(6) Casey Jenks of FitBot - Tech That's Changing the Game for Fit Pro's

Hey guys and gals. This is Eric with the Future of Fitness podcast and Fitness Marketing Alliance. And this is episode number six. And I get to talk to Casey Jenks. He is with Fitbot, which is thefitbot.com. And this is a great example of the stuff that we uh we like to highlight on the show of how technology is coming in and changing the way we do business in the fitness industry. And uh I've been using Fitbot for a while for my remote coaching clients and my on-site coaching clients as well. And it changes the game, it saves a lot of time. It's it's uh a drastic improvement on the way that we communicate with our clients and we get feedback loops, and uh and I think they're gonna continue pushing forward and adding a lot more to it. So it's definitely worth listening to the story because this is a tool that almost every trainer can use, which can optimize their business and uh help you get and handle more clients and really take care of the ones that you have even better. So get into it, and if you have questions for us afterwards, you can definitely reach me or Casey. And uh yeah, without further ado, here it is, Casey and the Fitbot. Hey everybody, this is Eric with the Fitness Marketing Alliance, and today I have the pleasure of sitting with Casey Jenks. He is the uh co-founder and CEO of Fitbot. And uh I'll get you into an introduction, but I I I want to talk a little bit about um my experience with Fitbot really quick. Sure. So people kind of understand what it is. So uh I guess I could consider be considered an OG in the industry, and um I did a lot of uh development of what we call individual design clients over time, which were either working with clients remotely or simply programming for clients and especially in the uh functional fitness competitive area. And I was uh I used to use spreadsheets, I used to use email, and I used to use uh Write Inbox, which was an app that allowed me to send emails at a specific time, and it was chaos. Um and then I kept hearing about this this tool that was coming around, and it was mainly through the guys at OPT and OPEX, and uh the the old old timer was very reluctant to let go of my spreadsheets and my email. And then finally I made the conversion to Fitbot, and I'd say probably after uh only it took me about 24 hours to get used to it, and it's completely changed the way I've done coaching. I was doing up to over 20 people per week, which as you know takes a lot of time. And uh so I was extremely happy to find this application and start using it. Um, and that's kind of my story on Fitbot, but we're gonna get much more into your story. But the first thing I like to ask people, uh, Casey, when they come on the show here is what is your fitness story? Because everybody in the industry seems to have some story of how they got into fitness, and and uh I'd like to hear yours.

Yeah, so growing up, I was always, you know, very active playing sports. Uh basketball was kind of my main sport. Um, my dad, super active, so big uh you know, reason why I kind of find fitness to be important to me was you know, he always made it such a huge priority, and he's 63 now and still just shredded and uh in amazing shape. So it was kind of um lifts weights a few days a week, can you a couple days a week, swims once a week, plays golf uh a few days a week, but he's always always in at something. And uh so that was kind of instilled in me from a a very young age, uh having that. And started lifting weights, high school, you know, lifted all through college, played basketball, you know, recreationally all through college, and um went to school for computer science. So software development, building web apps was always uh it's always been uh another passion of mine. So got a job as a software developer after college, met my now wife a few years after graduating, who was a personal trainer at the time. And uh she asked me one day, maybe a year or so after we were together, she asked, Hey, you want to open a gym together? And she had kind of got me into CrossFit at the time. So I'd been CrossFitting for maybe a year, year and a half or so. And uh yeah, she asked me if I wanted to open a gym. I said, Fuck yeah, let's let's do it. So we did that, ran that for about five years together, um, from about late 2010 to or to late 2015, and until we decided it was time to kind of pass a torch and uh kind of move on to other things. And for me, that was Fitbot and you know, continue my software development. And uh yeah, decided it's time to time to sell and kind of pass the torch.

Here I am. Yeah, we have a term for that because uh I interview a lot of people like you and me. Uh we call it recovering gym owners. That's that's the uh the the tagline. Um so you're one of us. What uh give us the Fitbot story. How did this come about?

Yeah, so I had a pretty nasty shoulder injury, completely dislocated it on uh a snatch max gone wrong. So yeah, dislocated the shoulder, had to get surgery, went through uh physical therapy, and I got done, got cleared from therapy, but knew that you know I wasn't quite ready to get back to doing what I was doing at the intensity that I wanted, and uh knew that I needed to progress in a smarter way than just jumping back into you know standard group classes would have progressed me. So that's when a friend recommended I hook up with a coach at uh then it was then OPT. Um so got started with the coach there to kind of get me back to where I wanted to be and progress me on you know, kind of my goals while while also uh kind of rebuilding this still weak shoulder that I had. So uh totally relate to the email and spreadsheets thing. I was on the receiving end of that. You know, I would get to the gym. First, I'd have to find that email that contained that three weeks of training or so. So get to the gym, first find that email somewhere in my inbox, and then scroll and find that day in there, take that, copy it, paste it into my notes app, record my results, have them going along because it was a remote relationship. Sometimes there would be video involved. So those would get uploaded to Vimeo to wait for all that to finish, take those URLs, paste them back into my notes, and then get them back to my coach on the other end. It's already a pretty time-consuming process for me. You know, for about every hour I spent working out, I felt like I spent another half hour kind of curating these results and you know, making sure everything was was right there for him to interpret. And uh I asked him one day, I'm like, you know, you have 50 of me. How are you managing all this on your end? Assuming that there was a Fitbot or some other type of program or platform out there built for trainers and coaches to kind of store all this. And you know, I was really surprised when he looked at me and said, email. Like email is his go-to, email and Evernote, essentially. Who is your coach, Casey? Uh so I started off originally with Max back when Max was at OPT. Max Al Hajj before. Yep, yeah, awesome guy before he started training think tank. And uh with Mike Bond at OPEX now.

Okay, awesome.

Great guys. Definitely, yeah, both both super smart, smart guys, learn a ton from from each of them for sure.

Yeah, I think um behind all, you know, it's no secret, but find all behind all great innovation, there's somebody just solving a problem, right? And it's usually like your own problem or something like that. Scratch my own itch for sure. Yeah. So um I know you're kind of getting into it, but to expand more, what is what is the problem? Um, you know, what is the pain points that that Fitbot solves? I know personally for me, but I want to hear what what yours, how you uh how you dictate that.

Yeah, so for the coach, uh, you know, the main pain point we're trying to solve is just the old way is it's just such a cluster. You know, you have your your spreadsheets, you know, maybe it's Excel or Google Docs, and then you're dealing with a lot of email, and then uh you know, factor in day-to-day communication with your clients. It's gonna be more email or text message or Facebook message or wherever a client can get a hold of you, Skype. Uh and you know, before you know it, you end up with these 10 services you're trying to cobble together to run your business. And you know, they're wasting so much time and losing out on so much revenue in the time they have to spend kind of managing all this, versus uh they could provide a much better experience if they only had to worry about and focus on you know doing their job, which is coaching their clients. And uh they're also you know, it's also a pretty pretty bad customer experience to provide your clients with, you know, hey, we're gonna use email for this, and then you're gonna message me through, you know, more email or text message, and it's just uh uh so much, so much is lost in the process.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I totally agree. And it's um I'm really enjoying using your program. How long have you guys been around now? When did you guys actually start?

I founded the company in January of 2015, and uh we launched into a small beta later that year and been great kind of growing steadily along since then.

Describe that growth. Where have you guys started? How have you guys gotten the word out? Has it been you know word of mouth? Have you guys put any um you know marketing emphasis into it? How have you guys grown?

Yeah, so we get about half our customers from word of mouth and referrals from existing customers. The other half come from you know partners like uh like an OPEX that refers the CCP coaches into the system. Um Facebook ads is a great source of new leads and and new customers for us. Uh Google plays a role in that as well. So um, you know, it's a combination of a few things, but word of mouth, partnerships, Facebook are big three. Awesome.

Um one thing we tell all of our clients at Fitness Marketing Alliance is really, you know, the fundamentals don't change when it comes to marketing. You there's there's certain things now, we just have more tools and more avenues to get our messages out to the right people. Who is um who's your ideal client? Like what does that person look like?

Yeah. Our ideal client right now is is somebody that is experiencing the pain of spreadsheets, email, you know, someone like yourself when you first came in. Maybe you have 20 clients that you're coaching, and uh you you know you realize you're losing so much time and spending so much energy on inefficient processes and and workflows. So we really try and speak to that pain point and say, hey, there's a better way. Yeah, awesome.

Um give us a little insight as to um, I guess, kind of what what the current features are of Fitbot. And then I I'm super curious where you guys are going. I mean, um what what it's what's it gonna look like in six to 12 months, one year, three years, five years. Um I know obviously I've talked to you in the past, you have a pretty big vision of where this thing's going, and it's really exciting. Um Yeah, we're I view ourselves as as still kind of being in our infancy.

You know, we just now put together a team of of you know other developers and and people. So for a while it was it was myself and my co-founder, you know, just the two of us with some help from some outtime outside contractors eventually. But you know, for a while it was just us, and now there's seven of us, and you know, as we grow, that'll continue to scale. But uh yeah, you know, the first thing that we wanted to solve was uh it's centered around you know workouts, the the planning, the delivery, and the tracking of the workouts, the results, um, and things kind of centered around that. So we we kind of bit that off first as like the first chunk of work and focused like a laser on that, on making things super efficient. But as we grow, you know, things will kind of start to uh expand outside of that. So, you know, things on our roadmap might be um automatic, things like automatic check-ins and things centered around lifestyle and nutrition, you know. We're in the gym one hour a day, but you know, there's 23 other hours in the day that are just as important, if not more important, than the time you spend in the gym. So, you know, really evolving the platform to uh encompass that is a big focus of ours kind of going into end of this year, next year.

You guys, um, so you also maybe this is maybe you've done it before and I just noticed, but um, I think in the last like six to nine months, you guys have been adding or putting focus on a nutritional aspect of it as well. Is that correct?

Yeah, there's some lightweight nutritional tools in there now to mark kind of goals and high-level overview stuff. Um, we'll never be a MyFitnessPal where people will be logging food inside of the app. You know, hopefully one day there's an integration then where we can suck all that data in to display to the client and the coach. Right. But uh yeah, nutrition is uh another big aspect of that lifestyle piece. Cool.

Um so here's a question that gets my my inner nerd really excited, right? Sure. Um I think you'll appreciate it too. I believe that, you know, um services like yours, uh, Fitbot is bridging a gap between technology and and fitness professionals, right? Obviously. Like it's it's the fitness industry needs to get out in into the digital age, right? It's part of our mission too. Um how do you see, you know, if you had to put your visionary goggles on, how do you see technology changing the fitness industry in the next, you know, even six to twelve months, but maybe like five years from now, where do you see it all going?

Yeah, so uh we were just talking about this today, too, this morning. So we have a boulder fit tech meetup um that meets about every four to six weeks. So we were talking about this exact topic. So, you know, with with all the wearables and the Fitbits and you know, the Apple Watch and all that, you know, we're recording and tracking more data than ever before, but you know, it's still kind of not clear what we should do with that data yet. It's cool. I logged 10,000 steps yesterday. What the hell does that mean? And why do I care? You know, right. Um but you know, I think that there is use in some of these uh, you know, in all this data that we're getting, and um, you know, we can take kind of what we need and take that data, show it to the coach to make the decisions uh and piece together, like, hey, here's here's what this means, or here's the important gems from from this data that we're getting.

Yeah, interesting. How do you think? Um, do you see biometrics coming into a play in in this, like real-time biometrics that people can be tracking and maybe integrating with your platform eventually? Or how how do you see it?

I'd love to show, you know, sleep is probably the the big one that stands out to me. Um track the sleep and be able to show that to the coach. And if the coach sees, hey, you slept like shit last night, therefore we're gonna adjust your training so I I'm not you know beating the crap out of you. Um or hey, you you've had a few great nights of sleep, your everything's looking good, your HRV results came back is awesome. Let's hit it hard today.

Yeah. HRV, um, I know what that is. What a lot of people may not, you know, as a fitness coach, to explain what that is.

Yeah, heart rate variability. So it's not just taking a look at your heart rate, but the time interval between uh the beats of your heart and after we've been you know in the gym hitting it hard, or maybe we had a stressful day at work, or maybe we got a shitty night of sleep, or you got sick, your heart rate uh variability score takes a hit. And um, so you know, you wake up feeling like crap, there's a correlation between that and and the heart rate uh variability score. And uh you know, it makes sense to kind of back things off on the days that you're not feeling your best, able to kind of give it your all. You know, the days that you're you're feeling good and your heart HRV score is high, like let's go in the gym and hit it hard. So, you know, that's still up to the coach, but it'd uh be great, you know, in the future to be able to surface that data to the coach as well.

What are the um what are the big players in HRV right now in the in in the fitness industry?

Um I think I think Polar and Garmin are doing some stuff with HRV. Whoop is a new uh wrist strap that is kind of getting popular with professional sports and there's a lot of crossfitters now that I see buying whoops. Um they're so expensive, you know, it's really not the most accessible uh thing to spend $375 on a on a whoop band. But uh I've used an app called HRV for training on my phone. It essentially uses the uh camera and LED light on your phone. You hold your finger over it, and it can detect your your pulse through that and take an HRV score. Okay. And it's it's accurate. It works. And it's I think it's ten dollars. You can download on the app store if you have an iPhone or Android and uh track your track your HRV.

Yeah, I was using an HRV a while ago, actually, when uh James Fischer was my coach. But I had to wake up every morning, I had to sit still for two minutes, which for me was really hard. Yeah. Just to lie in bed for two minutes. So it sounds like that's changed, huh? OmegaWave is a big one, yeah.

Which I think talks to a strap, like a heart rate strap. Yep. Bluetooth or an app on your phone or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Um it's come a long way in the last few years. Yeah, it's an interesting what what other areas, what other areas in in the tech world? So let me ask you this. What do you think the biggest um blind spots are for for the fitness industry as far as technology? Like, where are they missing opportunities as a as a fitness coach or a fitness professional? Is there anything that comes to mind? In terms of like tech hardware? Yeah, I would say software and hardware, things that um fitness professionals aren't aren't utilizing more, right? That they could be. Um obviously your platform is is one of them. Um HRV could be another one. Is there anything out there that you think is is a big opportunity for fitness professionals and maybe um that enough people aren't using?

Hmm. You know, I I almost wonder if all that stuff is is, you know, all the Fitbits of the world are are being overhyped right now. You know, uh is there too much of that and not enough? Just, hey, we already know what to do. Um you don't need a the the Fitbit, right? Just what you need probably most is is uh accountability, and you can get that with a with the coach on the other end. Right, right.

Yeah. I it would be interesting. I I think a lot of um, you know, we start talking about you know, the possibilities of of VR, virtual reality, right? And and coaches um, you know, having a VR coach and things like that. But I feel as technology advances that's just my gut, that the need for human interaction is still gonna be is gonna get even greater, right?

And you're never gonna be able to replace the human on the other end. Yeah. Yeah. Your Fitbit might tell you, hey, you need to get 10,000 steps, right? But it's easy to ignore that, right? It's just a computer algorithm. It's much harder to ignore, hey, I'm paying this coach $300 a month. And uh that keeps you way more accountable than a wristwatch ever will.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I was at um my wife's Brazilian, and we were in in Brazil, and uh there people would, I was at a gym and it was just a classic, you know, um buys and tries, buys and tries type gym. Went in and people, I saw these people swiping their card, right? They swipe this card and all of a sudden their workout plan prints out for them that day. So it was I'm like, oh my god, it's it's beginning. Like this is it, right? This is it's a takeover of artificial intelligence. Um the AI coach. Yeah, the AI coach. Uh, you know, I I guess what I'm what I'm getting at here is that fitness professionals need to be aware of all these things going on, but I don't think the fitness profession needs to be worried. I think anything that's based on like human interaction, right, is is still gonna be highly valued. Definitely.

And I think its place is to augment technology's place is to augment the coach, not replace it. Interesting. I love that.

Explain that a little bit more. What is what does that mean?

Um, so getting the right data to the coach to make a decision based on that. But you know, as a as a consumer or a client, not relying 100% on a computer algorithm algorithm to tell you what to do. Yeah, awesome.

Casey, where do you see for you guys, where do you see your biggest growth opportunities in the in the next five years? Is it gonna be, you know, is there any sub-segments of the fitness industry that you see as big growth opportunities for you? Um yeah, that's the question.

Yeah, so we have a lot of current uh CrossFit coaches, and I feel you know, as that market kind of matures and as CrossFit as a whole becomes more commoditized, there's gonna be a lot more uh CrossFit gyms and coaches looking at ways to differentiate themselves and they're gonna have to go a step beyond just the group programming, right? The group Wad. Um and you know, we feel that a lot of them are gonna be turning towards individualized programming as a way to kind of retain more clients because right now, you know, there's that two to four year maybe burnout period where the client feels like, all right, I'm not progressing too much anymore, I'm gonna go look for the next thing. Well, instead of going and looking for the next thing, CrossFit coaches and gym owners should be able to provide that that next thing, which is individualized program design. Awesome.

Um so if I'm a fitness professional and I'm I'm I'm listening to you right now, um, I want to know how how do I get started in in using Fitbot? Well, you know, why should I use it? Um, and how do I get started? But also how how do you guys help um fitness coaches with with giving the tools to help them show that they are differentiating themselves, like helping with with assisting with their marketing or giving them tools to to to do that?

Um from a marketing perspective? Yeah, yeah. Not yet. So we have some stuff in the works there. Okay, but uh yeah, I'll keep y'all posted.

Awesome. Awesome. Um, so how do people try Fitbot? How do they get a hold of you or how what's what's the best way to get started?

Yeah, so they can go to Fitbot theFitBot.com and sign up for a free 14-day trial there. Okay. If you have any questions, uh there's a little chat bubble right there on the on the website or in the app. Uh and they can reach out to us and you know they'll hit our team pretty fast and we'll get them squared away.

Awesome. And I'll you know, personally put a stamp of approval on what you guys do because um it really has a saved me a lot of time, right? Now I can spend, you know, uh two hours on a Sunday morning doing all my programming for my clients. Um, it's really helped with uh the speed. I mean, the videos that you guys have already uploaded for um, you know, before I would have to go and search for uh, you know, hip extension, right? Weighted hip extension barbell, right? It's already logged in there for your system. It's already there, it's already vetted by us.

Um yeah, we work with Central Athlete to to provide those and we love their videos because the angles are great, they're short and to the point. You know, when a client's working out, you don't have time to watch a 10-minute explanation and deep dive into a movement. You just want to see the the quick points. Hey, how do I do this? So you can stay in the workout and get on to the next thing.

Yeah. Um, that's huge. That's been huge for me. It's also been huge, is that um it keeps me on top of it. Like very little things fall through the cracks because it gives you notifications and lets you know, hey, you know, this client they're due soon. Yeah, they're due soon. They always you owe them some programming.

Their compliance is taking a hit. Yeah, all that stuff.

Yeah, all those features are are really solid, and I really urge people to check it out because it will um save you time, make you more efficient, and really add a lot of value to the relationship that you have with your clients. So um, boom, that's my stamp of approval for you guys. Absolutely. I appreciate it. Yeah, we wouldn't be here without uh without all the customers giving us the feedback and and uh staying engaged. Yeah, and that's another thing I will say. Uh you can actually, if you are uh a client of Fitbot, you're a coach, you can actually talk to Casey. That's that's one of the most amazing things is I'll be I'll be like, I'll just instant message you through the app, and there's I'm talking to the CEO. And uh I mean that's a level of service that I really appreciate with you guys.

Yeah, I you know, it's always my goal to be able to continue to talk with customers. Um, you know, I don't know how long, you know. We we do have a team now that helps out there, so you don't get me every time, but well, it feels like it. Yeah, I'll always be staying involved for sure.

Awesome. Well, Casey, thank you for your time, man. It's it's really great. And we're gonna stay on top of this and keep watching you guys. And um yeah, have a uh have a great weekend in in Boulder, Colorado, man.

Yeah, you too. Thanks for having me on.

All right, see ya.

See ya.

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