasts like this and in the content and everything else and like, say that like, Hey guys, I would love to sell you this thing, but like,

it's not going to solve all your problems. Like it's not. Yeah. Or like BCAAs. I wish the evidence were otherwise because I get asked all the time why I don't sell BCAAs and I've written about it and it's in my financial interest to think otherwise, but the evidence is very clear that these supplements are good for basically nobody. If you eat enough protein, you do not need an amino acid supplement of any kind, branch chain or essential. You're going to get it all from your protein. Don't worry about it. I mean, I have a list and I was thinking it might even be worthwhile to add, add this somewhere. Maybe, I don't know if it would go in the store, but somewhere where people hear, hear all the things that we don't sell. And let me explain why here are all the ingredients we don't use, or at least some of the more popular ones.

And here's why to me, when you look at like, again, we've talked a lot about trends and opportunities and who's doing what, that really opens the door to what's basically called human-in-the-loop services. We call it accountability as a service. But this idea of how do you help someone navigate this? How do you help someone make these decisions? How do you help someone make these decisions? And not in a way that it's like data wearables and personalization, all those things, but like actually giving you a coach, giving you a coach for your fitness, giving you a coach for your sleep, giving you a coach for your nutrition. We're an investor in a company called Future that does this for personal training.

Oh, cool. You have 24-7 access to your coach. You text them. They design your workout plans, like everything. And just a couple other examples, like there's a company called Wellery that does this for nutrition. You take photos of your food, you send it to your nutritionist, they make your meal plan. And a company that's earlier, but called Crescent that does it for sleep. What are you doing before you go to bed? What's your

routine? Did you drink coffee, supplements, so on and so forth. And all those things, it's like genuinely help people navigate this and do it in a way. Cause like what you're saying, it's like, you essentially have to like stand up there on the mountaintop and just like shout like, Hey guys, I'm trying to do what's in your best interest. One day, one day, I think you're going to appreciate my message. Even though I understand right now, it doesn't, it doesn't have the allure of, well, if you just take these pills, you're going to lose 30 pounds in 30 days. You're like, yeah, they're like, help me help you. But, but Hey, that's on me. I mean, that's on people like me and you and other people,

if it's not going as well as, as we would like That's on us. It's because of our failures to communicate persuasively enough or to be clever enough. That's how I look at it. I actually, I don't place the blame necessarily at the other person saying, oh, it's just because the people are so stupid. And I don't think that's a productive way to look at it. No, I think that's exactly the right, like to say, you know, it's all those things like, you know, why aren't people buying my product or why aren't people clicking subscribe or why aren't people engaging with my content? It's like, oh, they must not like this, that,

or the other thing. It's like, no, man, it's like, it's not compelling enough. It's not engaging enough. It's not resonating in the way. So it's like, get out there and keep tweaking it until people figure it out. And it's like, basically at this point every day we get up and think about like, how do we reach more people? How do we get this message? Like, how do we engage? How do we help more companies and founders? Like that's the game every single day. How do we put out more compelling content and get people to subscribe? Like, you know it, like you're in it. And it's just like this constant process of, uh, re-examining what you're doing and, uh, being super self-aware that like, you don't have it all figured out and it's, it's pretty much a moving target. So like you got to start over again almost every day.

And, and, uh, you gotta be willing to try things and not have them go to plan. And I thought that earlier when you were mentioning how it might seem like you had this clean, linear progression. And I can relate to that too. When I published Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, I guess it was 10 years ago now, I had no connections in the industry. I just self-published it. I thought it was going to sell somewhere between zero and not zero copies.

I had no master plan whatsoever, but I tried and saw a signal in that, oh, this actually people were buying it. It was growing. There was traction and then just followed that signal and figured out how do I make that stronger? And that's something that just as important for anybody listening in business is you generate hypotheses about things that, um, you know, you think might work out and you gotta, you gotta figure out then what's the, what's the easiest and what's the least expensive way in time and money to test this hypothesis. Like, is, is there, is there a signal here or is it just noise? Do I need to go back to the drawing board? And the faster you can iterate on that, the faster you can find something that is worth pursuing seriously. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know

who said it, but it's a strong opinions loosely held. And that's like knowing what you're doing, but also being willing to change or be flexible or double down or back off. And it's like when we first got into, you know, personal training group fitness, now we have a gym and all that stuff. It's like we started a website to get more people to go to the gym and hopefully they would find it on, you know, local search and whatever else, all those reasons. But that turned into, we were writing on the blog. Oh wow. A lot of people are visiting the blog. How did they find this? So then we started, we doubled down on creating content for the blog. And then I started writing for men's health and shape and like all these different. And so we got some level of awareness outside of our local area. And we were like, what do we do now? So we started creating PDFs and workout plans and

information products. Then you started getting, we started getting some traction and awareness among like the broader industry, fitness professionals, the certification companies. And they were like, Hey, can you do this for fitness professionals? And we were like, I guess so. So we started developing like certifications and teach like all the fitness professionals? And we were like, I guess so. So we started developing like certifications and teach like all the things. And it was just like, we were moving generally in that direction, but it was just a matter of saying like,

okay, this thing is working. This thing is not working. Let's go, let's do it again. And we were super fortunate in that at our last company, which was a consumer facing company, website and app and software. We started just publishing. It wasn't even called Fit Insider at the time. It was just a newsletter

to friends. We just put their emails in the, you know, in the recipient line and send it out, you know, once a month or whenever it was. And people were like, we'd love this. Like, can you send it more? Can you send it every week? Can you do a podcast? And so we just kept pulling that string and like, now that is the business. Um, so yeah, it's crazy how those things work out, but very much just like, uh, staying dialed in to what is working, what's not working. And again, being aware enough to know, like we want to go in this general direction and flexible enough to, you know, navigate that as it, as it happens. Yeah, that's great. I love that. It's makes me think of, I don't know who said it, but,

but like in somebody, somebody smart, uh, like in these opportunities that you come across in business to, to whispers. Like many people, they have the wrong idea. They think that great opportunities are like foghorns and they just stop you in your tracks. That rarely is ever the case. It's almost always just a whisper that if you are tuned in and you catch it, you go, maybe we should see where this goes. And sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn't, but yeah, not, not to get, uh, to woo woo, but, um, that's one of

my favorite books is the alchemist. And if you haven't read it, like it is that, and it's the ID. Is that who wrote that? Uh, Paulo, is that Paul? Yeah. Paulo Calo. I'm probably saying it wrong, but, um, but, uh, basically your mission in life is to, to find and pursue your calling. And the only way to do that is be like dialed into it enough to like start taking those steps down the path. And if you do, basically, if you pursue that and commit to it, the whole world will conspire in your favor to make that happen. And it was like I was I don't even know when I read that, probably in like high school, maybe maybe even younger. And it was just like this crazy unlock of like, oh, man, like there is another way that isn't just like. Get the perfect grades, get the job, work your job for 30 years, do like whatever it is. And like,

uh, at that point, cause I went to school to be a, a teacher and I was a, I was a history teacher and, um, you know, a football coach and like, obviously took it, took a turn, uh, down a different path, but, uh, it was all like with that realization that, yeah, there, there is another way. And it's like, if you pursue that, it, these, the whispers, right. The doors, the, everything starts to feel like, oh man, like I, you just have to keep this going and work super hard, but, uh, you gotta be, you know, you gotta pursue it in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, uh, that is great advice. Something I completely agree with. And I won't repeat my version of the story you just told, but it's very similar. When I wrote that first book, it was just because I like books and I like writing.

That's why I wrote it. And a friend of mine at the time, he was training with me. And so I had gotten pretty lean for the first time and I looked pretty good. And he's like, dude, you should just take your shirt off on YouTube and just do like workout videos and sell stuff. Is that when you published the blog? I remember that blog post. It was like how I, whatever, lost whatever weight or gained 30 pounds a month. It was like, it was like the, definitely like launched you into another stratosphere if that's what you're talking about. Oh no. You know, I don't even exactly remember that, but, but this was, this was before bigger, I even wrote bigger than you're stronger. So, you know, I was just some

dude in the gym and who had gotten into pretty good shape and help some other people get into good shape. And I was like, Hmm, this, uh, this could help a lot of people. I like books. I don't care to go on YouTube and take my shirt off. It's just not interesting to me, even though you could make a good business case for it. Uh, you can make a much better business case actually for me, just going and taking my shirt off on YouTube versus writing a book as a self-published author with no connections, nothing like that. That's not a hard business decision to make, but I was not interested in YouTube and I'm still not really interested in YouTube, to be honest. I much still prefer writing over creating YouTube videos, which is why that's what I do with a lot of my time.

But I wrote the book because that's just what interested me. And I like reading, I like books. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to do this just for fun because I think it would, I'm just curious to see if it could go anywhere, if anyone cares. And I put the book up initially for 99 cents on the ebook. There was no audio book. There was no hard copy. It was just a 99 cent ebook. That was Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, the first edition. And I did that only because I was just curious if anybody would read it and care. It sold, I think, 20 copies in the first month. But that to me was actually kind of exciting. I was like it sold, I think 20 copies in the first month, but that, that to me was actually kind of exciting. I was like, yeah, 20 people bought my book. That's cool. And then I think

it sold like 40 the next month. And I was like, that's, that's double what, what it sold in the first month. And, um, and eventually it, you know, kind of picked up from there. And I put an email address in it in the beginning saying, Hey, if you have any questions, send me an email. And so I started getting people asking questions. And so it got up to a point where a little later I was spending probably on average four or five hours per day, just answering emails from people. But that was me just following the signal, very similar to your story. So it's awesome. Yeah. It's a smart way. I think also looking back just for people, people still listening, if you're thinking about getting into business for yourself or, or this would apply also to people who maybe have a certain

level of autonomy inside a company, almost like an intrapreneur type where I do think, and this is something that I certainly will do in all future business endeavors, I think it's very smart to discipline yourself. And this becomes actually even a little bit harder as you become more successful. Because when you have money to throw around, and maybe you have a lot of the work delegated, you have time to throw around. I've seen people make this mistake where they will invest heavily in something that they should have scaled it down and figured out a way again, like what's the idea here? What's the hypothesis of why this should work? How are we going to, what's the value proposition, so to speak? What's unique about this, what's going to appeal about it. And how do I

test this idea as quickly and efficiently as possible, as opposed to, I love this idea. I have money. I have time. I'm going to spend all the, I'm going to, you know, we're going to go two years into development and then it doesn't quite pan out. And,, I'd say, top of mind-ish for me these days with other projects that I want to get into. I've learned that that approach that I just shared is not only the most productive, but also I think the most enjoyable because it is pretty annoying to put a lot of time and money into something and then not have it go nearly as well as you had hoped and then look back and realize where you like the wrong assumptions that you made for example maybe i can think of projects in my case where it was just one wrong assumption really like that part of my hypothesis was wrong and that's why it didn't go nearly as well as it should have or could have if I would have just went back in the beginning and figured out, all right, before I put all this time into this, how do I test this hypothesis? I could have learned that sooner, pivoted and done something that succeeded. Yeah. Look, I'm right there. I would, I would even go a step further and say like, and from, from my experience, look, it's super hard to build a business. Like

it's in all of those challenges and all the things that stack up against you and all the hurdles you have to figure out and navigate. It's like so many times we've gone down the path of like just being hardheaded and stubborn and like banging our head against the wall, like make this thing work, make this thing work. What's it going to take? Try this. Try that. Do this. Do that.

And it was always like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill. Like and at any moment, it's going to roll back down on you. And then there's those times and you talk about like you talk about testing it and being thoughtful about the value proposition and figuring it out like all that. Even if it's less formal than that, like where is the the pull coming from, like the pull from the market telling you that like you should do this? Like and I don't mean in like the whisper way that we talked about with like the alchemist. I mean, in the way like where are people putting money on the table? What are people buying? What are they clicking on? What are they like? What are they asking you for? And it's like, oh, no shit. It's like, I just have to do this and like give people what they actually want, provide the value that they're asking, like actually asking me for, like give them the service for the demand that already exists instead of me just banging my head off the wall over and over again to try to figure this out. And it's like, fortunately, we've there have been times in the whatever the course of our, you know, businesses that that has happened. And there's been times where it hasn't worked. And like now very much with fit insider, it feels like there's that pool that like,

this is the thing that people want. Oh, by the way, we're the people uniquely positioned to be able to deliver that thing. And like, we just got to figure out how to make it the best thing possible. And like, it's all the pieces are right there. As hard as building a business is, it's like, it doesn't have to, and it shouldn't feel impossible at like all times where you're just grinding. So yeah, it's, it's a crazy feeling. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, we could probably keep going and going.

It sounds like, but, um, I, you've been generous with your time, so we should, uh, we should wrap up. Let's, let's share with people where they can find you, where they can find fit insider, anything else in particular that you would want them to know about. Oh yeah. I really appreciate you, you asking and have me on again, but yeah, I would just tell them a fit insider. So it's insider.fit.co.

We put out a weekly newsletter with two T's, right? Oh, correct. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to put the link in, but for people who aren't seeing the links. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate that. Insider.fitwithtwotts, F-I-T-T dot C-O. Newsletter, podcast, website, industry news, analysis, reports.

We create a bunch of different resources like an industry specific jobs board, an investor directory. So if you're an early stage company or founder looking for funding, like we help connect people there. And then we also invest in companies and founders that are building in this space. And so, yeah, if anything we talked about today was interesting, you'll probably like the stuff that we do over there. You had mentioned hybrid, hybrid athlete.

I think I did come across that some time ago, but I didn't connect the name. So we ended up selling it a little while back, so we don't still run it, but yeah, that was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just, uh, anyway, I came across fitness. I was like, this is cool. I like this. And so here we are. Awesome, man. But, uh, but Hey, thanks again. And maybe, maybe in a couple of months we can do another one. If, uh, if there's enough new, interesting things to talk about anytime, like of months, we can do another one if there's enough new interesting things to talk about. Anytime. Like you said, we could probably keep jamming all day.

So you say when. Cool. Thank you. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future.

I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.