Conor O'Loughlin: A Strong Conviction For the In-Person Experience

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over two years and running. It is 2021, and I am your host, Eric Malzone. I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Stop by futurofitness.co to subscribe and learn more. Hey listeners, this episode of the Future of Fitness is brought to you by our good friends at Insight Tracker. Do you want to add more years to your life and more life to your years? Of course you do. Which means you need to make a change. And that is what Insight Tracker is all about. Founded by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometric data from MIT Tufts and Harvard, Insight Tracker is a personalized health and wellness platform like no other. So what's their secret? First up, Insight Tracker uses its patented algorithm to analyze your body's data and offer you a clearer picture than you've ever had before of what's actually going on inside you. Then Insight Tracker provides you with a concrete, science-backed action plan for living a longer, healthier life. And it tracks your progress every day, every step of the way. For a very limited time, Insight Tracker is offering future fitness podcast listeners 25% off store wide. Visit InsightTracker.com slash future to get your offer code and try the Insight Tracker today. Insight Tracker, because change is an inside job. This show is brought to you by Level 5 Mentors, guiding entrepreneurs to achieve the highest levels of freedom in five critical areas. Time, money, relationships, health, and purpose. So here's the deal: entrepreneurs and business owners undoubtedly walk a different path, which means they need a different set of metrics. The great news is that level five mentors has actually quantified it. Yep, that's right. If you go to level5mentors.com forward slash survey, you can take the freedom assessment, get your personal score, and see how you are stacking up. That's level5mentors.com forward slash survey. And don't worry, it's free. Well, I'll answer that question for you. You're not, because you can't until now. Morpheus arms coaches with accessible, intelligent, communicable client insights to save coaches time and ultimately increase your value and earn more money. By collecting lifestyle data from 90% of the current wearable market and combining that data with cutting-edge proprietary technology, Morpheus provides an accurate and reliable recovery score for all of your clients served up on a simple and elegant dashboard. No more guessing, just the real, honest data alongside the insights from Morpheus into what to actually do with it. But wait, it doesn't stop there. The Morpheus platform also provides live heart rate training for your clients that can be tracked and shown anywhere. In the gym, in a home, outdoors, with personalized heart rate zones for each individual client. Combined with custom alerts, in-app messaging, and other amazing features, this is the ultimate coaching machine. Go to trainwithmorpheus.com to learn more. That's train with Morpheus M-O-R-P-H-E-U-S.com. Please go check out our wonderful sponsors. And if you get value out of this show, I ask you to do three things. Please go subscribe, give us a favorable rating, and share this episode on social media or wherever you like to go chat with friends. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and once again, welcome to the future of fitness. Connor Olachlin, welcome to the future of fitness.

Thanks, Eric. Great to be here.

Yeah, excited to have you, man. I was doing a lot of research this morning before recording, and but I'm glad I want to get your backstory, of course, for the audience here. But professional rugby athlete that went seems to have gone straight into entrepreneurship right after. I would say that you like a little bit of intensity in your life. I could be wrong. Good to have you on the show, man. Yeah, give the audience a little bit of your backstory and how you got to be the CEO of Glow Fox.

Yeah. Thanks, thanks, Eric. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's a bit more of a probably an unconventional background. As you mentioned, I was lucky enough to have a rugby career for the best part of a decade. So was playing with uh a team in the west of Ireland, one of four professional teams in Ireland. And I I managed to get a hip injury that that cut it short. And so at the age of 28, I you know exited out of the rugby arena. And then not knowing where I wanted to place the next steps in my journey, I I had decided to set up a web and app development business with a friend of mine who was equally passionate about entrepreneurship. So we did professional services for across a range of industries doing uh custom development work. And it was through this this business we recognized an opportunity to serve a uh type of business model that was close to my heart with where it was focusing on group exercise and it was it was in the fitness industry and we felt it was being underserved and it had a lot of potential. And so we shifted the focus to to build a team around servicing a product to bring that to market. And that was the yeah, that was the the genesis of Glowfox of what it is.

And you it looks like you guys started with and still primarily served boutique gyms. Is that correct?

I think we at the early stages we definitely had a narrow focus on and rather than classifying the even a type of business that we serve, we we went after a type of business model. So we felt that the the industry uh was more going towards a model where it was meeting members' expectations and focusing on the end user. So we developed a product that was really focusing on driving exceptional member experience in a very intuitive product as to use. And that appealed primarily to boutiques. So I think where we had a narrow focus on what you classify historically as boutique, I think that started to broaden as the market started to mature and as the more maybe bigger box concepts or traditional gyms started to readjust their focus to be more around their members. And I think in particular, COVID has definitely accelerated that trend, which is which has made our product and our positioning of our products even more relevant.

That's great. You you mentioned having a membership focus. And I guess when you get down into the granular for a gym owner or a coach, like how is that different? What is the what's the difference? There's a that's better than anybody. It's there's a lot of membership software out there in CRMs. Where did you guys find your unique advantages in that area?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of software out there, and and some of it's more focused on billing and payments, and some of it's more focused on the the back-end system that's even a more generic horizontal offering that serves multiple industries, let alone just one industry in fitness. With us, we we had this granular focus and my clean focus on our guardrails were fitness. That was our background, that's what we knew. We're deeply care about our customer success and we deeply listen to our customers and understanding the market, we made decisions in line with that. We don't have the market cornered for these great ideas, but we have managed to get incredibly smart people to join the team and be opinionated about where we're going to place our bets. And our bets were more aligned with right, we we wanted to enable these businesses to have a more of a connection with their members. So their branding and their services, how that was delivered with the member experience was important. So a big part of our focus was first off, deliver a very seamless white label app for their members to use, which is all the time strengthening the brand identity with the member and the gym, getting them more affiliated and closer to their members, and also be able to layer on very intuitive workflows to be able to capture prospects, nurture them through to be members, and help them to have a great experience through more automated personalization tools, which didn't really feel like you were cellotaping together like 20 different software platforms to achieve. So we take a lot of that core complexity and try to distill it down into a very elegant, simple solution that's easy to use and very, very powerful for driving member engagement and retention.

Yeah, interesting. And that's there, I I think when you look at most boutique emotors, I know you've expanded outside, uh presume to like larger health clubs and chains as well. It always seems to come down to two things at the end of the day. Save them time and help them make more money. Yeah.

It's exactly it. Yeah, it's it's all about money. Are you gonna save me money or make me money? So it's kind of hard, right?

Yeah, exactly. And I know 2020, obviously, for you guys uh over at Glowfox has been challenging because the industry that you serve has been significantly shaken up for lack of a better term. Internally, how have you guys adjusted to having to go remote, adjusting to the the shifts in the market? What have what have been some of the ways that you tackled those challenges?

Yeah, look, it's been it's been a challenging year for pretty much every industry, every business. And from our perspective, we like we we started out the business in Dublin in in Ireland, and you don't have much of a local market to serve, and particularly when you're focusing on a narrow segment of a one industry. So for us, being an international business from day one was important. So we built a lot of infrastructure to support our ability to serve internationally. So we ended up you know scaling in international markets a lot quicker than you would have maybe expected at an earlier stage company to do. And that forced us to put in place a team in Australia, a team in the US, and a core team in Dublin. So we were operating in three three time zones pre-COVID, and where we were a little bit like our Dublin was still our home base, and the other two uh offices were nearly nearly like second-class citizens to a certain extent because we do all like all of our update meetings was in person in Dublin where others had dialed in. And now what now that we've actually forced to go completely remote, it's created a lot more of a level playing field and it's forced us to put in place a bit more process and structure around how we how we operate if effectively as a fully remote team. And it's taken a while to get there, Eric, because there's there's a lot more where you have to spend time to focus on the team's challenges outside of just work because we I think COVID in particular has has really created more of a blended work-life balance. So we've definitely put in place a lot more focus and support on that side. But overall, now that we shift the remote, we're never going to go back. And I think it's put us in a strong place to be able to scale, to, to, to recruit and retain the best talent from wherever. And I feel like it's it's in in light of what's happened, it's there's a lot of good in that and a lot of learning. So I think like the one big thing I'd say is we've we really took an in internal focus first. We focused on our people and wrapping arms around that as well as our customers, and I think it served us quite well.

Yeah. It's I was looking at reading some of the interviews that you've done previously for I think the medium and a couple other really cool interviews that you did. Talent seems to be a word that comes up a lot as you're always seeking out talent. Why is that important to you versus maybe searching out skill sets or experience? Like where what where did that come from?

Yeah, and like I maybe it comes like from being like my my even the background in in in rugby, and you're you're part of a high-performing team where uh you're surrounded by people who are ambitious, passionate, make sacrifices for their career, and it's all driven towards this common purpose. And I and I think there's a lot of learnings that that you can take from that. And you know, I I feel like us as a team, we're the the Glowfox team, we've matured a lot over the years. But the the one thing that's been the biggest learning for me is finding great people is nearly the number one job you can do. It's getting the right people on the bus, and then you can find out where you're gonna head in the bus, the Jim Collins, good to great stuff. And like for us, we've always made the decision that when we're always recruiting for exceptional people, and if the timing is is off, if it's a stage too early, stage too late, like that's okay. It's better to get the right person and then find out where to place them rather than be rushed to to hire someone out of necessity with that. So I think a big cornerstone of our success has been has been people. And we always say we have to be an exceptional place for people to do their best work, and only then can we be an exceptional place for our customers to be? And it's sequential, it's in that order. So we take a large focus on finding the best people, retaining the best people, and giving them a structure where they can do their best work.

That's awesome. How do you how do you identify talent? You don't see it on a resume, right? How do you identify and get it in?

Yeah, and it's really it's tough. Recruitment is it's the highest leverage thing you can do as a CEO or a leadership team is is finding the right people. And I think again, learning over the past number of years, I would have been more more open to creating um an environment where I wanted everybody to come join Glowfox and then really make the decision. Whereas now we spend a lot of time as a team trying to get very opinionated and really off-putting to a certain point with people who aren't aligned with who'd be successful in the business. And that's not saying they're not great people, they'd be great people in in different roles in other businesses for joining for joining Glowfox and the way that we work, we've an understanding for for what the real core values are about how we recruit, how we reward, and how we make decisions. And a big part of it is really under cover or undercovering, do they represent the behaviors and characteristics that we feel align with with Glowfox and making sure that that those behaviors and characteristics are opinionated. They're not all just these fluffy ones that that everybody is, everybody could put on a wall. We are quite opinionated with that, and then we spend a lot of time with hiring managers and look running a process which is a diligent process in as shortened a period of time, which gives both parties the the prospect and and GoFox the opportunity to properly evaluate each other because it's a two-way street. So I think that's it. And then we look for about 25% of our hiring to come through referrals because the best people get get the best people um and network. And so we try and we try and drive and incentivize on that as well to ensure that we're constantly under search for the right people. Again, it's nearly role independent. We we we find a role for the right person at any time.

That's interesting, man. Sounds like a great place to work.

Thanks, man. Yeah, we're we're well look, we're we're trying to get there, we're we're constantly improving, but it's yeah, it's never a kind of a set thing. Yeah, it's funny, this journey has been incredibly rewarding, but it's also incredibly challenging because you're not just trying to build a product, you're trying to build a a company as well. And it's we added 60 people to the team in 2020 alone, and you know, we've got about 120 to add this year. It's constantly evolving the company, and so you're trying to make sure you you build process, but not too much process that you end up becoming bureaucratic. And so there's a lot of these kind of competing challenges that come with with trying to do that so quickly, but it's exceptionally rewarding when you you can hear feedback of people actually achieving what they they want to achieve in their own individual career goals as well as collectively in terms of the value that that we're creating with uh with our big purpose and our mission.

Yeah, that's great. And you guys were you founded the company, what was it, 2015? Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. So we founded myself and two co-founders. I was born out of that consultancy business, and we yeah, we we we bootstrapped the development of it over a few years because look, we needed to uh learn the lessons ourselves first before we you know before you took on outside capital and wanted to make sure that we had good product market fit. And then we did an early seed round in in 2015, and then we did our late seed round with two tier one VCs, uh a London-based uh VC Notion Capital and Partec Ventures, uh, a French-based VC and a local VC tribal VC out of Dublin. And then we scaled then from in 2017, we did a Series A, then in 2019. So we've taken on venture, but it's been on the basis of strong unit economics where we've we've really proved our business model can scale. And and look, we feel we're we're offering something compelling and it's really resonating well pre-COVID, and we feel that it's gonna resonate really well as well to post-COVID, just given some of the proof points that we're seeing in the market.

Yeah, interesting. How many employees do you have now, Connor?

So we're just over 150.

Wow, okay. Yeah, it's a good sized company. Well done. So one of the things we talked about pre-recording, which I think is a really important topic because so many interviews I've done on this show in the last six to nine months uh has been about the hybrid model and going digital and all of that. But I'm interested in talking to you about the opposite. You mentioned beforehand, you have a strong conviction for the power of in-person and that experience. So let's dive into that. Where where do you and all this talk about going virtual, hybrid models, digital, all of these words that everyone's been hardcore pivoting to do? Where does the where does your conviction lie and what do you think the a year from now things are going to look like?

Yeah, no, it it is definitely a top of mind at the moment. I think like where our conviction comes from with in-person being uh such a relevant component of the future of fitness, it's rooted in in the data that we have actually over the past year as well. So we saw that we're in thousands of businesses and over 60 markets, and we're tracking pretty well where the lockdowns were and those inflection points were for them, and the the mix between the online classes versus in-person classes. And we saw that that when areas that fully opened up after lockdown, they were at least 20% stronger as people actually did rush back into the gyms. And overall, we saw that that online stuck at about 5% post-open, and that was a blend of businesses that concentrated on it as a long-term strategy, and then businesses that maybe used it as an insurance policy for further lockdowns. So I think what it tells us is that, and from my own experience, it's that there is a lot of noise and there is a lot of and a little bit of positivity around more variance in terms of fitness elements, but I think the core in-person experience is harder to replicate and um is not dying. I what I think is the more realistic view will be that this that that we all recognize that digital transformation is paramount. And if customers weren't going there before the COVID, they're they're certainly sprinting there now. And the challenge is how these bricks and mortar businesses build a digital layer or enhance their served, their in-person experienced offerings and services in a way which lands and resonates well with end users. So while hybrid has taken a lot of headlines, we feel that given the data and given what we're seeing in the market, uh, the in-person experience is going to be around for the future and it's it's definitely not going to be killed off. So I think the challenge then becomes about how these businesses can adapt and be able to enhance the member experience and focus on the member more. Because I think that's the really compelling trend, not just for fitness. As a macro trend, I think end users are more in control and their expectations are heightened. And the ability to meet members on their terms and be able to to serve them in the way that they want like they don't want choice they want what they want exactly like that and that's going to be the challenge but I think this industry is built with on on on strong resilient entrepreneurs that that have perseverance I've so much confidence I've got going to come out of this out of the blocks roaring it's it's it's good to hear you say that I had Ian Mulane keepme.ai I don't know if Ian but uh he was on the show not too long ago I think we recently released it and he had a great I'll paraphrase he was like the digital trend is a time is a costly endeavor for gym owners both in time and money and more of a distraction than anything.

And that was pretty what are you going to do? Are you going to as a maybe a boutique or a small chain or something like that are you going to go up against a Peloton and a tonal and all these connected devices with huge budgets for digital products and services and streaming and all that. It's a tough thing. And it really brings people out of what their core services are and it's an understandable scramble especially in the short term to get through the hump. But I think a lot of people out there who have been in the industry for a long time would agree with you that the the in-person is still king. We just got to figure out at what time can we really launch again. And then the other question is how much pent up demand is there for it? And that's I think that's what we're going to find out pretty soon. I I'm curious Connor you mentioned data. What kind of data are you guys looking at that are driving some of these intuitions or beliefs?

Yeah so like we're in the enviable position where we have a lot of activity through our our our product. So we're able to see those attendances those class bookings those open gym attendances and then obviously with online functionality that we shipped we're able to track the usage of that versus the attendance correlation. So we're we've got a we've got a a pretty nice interface and chart that we share on a weekly basis with our team across geos which has given us a good pulse check on how areas are performing one's in lockdown and ones out of lockdown. So you're so I think that the the trend of post-lockdown resurgence of in person is the is a big takeaway really for us. And like you put your finger on it well it's it's very difficult for these SMBs to be competitive with high quality content from the likes of Joe Wicks and these other global providers or else the the bigger brands that are able to run production studios for delivering um exceptional live streaming content. And the for them to go down that route um to compete on that level just wouldn't make sense. Where these businesses who are successful was the fact that they were building communities. They were building a more kind of personalized experience where there was a connection with their members and there's that social need which still needs to be fulfilled. Coming back to ways that they can do that in a safe manner which is alleviating concerns from members regarding like COVID and exposure but doing it which also fulfills that that social need and staying true to to building strong fitness communities or strong experiences that's that's really their secret sauce and that's harder for a lot of these bigger brands to to compete with so I think it's still going to be super relevant and even more so coming out of this.

Yeah interesting this is one of my favorite questions I ask but looking into the rest of this year 2021 today's recording date is February 9th of 2021 what fitness technology are you most excited about moving forward?

Yeah good good question like with with fitness tech I I feel like there's a there's a lot obviously out there it's nearly all consuming with uh with personally like I I I like anything that's g delivering a personalized experience. So anything in terms of analytics I am in terms of ability to either count calories count count steps count exertion and be able to link that back um with providing some overall view of of health and wellness and then linking that in with sleep patterns as well too I think that's quite interesting and and I think there's the some of this is analys like paralysis by analysis where you can be over over consumed with data but there's a lot of a lot of products that are doing that in interesting intuitive ways that feels like it's um delivering um more value so I suppose something or something along those lines would be good and that'd be like where where we're looking at placing more of our bets. And I think with us we're looking at partnering up with new and exciting partners on an ecosystem approach for ability to close the loop from the business perspective to get more of an understanding for some of these activities that their members are doing outside of their business. And then it's really helping these businesses to to step outside of just the four walls and door of their business. And I think that's the trend also that we're seeing is the the members' experience doesn't start and stop at the gym. And so your ability to to be able to deliver a personalized experience in the gym or at least be able to to be a significant part of that and feed into that overall experience where these end users are becoming more excited about feels like that's an area worth investing in. So that's where we're placing our bets for this year.

Yeah yeah yeah that's a really good point I had a really interesting conversation with a newer company Scipio.ai Grousen and his team yeah and where business intelligence and artificial intelligence are going to start coming in and massaging the data and giving both client or the the consumer and the fitness professional and gym owner actual things to do with the data because there's so much data absolutely and and that's it it's overwhelming for them.

And like you said at the start is a big part of of running a gym or studio is like actually just putting the business on autopilot and spending time on the floor or thinking about strategically about the business, not working in the business and freeing up time to do that. And the last thing you want to do is just be firing so much data that's all consuming but it's it's not delivered in a way which is useful or actionable because that's really what they want is they want actionable insights and some way they they can actually use this to help drive a retention number or an or sentiment number or a revenue number.

Yeah. Yeah I'm I'm just going back to my decade of boutique gym ownership I own uh CrossFit affiliates and it was so hard not to like you said to find that time to think strategically and not get sucked back then. And I I did a pretty good job. I had all the key roles fill GM head coach admin staff all that but I still found myself constantly being I guess sucked back into the operations and day to day and not having that time or really devoted piece to really look strategically at where this thing's going. And when I did come up for Aaron it was a great thing. Usually it's because I was facing some huge challenge where I needed to shift and think creatively. But I think that's a big thing for for boutique chim owners too is to get to that point where you're not running every little bit of your business that you can as the E myth says work on the business. That's a really challenging part I would imagine what you guys do probably helps helps business owners do that as well.

Yeah no I like exactly it's why we exist really is to to provide a product that that is enabling them to set and forget a lot of this so a big part of our focus has been on enabling them to to have personalized communications with prospects with members but in a more automated way that's delivering them a good experience and it's and is relevant so the right message to the right prospect or customer at the right time and but it's a it's a it's a challenge. I think I think that that kind of times because a challenge in any business like even for us uh and and for me particularly in COVID you found that you just go online and you just have your days on back-to-back Zoom calls and we implemented a no Zoom Wednesday uh last week was the first week in it and I tell you man it felt like the best holiday I've had in a year I actually got to some free space to think it was incredible and I it's just yeah you can't underestimate the value of stepping away and and having some time to think strategically and not being just sucked up in the day to day of it and but it's applicable for any business I think yeah oh man it's it it's so funny how fast we adjust I've been doing working remotely for since I sold brick and mortars back in 2017 because we my wife and I traveled a lot and lived that lifestyle for a while and so I was fairly used to it.

But I have to say man like when I on Mondays I try not to have any Zoom calls but they somehow sneak on occasionally but what a great day. I just feel relaxed. I'm like getting through work and I think we forget like I was talking to um Dan John who's very influential coach and speaker and author and he's so used to like flying places to speak and do all these things and he was like man I he's I think I'm busier now than I was pre-COVID because I'm constantly on Zoom calls I'm constantly doing podcast interviews I'm constantly working with people and doing meetings and it's almost like we forgot somehow that because there's nowhere to commute to I can just jump from 940 959 in the morning to 10 a.m to my next meeting and I don't move.

Yeah I know I know I actually I've noticed that because I was like on a plane to the west coast um nearly every month so it's like there was every like once every month I'd be on an 11 hour flight from Dublin to LA and I actually realized I missed that because that's where I got most of my work done because Wi-Fi is so crap. There's no even point logging on you just end up doing some kind of deep thinking on it. But yeah it's just I definitely recommend the no zoom day. I if anything to just get away from your own reflection of yourself because I I feel like I've just watched myself age every day over the back you start to notice those little things when you zoom you're like huh that that part of my beard wasn't gray a few months ago how did that happen just trying to cover up the receding hairline on the call that is really funny. Yeah so that's oh man no Zoom Wednesdays it's such a it's it's an interesting day that you pick too the middle of the week that would be to me like the most busy day of meetings right what what made you guys pick that day um we have this thing we've increased the cadence of our all hands so we've got an all hands twice a week and one of them on a Friday we have this place where people can drop in an anonymous question that we'll answer live and it was just pretty consistent with people coming in going can we just can we have a a no Zoom day or a no slack day or something just give ourselves a bit more time to to to breathe and and think so it came from the team and it was yeah it's a great call it so it's definitely I think it's one of those things where it's like uh maybe unlimited vacation or something where it actually just increases productivity the more we stay away from each other.

So even these counterintuitive ones yeah it makes a ton of sense it really does and so my wife and I are currently living in uh like an executive apartment I guess you could say on someone's estate and because we're building a home so we're in a small quarters and my wife she's a director VP of operations I'm not sure what her title is now but we're only 10 feet away and uh we just have different rooms and we're both on calls all day and yet it's amazing that we still get along great. Um but it there it takes a weird toll like I it's it's really interesting everyone thinks I I get asked a lot too Connor and this is kind of off topic but people like what was it like to be a digital nomad for better part of three years. I'm like it's a lot more romantic when you think of it than the actual application thereof because you're constantly moving you're constantly searching for internet there's a lot of distractions and you don't have that community. And so I think there is this romantic view of being all digital which is awesome because you can do your laundry while you're working you can cook a stew while you're working so you get some of your free time back. But there is something about just going to an office or going to a place where you can meet that I think people start to miss pretty soon if they're missing it already.

Oh it's yeah definitely and look it's the exact same topic we're nearly talking about with fitness right it's you can achieve a lot with with other experiences but at the end of the day like humans need social interaction and they it can be exhausting and overwhelming to be isolated for for too long or with these things. But it's interesting you were cooking the trend I'd say three years before the whole world decide to join you. So has it gotten easier or harder now that everybody has gone uh digital do you think?

Oh wait are you turning the interview around on me? Yeah yeah it's definitely less novel you know now but I I think everybody's used to it I have always been used to it so I never noticed this big shift that everyone felt last year. And to me it was just always there. So it it is interesting seeing the world catch up to what we are just used to now. And then what's really cool, which I like about it is when people are starting to think wait a minute like we talked about earlier, I guess I don't have to physically be in my town anymore. I can go one of my clients mobilehome.com they do monthly furnished rentals and companies like that. Hey I can if I live in Seattle we see this all the time people are picking up moving here to Whitefish Montana for two months of the ski season because they can't. And then maybe they'll just go back or maybe they'll go explore somewhere new Santa Fe, New Mexico or Dublin, Ireland. Like we can do that now. And I think people are now starting to become awake that's actually an option because I think there's also a little bit of fear in people doing that moving somewhere new trying something new. But people who are starting to see it are taking advantage of it. And I think that's really cool. I think a lot of I can always speak for the United States I think a lot of our problems could be solved if people travel more and experience different ways of life. So I I think it's great.

Completely agree yeah that sounds great.

So I know we're uh our time is bumping up here Connor but tell us like where do people go to find you is there any kind of new things you guys have coming down the pipe this year. Give us the goods man.

Oh yeah so yeah we've a lot in the mix we're we're we've got Glowfox Connect which is uh a conference that uh that we ran um last year we're starting to run that on a on a quarterly basis keep a keep an eye out for that where our resources page is constantly updated I think we're up at six blog posts a week we've got a a podcast the fitness founders podcast that is always very interesting we we obviously we we put it second priority to your podcast eric we're not gonna steal the top spot on that one we we do and we yeah like if you're i i looking for for a product and a on a platform that's that's gonna help you transition into the into the new digital era that we've been talking about check us out glowfox.com awesome awesome and I was on your podcast thanks for having me on Amon you did a great job it's a great show and I love that you guys as a a membership platform are putting out so much content I think that's pretty unique and I think it's really educational. Yeah keep up the great work yeah it's it's just it's an incredible industry I just you absolutely love it. The more you spend time in it the more you you just realize it's just an industry embedded in passion and and I I know it's been a tough time for a lot of business owners over the past year but married in with the the optimism that we have based on some of this data and some of what we're seeing in the trends in the market when you combine that with the just the resilience and perseverance and tenacity that that fitness entrepreneurs have shown even pre-COVID just some of what we've seen with with our customers and how they've really dug in and been supported by their members it just like it's been overwhelmingly it's just been such a a great like pride and satisfaction that that we take as business to be able to support these types of entrepreneurs I think it's worth noting that that this industry will come back stronger and looking forward to the other side of these vaccinations too.

Yeah me too man I love it I love the positive high note too at the end here. Connor thanks for coming on man it's been a lot of fun.

Anime I really enjoyed it thanks a million.

Yeah ladies and gentlemen Connor O'Lachlin Hey wait don't leave yet this is your host Eric Malzone and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minnesota. 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 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 futurofitness 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 future of fitness have a great day