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Yeah, and I we weren't going to originally start in this direction But since you listen to the only episode where I think we really probably went after tonal a little bit Yeah, I do want to bring that up and I do want before I I bring it up or we go here I do want to preface it by when we talked about it The the main thing was the valuation that just was Mind-balling for us like because we've been in the fitness space for a very long time We've seen lots of fitness products come and go very very Aware of you know valuations on companies and to see that valuation on a on a business That's this new and this early already was just like blew all of our minds So we course had to speculate and talk about it and of course we got into some debates I got in a good debate with one of my buddies But what this is what led to this conversation said well, you know, we'll fuck it Let me just reach out to the CEO He's right up the road and let's let's have a conversation and let's let's hear it from the horse's mouth Like how the hell did the company explain yourself? Yeah, it was it was a 1.6 billion right when you got you guys You were able to raise an additional quarter quarter billion dollars with that so total I think total raise was what 450? overall right today and It felt like you're getting you like you guys got valued like a tech company would and not like a fitness company That's what we talked about in the show that you listen to by the way when you listen to our episode where you like These guys no no not at all I mean I think I was I was watching I was watching the episode and you guys were going going back and forth and Like putting out all the theories like how could this company be worth? 6 billion and you had all these hypotheses and I think one of you one of you actually nailed it one of you I remember I don't remember who but one of you said the only way a technology company or is it sorry Fitness company can be worth 1.6 billion dollars is if they could actually get people to work out consistently Like not like other fitness equipment where you like you sell them something and like six months later It's a towel rack right if you could sell them something and actually get them to work out consistently Then I could see how a company could be worth that much and and that's actually exactly the answer We people who buy tunnels work out consistently. It's one of the most consistently used products in the world It's just it's incredible and the product was designed to do that And it was structured so that our interests would be aligned with with our members Where like we wake up every morning, and I don't check our sales metrics I check our engagement metrics. I see how many people worked out. I see how long they worked out That's what we kind of live and die by okay, and that that's really the answer. The other thing is it was it's like been six years So this was not this was not an overnight success. I mean I started the company back in 2015 I'm happy to share those early early stories if you want, but it was like a six-year bill to this right So when you when you say that it's one of the most used is that most used pieces of fitness equipment or just Tools in general like what it what do you when you say that it's it's used so much in comparison to what well Let me let me just give you an example an example metric People who buy a tonal like it comes with a map with a monthly monthly subscription service Where you're you're based paying to have all of our coaching content and all the AI that personalizes the workouts In any given month the cancellation rate is about 0.1% wow right so 99.9 percent retention month over month and you look at that metric and like Netflix You know they lose about 2% a month right so You know and we're at 0.1% and Netflix is something like people don't quit they use it forever They enjoy it they binge watch And so it's it's when you're able to actually deliver results to people and and and get them to use the product in a way That actually improves their lives well They just keep using it and they they remain members and that's that's what drives that so I gotta dive into those numbers because that is okay, this is mind-boggling to me because and no wonder it get evaluated like that because We know what the average person falls off for a gym membership I mean you you get a gym membership and you start working out for like 60 to 70 percent I think it's six months. That's right. Yeah within six months And so you're telling me we're you're retaining 90 plus percent. Well, hold on So the way that the model correct me if I'm wrong right you buy the tonal piece of equipment average costs $3,000 or so right and then you're required to do a 12 month membership initially and then after that are people month A month. Yep. Okay when you're looking at the metrics of people sticking around Are you looking at the the second year? Is that what is that we're talking about? So there's a lot of ways of measuring so one is you just look at the entire the entire like customer base And you look at what your monthly turn is the other thing you look at is you can look at on a cohort basis So like hey, let's look at everyone who started in like January 2019 and now we're like, you know 26 months later. How many of them are still used it's still in like the mid 90s The percent okay, and so and what's the what's the kid? What's the usage look like right for these people daily weekly monthly? So 40 minute sessions on average About 14 point something times per month so in a given 30 day window it's about 14 times Yeah, so but every other day on average almost every other day. That's insane 40 minutes Yeah, how many and I'm skeptical not be none of those metrics but skeptical that what that's gonna potentially mean in the future We can get into that and it's just again. It's based on my experience as a trainer But let's let's talk a little bit more about that how many Members do you guys have when like you started selling memberships early day one six years? I'm assuming most of your sales probably happened in terms of the bulk of your Your your product and your memberships probably in the last couple years. I would assume COVID Probably caused a big spike in sales and production So how many total members you have and then how many was a growth curve. Yeah, what it looked like Yeah, yeah, so let's let's let's maybe like back up and talk about it is okay I mean, yeah, let's talk about like what is it right? What is it and why why do people use it so much and then we can talk about kind of like the growth the growth path? But but you know, I started the company back in in 2015, right? And so, you know, my my career started in late 90s I was working for Hewlett Packard in the super computing lab designing computer chips So, you know, you are right. I did start in tech, right and and back then if you came to me in the late 90s that Ali one day you're gonna be the CEO of a fitness company I would have like fallen out of my chair laughing like had no idea. I was you know, I was overweight I was like literally the chubby kid wore glasses could code since I was like seven years old Designing computer chips 15 years in technology here right here in Silicon Valley I was actually over in Sunnyvale not too far up the road from where your studio is and then by the time I'm about 35 years old. I'm overweight. I have type 2 diabetes. I have sleep apnea So I decided that I'm gonna get healthy. I quit my job. I focus entirely on getting healthy I lose 70 pounds in about nine months And there's that entire journey of like learning how to get fit and learning how to eat well And learning a cardio is not gonna get me there. Like I remember this moment where like I'm a few weeks in I've lost a bunch of weight. I plateaued. I'm on a treadmill or a bike and I'm looking out I'm like, how come all the personal trainers are in the weight room, right? And you go like try and walk into the weight room and well, you're in there and it's intimidating You don't know what to do and you you know, you kind of do the obligatory bicep curl and bench press But you know that entire journey and and by the end of all that I've lost all this weight I'm sitting at the gym one morning and I'm thinking to myself and this is this is kind of the moment where it all started I'm thinking to myself.  It's gonna be really intense. It's gonna be long hours How am I gonna stay healthy? How am I gonna come to the gym every day at 6 a.m. In the morning? And I just wanted to take this giant cable crossover machine that I was using shrink it down and bring it into the home And that's that's how total was born I realized that if I could create a strength training system that ran on electricity Instead of big metal plates and gravity that I could shrink it down and once it runs on electricity. It's electronic You can make it smart. You can make it intelligent You can tie died tie data into it and you can start to build build the equivalent of a personal trainer right into it And so that was the goal from day one is can I build the equivalent of personal trainer? And can I make it convenient enough where if it's in the home people will actually use it, right? and so You know and I went home ordered some parts three and a half years of technology development And then by 2018 late 2018, that's when we we announced tonal and begin selling it Okay, so so years of development like dozens of patents You know a large large team to like bring this really technologically revolutionary thing to to market But at the end of the day when you when you ask the question, right? Like how are we driving that engagement? Well, the reason people fall off the gym is because they got to drive there every morning And with tonal you don't have to drive. You don't have to drive to the gym It's right there you get up and you can go work out within five minutes you you're up at the tonal You're working out. You're warmed up You don't even have to put your shoes on because most people don't don't put their shoes on They just they just work out in the comfort and convenience of their home. You have amazing routines And you have personalization where we're making all the decisions for you that a personal trainer would we're Choosing how much weight you should lift we're choosing when that deciding when that weight should go up or down We're giving you feedback on your form. And so if you make it convenient you give people great workouts Of course, they're gonna use it now Here's where I'm skeptical with that because what you're saying sounds great And I agree that driving to the gym plays somewhat of a role I agree that you know having your workout set up for you probably helps But here's a deal I know what the statistics are for people who have home equipment and I mean, you know Dumbbells barbells like very versatile like the most versatile piece of equipment you could ever own as a dumbbell or a barbell They could do anything with it. I also know what the statistics are with Live personal trainers like trainers actually train people in person They don't come close to the numbers that you're giving me which is why I'm skeptical because I know people get it's at home You can work out whenever you want resistance training by the way I want to I want to commend you on that observation. That's a hundred percent right resistance training is The superior form of exercise especially when it comes to weight loss and health Especially if you're not working out that often so great job there Personal training makes a tremendous difference, especially when it's live, but those numbers I know what the numbers are with with phenomenal trainers. They still don't come close to what you're saying with this 0.01 percent, you know or whatever 1% Drop off and what it reminds me of is what I've seen so many times in the fitness industry where I remember You know at one point I was part of 24 fitness when they were exploding eventually they sold for a couple billion dollars I remember when curves came on the scene. I don't know if you remember them They were this small pneumatic equipment, you know kind of facility that was targeting women who were uncomfortable working out the gym They at one point became the fastest growing franchise Crazy usage people are showing up. It's incredible. They eventually plummeted CrossFit I remember CrossFit did the same thing they tapped into the kind of group model where you've got people working out with you Community base which is also very important that makes a big difference. You also saw them do this type of thing And so that's the that's the skeptic skepticism. I have by the way, I think your equipment's great I think what it does great, but my skepticism is on this this consistency model because in my experience as a trainer It's not about the equipment. It's not about the convenience those play roles But what gets people consistent is is far deeper and more challenging than that and so but I do know that your equipment includes Technology and includes data and I can't help but think that that also played a role in the valuation I've seen companies get valued very high because they're able to collect lots of data on their users What does that look like? What kind of data is it working with? What is it collecting? well You're right, but it's not it's not for the reason the reason you think so yeah We have a lot of data. In fact, you know you use a dumbbell today Yes, dumbbells may be versatile, but what they don't have is they don't have data flowing in and out of them, right? So, you know, they're dumb They're literally dumb They can't be connected to a computer and creating the world's first electronic digital strength training machine is what allowed us to To make it smart by connecting it to a computer and connecting it to the internet and that means there's data flowing in two directions We're getting a lot of data out of the system where we can see you know your power your range of motion your acceleration your form We have accelerometers and the handles so we can measure motion through three You know the three dimensions we have a camera and you put all that stuff together and now what we have Effectively is all of this data on on you know our on our individual user And what we do is we use that to personalize the workout the second thing we do and we're talking about data and in two Directions is this motion notion of command and control and that's a technical term But what it means you can't ask a 40 pound dumbbell to instantly become 38 pounds, right? That's exactly what you can do it You can with a tonal you can be in the middle of a bicep curl and the AI is looking at all this data and it's saying oh They're not they're not gonna finish the set right there They're gonna struggle the last two reps and the spotter kicks in and it just ticks ticks the resistance down by one or two Pounds and they're able to finish, you know finish that set in that responsiveness and that that reactivity We're not the data is there for us to make better workouts and to better personalize the workouts to every single individual We're using all that data to understand you better Everything you do on tonal is a little mini test. We're like, hey, we want you to do, you know 12 deadlifts at you know 176 pounds and that was our that's that's what we believe you can do But we're also testing you to see how are they doing at that? How's their range of motion? How's their power output?  Well, what does that mean for what does that mean for your squad? Right for instance, so all that data is about being smarter about you But it's also about being strong smarter about just physiology in the community in general You go back and you pull research on like everything we know about strength training and like what are those research studies? They're like 25 25 college freshmen at such and such institution for one semester and Now when you're talking about, you know tens or eventually hundreds of thousands of users not over one year About over five years or ten years That's literally like the largest strength training physiology data set in history Like we are pushing the limits on physiology. We're asking physiologists questions. They've literally never been asked before We're commissioning original research to answer those questions. We're working with institutions like that data Isn't about trying to sell you something like on Facebook. We take privacy very seriously That data is about making better workouts better workouts equals better results better results equals better consistency Right. So I have a question and along the lines of like personalizing. This is one of the greatest challenges We as a trainer and coach we've always had even in person It's also one of the biggest hurdles and places that we thought we were most vulnerable when we started to sell digital programs online So that's how we monetize right or one of the ways that we monetize is through selling digital programs And when we sat down and wrote these programs what we were very aware was okay I know when I personal trainer client that I'm calling audibles all the time. They're no client There's no two clients following the exact same program So I have to always adjust now How are we going to sell a program to the masses with integrity and know that we do that? Well, that's where the podcast came in was okay We're gonna sell these programs, but then we're also gonna communicate to them like they need to learn to assess Themself and do these things so how are you? I mean you talked about some of the things you're researching with it But what exactly are you guys? Personalizing for these clients to make it individualized for them It's it's a lot of different things and one thing I want to be clear about is something I think you you touched on which you know We we're not trying to like have AI just spit out a workout program for for someone out of out of the blue Right what we look at it is we have coaches on our platform and those coaches are creating programs And the AI is taking those programs and further personalizing them So we actually consider it kind of like a superhuman coach It's a it's a human coach who created a program who stood in a studio in front of a camera and filmed the workout But then the AI coming in and taking it a step further and personalizing it So what are we personalizing? We're personalizing the weight selections How much how much weight are you lifting for every single rep and we'll adjust the weight mid rep? We'll adjust the weight set to set day to day We're personalizing the pacing of the workouts So, you know, you all know like if I suck a video and just had you try to follow it Like across video and try to follow it you'd be you know one person might be falling behind one person might be ahead And so we're actually like adjusting the pacing of the workouts and the edit our videos aren't actually pre-edited They're they're edited as you work out And so that's how we're able to adjust pace. We're also able to adjust instruction and form feedback So all of that all of those sensors are giving us data on you and we're able to use that to give you Better feedback on your form. Hey try going a little deeper into into your squad. Hey, don't shrug your shoulders Hey, don't do this or hey, remember to do that And and it's as much of that as possible I mean at the end of the day like this is always the conundrum with you know with with ai Versus versus a human coach is you know, what we can do is we can take We can take like the notion of personal training and and democratize it Such a small percentage of the us population today gets to benefit from Personal training one-on-one consistently for a long period of time And if you can take it and make it more convenient so a much much larger percentage of the population can access it But it's ai driven. Well, you're going to get things that ai can deliver that a real personal trainer cannot But there's also things that a personal trainer like you and being has that ai ai can't I don't know if it democratizes it though because that this the the thing that that the barrier that tends to Prevent people from hiring trainers isn't the convenience trainers extremely convenient to go to your house It's the cost and the cost of your product is about as much as it will cost to hire a trainer You know, it's a $3,000 plus entry fee and then there's a monthly fee on top of it, which is Higher than most gyms. In fact, I wanted I wanted to go back and circle back to the amount of members You have because I do have a question around that Are you able to share the amount of users that are currently using your product? Well, we can't we can't share financials But what we can say is it's in the tens of thousands so you have tens of thousands of people So here and to give you since last year we grew 8x year every year Okay, and so you started like projecting those growth rates forward and so so so out of your tens of thousands It's a fair to say that a nice chunk of that happened recently Relatively recently a couple years. Well, I mean if we grew 8x year, yeah, yeah, okay So you have tens of thousands of people big chunk of that is kind of recent It's in the tens of thousands Which is a decent chunk still not huge in terms of users when you compare it to other You know other things but there may be a bit of a self-selection bias and what I mean by that is When you look at the consistency and the the stickiness of members in like I don't know fitness 19 or a planet fitness where people are paying 20 bucks a month or 10 bucks a month and you compare them to a country club Where someone's paying 200 bucks a month or 300 bucks a month The retention is far higher with the country club than there is with the the low entry type of fitness Because your product is a high entry in comparison There that might play a role in some of the stickiness and then also a big chunk of your people just came on You know, I'm very curious to see what happens four or five years from now Because fitness tends to be plagued by this New thing, you know kind of phenomena, right the new thing that comes in everybody's doing it. It's really great It's just going to solve fitness and then it becomes less popular as something else I mean we could sit here all day and we could speculate but I would imagine I'll be in the ceo and founder Where do you see yourself most vulnerable? So let's let's let's answer the question in a few different ways So so here you have effectively what I'm going to call the most versatile piece of fitness equipment ever created Right and I'm going to say more versatile than a dumbbell more versatile than any cable machine The weight adjusts dynamically it can do eccentric overload So you can do a bicep curl with 40 pounds on the way up and 50 pounds I can get behind that I can get behind that bottom built. So so most versatile piece of equipment ever created It's already in your home. Um, it's affordable, right? So with the financing programs. It's $149 a month So that's the monthly subscription. That's the hardware delivery installation accessory. How long is that financing? That's 36 months. Okay. So three years 149 bucks a month And then after that it's 49 a month because you're just paying the membership keys and the hard the hard Where's fully paid off at that point, right? So 149, you know, you compare that to like a gym membership You can compare that to a personal trainer. I'm going to argue that's that's affordable. Sure It's already in your home, right? And so then the question for us is like where where are we most vulnerable? We're our vulnerability is when we don't wake up every day and ask ourselves Why are people working out and what do we need to do to keep them consistent? And that's literally like that's that is our business model. That is what drove that valuation for the business And that is where our incentives are aligned with the incentives of of our member base Is you know, the deal is very simple if we can keep you working out for the rest of your life into old age You're going to keep paying us 49 dollars a month and we wake up and like we view it as like that's our that's our You know, that's our business model. That's our business to lose. And so what happens five years from now? Well, how is the world changing? How have we reacted to it? We have an incredibly versatile piece of equipment We have a 24 inch screen. We have a mobile app That's in the user's pocket in our member's pocket with them wherever they go And how are we going to use those things to keep people working out? And so At some point it may become more about education. It may become about, you know, giving them different types of routines It might be about Understanding that when people do begin to fall off the wagon because maybe they had a life event Maybe they had a kid. How'd you adapt the workouts? How'd you adapt the programming? You know, and so Yeah, I mean you are you are right in that people like it's not like people like by a tonal And they're working out 40 minutes A day, you know every other day And every single member does that in perpetuity like that's the average But you start breaking it up into cohorts and groups of people You see people who like fall off and then we start like hitting them with email with email campaigns to try and get them back Or push notifications or we try getting them into like we have we have these things that we call fitness snacks We're like, hey, just it's only seven minutes Just try one of our seven-minute workouts and you're trying to like basically win them back and get them back into it But at the end of the day, I think the the answer to your question is You know, there isn't like a silver bullet. There isn't a magic formula Um What it is it's a team of people who's like job incentive their life blood Like we live and die by this and we're gonna pull out pull all the stops and do everything we can to keep people working out For the rest of their lives Hey, look, I tell you what I like your message and I think I like your approach But I do want to say that and I hate to be the you know, what do they say the turd in the punch ball, right? But I hate to say this but that getting people to work out all the time is always everybody's Focus in every the godfather of the gym industry mark master off or ray wilson or you know Are what we try to do or anybody else that's always the thing that you're trying to focus on It's such a hard challenge and I will say it's like if you solve that Not only will your company be worth 1.6 billion I would say considering that obesity is A worldwide modern uh epidemic you would become the most wealthy company in the world I think you would surpass google if you could do that. So it's a very lofty thing to do Um commendable that you're trying to attack it very very challenging So what so it seems to me like the the 10 the tens of thousands of users the recent growth It seems to me like they're like projecting. Oh, this is gonna be something that's going to be huge In 10 years or whatever whereas fitness companies tend to get valued on Three times what they're earning now. It sounds like you're getting valued on what we're probably gonna do What we think we may do based off of our trajectory in the next five to 10 years It feels like and that's why that's why I made that comment. It's getting valued like a tech company I remember when Netflix got valued they weren't even making any money But they were basing it on their users and projections. Oh, that's tough with fitness So brass brass tax companies value it's valued on discounted cash flows Based on the number of tonals they expect us to sell in the next 12 months And an assumption that all of those people Continue to pay us that subscription for four years. Got it. So you you take that cash flow model You do discounted cash flow. That's how you get to 1.6 billion, right? And and at the end of the day, that's not even that's not even accounting for like my vision and what you just said Like that is our vision. That's yeah, that's what the investors believe They're not they're not just valuing it at 1.6 billion today They paid that price because they what you just said is what they're banking on us Possibly being able to pull off and becoming one of the most valuable valuable businesses And and it's to the benefit of of all of our members. That's where our incentives are aligned And so two years from now three years from now, maybe we've grown by another 10x, right? And we have 10 times as many people and again, we're working to keep them working out keep them keep them healthy And and we're not just approaching it as like, you know, you know, you talked about this thing last time about like It's not about binge exercise. It's 100 about consistency. You keep people consistent and you keep growing your community And and everyone wins, right? And that's that's what those investors were banking on But for me, I don't like I don't wake up every day and like look at the stock price Like that's not that's not how I think no, you're looking at the retention We're looking at the engagement metrics. We're looking at like how and how do we how do we basically Make people's lives better because if you just do that if you realize That if you make people's lives better if you get them to work out consistently and if you start to think more holistically It's why we rolled out like pre and post natal You know workouts, you know last, you know, but I think about seven or eight months ago Right, you start thinking about how you're going to basically serve people better and make their lives better Everyone wins and that's that's what I wake up with and and you just have faith that everything else rolls out Like I didn't build a discounted cash flow model some analyst who works for dragon year did But I'm sure that you know the more of this we do the more they'll be happier and that's how you fund the business Now the programming side of it. I'm just I'm curious as to where You're finding your coaches and like, you know, what kind of qualifications you're looking for like what kind of I mean, do you have a whole like scientific staff you've brought in to kind of bring in that that health and fitness You know education. Yeah, I mean we we started with that from the very beginning So I think a lot of a lot of what happens in the world of group fitness And if you look at the connected fitness sector in general, right, you're talking about like Bikes in the home trying to deliver like a soul cycle like experienced or what have you Um, or you look at what's happening with like growing and treadmill like a lot of what's going on with connected fitness It's about group fitness and it's really about entertainment, right? We're going to take a piece of equipment bring it into your home and we talk a lot about that and entertaining group fitness experience to you And we did not start with entertainment as our core pillar like look it has to be fun, right? The the worst workout in the world. I don't care how scientifically advanced it is and like if it's been blessed by 20 physiologists If people aren't doing it, that's right. That's right. Yeah, it does right So so look it has to be fun. It has to be it has to be effective Um, and our our promise is like get get faster stronger It's like how can we basically give you the best workout in the shortest shortest amount of time? And so when we went and you know recruited our first crop of coaches, um, we we didn't we didn't go get entertainers We got real coaches We're talking about people who have like, you know, like one of one of them was studying to do our phd and injury prevention Um, coaches have worked up at at a gym in San Francisco. Diccati, which some of you might have heard of Really really legit legit Legit training gym with like some of the best trainers in the country And we started going around the nation like looking for these people And then we also started building like a layer of like an advisory board and people who are experts And we haven't announced a lot of this stuff yet There's there's a bunch of announcements coming in the next several months But a lot of it has to do with just like Trying to make sure that what we're doing is also scientifically sound How can we leverage what we know about physiology and how can we contribute back to the the science of physiology To give people better workouts We're also running like clinical trials with a male clinic for like the use of tonal and rehab applications So like we're we are nerds when it comes to this stuff I wanted I wanted Justin took a left I want to go back to where you were at because what i'm curious about because you the thing that I I'm still hung up on it. I can't believe the retention rate the retention rate and the usage is is mind boggling to me Even as and I think we all agree how amazing it is. I think and what you did as far as building it that way I commend everything you've done When you wake up and you look at that If it goes and it's at 90 something percent Where does it get scary for you? How at what point do you go like okay? This could become a problem And I mean obviously you're always wanting to keep up But I know you're a realistic guy you probably know that it's not going to stay at 95 forever. Where do you go? Oh shit? so Where it gets scary for me is it's not it's not about like Some metric like crossing from threshold Because the truth is we don't look at our we don't look at our community as a monolith Right. I mean, I mean it's easy to say like here's you know Here's the big group and look at how few we actually like break it up into like the little slivers and we're like Why is this group falling off? Right? Why why are people who seem to have this this profile? Why are they you know as a as a small group? But why is a small group beginning to fall off and can we call them and can we figure out what what they need and what happened? So for us, it's it's about looking for those canaries of the coal mine of not You know, it's it's not going to be this thing Where like suddenly the entire community is just going to like fall off a cliff But it's going to be this thing where you're going to find these little pockets which are going to begin to like fall off in terms of their behavior and And if you don't figure out why that's happening That could end up spreading you could find like other other pockets begin to have the same thing And so that's really like our paranoia is about looking for like the little groups of people who Who like are starting to like not be consistent or they're falling off or what have you What have you learned so far in that area? Is there something that you've learned or seen already? Well, we've we've seen a few things, right? So the first thing that we've seen Is is the way people use the product in the first month is a predictor of how they're going to behave forever So those people who get the tone get a tonal and they use it 30 times in 30 days I can pretty much guarantee you that they're going to use the tonal at least 20 times a month forever Wow, right. So so there's this there's this element of like within that group of people It's like self-motivated consistency And the people who use the tonal who get the tonal and they're super super like sporadic Like they get it and they use it seven days in a row and then they fall off for 10 days and then use it twice and And and people who are more they're going to be they're actually going to be sporadic forever And they're the ones who are more likely going to like, you know, they may never like Completely fall off, but they might go like three weeks stands or five weeks stands without using it And then they come back And you got it you got to take a very very different approach with those two different groups of people In one group you're keeping them, you know You're keeping them motivated by showing them their progress over time And we have metrics like strength score and you can drill down to any particular exercise and see your progress And and they're just looking to constantly be challenged and if you can show them the journey It just motivates them to stay even more consistent But with the sporadic group, right?   I'm gonna be honest with you You understand the benefit of strength training. You understand, uh, you know, how people get fit and stay consistent better Um than some of these other companies I've heard and I think that's phenomenal Now there is a another question that I have and I know one of your competitors I don't know if you want to call them a competitor peloton Um did very well during the pandemic and then they hit a snag where The demand, uh, was so high that their supply couldn't meet that demand and it actually tanked their stock I know this because I during the pandemic. I thought this would be a great company to invest in because I could see people moving to Home fitness because gyms were closed Um, have you guys run into anything like that yet because you also have this kind of advanced piece of technology People need to have delivered. How does that look for you guys? We got the same problem online I mean as as we sit today, right if you order a tonal, it's 10 at least 10 weeks before you get it installed Sometimes as long as 12 weeks, right? And so it was like it's a 10 to 12 week delivery period from when you order today And that's you know, that's a combination of like the the sharp increase of demand that we saw last year We responded by you know increasing production So we took our first factory and we increased production there by 6x And then we went and got a whole second factory and brought that online and that one's producing about the same now So we have two factories producing tonals. We produce way more tonals every week than we sell because we're trying to clear that backlog of orders Um, but the thing you have to realize during the last year is the world was also falling apart, right? Um getting tonals across the ocean on boats right now like international logistics It used to be you could stick a tonal on a boat and you know 27 days later it would arrive in san francisco Now it's taking like 70 80 days just across the ocean. There's like ports are clogged Trucking is like falling apart. I would assume supply chains too with maybe even parts and things that you need to put on there There's a global semiconductor shortage was kind of what you might be alluding to yeah, there's that There are other things like here's here's a funny story But you know like it's tonal is a cable system that cable that rope that you pull on That's actually like high performance sailing rope That comes from a factory in in italy and they make like this rope for like sailboats, right? Italy was the first place to get hit by the pandemic right in the west And that factory shut down and like they're like they're like we're under quarantine and we're like no no you don't understand We need you know, we need like a million kilometers of this rope. Can you can you get it to us? Oh, and the owner of the factory like literally smuggled some rope out and like shipped it to our factory Oh, wow And then it's like keeping stuff moving like scaling adex and keeping stuff moving when the world around you is falling apart As it's really really hard that's gotta be the most frustrating thing. It's also though.  I ain't ever seen them You don't say the motivation is yeah Even if they spend the money and they're getting deducted the money on the calendar Because fitness is such an An emotional decision for so many people right they wake up one day They look at themselves in the mirror. They go. Oh my god. I'm fat I feel they feel bad about themselves and that motivates them to go do something about it They go do to something and if they if I did something about it, you can lose them Yeah, go somewhere else. So the fact that they still wait Use it and then use it consistently is incredibly impressive. You know, it's it's kind of like christmas They're waiting they're waiting like they're looking forward to it and they're counting down the days And like they're going on on our community on facebook and they're like posting and they're like Three weeks to go and like they're you know, it's for them It is it is a it is a big moment and like trust me I would rather have the tunnels in their homes than sitting on boats in the ocean right now And we're doing everything we can and I by the I just hired a new chief operations officer or vice president of logistics The vice president of plant like we're like staffing up as much as we can that's got to be the most Frustrating thing as a business owner to see the demand in the problem is you I can't give you the product And you just ah, that's like money. Just like that's one of the world I remember when we first started the podcast we would talk about What if things exploded somebody gave us money and Adam made a great point We wouldn't know to do with it because We don't know yet and it would have been it would be a total waste and I wasted it all Yeah, so do you have strategies like in the in the interim because How long let me ask you this how long do you think until you guys are able to meet the demand So that when people buy the product they can get it within a reasonable time So our current projections are July. So we think that oh, wow, you know, you order now you're gonna You know, you'll get it, you know, you'll get it by like, you know, Junish but you order in July you might get it in august So like the the wait times are definitely coming down with one little caveat Which is historically in the past every time we like get enough product here that we actually lower the wait times Because we're able to like clear a bunch of the that order that order backlog Demand goes up commensurably and so it's like you're like, uh, okay We just like now it's no longer 10 to 12 weeks now It's like six to eight weeks and suddenly a whole bunch of orders start coming in because All those people who are like waiting for the wait times And so assuming that we don't have a lot of that happening by the summertime We should be much is that we're a majority of the investment that you've got You guys got is that where you're you're using this is to figure out that that problem right there How do we get the product made and delivered to meet demand? A lot of it a lot of it is going there. So so our investments are number one a lot and like supply chain manufacturing logistics customer care Right, you got you know 10 20 times as many users as you did 10 18 months ago This is right 12 or 18 months ago and there's a lot more work to do there Right and so a lot of investments are going there. We have a lot of investments going into product and so content Um, we're going to be producing way way more content than we we produce today And and we're continually upping the quality of the production quality You know right now we're only on demand and like a lot of people ask us when are you going to be live? Like it's obvious at some point we're going to be live So those are those are also like live class Like you're on someone's just pre-recorded right now. Yeah, exactly Exactly now it's it's a big screen right that projects like is there are you do you have plans for like other? Entertainment and stuff to be presented on that or is a pure fitness It's pure fitness But when we when we think about scaling content and we already have about a dozen different modalities So we have yoga. We have Pilates. We have we have hit classes boot camp classes So we have we have a lot of different stuff and again when you're driving consistency Right, we think of like strength training as the trunk, but we also want to cover all the branches, right? So investments there investments in ai in the intelligence the personalization Like the more personalized you can make it I think the better better will be for for our members like the more they can use it The more they're going to get results results keep you coming back Right, and then and then of course so that's that's another you know another another big investment Um, and then the third one is just on marketing like let's be honest Um people who know about tonal people who've touched tonal they they they have the religion, right? I have never like in years of of talking about tonal. I have never been able to overhype the product Um, none of you have touched it, right? None of you physically touch one No, I was I was in the mall and I saw one, but I didn't do anything I promise you that when you go touch one You're going to like look at me and say all the if this thing far exceeded my I had no idea this thing's amazing I'm really strong though. I don't go to 200 pounds You know this is kind of power All I'm going to say is you'd be surprised 200 pounds on tonal is not like 200 pounds Oh, really? There's no there's no momentum or like it's he gets slowed at this It slows down the eccentric portion of the exercise to you. So yeah, there's these two arms. Yeah, there's the Maggots for me. There's the there's the eccentric and then there's also the the momentum and inertia isn't there So you don't get to you don't get to like generate all your power in the first 10% of the wrap And so it's way way harder and and it's a product where like I literally have I've not figured out the set of words to like over hype it No matter what I say people touch it and they're like, wow, this thing's amazing Right, and so it's fair to say we also have a lot of investments to make in marketing To get more and more people aware of what this thing is and how amazing it is And it's kind of like the journey we took with with electric cars Like when we were kids We were always told that electric cars were like they were the alternative for the environmental nuts If you're an environmental nut, you're going to drive electric, but you're compromising, right? And anyone who's serious about about cars was always going to drive combustion engines And now you get in a test line you realize that a car like that can outperform a combustion engine in every dimension Acceleration emissions reliability range like you can do better in every single dimension And that's kind of the moment that people have when they touch a tunnel for the first time They begin reevaluating a lot of what they thought they knew they knew about you know about about equipment Now that's a great elevator pitch. Oh, yeah And I still haven't overhyped it. I promise You you got to touch it. So you guys, I mean, you're pretty much focused on like the general public and just trying The main objective is to get people using them becoming more healthy in their habits Do you have any plans on because you're seeing all this data and all this uh, these analytics of like how to Adjust things to squeeze out that the maximal amount of performance Like where do we see this as being like maybe an alternative being all just high performance driven and in sort of the Sports performance direction. We have been pulled into that world So we we we have been pulled in so we got pulled into the world of physical therapy And rehab and and again, we haven't gone deep in there yet because again, we have this this focus on consumers And that was like the male clinic clinical trials we were talking about We've also been pulled into the world of pro athletics where we have a lot of pro athletes using using tonal to train A lot of strength and condition coaches are using it We've actually had about two dozen athletes like personally invest invest in the company And in the Orlando bubble about half the teams were using tonals Like they were they were like, you know, they were they had to go set up these makeshift gyms and You know for them like they're like, well, we're going to get tonals because it works in a compact space It's smart. We get data. We don't have like the million dollar facility that we were used to And now those trained those tons will like follow them back like after they left the bubble A lot of them took took them with them Um, and so like we're we're starting to get more and more into that world and you know For us, it's like it's fun and it's exciting, you know to be in the world of pro sports But we also are cognizant of the fact that like we also don't want it to become a distraction from our core mission Right our core mission is like hundreds of millions of americans. We need to be more fit. We need to be more healthy Right, uh, and um, and you can have you can have a lot of fun along the way But you know, you can't you can't forget your mission. You gotta keep the main thing the main thing There's a couple things that I think you did really good. Uh, one is it's a cable System so it allows for you know fluid movement. That's way more Individualizable than a machine that's stuck on a track or in a particular This way free weights are so good because free weights allow you to move in all kinds of different directions The second thing that you did that's really good And I have not heard this from people in your space Is that you said strength training is the trunk and then the branches is everything else as trainers That's 100% accurate and correct. I want to go back to the the you know The 200 pounds that you guys advertise as the max load or whatever and you said it's different than 200 Because I know 200 pounds for for me in the gym You know, there's some exercise it could do with that but for other exercises It's it's not nearly enough weight or whatever or do you have anybody have you had people say hey This is not enough resistance. Where's that not an issue at all? It is not an issue at all. We we are not we are not having people tell us that it's not It's not enough resistance for them.  It is a lot of resistance now Don't get me wrong if you are if you are like a football player Um, and it's you know, you you're probably doing 800 pound squats and we're not we're not substituting for that But if you're talking about, you know, general population, even people who are strong and have been going to the gym for years It's way way more than adequate. Um, and at some point The more like especially with mass like when you're building lifting freeways The more you lift, um, the more injury prone you are and at some point you start adapting the protocols, you know Okay, well, look, we're gonna we don't need to necessarily lift 300 pounds We can lift 200 pounds with in a system with no momentum and no no inertia eccentric overload and all these other protocols But we're gonna add on an extra set or we're gonna, you know, we're gonna do something a little different with the protocols Um, because like you have someone who's also working out at home alone, right?  So you're you're you're finding different ways to increase the intensity or tension to continue What happens when we get a glitch like what like what what I'm just curious because like a lot of things are software driven now and and we're we're kind of moving on this digital space We know we know what's going to happen with with weights. We know we know what that looks like Now what happens when we get somebody that's holding on to these cables?  I just want to hear you think your way through that Sure. So, um, I mean, this is this is a question of like safety Just like how do you how do you deal with safety and how do you engineer a system like this this for safety? and the The answer is just kind of traditionally speaking the way you you engineer these things Is you kind of take the part of the system where safety matters the most and you isolate it, right? And so for us, we actually have not one but two computers on a tunnel We have the big kind of it's a it's actually like an android base 24 inch tablet You never see android. It's all hidden behind the scene, but but we call we think of that as the entertainment system That's where you see the coaches. That's where you see the videos. That's where the ui is But that is not where where the important stuff happens Um, there's a whole separate computer that's dedicated to controlling the electromagnetics the digital resistance And that's a really really kind of small concentrated highly q8 system certified By by safety regulators at ul like we we basically have gone through entire like safety And regulatory processes to make sure that the underlying technology and the digital weights are safe And we've even built like emergency brake systems in there So like if there's a power failure, like you don't tension doesn't go to zero instantly There's there's a brake that kicks in and and so like you have to think through this stuff, right? And um, and I I called up people and like the medical devices, you know World in the early days. I'm like, hey when you're making like a robot that like does surgery on someone How'd you make sure it's safe? Right and and like you you get you know You start to like learn how they're thinking about the world and how you isolate things and You got to ask yourself well if this thing fails what kicks in instead of this thing and you just got to work through it What's your split men to women who who have your product are able to share that? Yeah, it's about 45 55 So 45 what women? Oh, wow. So that's a decent. That's a pretty decent split. It looks nothing like a weight room, right? Which is which is like it's not the 80 20 split or the 85 15th that you'd normally see in a weight room And I think it's like it's it's it's in the it's in the home. It's more accessible You know, it's just it's more it's more approachable and and I think that's really that's actually a really good statistic Because if you see all women or all men doing something then there's something in my opinion There's usually something wrong with the the product or how it's being, you know communicated Well, I feel like we've had we've had you in the hot seat for long enough here. I think it's all good No, no, it's great. I think you're doing well. I think you think you handle yourself great Let's talk now about some of the fun stuff, right? And probably the neat part probably more fun for you to talk about and that that is the journey of of getting this thing started And um, you know, when did you know you had something? Like when did us first, you know hundreds or thousands of orders start to come in and like giving kind of like the The short version of your your six and a half seven year journey in this thing. So, uh Look story of entrepreneurship is like when did you when did you believe and when when could you prove it? Yeah, yeah, we believe in the beginning right over it. So I believed it. Um I'd say I believed it about three months after I got started. Oh, wow. So that quick Yeah, and and and effectively what happens is like I was at the gym that day I was telling you about and I go home. I order some parts. I they start arriving I'm strapping into my kitchen counter and beginning to build a prototype and what I'm really trying to ask myself is Can I invent the world's first like electronic digital? Frank training system running on this like wonky like on electromagnetics, right? Like that's kind of like what I'm what I'm thinking and it took me about three months to build something that Proved to myself enough that I could believe that this was possible Um, it wasn't great like it wasn't like the digital weight system that could go from five pounds to 200 pounds Which is what tonal does today. I didn't go below 25 and it didn't go above 40 So it's like, you know, but I could I could do like, you know 30 pound bicep curls with like 35 pound eccentric and And and I and I knew like I knew there was something here.  Were you already pitching that early too? Were you already looking for money at that time? Oh, I mean, it's a hardware company Like it took us it took us like 20 something million dollars just to get the product out to market Wow, right because like it was it was years of development We were like at 100 employees by the time by the time we launched So like this isn't like a lot of times when you hear like hardware companies here in Silicon Valley It's like a printed circuit board with like two pieces of plastic on the outside Like it's like a clam. It's called the clamshell designs like two pieces of plastic and they kind of hug One printed circuit board and like one person can make that this was not that This was like engineering something new from the ground up for years Right. Um, and so yeah, you know, we we needed we needed the money I needed the money So I was out I was out pitching and like and like people just did not believe in the early days and it took It took A little bit of progress after a little bit of progress after a little bit of progress To get people to believe and so the first check I ever raised was like 250 thousand dollars Like like barely enough money to like pay one engineer for like a year And so like I I hire like a couple of engineers and we're paying them And so like now I know like I only got enough money to pay these people for six months I'm still I'm still not making any money, right? Um, and so you but but you know what we what we built was a better prototype And this one went from like 20 pounds to 60 pounds And then we kept going and like I remember like this one moment that sticks in my in my head Was we called it the birthday challenges? It was my birthday in the year 2016 And it was like on all these birthday, which is in the summer. I think same birth July like your kid, right? You know all these going to do a full body workout on on a tonal prototype It was the first prototype we had that was like Fully adjustable and the arms could adjust and you know and and you could do everything that you could You know almost everything you could do on today's tonal And that was like the first prototype in 2016 And we showed that prototype to um to investors and this one guy came in his name was Rob Rob Coneybear And he was um, he was the lead investor in nest like one of the early investors who like invested in that nest thermostat And I remember I remember the moment where I knew that that I had a real believer He was doing bicep curls on tonal and he looks at me. He says hey Ali When the rest of the world sees this do you think they'll ever strength train the old way again? Oh, wow, right and I'm like I'm like I got him And and and literally it was maybe 60 days later. We had 10 million dollars in our bank account Wow, and that's when we were off to the races, right? Wow, so when was your first like I guess takeoff with the with the sales to the consumers So we launched in in august of 2018 and we started shipping shipping in october And you know, I'd say it was by like maybe january of 2019 Um as we like just went through that holiday season and into the new year's new season started to deliver the product nationwide We initially started with just like a san francisco like we were only accepting orders in san francisco And we got broader and broader by march. We were nationwide. That's really where things started to really pick up really take off The holiday season in 2019 was just incredible. It was mind-blowing for us We had showrooms in three different cities and they were just like, you know flying off the shelf people I remember one person walked into our showroom in new jersey and bought three tonals for their three kids Who all lived at the same house?  That's when you're preparing your supply chain That's when you're preparing your marketing plans for the next holiday season And so we're just starting to like get ready for like the big next cycle and then covet hits Right and it was like literally we kept having whatever we sold the prior black friday That black friday day like a worth of sales just kept happening over and over and over again for months on end Right and that's that's how we grew a dex in that in that one year and and that that has not slowed down It is not I was just gonna ask you if you if you foresee that that might be challenging with jim's reopening But you're saying there's no slowdown. You know people had to build entirely new habits Like the hardest thing we do is teach people habits It's the hardest things we do and once people have learned a habit like they're not gonna just unlearn it and snap and snap back So so for all those people who had jim memberships and like driving to the jim was part of the routine Now they figured out completely other ways of accomplishing exercise Uh, and I don't that's just not gonna reverse right the the trend towards at home workouts was was already happening Right and pelton did that right they they proved that And it accelerated through the pandemic and it's I don't think it's gonna reverse course I think what we will see And I and I say this for the sake of the for the sake of the entire industry Is I I really hope that a lot of jims are going to be reinventing their business models Like the idea that you're just going to drive somewhere just to like access equipment I don't think that's a really sustainable business model anymore.  Well, I mean we tell we try and explain that to people all time It's like one of the common questions we get asked.  It's it's kind of it. It's a very Uh dead model There's just not a lot of money in it because it's not very consistent not very successful And so and by the way a lot of the the surveys that they've been doing since the pandemic Uh agree with you it was we challenged the one of our buddies is the president for UFC gyms And we interviewed him and one of the things that we we challenged him that because he was, you know, Obviously hopeful for things going back to normal and that we're going to see this big surge back in the gym And the way we challenged him was like, do you think so because What we're what we're reading is that a lot of people were forced to change their behaviors And a good percentage of those are saying hey, I kind of like this. Yeah, totally I mean another example completely unrelated, but like I never I never did like grocery deliveries before before tonal Sorry before before covid and and now that I've experienced what that's like I am never setting setting foot in a cosco again Right. I used to go to cosco like every every two months and it was like You're only hit with shopping carts. Yeah, and it was it was it was painful like going to cosco But you know, you did it and you're like it was only it's I only got to do it like five or six times a year But I got to do it And now I get cosco delivered twice a week and it's amazing and I'm never going back and yeah, it's pretty cool It's pretty cool Total and I think that's just like there are a bunch of things in the world that have changed like that and and it's it's further The better I hope yeah, do you are you guys pulling from people who work out already or you guys seeing people start working out with your product So that's a funny question. So And I'll tell you why you'll you'll you'll see why I say it when I tell you the answer The person who like goes to our website and buys the product and hits like submit They are definitely someone who was already working out, right? In fact, I'd say on average four times a week before they bought the tonal and they're often buying the tonal to take it to the next level Oftentimes they live with someone who does not work out And what we're what we're seeing a lot of is people who who have either Sorry people have either Not previously worked out consistently or people who have not previously strength trained at all A lot of you got a lot of people who bought the tonal They were married to someone who was a cardio junkie that did zero strength training And now we're getting them into it Right and to me that feels like a huge win because I think we all know like in this room We all know that if you're going to do one thing into old age, it's not a lot of cardio Like you do not you do not want to run your way into old age That's a lot of wear and tear on your body and it's a lot of as you get older a lot of metabolizing muscle right And and you want to strength train as you get older and the fact that we can get people like a little bit Off the cardio train and more on to more balanced strength training type of a behavior I think for us is a huge one. Yeah, that's the right I mean, that's the right the right direction if you're going to pick a direction. That's the right direction Well, I think that's I mean that and I think there is enough for you to feed off of just that and alone 100% just the people that are home running on treadmills running outside every single day I mean that sells entire entire book the resistance training revolution is about that is about that is that you know About you know in the 70s There was this running revolution and people got on this kick and we haven't got out of this kick thinking that This is the best way to get healthy and it's couldn't be further from the truth So and that was actually one of the things I think that we liked best about your messaging I mean we listened to some of your interviews and some of the stuff you've talked about and We definitely aligned here. I mean we we we agree 100% that That is the right message to be presenting to the masses and there's a lot of people that don't know it Still, yeah, I mean it's it's it's the sign. I mean the science says this the researchers said this for decades But but getting that out into the world like, you know, we talk about like having to market tonal A lot of what we're doing is marketing strength training Right just reminding people how important it is for them to do it because a lot of the reasons people don't strength train today Is deep down inside? They know they should they just don't know how yeah, right and we get to help them with that Yeah, or or the stigma right that i'm going to touch weights and then i'm going to look like uh Arnold tomorrow as if it was that easy to do that it's not Yeah, so you'll you'll get stronger. You'll feel stronger.  You'll be in the shower lathering up You'll be like, oh, hello. What's that right like you have those moments for sure But looking like Arnold like that's that's a whole mother level. Yeah, that's uh, that's that's not gonna happen That won't happen What are all the different ways that you guys are advertising and marketing? Do you have I think you have some partnerships with some mba players and stuff and you know Share with us a little bit like all your different marketing strategies And maybe the ones that maybe you didn't know we're gonna work out and they worked out really well Or ones that you thought would be really good and then didn't it be as good as you are like, what have you seen? You know, it's it's it's funny But I think a lot of it is is you know, we have a lot of the stuff that's that's really fun and the stuff we're doing on social media and And a lot of the storytelling that we can do around athletes and all that sort of stuff The bulk of it though still goes to traditional tv facebook instagram like your traditional youtube your traditional media channels are still doing I think the bulk of the heavy lifts and then what we're able to do is basically tell a bunch of a bunch of stories around it And so a lot of for a lot of the pro athletes who got got tonals It's the footage of them using the product that that we're able to To use where like we're not using that to like, you know on tv to get someone to visit our website for the first time But once people have like started following us on on social media and they begin to see that It helps them begin to understand. Hey, this thing is a little bit a little bit different if it's good enough for a pro athlete It's definitely good enough for me Yeah, storytelling is like one of the most important things especially when it comes to marketing Did you did you hire and contract that out? Are you responsible for telling that story? What did that look like? It's it's a lot. It's a lot of different people for sure Um, I think so I have first of all, I have a chief marketing officer who's who's incredible He spent six years as the chief marketing officer at iron man before that He was vice president of marketing at at equinox For four years and so about 10 10 years just kind of like in the direct direct industry.  We have external brand agencies So you're working with like an entire like family of people to tell the story like this because it's a rich it's a rich story And and it's a it's a complex. It's a complex business Right. So, you know, when you talk about like how I spend my time Well, hey, it's not just about marketing the product It's not just like one piece of software Like like a mobile app for instance where like your your world is about like building the software and and selling it Like where we have to manufacture the stuff in asia. We got to ship it across the world We got to install it in people's homes. We run studios and down in hollywood where we film We got and so when you start thinking about all the facets of the business I'm really kind of the integrator of like, how does all this stuff fit together? And how do I make sure that everyone is growing in the same direction? Yeah But I have like the marketing is done by my marketing group and the contents done by my content group and And you know while I was like I have like early footage of me like in the machine shop like making those first prototypes I don't do that anymore. I haven't been in a machine shop in years. Yeah, and I miss it. I won't lie. I totally miss it Well, take us it take us into a little bit of what type of character it takes as far as who you are to be a founder CEO then get a company value that high and then have all these other very intelligent people working around you like Is there any thoughts of you know stepping out of the CEO role and what has that been like for you? And what does it take to be that guy with all these different people that you're now leading and telling what to do You know, I I love it. I love it. It's like it's it's actually the best job in the world Because you get to you know, you're in a position where you get to orchestrate all the all of this stuff and And in the early days, I didn't I didn't feel that way at all Like, you know, most of my career I spent in technology and if I ever like pick the title for myself Like I want to be the chief technology officer. I just I love technology I want to spend my world in in in tech and that's where I thought I was going to end up Um, but what I've what I've realized like over the years Like as we as you get to see how all of these different pieces build together, you know fit together You're not just thinking about the technology I think about how the technology works with the marketing and how the marketing works with the technology and The in-home delivery experience and and you're you're building this thing and And I like to joke that as a CEO I do nothing, but I'm responsible for everything Right and that's kind of that's kind of what it means to to orchestrate It's like I actually can't do anything if I have to stop and go do something Um, I have failed my team and my team has failed me Because if I'm going and doing some one very very specific thing There's probably like eight other people who are waiting on me for where I'm not giving them what they need And so in some ways like again, it's it's all about just keeping everyone Everyone aligned and growing in the in the same direction and and making sure the thinking about things the same way and challenging each other's thinking What does it take it takes humility? It takes that beginner's mindset of like starting every day almost from a place where like I know nothing, right? And you know and and asking people wait, why did why did you say that? That was different than I would have seen or different than this other person was assuming like And and and that's what's hard about building such a Multifaceted business. Yeah and being a guy who was not really a fitness guy obviously and you openly admit that or a marketer Right, right. What what is this whole process taught you about? I mean, you're obviously pretty savvy and smart though There's not a lot of people in your space are touting resistance training as the main form of exercise So you've obviously you've read a lot of studies and you've learned. What have you learned during this this whole process? Well, first of all strength training was I mean for me It was the unlock it was what actually got me to achieve that really lofty goal And as you know, like, you know, remember type 2 diabetes, right? Um trying to lose weight trying to burn all this fat recompose my body Like you need you need to add significant amounts of your of muscles your body in order to control your blood sugar levels And drive your a1c levels down and and so like I I had no choice But to learn about this stuff to to to get to get healthy But in terms of you know in terms of what you know what I've learned I've learned that when it comes to strength strength becomes like a foundation in your life For me like I have I work 12 hour days back 7 a.m. To 7 p.m. Every single day, right? And the only break I take is I take an hour in the middle where I go do my workout on my tonal And that's my mental reset, right? Um and and I've learned that like the physical stuff is it all it supports you emotionally It supports you mentally and that's a huge part The other thing that I learned is everyone needs a coach, right? And if you're strength training you need you need a coach or a personal trainer or a tonal That's going to help you guide guide through your journey But I also have an executive coach right where they're coaching me as as I develop into a CEO I've never done it before right so I have an executive coach I'm also in like a coaching program with a bunch of where it's like a peer group where It's groups of CEOs who get together every quarter and we get together like you think this is you know You're calling this the hot so you think you think this is the hot try getting in a room with like Seven people who are just as driven as you for two days And you're each basically doing rundowns of each other's businesses and like being like hey, man When we met three months ago, you know you said you were going to do why haven't you done that? What changed in your business?  Why didn't I do that or like wait? Why did I think that was important back then and now I know it's not like you're always You know and the same thing you're like you're watching other people's businesses And and you're you're kind of seeing the holes and they're they're thinking and and then you're going back Me like well one of my forgetting about my business, right? And so these coaching processes are just they're they're essential in everything you do in life And you're either challenging yourself for you're not you're either going to the gym every day and Doing the same bicep curl at the same number of pounds that you did three years ago Or you're trying harder every single day and you need someone to push you So let's uh 10 years later tonal is uh worth hundreds of billions of dollars It's it's the amazon of fitness equipment, right? Where are you? What are you doing? I'm still running tonal. You're still running that you haven't sold or not You're not you wouldn't cash out Never did it for the money. I mean at the end of the day like look man We all we all die and you don't take the money with you, right? So like you know, I think about yes I'm sure if I make a lot of money some of it's going to go to my kids and they're going to have You know have hopefully better lives and better education is a little bit more security But like, you know, I don't know what bezos is going to do with all that money I hope he's going to give all of it away or like 99.9 of it Because he's not taking it with them and his kids don't need it either, right? So so at the end of the day like there comes a point where you realize like you get up every day Not for the money like if you're doing it for the money I could have just like packed up a long time ago and been like I'm gonna spend the rest of my life on a beach Right. That's not why you do it Very cool. Well, I'll tell you what dude Good job. Thanks. Yeah. I enjoy talking to you. I think you're going I think that your your message is good and I think you guys are you're Trying to do what you're trying to do but the right way. I think if anyone can do it It'll be you guys. I still think it's going to be very challenging But I do think you guys have the right approach. So it can't be easy and it shouldn't be easier. I don't want to do it Oh, yeah, it would be rewarding, right? Yeah. Thanks for coming on man. Thanks so much for having me Daily Wayans can be really good. They can kind of keep you on track. You got to remember Who we're talking to right now. I don't think that You know weighing every single day for the person who has body image issues and freaked out about the scale going up or down This is for the person who is struggling to build muscle and being able to


Bark beetles and fungi form mutually beneficial relationships known as ectosymbiotic associations. These associations vary widely in terms of the level of dependency, the mode of transmission, and the environmental factors involved. They also differ in terms of the number of partners involved and the degree of fidelity and longevity. Evolutionary processes, including phylogeny, abiotic environment, and interactions within the biotic community have played key roles in shaping these associations. This article was authored by Diana L6.