Brian Chappon & Mohammed Iqbal - Centred Wellness & The Future of Travel

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. When you do what you love, running, racing, or simply enjoying the great outdoors, you want to do it for life. InsightTracker can help. Insight Tracker was founded in 2009 by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Using their patented algorithm, Insight Tracker analyzes your body's data to provide you with a clear picture of what's going on inside you while offering highly personalized, science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. Okay, time for straight talk. It's time that each single one of us takes responsibility for our own health. Personally, given the results of my Insight Tracker DNA and blood tests, I now have a clear and simple game plan to lower my cholesterol and stave off my family's genetic history of heart disease. The best part is that the plan doesn't include any kind of pharmaceuticals, just personalized nutrition and natural supplementation. Possibly my favorite feature of Insight Tracker is the inner age score, a singular metric that shows me how my biological age compares to my chronological age. They just gamify longevity. It's crazy cool. For a limited time, you can get 25% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to InsightTracker.com forward slash future. But wait, there is more. If you're a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or any other health and wellness practitioner, you can now leverage Inside Tracker services to help your clients perform better than they ever have. And you can offer them discounts while you earn revenue. InsightTracker Pro is your gateway to offering your clients Insight Tracker, the science-backed, ultra-personalized performance platform trusted by elite athletes and top coaches. Just go to InsidTracker.com forward slash future to get more information and enjoy deep, deep discounts. That is insightracker.com forward slash future. Insight Tracker can help. Insight Tracker was founded in 2009 by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Using their patented algorithm, Insight Tracker analyzes your body's data to provide you with a clearer picture of what's going on inside you while offering highly personalized, science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. Okay, time for straight talk. It's time that each single one of us takes responsibility for our own health. Personally, given the results of my Insight Tracker DNA and blood tests, I now have a clear and simple game plan to lower my cholesterol and stave off my family's genetic history of heart disease. The best part is that the plan doesn't include any kind of pharmaceuticals, just personalized nutrition and natural supplementation. Possibly my favorite feature of Insight Tracker is the inner age score, a singular metric that shows me how my biological age compares to my chronological age. They just gamify longevity. It's crazy cool. For a limited time, you can get 25% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to InsightTracker.com forward slash future. But wait, there is more. If you're a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or any other health and wellness practitioner, you can now leverage Insight Tracker services to help your clients perform better than they ever have. And you can offer them discounts while you earn revenue. InsightTracker Pro is your gateway to offering your clients Insight Tracker, the science-backed, ultra-personalized performance platform trusted by elite athletes and top coaches. Just go to InsidTracker.com forward slash future to get more information and enjoy deep, deep discounts. That is insight tracker.com forward slash future. Mo, welcome back. Brian, welcome for the first time of many. Uh this is the future of fitness, guys. Let's uh let's talk about some travel and wellness. This is an exciting topic. I mean, if you don't like to travel, then that's your problem, right? If you do like to travel, then this is an episode that I think will resonate with so many people, not just within the fitness, health, and wellness industries, but just as a human being who likes to get around this planet, right? And do it in a healthier way. And do it in a way that's not as stressful, and doing in a way that you actually enjoy every minute of it as much as you can. And that that's what I feel like centered is. And without further ado, because I know we have so much to cover within this 45-minute period, but let's let's start with Brian. Let's please give us your background. Mo, you've been on the show, and people can go back about six episodes and listen to uh the great episode we do with Sweatworks and and about Sweatworks and you as a guest. Uh Brian, let's focus on you for a minute. How'd you get to be the CEO and founder of Center?

Yeah, I like to say it was through all my failures kind of led me to building Center. Um I think I've been a serial entrepreneur for 20 years. I tried my first tech run in late 1990s, early 2000s. I was too young, too inexperienced. I irony of the whole thing is I pitched to a VC firm out of Seattle that now is on our board. So they joked that it took us 22 years for them to finally believe in me. So I don't know if that's a good thing or bad, or I'm just a terrible salesman. Yeah. But yeah, and they're great people. Uh they're one of the first investors in in Howard Schultz vision, you know. So, you know, if you could aspire to build what he built with Starbucks, I mean Seattle was really booming in the late 90s, early 2000s with tech, and there was a lot of reminds me a lot of today, what's going on with the crypto and NFT world. There's a lot of yes, a lot of overvaluations, all these things. I think I feel like we're very much coming. It's like nothing's new in uh under the sun, right? Like we quote, because it's really interesting to watch the principles of VC, but my background, failed entrepreneur mostly, uh, got into travel and wellness uh really kind of by accident. Um like Mo, and probably one of the reasons why we bonded so quickly was the same thing with you, Eric, was I was on the road all the time um running a fund out of New York City, and somehow found myself in in the capital markets finance world, which is never really where I wanted to be. I just found myself there, and it it was it was something where it evolved in 08 like just wiped us out. We were a second position fund on real estate projects, mostly shopping centers in the Southeast and other parts of the world. And I think our biggest investors were Lehman Burns, Lehman, Bear Stearns, Goldman, New York Life, and so I like to say my life was a country song. I was in a bad relationship. Well, that blew up, probably a good thing. Uh lost the dog, lost the house, and was literally living on a 65th in Broadway next to my office, a Starbucks. I literally slept in there for a few weeks. And it was, I think it was mostly because of my ego. I didn't want New York to beat me, you know. So jumped, jumped in, was realized very the hard way that we were trying to save something that wasn't worth saving. And that was an ego there played by me, and uh it was rough. But out of that process, I got into boutique fitness by accident. A friend of mine was teaching us, his actually wife was teaching a spin class at Soul Cycle, and I think it was I can't remember, it was 11 or 12 New Year's, and they were like, you should come. And I'd seen it living in the city, uh, you know, I walked by going, what is Soul Cycle? What is that? But uh I took a class New Year's Day, man, I was hooked. And it wasn't, it wasn't because of all the culture and the pros and cons of that. It was just honestly being in a back room, dark lights off and spinning and and able to decompress for the first time as an old athlete, like that challenge, so to speak, for me, I was hooked. And I after that, I tried every boutique class I could find. And it actually was my way of getting out of kind of a mental health issue for myself in regards to recovering from really a loss, um, you know, and how you grieve that loss in a business and personal life and so on. And uh, someone had said to me, Hey Brian, you had this idea of putting wellness spaces at airports, and I was like, Yeah, you should do it. And they're like, No, you should do it. There's this tug of war going on. I was like, and I told him honestly, I don't think I have it in me to start another business. This is now my my it was my fourth business, all filled, honestly. I mean, our fund was doing well, so I can't say it was failing, but you know, life happens and and it went from a high high to a low low. And uh I literally said, fine, I'm gonna do it. I have nothing else to do. And I literally cold called Heathrow Airport. They didn't answer me. So I got on a plane, pitched them, and literally, it was a cab driver took me to their corporate office because I they don't actually tell you where their corporate office is, and and that became FlyFit, which was uh two and a half years after I pitched them. Flyfit was our first studio at Heathrow, and we were trying to grow this business and realized very quickly we're in the wrong business. Very quickly. Um, so as 2016 on to 18 happened, we kept seeing priority pass being the driving force in the what we call the entitlement airport business. And I'm going, they have no API, they have no technology, they have no way to pre-book a lounge, and they're they're doing 900 million a year in revenue. And I asked, I remember asking MasterCard Vs and all these guys, why are you working with these guys? And they said, Well, there's no one else. I said, challenge accepted. So we began the process of the wireframing of Centered off of that. Of like, wait, couldn't we take that same entitlement that's paying all of us to go into an airport lounge and do that for booking a class? And that actually began the the first framework of what Centered is today. So it's it's kind of kind of funny how it all happened. It's just it just kept trying something, okay, not working, trying something again, not working, trying something again, until we had it where we believe now we have a right. And so that is my quick, long-winded story.

Yeah, that's great. And and how did Brian and Mo, how did you guys get hooked up together? Give us a little bit of that story, and then we can get into exactly what it is that's centered in is in its current rendition.

So I think Mo, I don't know. That's a great question. How did we do it? I was just thinking about that. I don't know if I remember actually how it was.

I was expecting some great story, guys. Like, you know.

You know what? I think it was it was, I think I reached out, I saw Sweatworks in the LinkedIn post. That's what it was. And I was still living in London at the time. I believe I was stuck in lockdown, if I'm not mistaken, Mo. I think a few years ago, a couple right at the beginning of the pandemic, and I saw what Mo had built, and I thought, this is awesome. I love what this is really interesting. What is Sweatworks all about? So I think I just reached out to you, and Mo was gracious enough to uh set up a time with a stranger uh and over Zoom, and that's that's where it started.

And turns out we're really not strangers. No. We we actually have people that we know going back more than 10 years, um, which is which is incredible. But what excited me, Eric, is one you know, I knew travel was going to come back. We were in the pandemic, I knew it was temporary, but two things really resonated with me, and I saw that there wasn't a solution for that. The first was that travel and how do you solve for wellness during travel? But the second thing is because we were all cooped up during the pandemic, people were dealing with a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, and I think mindfulness was the first time. If you we now use this term wellness, right? And before the pandemic, we we used to say fitness more than wellness. Wellness was like the thing that's out there, yeah, calm and headspace to feel like people are doing it, but it wasn't a mainstream term. Today, I would even argue that wellness has replaced fitness to kind of describe the overall industry. I certainly use it. Um, and I saw that people were a lot more in tune with understanding that being cooped up, not getting daylight, you know, missing the commute, missing that human-touch interaction, not being in a studio, not seeing other people, not getting to lunches, all of those things has an impact on your well-being. So um, I was looking for something, and I think we were trying to figure out what does the future look like? Because you have these people now coming out of their homes and isolation, really, even though you were interacting with Zoom and FaceTime, having that human element, the touch hug, giving someone a hug. Um, there is something there that is significant that that you need um physically. So, what Brian had envisioned and created with centered wellness, and we can get into more into the partnerships and why I think the platform and the infrastructure is really right to take off, brought both of those, both of those worlds together in one addressing how do you stay centered um and and and fit and well while you're traveling. Um, because before a lot of people said, Well, I'm traveling, so I'm gonna not work out, I'm gonna eat what I want, but there's that doesn't help because then you not just take a step back, but you take like five steps back and you come back, and and recovering up from that loss is actually harder than just staying with your routine. And then the second one is really addressing the addressing the mindfulness aspect and impact of not only what you feel like when you travel, but even when you're at home. So uh to me, I was excited to kind of get to know Brian and now work with him on a center.

Awesome. You know, I I want to paint a picture. This is just one man's opinion, this is my opinion, but I'm 45 years old now. When I was younger, travel was this glamorous experience, right? It was something you look forward to, as Brian and I were joking about. You got dressed up, maybe to get on the plane. Uh you had nice meals, uh, the airports were really people was everyone was kind and excited to have you there. And now it's very different, you know, especially I think coming out of the pandemic. I mean, I just saw you guys in New York and just traveling out there was one of the first times I've traveled really uh well, not the first time, but one of the the few times I've traveled since the pandemic ended. And it was just different. You know, and I I think one of the struggles now with the modern age of traveling is staying healthy. When you talk to anybody who travels a lot for work, and every time they come back, they just feel horrible, right? They're the time zone I mean, between the time zones is is hard enough, right? Dealing with jet lag and all that, but then you tend to eat like crap, right? You you you all these things add stress to you. Um you don't you're you're just kind of lost once you get there, you go for convenience, you don't go for your health. And I feel like that's a huge problem and a very distinct pain point that a lot of people have. So where do we think the future of travel can go? How can it be improved upon? And how are you guys in the center, pun intended, of that?

Yeah, I it's so true. I I I remember I I grew up next to an airport in Seattle, so I was like five minutes away, and I remember just always dreaming and watching and an envy of people traveling. You know, for me, I think that subconsciously I I was destined to be in the travel business, whether I realized it not or not, because as a kid we we grew up you know pretty poor, and so we couldn't afford, I think we did camping trips, but I always wanted to I always see the planes going by like one day I'm gonna do that. And and I think you're right. I think you think of the old Pan Am days, you know, where people dressed up and and and and it was it was the the the renaissance of travel, right? Like it was at that time, you know, think of the roaring 20s of travel, right? And I think what happened part of the industry to go back is is cheapairfare.com. I'm not gonna say names or anything, but like it became much more affordable. And there's pros and cons to that. Now we see overtourism as being a problem before the pandemic. Um, but uh at the same time, I'm all for people and having the ability to be able to afford to travel. So I'm not against that, but I do think that changed everything. It's it's is you, you know, when Virgin came out, his whole thing was let's not be a cattle car like the rest of them, you know, and and let's create a brand. And I think they did a great job doing that. But then over time, you lose that lust and and and and experience, the UX experience starts to go away as a customer. I think putting your health and well-being at the center and travel before the pandemic was was important, but I think coming out of the pandemic, it is literally the number one thing on all our minds, consciously, subconsciously, any age demographic. Obviously, boomers are obviously even more concerned about that when they travel. Like, you know, and that's why we built in telehealth into our platform that you could have access to at Western physician anywhere, anytime. It's because it gives you that peace of mind. So the first step that we created at Centered was we just want to give you peace of mind that you can travel in a healthy way, and then not have to go into Googles and Yelps and try to search out where's a place that's healthy to work out, where's a place that's healthy to eat, where should I stay all the time? Because people used to ask me all the time for years, hey Brian, you travel everywhere, where should I go in Hong Kong to work out? I'd be like, oh, go to this yoga studio down the street. So it's kind of this in the know because you know, between Mo and myself, you, Eric, and others, we've been on the road, you know, most of our careers. We kind of know, you know, especially Mo and I, I think that's why we bonded. We we we kind of we do our due diligence in cities because we're running those cities, we're checking out where it's a great place to eat for dinner for our teams. You know, we're obsessed. I'm probably a little OCD on that, and I know Moe probably as well, because we that's part of our lifestyle. And I think before the pandemic, people felt like you said, Eric, they they almost paused their healthy lifestyle and accepted the unacceptable that you know what, when I travel, I'm gonna go eat at McDonald's at 2 in the morning. You know what? When I travel, I'm not gonna go do my fitness routine that I worked so hard from January to February during the new year, right? Because everything just got thrown out. And that's not how it should be. Now that we're living in a world where we're we're still remote work, we're still hybrid, we're still kind of in the office, people want to be able to find curated experiences, and we've handpicked those experiences. So we that's what we are so passionate about doing is finding that in-the-no place to stay, work out, eat, you know, and experience.

People age at different speeds, and the date on your license may not represent your inner biological age at all. If you're looking for ways to extend your health span and slow down the aging process, the keys to health and longevity run in your blood. That's why Insight Tracker provides you with a personalized plan to boost your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics, Insight Tracker analyzes your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking data to identify where you're optimized, and more importantly, where you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition, and supplementation for your body. Add interage 2.0 to any plan for definitive calculation of your true biological age to see how you're aging from the inside out. I was proud to find out I'm a few years younger than I thought I was. For a limited time, you can get 20% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to insightracker.com forward slash future to check it out, learn more, and get your own. It's inside tracker.com forward slash future. On to the show.

And just to come back to like even the airlines and how they've shifted, I think that perspective is probably going to vary depending on what airline you travel and where and where you are. So for instance, I just came back from London flying on BA. And um even BA compared to another airline like Luftanza or Singapore, there's a sense of elegance and pride that the team and staff kind of put into their jobs. And I think sometimes being here in the US, you know, the the American Airlines and and their staff are dealing with so many pressures from not being paid well to benefits to the that are being eroded away. And you know, Delta's not trying to have their stewards join a union and they're pushing back against that. So there's a lot of stress that I think, um not to mention capacity issues on time issues. So the American airline industry, um, we've kind of done it to that, right? We've kind of really made it difficult to carry this sense of class and elegance um into travel. But I think there's a lot of international airlines, especially the ones in the Gulf in particular. And I I grew up and was born in Dubai. So I flew Emirates before it was really Emirates. But even back then, I do remember um, you know, going to Sri Lanka on Sri Lankan Airlines, going to London on Emirates, was to me like like what you were saying, it was something that was special. It was still something that was, you know, you got dressed up for and you carried yourself a certain way. So what I do today, and just this is really post-pandemic, since I started talking again, I treat it like that, right? So I do get dressed up, I do look my best, I, you know, think about what I wear. And if people will treat you better. And also, I think when I travel or really in anything else in life, I've learned to empathize with the other people, whether it is other passengers or whether it is staff, they're dealing with a lot more than they've had to deal with pre pandemic. So just like knowing that, and it's really a mindset, right? You know, put on some good music and just be respective of the people that are serving you, the people that are traveling with you, um, and just be aware that they've got to look at you. So, you know, don't be sloppy, right? Don't, don't, you know, make a mess and just be respectful. So I think that's one. Um, but the but the other, but to your other point too is we've now also viewed travel, you know, has shifted into something that we really enjoyed and look forward to, right? Like I'm excited I'm gonna I'm gonna be getting on a plane to now getting anxious about it and not looking forward to it, and and really focused more on the destination rather than the experience of getting there. Um, and hopefully that's going to change. And I think with apps like Centred, um, and also what we're learning a lot, you know, in terms of what to eat and what to drink and understanding nutrition, hydration, sleep, all of those things um while traveling, what to do when you land, what to do before you take off, is going to make that experience that much more enjoyable.

Yeah.

So, Brian, can you give us a little bit, or both of you, because I I know uh you're both working on this project now. What is it that Center does exactly? I guess look at it from like, who do you serve, how do you serve them? Um, and then what what are you working on now?

Yeah, I mean people ask us all the time, what is centered? And it's we like to we we kind of joke around our team and that we're a complex, simple business. Only because it what we right, it's an oxymoron in some ways, but only because we knew what most people that didn't know the entitlement business with Priority Pass or others like them was that the consumer never knew what they got, right? And that was done on purpose because then the banks and the and credit card companies had to pay for it. But because of regulation changes, not just because of COVID, but this was something that was going on you know before COVID, was the annual fees were being more held accountable. And also because points are on the bank's bank's balance sheets, they're actually a liability. And then came in COVID. Now you have all these points and all these rewards programs that are sitting on the bank's balance sheets, and it's a major problem. They gave them an exemption, but coming out of the pandemic, consumers were not being educated that they even had priority pass. I don't know how many people I've talked to, they're like, I I think I have it, I don't know I have it, which card do I have it with? So what we do at the time. That was me Prime.

I didn't even know that I had priority pass.

Right, and so and that was on purpose. That was that was specific because then they didn't really want you to know or me to know that you could go into a lounge for feed because they had to pay for it. That's changed, that's all shifted. So, partners in the credit card business that we're partnering with right now, we're integrating our book a class feature, our telehealth feature, and some of our other features that we have in our platform so that you have an alternative to an airport lounge access. So you can go in an airport lounge, but you can also really, and this is why they're so excited, like big credit card companies, because they can double their revenue with Centered, because now the consumer can use this in their daily lifestyle, right? Now they're gonna cap how many classes you get, of course, based on the premium if you're a black card member or whatever. But now the extension of your user journey doesn't just go into the airport lounge, it goes outside the airport. And that's what we've been trying to build now for a few, four, four years now, is what we like to say in our team is taking wellness with you on your journey. The ability to be able to book a class in the city that you visit, and the ability to also book a class in the city that you live in. And the credit card companies have adopted that with us. So we are really a B2B to B2C play as a platform uh that probably in time could naturally go into consumer product if we want to. But you know, there's no rush on us for do that. Right now, we want to play in a space of B2B because it it's large volume and it's actually providing something for the financial institutions that they can sell to their partners and actually give it goes back to the consumer, gives them a great experience. So that's really in a nutshell what we do.

Yeah, and just to carry on with what Brian said, what excited me and my team about Centered is one, they have some key existing relationships. I mean, you mentioned Dragon Pass, they've got a relationship with Dragon Pass, you've got a relationship with some of the credit card uh vendors that gives you the platform. Then you add on to that the integrations that Centered has with booking platforms and discovery. So you solve for one access, um, that's the first one. Then you solve for discovery, right? So the first thing is how do you get to the consumer? Then how do you give the consumer enough value that they're actually going to use the platform? So I think this next six months, six to 12 months that we're gonna be working on with Brian is really building out the fundamental platform, just really replacing that priority pass, giving you a lot more value. But what excites me beyond that, and we need to do this first phase to get to phase two, is then driving recommendations. Um, you know, how do you get from where I am to Dulles Airport? And when you get to Dulles Airport, what do you eat? What should you drink? And having the app already have your flight information, maybe recommending the kind of foods that you could take on the plane. You know, what are the offering? What do you do when you land? Um, what's around your hotel? What hotel do you book? Really driving that consumer journey and touching them every step of the way, making it frictionless. And that that's been the key for you know anything that we work on for us is reducing friction for the consumer. And the way to do that is first by getting to know the consumer and their preferences, um, and then giving them informed choices, right? So they want to make a choice, so you know, you but give them informed choices that are relevant to them. So that's really the the vision for um center.

Yeah, spot on it. Mo, that's exactly it.

Yeah, I'm I'm curious. Mo, you obviously for this particular uh business and this area and this vertical, you you carry a lot of excitement for it. I can tell that. What what what personally excites you about this? Like I know you travel a lot, but when you I guess do this, paint me a picture. Like currently what travel is like, and then with your vision of what centered can be, what it will be like in the future. So g give me the the current and then what it'll be like, you know, X amount of years from now.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think to start with look at even the three of us in this call, I think we sit in a position of of privilege and a position of access that most people don't have, right? So I'm drinking, you know, instead of coffee, this this other, you know, um vitamin B and and uh D-based uh energy beverage that was made just for me. I take two packs of vitamins um that's made just for me. I have a custom curated protein powder. Um, and literally anyone that I want, you know, depending on where I am on life, um, I could say, hey, I want to do the sub-through hour marathon this fall. Great, based on where you're at, this is what you need to do. I've got access to nutritionalists, um, the best in the supplement industry, the best coaches, and the best doctors, um, at my fingertips of text messaging. And and over time, I've learned that all of these little changes that I've done actually makes a significant difference. I'm going to be 42 in June and I feel better today than I was when I was 32. And in a lot of ways, I'm I'm healthier, I'm fitter, um, I'm not stronger, but I'm faster. Right. And how did I get here in 10 years? And I think the same is true if I went back to 22. Um, and I was always, I wasn't one of those people that, you know, never worked out. No, health and wellness was important to me since I was 13. So it's not like I was out of shape and I got in shape. Um, and I think I've been looking for and constantly, you know, my vision and purpose in this industry is to democratize all that we know in the industry. And that term could be cliche, and I think that term is overused a lot, but I see a path to get there. And we've been, we've been successful in executing that for so many brands over the last 10 years. But travel is something that has travel and discovery, I feel like, are things that have never been addressed. So we've been really good once you've discovered a brand, right? Once you've discovered, Brian talked about SoulCycle, and you come into SoulCycle, we're great at getting you through that journey, you know, making sure that you could take the class that you want, find the instructor that you want, maybe join a community, get some apparel, do all of those things. You enter Beachbody, we're great at kind of recommending you what supplements to take, what programs to take next, and all of that. But the discovery portion has been a big unknown and it's been incredibly fragmented. So I think one of the things that Centered solves is not just a travel part, but really solving for discovery. Once you, you know, you have this broad audience, which everyone's got credit cards, right? And you get everyone has a rewards program. And once you get into that, I mean you're able to click on an app and then address discovery that solves for a lot of the things that we know of all the key pillars, which is you know fitness, nutrition, sleep, and you're gonna add wellness to it. Uh, I guess that that's four, four pillars in a single app is something that hasn't really existed um today. So I think that gets me excited about it. And I think it's also the price coming down. So the model here is using points and rewards that you've already cashed and earned towards your health instead of just buying you know AirPods or an Xbox. I mean, invest in yourself. Um, and I think that's what you know the opportunity here is with Central.

Well, when you say discovery, for clarification, what do you mean by that?

Yeah, so so right now, if you want to go and and find the near studio, it's really not that easy. If I type in fitness, um, I get one thing with Google Maps. If I type in spinning, I get something else in Google Maps, right? No one has really curated that. Or you have to go into broad applications like Mind Body. Maybe you can get all the Mind Body studios. But that's what I mean by discovery is and that's just for finding studios, right? Now talk about nutrition and and coaching for nutrition. Then you go into supplements. How do you find what's out there unless it comes to you? Yeah.

So this is much bigger than a travel app, if I'm picking that up right. Like that there's a lot of things that can be done. Yes, right? Like this this is a big vision.

Yeah, I mean, look, if if if if standard was just focused on travel, I think there's a huge opportunity there. But Brian, I'll let you kind of expand your vision here, but it goes well beyond traveling.

Yeah, you know, it's absolutely we we set off um getting these aggregators out there with the credit card companies to go from travel to get into lifestyle. And I think nailed it on the head. They didn't they don't know how to integrate the technology for discovery. They've kind of stayed in the same old, same old hotel, rental car, delta, you know, when you go on your Delta app, they've always stayed in that area because no one's been able to curate and put this onto one app, one platform. So, really, our vision over the last few years was to do that. And without without Sweatworks, I don't think it's possible. We needed the guys that know what they've done really, like most of what he did with some of their certain partners, it just made sense for us to partner up together because we we he gets it, you know, and Eric, you get it too. Like, we are gonna use this app. I use this app myself every day because it's something that it's part of my lifestyle, whether I'm traveling or not. And you know, same if well, I'm doing a ju a green juice every day. Sometimes when I travel, I forget my pack. Where can I, where can I find that through discovery? You know, a local juice bar, to you know, to do a ginseng shot, to eat at a healthy restaurant, to even where to stay. And I think coming out of the pandemic, you know, it started with travel, but also all of us have moved. I moved from London to Florida, never thought I would. You know, I'm now discovering an entire new neighborhood that I never thought it would be. So I think a lot of the world has shifted. Our personal lives have shifted. And Eric, I know we bonded over that from where you are and where you might go in the next six months. And so the ability, I it's much more than travel. I mean, travel obviously from A to B, you know, taking wellness with you is part of it, but I can see us just we want you to be addicted to our platform every single day. That's our goal, right? And it's but also bring good value to your daily lifestyle. And I think if we if we create the right discovery, then we're gonna do that.

Yeah. So if I'm listening to this as a someone in the fitness industry, you know, whether it be a gym owner, you know, an entrepreneur, or even just a personal trainer, coach, not just a personal trainer or a coach, um, important, you know, uh people within this industry, what why should I be excited about what you guys are doing?

Yeah, I love this part. That's a great question. I think for us, we always were passionate. I've always been passionate about I grew up with a father who had a small business. And I feel like it's small owning a small business is so hard. You know, whether you own a restaurant, which my family did, or you know, like my dad was in a business that's just him in the home office, you know, it the ability to drive volume, or one of our friends Deborah always says from Roe House, put butts in seats. You know, I love that she says that. And it's so true. That's really where we we went. It was like, listen, coming out of the pandemic, fitness studios and gyms suffered and they were closed with restrictions. The ability to bring in a new customer is huge because everybody's going after the same customer. You know, Mo and I've talked about this. Customer acquisition is so costly right now because they're all going after the same person. But if you tell a studio, listen, I'm bringing in a completely new customer into a new city, into a new brand, that hey, we want you to win them over, fine by me, you know, win them over to a monthly membership, then we all win. And I think that's where studios are starting to see that potential and see that see wide apart with us.

Yeah, I also think just to add to that, is when you look at a small studio and Eric, I think you and I spoke about this when we met in New York, is the cost and expense of building technology that completes the can the entire consumer life cycle is incredibly expensive. And even though technology gets cheaper over time, what what you found is you've got, on one hand, technology getting cheaper over time, but on the other hand, consumer expectation and sophistication increasing. So you're going to be spending a million dollars to build a complete consumer life cycle in fitness. And if you don't have that, what do you do? And I think when you look at applications and platforms like Centered, because they drive consumers to you, if you're a small studio or if you're a trainer, you focus on your craft. You focus on the thing that you do well. So if I'm going to see a personal trainer and I have an app like Centered that tells me, look, I just came over from a long flight, I need to focus on recovery today. Then you do mobility-based exercise. Maybe you do something that is breath work-based. If you are feeling great and you could do something high intensity, then that's what you do. So I think small businesses and trainers can really leverage the insights that you get from an app like center that is going to drive people there. They can focus on their craft, which is what they do so well, and really then put the customer back into a platform like center. So I think that's the opportunity there for the broader industry. I do, I do think it it really is a complimentary offering, and that's something that would take them away. And then just to add to the discovery, um, yeah, I mean, CAC is going up. It's not, it's getting more expensive to market um to consumers today, not only with the privacy restrictions, with you know, have platforms like the iOS, which become fully supportive of, you can't wait. It's getting harder and harder to spam people and do like this blanket marketing and spend whatever money you want to reach the consumer. You have to be a lot more targeted, you have to be a lot more focused. Given that, discovery is becoming more and more important when it comes to if you're a small city and you didn't have the brand equity, how do you get people to come to you? So you've got to rely on platforms that have a broader purpose, you know, like centered, which is really travel focused, out to credit card companies, be a part of that to get people to come into your physical location.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, so I and if I'm a gym owner, I'm putting on my Eric 2015 hat here. I'm thinking like, oh God, is this another group on? Right? Is that what this is? Like it's gonna drive, you know, poor qualified leads to my door. I'm gonna end up paying for it in the long run, although they say it's free, right? Uh what's different now than than in the past and some of the experiences that the facility owners and fitness professionals have experienced?

Yeah, that's a great question. I I remember when we were going out to build our technology a couple years ago, someone was like, is this like Groupon? And like, all of us just like oh god, no. Groupon kind of dumbs down the brand, right? I mean, we know it. It it really does. And for us, because we're a private marketplace, we don't publicly discount, right? So we don't want to be in a position where we're we're showing, hey, this is the discount to a class. Sure, our brands give us a good a good rate, but we also don't want to gouge our brands because you know the way we work with our price matrix is our credit card companies pay us a certain fee and we across the board in different markets. So obviously New York and Hampton's being the most expensive class, 40 bucks for a SoulCycle class or City Row class, and obviously Chicago might be a few cheaper. Yeah, 50 now, right? It's like 50 bucks. So, you know, you know, in some cases, yeah, it's a little bit more expensive. It's crazy to me. That's $50 now, it's amazing. But you know, you know, for us, it was it, it premium yet accessible is kind of our our virtue, our our our values, like make it a premium offering, but accessible. And uh, no the credit card companies like that, they like to hear that, but again, we had to cross almost every T and Dot, every I. We had to cover coverage was key for us with our partners in the credit card industry. So, you know, you're getting a value add spender, and that's something that's different than with a Groupon who is looking for a discount. Yes, coming out of the pandemic, everyone's looking for a discount right now. You can't hide from that, but there's a way to position our brand where we're not dumbing down another brand and and trying to gouge them on discounts. So, because our uh the way our model is is we don't have to do that. We're very fortunate the way we built our our price matrix model with the credit card companies, we don't have to do that. So, you know, we don't take 30, 40% of a booking. You know, I know that like with Row House and our friends there, and I think they were, you know, with other aggregators driving into their studios, they were only getting $17, $18 for a class that costs what, $32? So it's a pretty good gouge. You know, if we make a few bucks, we're happy because we're large volume. But also the person going into that studio can typically expense their trip because it's a lot of business travelers. Uh or like me, I might own my own business. I always forget my darn socks every time I go to a class. It's like, all right, I'm paying 20 bucks for a class that sold on top, you know, for just the socks. So, you know, it it it's my we're talking to some of the consulting groups right now that are gonna be using us, and they expense their ride on Uber, even though it might be faster to take Heathrow Express in London, you know, it's because they can expense it. And so we bring a much more value-add type of consumer into these studios. We spend more money. Our goal is they're gonna spend more money on merch and not just the class.

Mostly because I think the other thing too is um you've had gyms kind of go through the class pass and gym pass models. So I think they're a lot more educated in terms of how to approach these types of platforms, and they're going to say no if it's not going to be viable for them. I think that's that's the bottom line here. Um, and and what's different around the former ones, I think, I think you know, group on, I don't think that's really as significant anymore in in our category, but ClassPass and GymPass is still active. What's different here is you're adding a lot more value. So instead of just driving business here, the consumer actually has a reason to constantly engage in the app, not just for finding a class or booking the class, but there's a lot of other added benefits to that. So I think they're gonna get a much more valued consumer that's you know who's coming in. And as Brian mentioned, because we're first focused purely on travel, usually people tend to spend more when they travel than than when they're at home. And that really has been the focus of class less than Jim has.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been an interesting evolution of of how leads are generated for gyms. I mean, back in when I first started my first gym, it was uh I was flyering downtown Santa Barbara physically and then putting in you know paper ads in the newspaper and trying to get on the local radio stations. That was marketing. And then came Facebook ads, right? Everything changed. If anything, people myself, I'll just speak for myself. I got really lazy. I'm like, wow, this is really convenient. It's so cheap. I can just have people showing up and getting all these leads flowing. And then you start to, you know, time passes like, well, these aren't really good leads. Like people are staying for a month or two, and then all my other members are getting ticked off at me, right? Because I'm getting all these new faces that they don't know in. And then, you know, that started where off costs went up. And then we got these other ones, the class passes, things like that. And you know, it's kind of more of the same. And I think now people are starting to get down to okay, we have to be more community-driven and grassroots-driven, but the leads that we're gonna be willing to get have to be good, qualified leads in order to integrate them into our community, into our experience. So I think that's you know, a very, you know, with Eric with his 2015 hat-on, it's a very attractive thing for gym owners to get to travelers in. And I'll say I did love having people come in from all over the world into our gym. And a CrossFit gym was notorious for that, right? You get people coming in buying your t shirts, buying proteins, like buying, you know, expensive 10 packs of classes and things like that. And they were great. And they always brought great passion to it because they were there because they love fitness, and that was a difference, right?

I think that's that's something that we have to figure out. I honestly, I don't know. Know if we have the answer right now, Brian, in terms of addressing the community with centered, that there's so much tech that we have to still build out. Again, working on the fundamentals right now, addressing the white space that's there with travel focused wellness. But Eric, you bring up a really good point, is when you bring someone in, community is so important to not only helping with accountability, helping to be the support structure for you in your wellness journey, because you're going to have ups and downs, right? That's just the reality of it. And community can really help keep it together and it's and it's really needed. Um, I don't think that I think now that's even going way beyond what we had visioned. We have to solve for it. I don't think we have an answer for that right now. Yeah.

It's interesting too. Yeah, I agree. I I think all of us kind of fall into our favorite passions for workouts, right? We like, you know, I'm a big spinner and and and probably will mix between a berries and a F-45. And but mostly love to run too. So, and I think I think per it's purpose-driven a little bit because like, and we don't have the data here for this, so as Mo's talking about, we it's gonna be really interesting to see how community is, but you you nailed CrossFit in the head, because I mean CrossFitters go find other CrossFitters, they do that, right? And the ability to be able to jump in from one franchise to another is quite complicated. We solve that issue. So you don't have to go sign up for another membership and then cut that membership after two months because you travel, right? That's a major issue uh because everyone's owned by different franchises. So that's one thing we answer. The other is if someone's going into our platform, they're they're actually wellness focused already because they've seen it, right? So they are already thinking in their mind, I'm gonna go set myself up for success in my travel for health and well-being. So it is gonna be really exciting to see over the next few years of like what that community becomes. But if I'm using the centered app, that means I'm already thinking health consciously. Yes, you know, so it's definitely gonna generate some interesting data and some interesting communities within it.

Yeah. And an observation on what I was saying just a few minutes ago is that, you know, n equals one, this is just me, but I found that people who are into fitness and health and wellness were already part of a global community. So whether they came into my gym, they may not know, you know, Susie from across the block, right? Um, you know, the neighborhood family, but they were somehow part of the community already because they were respectful. They understood, you know, um, what it was like to train in a group and all those little things that that kind of glue community together. So I was always I liked when people who were traveling came in and stopped and that was great. It brought in new flavor, got to introduce them to the class, right? Be like, where are you from? I'm from Australia. Oh, no way, right? Couldn't tell by the accent. And then you start joking, and then you have a good time with them, and it's really, it's really fun. So I think it does build community. It may not be a direct link to it, but I think it's really important. Um, you know, as we kind of tick down the minutes here, I want to give some time and and see like what what's important to centered right now? Like what kind of partnerships are you guys looking for? People are listening, like, this sounds really cool. Like, what who are you guys looking to talk to at this point?

We're always looking for for boutique studios and gyms. I mean, that's that's always so. I think that's gonna be a constant thing to make sure that our experience is always good. You know, once someone starts using experience, we want to be able to extract that data and know was it a good experience? Right. And that's something Mo and I will be working on with our tech. Like I visit uh a studio in London, and how was it? Would I rate it, would I recommend it? Would this be something that I'd go back to? Because that's data we can share with studio owners as well. And I think it's important when you talk about travelers from Australia coming to your gym, that's amazing data. Because then they go back and share how awesome your your gym was in their experience, and that should be shared somewhere on our platform. So that's probably the most important piece. It's kind of it's kind of parallel of getting that data and and saying, hey, this was a five-star experience, and then also providing other going, hey, look at I went to Santa Barbara, I went to that gym as well, and and sharing that and posting that. So I think for us, it's always going to be about finding the best curated experiences and then making sure it stays that way. It's one thing to build it and then keep it consistent. And I think as you grow and you get too big, you almost have too many offerings out there. That's something that we're very, very conscious of. We don't want to overwhelm the consumer with too many options. You know, you don't want 1,000 studios in New York City. One, it's not fair to our brands because reality is there's too many choices. And right now, I don't know about you guys, but it takes me so much time to look for is filtering through all the different choices I have on a daily life. Like in anything, where I eat, where I sleep, all these things, so many choices. So if we can curate that and then get recommendations of why, that's going to be critical. So for us, it's back to being with Sweatworking with Mo and training that technology so that we can do that and give the at the end of the day the consumer the best experience.

Yeah, I think creating this global community uh is is really important. So if you are, as Brian mentioned, the studio, I would definitely reach out. But I think if you were anyone who brings value into the wellness journey, could be supplements, could be that you are in hospitality, you have a healthy, health conscious restaurant, you've got healthy items from your menu, whatever that is, the key to success for someone who is travel focused is one, getting something that is close by, right? So you don't want to travel a couple of miles away. You won't and you want to be able to get there by walking. So if you're if we can aggregate all of that into um a single app, which is the vision of centered, then we're providing value that consumers uh would would actually want. So I think if you're anyone who's kind of in the wellness category and you think that you provide value um to consumers, you should reach out.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, where do you guys want people to go? Do you want them to go to LinkedIn? Is there anyone to go into the centered uh app? What where would you like to send people?

Great question. I mean, go to LinkedIn, reach out to me directly, and uh as well as go into our website. There's a form you can even fill out if you like, and we can reach out to you that way.

Yeah, same for you, Mo.

Yeah, I think I think link LinkedIn is is always great. Um, but I would say go to the centered website, uh, follow along their journey there as well, follow them on social media. Um, there's a lot to be coming. So I would get in early on the app now because we are doing updates very frequently and adding new announcements. So get in on the newsletter, get in on the app, download it, even if even though you're not traveling, um, because in the next six to 12 months, you're gonna see some significant changes coming through.

That's super exciting. And uh, like Brian and I were talking about before uh this Mo, uh if you follow Mo on LinkedIn, he has these really cool weekly, I'm gonna hold you to it as accountability now, Mo, these really cool like updates on the industry and his thoughts and why it's significant, why it's important. I've kind of got a lot of value out of those. So thank you, Mo, for doing those. Um Brian, it's a pleasure. Uh it's it's great talking to you guys. You guys are doing wonderful things, and I always enjoy our conversation. So, yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian and Mo. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, or iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the feature of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the Feature of Fitness. Have a great day.