"54D" - Emerging From Latin Markets to The Global Stage - Omar Yunes

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Future of Fitness, where we talk with entrepreneurs, researchers, and practitioners in fitness, wellness, and the health sciences. I'd like to give a big thanks to our sponsors, Level 5 Mentors, helping entrepreneurs achieve the highest levels of freedom in time, money, relationships, health, and purpose. Also, Certified Course Creation, helping entrepreneurs create accredited online certifications that are not only lucrative but highly scalable. Go to levelfive mentors.com or certifiedcoursecreation.com and learn more. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and once again, welcome to the Future of Fitness. Oh, we're live. Omar, welcome to the Future of Fitness, my friend. Eric, thank you very much for the invite.

Very happy to be here.

Yeah, it's really exciting to have you. It's uh, you know, as we were discussing previous to recording, which is always the best part because of course we're not recording it, but we we had a really great conversation. You know, obviously your story at 54D, what you guys have done is is awesome. And understanding the Latin market now coming into the US, and then, you know, like so many companies pivoting hard right now in 2020 to meet the consumer needs and how they're shifting. It's all just a very powerful thing, and people are going to get a lot of value out of this conversation. So thanks again for making the time to come on and always a good place to start is give us your story, Omar. How did you get to be the CEO of 54D?

Sure, I'll I'll explain the history and then I'll show if possible. Basically, I started as a client. So I used to live in Mexico City. I was born in Mexico, I grew up mainly in Mexico City, and I was a client at 54D about six years ago. And I got to 54D as everybody else basically gets there, which is word of mouth. We don't really market even now. So I just heard somebody that had been to 54D, and I didn't quite understand what it was about because it wasn't a regular gym, it wasn't you know something where you could just go and buy a class, it was a program. Um I had always been kind of interested in in working out, and I was I was pretty much running at that time. I was uh I went to a marathon in New York, got injured, and I kind of stopped working out, so I got out of shape. And at some point I decided to just try 54D and see if that brought me up to you know speed, and it did. And I fell in love with the brand. Um I trained for about a couple of years uh in Mexico City. That's how I met Rodrigo Garduño, who's the founder, who's an ex-professional soccer player, and I had the privilege of being part of a group that he specifically chose to train. And you know, that's how I got into 54D. A couple of years later, I moved into the US for other business um interests. And I don't know, I just started thinking about you know, 54D would be a great fit for the US. I called Rodrigo, we had a nice lunch, and like right at that lunch, we decided to start something in the US. I was already living in Miami, so that was kind of a we already had a stepping stone there. And I just became a local partner at first, an investor. And then eventually I became a partner at the brand itself. So basically it's just Rodrigo and myself. And then I just became CEO because he was very much focused on the philosophy behind it, the training aspect. I he needed somebody to take care of the boring aspect, which is you know, numbers are running the day to day. And that's how I ended up as a CEO for the company. So I'm I'm honestly I've been in several different types of business. And this was great to try as a client first and just kind of go from that experience into now leading the company as CEO and understanding where the psyche for the client is. So I just I had luck, I guess.

What made the founder look at you and say, this is the guy who I want to run the business side of things? What what what do you think? Well, not being so humble, what do you think it was?

No, I'll tell you, I mean, I'll tell you what I think it was, and then the story that he tells, and it's the true story. Uh he kind of always had a lot of people that had interest in bringing the the brand into either other cities in Mexico or Colombia, where we're also located, and the US. But he had never really found the right fit. It was either people who he he didn't really know. Um, in my case, I had trained with him for almost a couple of years. So he knew me. And for him, it's very important to really understand how people perform at some level, not necessarily physically, but mentally, right? How is it uh that people push through when they're when things get tough? And that's what pretty much he does when he trains you, so he'll push. And so nobody knew that that side of me, right? That I can, I guess, uh be accountable at some point. Uh, he knew about my kind of business history as well. And he knew I had been, you know, gladly successful in some of the business that I had I had been part of. I've always been an entrepreneur, I've always owned my own business. And, you know, the last thing was when I was already here, right? So it was always kind of an obvious choice to have somebody who was already living in the US that had business in the US. Um, but the moment that sealed the whole thing was when we went to lunch. So, you know, I flew down to Mexico City, we had lunch, and we were talking about, you know, the possibility of opening in the US. And he asked me, you know, why is it that you want to do this? And my question and my answer, sorry, was that I, you know, I've been in a lot of business. I've I've been in real estate, I've been in finance, uh, been in the hospitality business, but I wanted to leave a legacy, basically. You know, I want to do something that helps people that I can be proud of, and that my kids will think, hey, you know, my dad helped a bunch of people. Uh, he didn't really just focus on on money, right? And on revenue. And and that that moment he said, fine, yeah, let's do it. And then at that same moment, I told him, yeah, fine, let's do it. But then you're moving into the US with me. So we're all both in the same, uh, in the same adventure together. And you know, Rodrigo is uh, you know, he's uh he's he's the real thing. And he said, fine, let's do it. Obviously, I'm gonna get killed when I told my family that we're leaving, but yes, let's just jump in and you know, fine, I'll just jump in full with you. Because we knew that getting into the US market was not opening just a new location. It's uh it's something that we had to humbly come into, uh, understanding that there's things that we know and things we don't when you go into a market this size, and which is obviously the largest market in the world. So I think he really decided because he knew that I didn't, I wasn't in it for the money. Uh obviously it's a business. You want to make it profitable and you want to make it a large business. But I was doing well. And I just decided to leave off my other business in, you know, in either partner's hands or or somebody else to really focus on this. So when he saw that I did have that the drive to build something that did build a legacy, um, that's when he decided to, you know, to partner with me.

It's a great story, man. You know, it's interesting. I reflect on my own career too. Is uh, you know, I I was had um a pretty good career going in sales, but I always felt like and and I think it goes with you know, real estate is kind of a similar thing where it's you know, it it's also it's so transactional based. It's like once a transaction's done, it's packaged up, there's a bow on, and then it's gone forever, and then you're back at zero. Right. And that was like every year in the sales career, it was like, hey, congratulations, you had a great year. You made the money, the company a lot of money, you took a little bit of it, and uh now we're gonna start you at zero and everyone's even again. You're like, oh, I left nothing. I did nothing.

You know, that that's gone great. I I agree. I agree. Uh it's it's really not all about just finding a business that makes money for you. I think it's at some point in life, I guess. I mean, I'm 42 years old. So obviously when you're in your 20s, 30s, yes, you're in it for, you know, you want the money, you want the nice life. Uh obviously everybody wants it, but but that's a driver. I think when you're rich, at least you know, in my case, I think you're you're just midlife somehow, and uh you want to build something else, right? You you want to be part of something that you're proud of, which is different. You can also be proud in real estate, and that's fine. But in my case, I think there was something lacking. And since I could experience it as a client, and I could see changes not only physically but mentally, that a lot of people, including myself, went through in this program. I was, you know, I said, you know, I want to be part of this. It's and the cool thing is that most of our staff now has been a client. So people after they come in through the program, they want to work with us, which is great, right? So that's built a nice, a nice culture.

Yeah, awesome. So let's get into 54D. I mean, you're in um, you know, started in Mexico, moved to Colombia, and now um, you know, officially entered into the United States. But what do you think with all of the fitness options and maybe maybe, you know, when you started, you know, make some presumptions or when the company started with Rodrigo, Mexico, that, you know, maybe that market was easier to differentiate than the United States. But when on the foundational piece, what do you think drives 54D to be successful from a philosophical standpoint to the consumer um relations to all of it? What do you what do you think is the hallmarks of success for you guys?

Sure. Well, I think what really drives us in every sense when we when we talk about 54D is the fact that we always we always want to achieve a goal. And it it sounds very general, but it's not. I mean, the whole business is designed around our members achieving a goal. What does that mean? Uh we're a program, first of all. We're not a um a gym where you have a monthly membership and we want to tie you up for a year or you don't come and play for classes. We want you here through a specific amount of time where we know you'll achieve a result, right? If you're here with us for a couple of days a week or one day a week, you're not gonna get a result, right? What's always at our core and our heart in our mind when we think about anything that we do at 54 days, is this gonna deliver some type of result, right? So the program started as a program, went really against the grain on all the fitness industry, which was basically try to have a consistent, you know, measurable revenue on the long term. So you have a monthly membership, yearly membership. In our case, it works really very much as a school. So you're enrolled into a specific perfect program, which is nine weeks, 54 days of training, you know, six days a week. That's where the name actually comes from. And we package everything, right? We said people go to gyms, but then they go to nutritionist some other way, and they try to, I don't know, they they have to pull off these pieces that are different uh to try to get a result. But anyway, there is no end to that result, right? There is no goal. So what Rodrigo did at that time was, you know, I I want to achieve something. So he started thinking pretty much it's a preseason on professional sports. He was a professional soccer player, and he said, fine, let's start with, you know, program. It won't include training, it will include nutrition, it will include recovery. And those three have to go right along. So it's not the nutrition's 80% and training's 20%, everything's 100%. You have to train well, you have to train hard, you have to eat well, you have to eat properly, you have to recover properly. So it was packaging everything that people needed to get a result. And it it did deliver a result. That's why most of our clientele comes from word of mouth. So I think that's what really differentiates us, you know, from the market, even now. We're still working with a program, and in many things that we do, including our online um free sessions that we gave on the pandemic, and I guess we'll talk about that later, um, there was a goal at heart, right? So I think that's what's different. We're not driven by revenue. We're not driven just by how stable can I get a cash flow going? It's really very much about is this going to deliver a result to remember?

Gotcha. So pre pre-pandemic, how did you guys actually deliver? Did you have 54D studios, or still do you have studios, or are people doing this at uh, you know, specific like their own gym that they have or at home? How is the consumer actually going to the program?

It's always uh uh on site. So it's always a studio. Uh we have three studios in Mexico City, one in Bogota, in Colombia, and then we open our Cola Gables location last year, in February last year. So the way it works is that again, think it's much easier to think about this as a school. So there is an enrollment period. We only have four different programs during the year. We have four cycles. One starts in January, second one on March, uh, yeah, like late March, then we go into August and October, right? So you literally have to enroll into a specific program, into a specific group. So we have different time slots during the day. And if you're let you, let's say, six o'clock in the morning, you are enrolled into six o'clock in the morning for the next 54 days with the same group of people. So it's group training. Again, there's a campus report group that will go through the same process at the exact same time through the whole time, right? So you have to go physically to a location. Uh, we're pretty much about discipline uh because that's the only way to actually get a result. So if you're late, you're three minutes late, we won't allow you in. We're sorry if you start missing classes with no obviously no real explanation. I mean, we'll try to accommodate you, right? If you can't make it because you got somebody something at your kids' school, we'll try to get you into another spot that day. But if you start missing it, we'll ask you out of the program, we'll refund your money for it. And we do that, you know, and we take it very seriously because you're paying us to get a result. So if you're not willing to do that, don't waste our time. Again, just as school, right? And don't waste your own time and your own money. So you go physically and you have to be there every single day from Monday through Saturday on time. You have to put yourself. And honestly, it's a it's a great setting because a lot of our clientele, I'd say from 35 through 50s, mostly 40s. And it's a time where you haven't really been in that type of setting since you were probably high school, right? Uh, you don't go through a process, you don't kind of enjoy everybody's kind of share their mystery and their victories. Um, you're pretty much alone. So it really becomes a family. And uh so it is on-site, it's fully on site. We're still on site. We're opening a second location in Miami uh early next year in the sign district and New York next year as well in fall.

Yeah. You know, I it I can't help but thinking like back in 2007, uh, when I found CrossFit when I did my first couple CrossFit workouts at Millane Fitness in San Francisco. And the, you know, having been a team athlete for most of my life at that point, uh, you know, 20 something years, maybe longer, 30 really 25 years, I guess, a quarter of a century, I've been on teams of some sort. And I I was missing it. And then I walked in there and I felt that same feeling of being part of a team, that kind of bond that happens when, you know, uh during shared suffering, right? Towards a club, towards a goal. It's very powerful. Um and it creates very strong bonds. So I I get it. I totally get it. And especially for those people who um, you know, miss being on a team, you know, kind of living through their uh, you know, being their high school hero phases uh and memories of of times long past. Uh it's a great, it's a great way to get back in touch with those those emotions and those feelings and those bonds. It's it's awesome. I'm I'm totally with you on it. I get it.

Yeah, and and one thing that you mentioned, and I agree, there's people who've been through that experience before, right? So you were a team player and you missed that. I think that's where Rodrigo got this. So for him, it's kind of like a locker room. But at the same time, most of her clientele, and that's an interesting um thing for us, is that they've never actually exercised. They never worked out. They're pretty much out of shape. Um, so for them, it's the first time they've actually experienced something like this, right? They probably never, you know, played in sports in school. Or they did, but then they left it for years and years. So the way that our program is designed, it really allows anybody to go in. You know, there's no competition. It's not about who's the fastest or the strongest. It's really just about committing, right? And pushing yourself to your 100%. So it's great when you see somebody who's in their almost 50s, they never exercise at all. And they you see them suffer through it, but at the same time, you got somebody who was an ex you know athlete and they're supporting each other, right? Because the athlete will see somebody who's really struggling to do even one you know squat, and they'll say, Well, I can push myself more, but at the same time, they'll support that person because they understand the struggle they're going through. So uh there's no competition within our groups. I mean, it doesn't matter what level you are. So it's great because some people get to live that experience at their 40s or 50s, right? When they never did in a younger age.

Yeah. It's really interesting, and I'm I'm reflecting uh on so many different cases where, you know, having owned a CrossFit gyms for for a while, it was like you physically see the transition. Let's say that that person who's in their 40s or 50s, maybe never been on an athlete or been on a team. And I'm not talking about like body fat or adding muscle. I'm talking about the physical changes you start to see in people. They walk in maybe the first day and they have, you know, some baggy t-shirt and some old sneakers, and then, you know, they they maybe uh go through a really work hard workout, get it done, and then they get high-five with like, you know, the Navy SEAL in the room, right? And they, you know, uh, and they start informing these bombs with people bonds with people that they never had before. And then, you know, a couple weeks later, maybe they they invest in some new shoes or they're wearing a little bit of a tighter t-shirt, their chest is held a little bit lighter, they're they're a little bit more confident when they walk in. It's just this amazing transformation that you see in people, and that bleeds through into everything they do in their life. And it's it's a really cool thing. One of the things I miss about actually being on the floor as a coach is seeing those types of transitions and people's confidence boosting. It's so cool.

No, I completely agree. I think you know that confidence that starts building up and and you see it constantly on this groups, and I agree on CrossFit, it really shows as well. Is that you know those minor details, right? And I I love, you know, I I call them like the small victories, right? When you see somebody doing their first full push-up, it might be something on, but you see their, you know, it it really, you know, that's what really drives us. That's what really drives me personally now. You know, when you see those small victories, right? When you see somebody who didn't think they could do this before, and suddenly they do it, and then you see their face, and it's a it's full of, hey, you know, it it it really changes their mindset. I agree with you, it it doesn't only show at the gym, and it does show physically, it does show the way that they present themselves, uh, how social they are sometimes. You know, sometimes you've got people who don't really talk too much, then they start to feel comfortable, they start talking. Um, but then it also shows on their overall life, you know, work, family, and that's what really that's what's really satisfying about this. And you know, you're a coach, so obviously you know that, right? I I think that's when you really understand how is it that you know teachers end up working so hard for so little money, but then when you get to feel a little bit of what they feel when they when you get somebody to accomplish something, I think that's when you say, Oh, so that this is how it feels like, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is it's an awesome feeling. What where are the big differences that you've seen, you know, with the Latin markets, so especially guys are in Mexico and Colombia and then and then the United States. How how have the is there do you have to consider the cultural differences? Obviously language is different, but what what are some of the things that maybe you didn't think of that were going to be challenging or the things that you did knew were gonna be challenging, but maybe challenged you in a different way?

Um honestly, when we came in, we didn't we didn't really know what to expect in certain areas, but uh at core, you know, Rodrigo always said something that, and now I agree with him. I always kind of did, but now I truly believe that. And people are people anywhere, right? You know, what drives somebody in Mexico or Colombia or US or you know France, it's basically the same. They want to feel good. They want to feel good about themselves, they want to accomplish something. Uh, they want to get rid of what's really bothering them personally. So at least we knew that, right? I mean, at least we knew that the changes that they could achieve would be, you know, driven by the same wants, needs, and you know, fears or or loves of anybody in the world. So that was one thing that at least gave us some uncertainty. The fact of how to actually deal with clients here was different. Honestly, we chose Miami part because it was already here, because, but also because it was kind of a mid you know middle ground to go into a fully different market. Uh, you've got a lot of Latin community here. It's really US-based already, but it's still Latin. So it was kind of an obvious transition. Um, and then when we got here, we started, you know, we said, fine, how is it that we're gonna, you know, go into this market? We've never really marketed, right? So some people know us from Mexican Colombia. Um, but let's just, you know, let's let's think about how to do this. And after a bunch of thinking, we decided to just show what we could do. So what we decided to do was, you know, let's just focus not really on what the market's doing, but what we like to do, which is deliver a result. Let's build a beautiful studio that works, and let's just invite people. So we invited 90 people into the first program and random people, you know, some were friends, some people that literally walked into the door and surprised you got a free program. Uh, or program is $3,900 per program, so it wasn't, it was a nice gift. We just started to invite different people from all aspects of life and do what we'd like to do, right? Just, you know, work every day, you know, go through the program and see how people reacted. And what we noticed is that honestly, it didn't really matter if a member was Latin or was fully, you know, US, you know, born and raised, people were as happy, right? Because they were achieving the same thing with a group of people that was looking for the same results. So I think besides the business aspects of understanding how to run a studio in the US, which is different, but it's something that you can always learn. I think that what we understood is that, again, the driver is the same for members. Yes, there are differences in terms of how does the membership come in. Surprisingly, we got people who were much more overweight here than Mexico and Colombia. That was something that we did not expect, and our program is pretty intense. So we had to deal with it at first and kind of change it because people were not ready for something like this. Most of the people who came in. But honestly, it's great to see now that it's members, you know, react the same. It doesn't matter where they are. And we've seen it on online. We've got online members now from 57 countries, and pretty much the program works. For everybody at the same same rate.

Awesome. So you mentioned, I think I heard in there 3,900. Is that your price point?

Yes, that's our that's our price for a program. That includes kind of the whole thing. So yes, we're pretty much the more expensive the most expensive program in the US, I guess. Yeah, I love it. I love it. We were in Mexico as well. So when we opened, uh well, when the league opened in Mexico, it was it was about four times as expensive as the best gym, you know, in in Mexico. And everybody said, you know, this is crazy and you know, it's not gonna work. But the truth is, when you really start delivering results and you notice that basically we're packaging everything that you're already paying out there, because most of the not most, I mean, but part of the fitness industry, what they want to do is not so it's not for you to really understand how much you're paying for what you're trying to achieve, right? So you pay your membership here, then you pay another class here, then you pay nutritionists here, then you pay. So basically we said, no, no, no, everything's just in one single package, and that's it. And we're great at what we do, we're and we'll deliver results, so that's what it costs, right? You know, it's you know, and uh so yes, we're 3,900 and our online programs, thirty uh $385, so it's not cheap either.

So so that $3,900 for what what period of time? Nine weeks. Nine weeks.

You got nine weeks of you know, every day, you have you know your daily training session, which is an hour in studio. You've got an on-site nutritionist that you're assigned to, so physically there are nutritionists on site. Uh, we're pretty much about tracking those results. So we weigh you every single week into your body composition scale, you know, sophisticated one. We'll track those results every single week. You know, you get so we know we have a benchmark of what people should expect to get during a program. Um, and we're very clear about it. You know, you can expect, for example, in men, it's about 30% of the pounds of fat you might lose over a program. Women's about 20 to 22 percent. So we know that if you're you know really overweight, you might need two or three programs. If not, you might need one. So you get a nutritionist that will guide you through the program, um, that they'll be there every single week. You have to meet with them every single week on the recovery services. We provide cryotherapy uh chambers, uh, we have compression therapy, and you're you're asked to go because surprisingly, people pay for it, but they don't use it. So you have to push people into actually go and use what you need to get a result.

I I'm a huge fan of this. And here's why. I I often, when I work with fitness professionals, uh I always ask them to put together the best, the best package. If you're gonna guarantee results, what would that be? Because what you said is is so true. It's people like, well, if you come in twice a week, you know, that's this price, and then well, we'll add nutrition on that, and then it'll be this price, and you know, all these things that we've done traditionally in the fitness industry, and it's wrong. It's like, no, get put together the program that will deliver results guaranteed if people follow through. And that's the way we need to be thinking more. And I think uh as now, as the time for money model is kind of being yanked away from the fitness professional, really focusing on results is is the future of the industry. It's it's quite obvious to me. So I I love what you guys are doing. It reminds me of back in Santa Barbara when I was running some challenge programs and I had you know some a decent amount of personal training clients for my coaches and I. And then this thing popped up that I kept hearing we were losing clients to, and it's called Fat Camp. Now, can't say it's the best name out there, but it was this guy who you know was having having these clients pay a very high price point to meet him at the beach at 5 a.m. every morning, Monday through Friday. They would, you know, do an intense workout. Um, they would get their meals for the day to walk walk away with, and they were guaranteeing results and people loved it, you know. And uh I was like, huh, that's brilliant. But I would in order to do that, I would have to shift so much in my current business in order to go to that model, right? So it was fearful to do it. But it reminds me of that. It's like, hey, if you chart and if you're charging a premium, people value it and they'll they'll follow through with it.

Of course.

No, I agree. Um, I think really it was genius at it when he decided to this, uh, I think it was a great choice as well. Nothing really existed like this, at least in Mexico. And I we don't see it anywhere else either, uh, as a full-on program and you know, large company. So I we we're we're sure about what we do in that sense. I I mean that's why we also push our members into, you know, if you're paying me to get a result, again, like school, if you go into Harvard or any of other high-end universities, they are gonna push you because that's what you're paying for, right? And because their marketing is when you go out there, you're probably the best lawyer there is, right? Uh same thing here. We want you to achieve a result, you know, that's what you're paying us for. If you're not committed, then we uh you know uh politely asked you out, uh, because then you know you're not really committed to this. So yeah, I mean, I think this was a brave choice. And you mentioned that it's very difficult to switch the business, uh the way your business is structured to go into something like this. And it is. Uh gladly we were born this way. So from day one, our financials are completely different from any other fitness um industry player that we've seen. Because at some point, for example, over the holidays, we're closed. Literally, our on our our on-site, you know, our studios are closed. Why? Because I know you're not gonna be able to commit to something like this over, you know, Christmas and New Year's. You know, so why would I take your money if I can't deliver a result? Because I know it's gonna be very difficult. So we basically run the same calendar as the school year, right? Because we also understand that you have a life, you have kids, or you know, again, most of our clients are in their 40s. So um, so we want you to keep that we sold and we'll do everything we can at center of power.

Awesome. I love it, man. So give me some insights. How how are you guys changing this year in 2020? What are you how are you pivoting your business?

Well, uh the main the main thing is that we went online, uh, as most uh people tried to or or did. Um, but I'll give you a quick history on that. Basically, when we uh when we got shut, you know, uh lockdown in uh in Miami on that was about March. Uh we decided to, well actually decided to start just streaming some classic for free. That was the first time ever. We've never been in YouTube or Instagram. Uh but he said, you know, his thought was people are gonna go crazy here, right? Uh you won't be able to be locked into your house for 24 hours a day for and we all thought it was a literally a quarantine, right? It was about 40 days. That we never nobody expected this to go for six, seven, eight months. So he said, you know, we had to do something to help. And it was honestly, that's how we started in online. It was literally out of helping. So we decided to use his Instagram account just because he had followers from the three countries, right? And uh said, you know, fine, I'll just start streaming a class every day at 11, which is, you know, somehow we'll break up their day because they'll be there for you know all the day. So uh they'll have something to do. And he starts streaming classes right every day. It took about an hour and change, and then he's you know, talked to them. He's a great motivator because he ended up talking for half an hour, 40 minutes uh besides the training. And you know, I think the first day we had about 300, 400 members, and we thought, fine, you know, those are our members. We've got up to a little bit over 20,000 clients up to now in the eight years. So we said, yeah, fine, yeah, that makes sense. Then it just started growing, and by you know, the next two or three weeks, we were averaging above 30,000 people on our live class uh sending in. And over all over the day, we had an average of 150,000 devices logging in. So, and that was insane, honestly. We didn't really expect that. That wasn't that wasn't a goal. And then you we started hearing everybody saying, you should charge for this, right? Get a dollar for everybody going to YouTube, whatever, blah, blah. And that's where I I I think that was when we were really tested to see if we can deliver on what we promised. And what we had promised was we're gonna be with everybody until this is done and we're gonna do it for free. So everybody can do this, so everybody has an access because it's not fair for somebody who doesn't have money to be going crazy on their house because they have nothing else to do. So we decided to just, you know, yeah, we could be making a lot of money, but you know, we promised it would be free and it stayed free for almost four months. So Rodrigo and our head coach Rodrigo de Wendo, uh, as well, who were the two coaches on that class, basically just trained every single day for almost a hundred, I think it was 112 days, 113 days, nonstop, and trying to motivate people, and it just grew to a huge amount. Rodrigo went from 10,000 followers to a million over a month and a half. Um, and over that time we decided to, well, of course, now we have to do something business-wise. We have to capitalize on this. So, first of all, we started getting a database together, right? So we invited people into being part of a generation. We call our groups generations on site. So we created what we call Generation Q, right? Generation Quarantine. It's first online generation ever. And it was really just about be part of it, right? You want to sign up and we'll send you a newsletter. We didn't really offer anything else. Our offering was already on the table, just we're gonna be here with you. And first day, our website crashed because we had 32,000 people sign up at the same time, uh, literally, which was, again, kind of uh something we didn't really expect. And we started building an online program. So the first question was, what type of program? We were not gonna go with the usual Zoom and you know, get some one for coaches to do a Zoom class and charge for it. We decided if we were gonna do this, we're gonna stick to a gun so we're gonna do a program. We're gonna do something that actually delivers the result. So there was a technological aspect that was difficult because all of the platforms that were out there that you could somehow tap into were just built to get revenue monthly, right? That was it. Or per class. So nobody had this, like some e-learning platforms could work. So at some point we kind of got a little Frankenstein together with a bunch of different softwares and we made it work. So now we have we launched our online program, 54D On, it's called, and we launched it on July, and we sold out in less than 15 minutes, uh, which wasn't because and may mean sold out because people ask, if it's online, why would you sell out?

Sure.

And the thing is that the way it's structured, it's it's also nine weeks, right? In this case, actually 10 weeks, because we have an orientation week before the program actually starts. But you do have group chats, you have somebody from 504D as a coach in each of those group chats guiding you through not the training, training or pre-recorded, but nutrition basically. So we have a nutrition protocol. So people are still living within a group chat, even if it's virtual, with a coach there, and they're every day they're talking and asking, you know, and they're being guided through this. And they still take their before and after pictures, they weigh themselves, they measure themselves. So it's still a community. So we did have to limit the amount of people if we wanted to deliver a result, because it wasn't about revenue again. It was about let's try to do this, you know, not on site, but with somebody who's on another continent, which is gonna be kind of difficult. But gladly uh it did. Now we're into generation eight, so we've had a little bit over 10,000 members already, either graduate or being part of the program right now. And we got people from 57 countries, so it's great because you get people from literally all over. And you see that they can bond because they're again their needs and wants right the same. Right. So it's been a it's been a great experience. So we were happy that we were able to stick to our guns and do what we thought was right. Let's not go into revenue only, let's go into a program. That's what we like to do, that's what works. And we did it, and gladly it's it's worked.

That's great news, man. So how are you delivering this? Are you you mentioned you have an online community chat function? Are you guys do you guys build something proprietary? Are you kind of using multiple tools? What what are your at this moment?

We're using multiple tools. We uh again, I think that was one of the very interesting aspects of building this on the pandemic. Uh, obviously everybody started flocking online, right? So developers were swam. Uh anyway, even in a normal situation, just creating your own proprietary um app would take about, you know, something that's good, it would take less, not less than a year, maybe a year, six to eight months to have a beta. So we just decided to really start looking for different tools that we could incorporate. At that same time, we decided to build a company. I mean, it was already an international company, but the corporate structure wasn't as full. So we started incorporating all the information for all of the countries into one single system. We decided, you know, if we're gonna do it, let's do it, you know, pull on. So um we basically grabbed several tools that we liked, we incorporated them. So now you basically go into our online store. Uh, when there's an enrollment period, again, there's enrollment periods, you just can sign up whenever you want to. There's specific dates when the program starts. You go in, you enroll, you download your app, and then all of your content will be there. Uh, you're introduced to your coaches, your coaches will add you to a specific group. So everything lives within our app, basically. There's a 504D on app, and that's where you get your daily task, where you get your video, your training video, or you get uh tutorials. We're pretty much about teaching people. For example, in nutrition, it's not about delivering menus. We don't have menus at all. You know, we offer some recipes, but it's really about teaching them. So we have tutorials on everything from hydration, supplements, emotional eating, uh, schedules, how should your plate look like? Uh you know, we there's a lot of information from nutrition aspect to teach them how to live a healthy lifestyle. Actually, the last part of our program focuses on how to leave a healthy lifestyle, right? How do you plan? How do you know you know set um objectives for yourself? How do you uh moderate on things that you shouldn't be doing? So it's really we're trying to go further, uh, just not on the physical aspect, but we're trying to go further into teaching people how to be healthy, right? Your apps will come at some point if you want to, but you want to be healthy, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's great. I mean, there's um you know so many ways to deliver it. So you guys are on a mobile app? Are you doing um TV apps?

Or yeah, it's it's a mobile, it's a mobile app. So basically you can download it in your phone, your tablet, you can stream it uh your TV, and you can you can use your desktop as well, which is not the most convenient. It's basically mobile and tablet.

Yeah, smart man. Everybody's everybody's moving that direction. Sounds like you guys were nimble enough to do it faster than most. So that's uh you know, it's a test of the leadership team very much. Thank you. Um wow. So Omar, I here here's a question I always like to kind of focus on towards the end because it it uh facilitates um conversations. What do you what's the biggest need that you guys have right now to continue to grow and and achieve the goals that you guys want to achieve?

Well, I think right now we need to slow down a little bit. I think that's our that's our uh that's our most urgent need. And I mean it on a uh jokingly, but not as well. I mean, when you grow so fast, because we you know somehow went into if you think about a couple of years back, we went from being two countries, basically Latin American, to go into the largest market in the world, which is you know completely different. Yes, Latin, but you know, at some point, if you're gonna stop only focusing on Latin. And then we went into a pandemic, and then we went to online with, you know, thank God great success. So when you get to that level of you know uh of growth too fast, you can still mess it up pretty badly, right? So what we decided to do was to kind of take it a little bit, you know, slow down a little bit, right? Focus on just uh getting our company stable. Thank God, you know, financially we're very stable, we're doing really well. But most of our corporate was tiny, and we don't want to grow too much, you know, you want to you don't want to go that way either. Just start hiring people. You want to focus on saying, fine, let's take a step back, let's see what we're doing, right? What we're doing right, what we're doing wrong. How is it that we want to focus our onset strategy? Because we are still gonna build on-site uh uh studios. Uh, we're not just focusing on online, which is another question we always get. Why would you focus on building something when you're doing great online? And that's because we think that people, first of all, are still social, they'll still want to come back, and we've seen it. You know, we opened our studios again and we had four times as many requests as before. Uh, but also because that's where you really test yourself. That's where you really have that personal interaction, right? So, in terms of needs, first of all, is to really focus on building the right processes within our corporate structure so we can still deliver a great result to our members because if you start going too fast, you're gonna lose that personal touch, right? Second, obviously we need to start thinking about financials. You know, we have we're in a great situation, but if we want to become global, which is what we want to do, and that's our aim, obviously you're gonna need at some point to partner with somebody or get the right people behind you. Uh, it's something that we're not rushing into, but we are obviously active looking, actively looking into it. Um so I think the greatest needs would be those two, right? First of all, get yourself to a place where you know you can grow, you know, with uh I wouldn't say with ease, but knowing what you're doing and that the growth doesn't kind of you know come back and bite you and you know, suddenly you're you're losing everything that you have worked for. And the second is that at some point when you want to become global, you need that financial backing. So I think they go hand in hand.

Yeah. It's very wise of you, Omar, to kind of like pump the brakes a little bit and be like, okay, let's let's build out the structure that allows us to take the next step. I think most business owners and entrepreneurs, especially once they get a taste of success, like you guys have seen, just want to let's just dump gas on the fire, right? Let's just do this. And it's very tempting. But then oftentimes, as as you pointed out, more oftentimes than not, you grow too quickly and that presents a lot of problems, and then it just just destroys everything you work for. So I applaud you for having that uh that presence of mind, I guess, to really take a step back. It's awesome. Well, this is fascinating. It's it's great. I mean, there's so many qualities of of what I that I like about what you guys are doing. I mean, focusing on the result, you know, charging a premium to do it, and then really focusing on delivering uh, you know, the quick pivot to online, a very specific messaging about your business and the market that you work with. And uh just strong stories. I mean, at every level between you know, Rodrigo and you, there's there's just great stories behind everything, which I think is really attractive and it builds a brand, uh, which is what you guys have done as well. So, man, it's awesome. Congratulations on all the work you're doing so far. I think it's it's really uh it's it's really impressive. Omar, for people who want to get a hold of you or get in touch with you or learn more, where do they go? Give us the goods, man.

Sure. Um well our website's 54d.com. It's pretty great, you know, number 504d.com. Uh, you can also visit us on Instagram. We always answer all their direct messages, which is 54d.us. And you're in Mexico, it would be 54d.mx. In Colombia, 54d.col. Um, I think that's the easiest way. We're always kind of pretty, you know, that's become the basic use for everybody to try to reach us, right? Mainly through Instagram or the website. And then we we're still, again, as I mentioned, we're still a pretty small corporate. So we get to hear and we try to listen to every single person that that reaches us. Uh obviously we're, you know, kind of building that structure out as well because it becomes hectic. But uh, but that's the easiest way to contact the assignment LinkedIn as well. They can find me, you know, Homer Unis, and um, you'll see me there. And I try to really, you know, answer to anybody who reaches out because you know, I'm grateful that we're still pretty humble about what's going on, and we we want to stay there. I mean, I think we're just starting on uh in this market, and we're we're we're grateful for everybody as yourself who's helped us kind of you know deliver what we're doing and the message, and and obviously we're we're very, very grateful with what's going on and with how the US has embraced the brand as well.

Yeah, yeah, man. Well done. Well, thank you. I appreciate coming on. Uh, I love the uh authenticity and and just openness that you bring to it. It's it's been great. So yeah, I appreciate you coming on, ladies and gentlemen. Omar, you know. Hey, it's your host, Eric Malzone. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Future of Fitness. If you enjoyed it, please do me a huge favor by going to the website and signing up for our newsletter. The website is futurofitness.co. Again, that's futurofitness.co. We've got some big, big announcements coming down the pipe, and we want you to make sure that you are on top of it. Thank you again. Signing off.