Empires Within A Niche - Fares Ksebati

I think if you're that fitness professional and you're looking for how do I zone in on like it or do I not zone in if you go wide, you know, like I think you just need to talk to more people. It just sounds like you're not you're not talking to enough people, maybe. And then and then you have to sit back. At the same time, you can't overcrowd with noise. You have to be able to observe, you know, maybe talk to 20 people, take a step back, and you and things start to elevate and rise from the rest, rise from the crowd.

Welcome back, fitness fans, to the future of fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 141. I get to talk to Ferris Sabati. He is the CEO and co-founder of My Swim Pro app. And it's a great story. Uh, we did talk for a little bit about being a swimmer, uh being an aquatics athlete and what that looks like and some of the hours that you put in and um burnout and my personal experience with it versus his. Uh so that was kind of fun. That was fun for me. Hopefully he found it fun too. But we also talk into what it's like to develop an app, right? What it's like to be an entrepreneur. Uh all kinds of things are really interesting and what he's doing now and leveraging it into triathlons as well. So it's it's a successful app. He's done well over the last, I think he started about four years ago, five years ago, and uh it's done well. Seems like uh, you know, he's hit his own levels of trials and tribulations along the way, as we all do as entrepreneurs. And uh he's persevered, he's doing quite well, and it's a great story, very smart guy, and uh a lot of knowledge packed in here. So if you are thinking about maybe developing an app or what the app world looks like, uh this will be a great app as great episode for you uh to check out. So before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by EliteGym Insiders.com. So are you a gym owner or your general fitness professional or health and wellness professional, someone who wants to get networked, uh join our free Slack community at EliteGymInsiders.com and you can learn a lot more. So, Slack if you haven't uh used it. If you use it all, if you use it, you probably use it all the time. And uh it'll just be an easy thing to add another icon and go in there. If not, it's a really, really great way of communicating. It's a great way of networking, uh, it's a great way of making the world seem awfully small because you can contact so many people with a swipe of a finger. And uh it's amazing. And the group isn't just all about great community and uh helping each other out, sharing knowledge, networking, but it's also about the deals that we're presenting. So we're now starting to give uh great deals, uh percentages off things you'll you'll need as a fitness professional, right? Challenge formats like the whole life challenge. Uh you can check that out. Uh, you can get discounts on digital marketing services, business coaching, um, education, you name it. All you have to do is just join the group and it's free, right? That's it. So go to EliteGymInsiders.com, uh, learn more. There's a short application we ask you to fill out before we let you in. Uh, but once you're in, you're in. And that's what we want. You get to talk to me, right? Kind of cool. So without further ado, let's get into it. Episode number 141, Ferris Sabati, uh CEO and co-founder of MySwim Pro. Enjoy. And we're live. Ferris, welcome, man. What's going on, Eric? How you doing? I'm doing great. I'm doing really well. I'm uh I'm really excited to to interview you um for a lot of reasons. I think uh we had talked about some pretty interesting things beforehand. Plus, uh you're a swimmer, man. You're an aquatics guy. We uh we both chased our fair share of a black line uh in our lifetime, and uh I like to share that boring experience with a lot of people. So here we go. Let's do it. I'm ready. Uh Ferris, give us your story, man, before we get into it. Tell everyone a little bit of background and you know, MySwim Pro and you know how how all this unfolded, how you got into swimming. Give us give us the goods.

You know it. So my name is Ferris Sabedi, co-founder and CEO of MySwim Pro. And uh, our what I do now, our company, we create mobile and wearable apps that coach people in swimming and triathlon. And I really got into the the space because I grew up as a swimmer and starting at age like five, my parents didn't actually know how to swim. So they wanted it to be uh it's really important that myself and my two siblings we learn how to swim. So learned how to swim at age five, and then by the time I was eight, I was doing the summer recreation team, swam all the way through uh high school and then college, and I never really stopped swimming. A lot of people they'll they'll you know train through high school, and then if they do college, they'll do that, and then they'll stop for like 10 or 15 years, and then they'll maybe come back. Yep, I mean it happens. I see it, I see it every day. But I I never really stopped and I just kept swimming. I started coaching swimming when I was 17, USA Club. And uh eventually that led to coaching masters swimming and triathlon, and that's really where the idea for my swim pro, our software app, came uh from my experience as a coach. I'm coaching adult master swimming, and um I always had other swimmers and other coaches asking me to send them workouts and different training plans. And finally, you know, one of my swimmers offered to pay me for this plan, and I realized that there was a big opportunity to help people, swimmers around the world who didn't have access to a personal coach, and that's pretty much what we do with our software. We create, you know, personalized training programs for swimming and in triathlon. And that's been a pretty fun ride since uh 2015 is when we got going.

Yeah. Right on, man. So let me ask you this. You know, being I started swimming, I think, right at age five as well. It's kind of like that, you know, they kind of throw you in and then maybe see if you can go across the hall. And you're like, oh, I kind of like it. Um did you always love swimming? Or did you like, was there ever a point in time where you you felt burnt out? I mean, the reason I'm asking this is because um, you know, I've been around aquatics, you know, basically my whole life until like 25, um, maybe 30, because I still play water polo. But um, my brother was a world-class swimmer burnt out really early, right? Sophomore year. He had a full ride at Long Beach State, burnt out in his sophomore year, and just couldn't do it anymore. Um, and I think there's it's hard, it's one of those things because it there's a lot you spend a lot of time in a pool, right? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of hours. There's a lot of there's a lot of you have to put in the time.

I think all sports, you have to put in a lot of time, but for whatever reason, swimming, I think you you can't lose touch of the water or else it can really hurt you if you're trying to achieve that high level.

Yeah. So did you always love it? I mean, did you start loving it? Did you love it the whole way through? Did you ever battle through burnout when you're going through I I don't think I ever had like burnout, burnout.

I mean, it's a love-hate relationship with anything if you're trying to be somewhat good at it. But I would say for me, luckily, at an early age, so I I started swim team at eight, which seems really young, but it was only for the summer. So we're only talking like six to eight weeks. Uh and living in Michigan, you only really get to swim outside for a few months of the year anyway. So it would be like the thing that I look forward to during the year, and like I couldn't wait for school to finish because then I knew I could go to swim practice twice a day. And it's like a beautiful area, you know, with the pool and just being near the water near a lake in Michigan. So I I think I always loved it, um, but I didn't do it so much early on to where I felt burned out, which is uh in contrast to a lot of my friends who I swam with uh growing up at a more competitive level who had been doing year-round swimming since age eight or nine or ten. I didn't really, I mean, I did high school swimming, so I would do like the summer, and then I would do high school. But even then, we're only talking about four or five months of the year where I'm actually like training, and then uh I didn't do my my year-round training until I was a senior in high school, so 16 years old. So, and now I'm 27. So for the last 11 years, I've been swimming year-round, but and that's actually relatively late compared to a lot of other people um with a similar like competitive background. So I think I was fortunate that my parents didn't really push it on me too much to like it was it was up to me. If I wanted to swim more, I could have. And I think my parents not knowing much about competitive swimming actually allowed that to happen. I think sometimes if like the parent is really like they were very competitive in something, they can almost uh put that on their kids too much, and I think I didn't really have that issue. Um, and I'm very grateful for that. So I but at the same time, you you can get burned out. Like there were definitely times where I didn't want to be training as much as I was, especially during college, you know, because that's like when it was really elevated the amount of time that you're spending in the pool. It's ridiculous. And but I mean I I made it through and I finished, and now I enjoy it, and I swim much, much less than I was when I was in college. And I enjoy it, if anything, more now.

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting, man. I I was talking to a coaching client. Um uh, oh god, what's if there's a there's a documentary that came out recently, like in in search of greatness, I think. Are you familiar with that? Like sounds familiar. Yeah, it's it follows like uh Wayne Gretzky, okay, I think Serena Williams, a couple other really big stars, and they talk about how they really didn't get super into their sport until like mid to late high school.

Yeah. Right?

How there was a lot of like diverse, you know, diversity in what they did. And I think that was like something I enjoyed. My brother did not. My brother was full on like eight years old, right? All the way through college, swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming. Didn't play any other sports really, didn't do anything else. He was always on the pole, he was excellent at it. I I did a little bit more, you know. I played basketball, I did football and um water polo course. So it helped out a lot. And I think that's that's a huge component of people who stay with it for a lifetime, is they don't lose that playfulness, that fun about it. I mean, you just mentioned the way you described it sound great. Like, oh, the summer gets around, I get to be outside, right? It's like, oh, it's all these things to look forward to. I actually um sorry, mom, if you're listening to this, but there was days when I would like she would drop me off for some practice, you know, go do something else, and then I would come back and wet my hair in the sink and then uh car.

I've seen that on both sides. As a coach, I've seen the athlete not actually swim and and do whatever, and then I've I've seen other that wasn't really me. I I always actually went to practice, but uh I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, it's funny. This is a funny thing to do, right? I felt like I had to wet my hair. Um Yep, that's the giveaway. So uh how is how is the popularity of swimming nowadays? I mean, it's it you know, you the Olympic the Summer Olympics come around, swimming's the big deal, right? Yep, yep, yep. Um I don't remember if it was like that when I was young. I mean, I came from the days like Matt Beyondi and um you know, a lot of people that, you know, Pablo Morales was my high school.

Yeah, these are studs. A lot of people who listening won't know who they are if they're scenery. But these are like superstars. And I think actually you're right, it wasn't as much, and I think we can thank a few different things in media to where swimming is in the spotlight more so. Swimming is still like an Olympic glory sport. It's every four years, everyone in the world cares about swimming during that like three-week period. And I'd say 20 years ago, that was still the case, but not so as much. But now, because of media, social media, uh, it sticks around longer, and the superstars in each respective sport, even outside of swimming, they can get that spotlight like all the time. Uh, I mean, obviously, during like 2020, Tokyo Olympics, you know, everyone's gonna be watching swimming during the summer. It's the number one television uh watched sport during the Olympics. But then all these stars on Instagram and like the swimmers, they become superstars and their followings will double or triple, or you know, they could pick up a hundred thousand followers if they just have an interview on NBC. And so their spotlight will carry on past Tokyo. And I think we saw it in 2016 in Rio, we saw it a little bit in 2012, but I think now the social landscape is at a whole nother level. And we can thank people like Michael Phelps who have brought the sport into the media a lot more. And because before Michael Phelps, the Olympic trials in the US was never televised. But then when his story came out, and then in 2000, I believe four or eight, it was the first time it was like televised in prime time, and now for the last four quads, swimming is in prime time for the Olympic trials, not just the Olympics, which is a month later. So in June of 2020, during the Olympic trials, there's gonna be seven days of prime time swimming on TV. It hypes people up and makes some of those athletes superstars, and then by the time they get to the Olympics, people some people already know them, and then the media's already been hyped up, and there's even more attention to the sport. So I think swimming is growing, and I think at the top level, when you have athletes like a Michael Phoebe, and even though he's not gonna be competing next year, he's built sort of a marketing engine, and you know, no one's gonna be close to him anytime soon. But given the fact that he's built a platform and the media has this platform, I think that's really amplifying the sport, which trickles down to the fitness level, which is where I am most focused on from a business standpoint. And I think it just helps grow the sport overall. And I think other sports like soccer and you know, maybe basketball have already they've already been there. So they're just kind of maintaining at this point what what's going on.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's interesting, man. And I think about too, because you know, as the day of this recording, it's uh the 12th of July, and uh the US women's national team just won the the women the women's uh World Cup for soccer. And uh one of my clients, um she's has she been in the show? Erica Suter works with youth fitness soccer and her business is booming, man. You know, it's super popular, people are really into it, and it's just a great time for that sport too. And I think correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like now people are starting to swimmers as athletes are starting to see, you know, if you get to a high level, there's actually like a future there, right?

Like this is uh yeah, yeah, this is a whole nother like this is this is turning into something which I'm really interested in, but I I don't have as much time to like personally delve into it. So there's this uh FINA, Federation International de Nation, is the governing body for swimming and aquatics internationally, and they just started the this pro series where they're awarding four million dollars uh in prize money and and and at the same time, and this four million dollars is being injected into the pro swimming circuit, and there really isn't much of a pro swimming circuit in the first place. So separate from that is the International Swim League, which is a $15 million a year operating budget. This is the first year, and they're setting up a pro swim series where it's very similar to what FINA is doing, and they're not giving $15 million the operating budget, but they're giving away like millions of dollars as well. So all of a sudden you have $10 million of additional capital going to professional swimmers in 2019 compared to 2018. And so this is all very new. So actually, I don't really know what's gonna happen and let's sustainability and how much that will grow. But it's very interesting, and this is where swimming is much behind, much far further behind other sports, because if you look at like a solid basketball player in basket, you know, like how much is a basketball player, especially a male, right? They're making a few million dollars, no problem. The equivalent swimmer would be lucky to pull off a hundred thousand dollars, and that would be half, if they're in the United States, half would come from their national team stipend. So they're making like maybe 40 to 50k from their national team, and then other sponsorship opportunities, another 50K. And that same person would make $2 million if they were a basketball player. So now having this additional $10 million of capital sort of, I would say flood the system because no one really knows how that's gonna be allocated and stuff yet. Uh it's interesting, and we'll see what happens.

So, Ferris, you know, you you talk about, you know, pro, right? Which is an interesting thing. And uh we're we're people listening to we're gonna get into the business of what Ferris does and his entrepreneurial mind, which is very sharp. But I think this is kind of an interesting conversation because so you know you look at like the United US Olympic basketball teams, all pros, right? Yeah. And they're able to go out and they're able to earn big time money, right, on the professional level. Yeah. Are swimmers still strapped in the amateur realm? Like, do they get penalized if if they're making money, you know, as in a pro league and they're still doing things like the Olympics? Is that still a thing or where where is that now?

So in terms of they're not you're not really penalized, but unless you want to compete in the NCAA. So, you know, obviously you can't be a professional athlete. Professional meaning you're you're people are paying you to endorse their products or whatever it is. Uh so you can't compete in the NCAA. But what has happened, interestingly, in swimming, the age of the athlete at a high level has gotten a lot older. So 20 years ago, the best swimmers in the world at the Olympics were maybe you know just out of college or in college still. And today, because there are some of these professional opportunities to make money and keep doing it through sponsorship and other things, the they're staying in the sport longer. And not just Michael Phelps, who retired at 31. I mean, there's a number of different athletes that are in their late 20s, early 30s. So that NCAA issue is actually less of an impact because most athletes that are under 22, especially on the men's side, are not going to be competitive internationally to win medals and stuff like that, um, or win even money for that matter. So really, I I think the biggest opportunity is age 22 to like maybe 30, 22 and up, so out of college, and these people want to continue swimming and they want to keep doing it and not feel forced to like go and get a job. Uh, and they can keep doing what they love. And I think this the the sponsorship dollars are coming, but at the same time, it's not a lot, so there is a lot of pressure of well, I could keep swimming and try and go for 2020 or 2024, or I can get a job where I'll make more money and I can still swim for fun, but my Olympic dream is over. And I think a lot of athletes have to make that decision still. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's fascinating. I mean, that it's it's so different. And you I mean, you look at any athlete, all athletes are are getting older, right? I mean, Tom Brady's gonna be what 42, right?

Yeah, that's true. I guess it's not just swimming. I guess uh, you know, yeah. I I think one thing that makes swimming a little unique is that it's uh, you know, like Tom Brady, right? These athletes are really good. And would you say, is he as good now? Like, is an athlete in football at 40 as good as they were at 30? And most people might say, I mean, they're probably still good, but maybe they're a little bit off. Maybe they're a little sharper at age 30. And in swimming, that won't cut it. You're out because it's time-based. So, you know, it's down to a hundredth of a second, tenth of a second. You can't be one percent slower because that means you're out. You're not gonna be competitive anymore. Whereas I think in other sports, you could actually be one like Tom Brady at 95% is still probably really good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, just from experience, right? He can go out and just you know, move, you know, manage the game. But it's yeah, that that's too, right? And especially in the events. I mean, you know, if you're I I imagine the life, uh, the lifespan of a sprinter is is much shorter, right? Although who's the the female um who was wasn't she like 40 and she competed in the city?

Oh, Dera Torres, yeah. So so the benefit of being a sprinter though is that you don't need as much aerobic volume. So because of that, you can just like hit the weight room really hard and be physically very strong, go off of experience and technique and handle, maintain that 100% for a short period of time. Whereas if you're trying to be good at the 1500, it's a lot harder to do at age 40.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

Anyway, so tell me, so tell me about um how you got started with SwimPro. Tell me about the evolution of it and kind of where it's at now. Um and how did have you always been business minded? Did this kind of fall into your just did you just kind of fall into it or how how did this whole thing happen for you?

Yeah, that's a really good question. And and it's really amazing the opportunity to have like to do what I do right now. And I think it's um, you know, uh to answer the second part of that question, uh, the business-minded entrepreneurial. I think I always have been. I was always trying to hustle something um in a good way. Uh so you know, whether it was doing side jobs, like I was a photographer for an art gallery when I was a teenager. I I had my first hired job when I was like 13, and I couldn't even drive myself to the job. My mom drove me, and I filmed at this art gallery, um, and I did stuff like that all the way through high school, and then even in college, I worked for a few different startups. So I always was um entrepreneurial-minded, and I thought I figured I might start a company at some point, but I never thought it would be in swimming. And the reason why I started my swim pro was because I I just saw a huge opportunity and a need in the market, and I figured, well, I guess we need to solve this. Like it's almost like I'm in the perfect position to do this. I would I would regret not wanting to start my swim pro. And so the founding story for my swim pro came from my experience as a coach. I'm on the pool deck, and the light bulb, the aha moment for me was when one of the swimmers hops out of the water after a workout and she tells me that she's going out of town and she wants me to send her a training plan to do on her business trip so that she can compete in this triathlon that she had coming up later in the month. And she offered to pay me for like a training plan and all this, you know. And I think an online fitness professional would be like, Oh, that's perfect. You know, they want you to you know hire you online. This is great. And at the time it I had never really seen that before. And in swimming, that's really uncommon to basically have like a remote coach. It's not Very common. And you know, I don't know if you need a remote coach. You could just find like a good workout plan online. That's what I thought. And I went online and I searched and I didn't really find anything that would fit the need that I saw. I mean, you can certainly look for workouts online. That's not very hard to find swim workouts. I think like any workout, like you can find tons of workouts on the internet, but to find something that's personalized to the person and what their goal is, and in that uh particular need, there was really nothing there. And this was around 2014, and I did some online research and I didn't find anything. So I wanted to validate that this was a big problem, more so than just kind of one-off that I see, oh, this person wants a workout, this person wants a training plan. You know, how can I just do that myself, but there's no scalable nature to that. So I wanted to validate this was like a big, big issue. So I created, I bought the domain myswimpal.com, and I set up a landing page of a mock-up of an application that I thought would solve this problem where it had like workouts, videos, training plans. And I used uh Twitter to drive traffic to this page. So it was myswimpal.com, and I Twitter would drive people to this website and it'd have like an email capture to download this app, but the app didn't even exist yet. So in a few weeks, I had 200 people enter in their email to download this app that didn't even exist yet. And so that really and I did different uh testing of what the copy was. So different price points, different messaging for triathlon, for master swing, different quotes on it. And I tested all this and I had a few hundred people enter in their email to an app that didn't exist yet. And that really validated, oh, and a lot I don't know who any of these people are, so it's not like it's my friends who are entering in their email. So I knew I had something, but it was still a little unclear like where to go next. But I use those first few hundred people who submitted their interests as more customer discovery. I I emailed them, I got on the phone, I talked to them, I tried to understand what it is that they were looking for, and it came back to the same underlying value proposition, which is basically having like a personal coach telling you what to do. Like, here, what is the workout? I have this particular goal, but I swim on my own, and that was a common theme. A lot of these people, they swim on their own. They have a they may have had some swimming background like you or I had, where they grew up on a team, and now they're you know age 30, 40, 50, 60, they're on their own, they have no idea what to do, but they want to, they know that they need to follow some kind of a coaching workout, but they don't have access to a coach, or they can't afford it. So whether it's because of their financial situation or their geography, or most of the time their time commitment, they can't go to an actual in-person coach, and they're looking for this virtual coaching experience. And that's really the underlying principle, the underlying core value prop of what we do at MySwimPro. And so a few months, not a few months, like a few weeks later, I was pitching this at a few different events. I met who are my now co-founders, Michael and Adam, and we launched on Android, then on iPhone. Um, and this was beginning of 2015. And since then, we've added different wearable integrations like the Apple Watch, Garmin Fitbit, Android wear. And then we've taken this same concept of swim coaching, personalized swim coaching from the main app, MySwimPro, and now we've launched a couple of months ago an app called My TriPro, and it does a very similar thing for triathlon. So in triathlon, it's a little bit different market, sport, demographic, but the underlying uh problem is the same that people they have this goal of doing a triathlon, whether it's a sprint, Olympic, half iron man, or iron man, and they have no idea how to train for it. Maybe they were uh, you know, they do CrossFit or they were some kind of a you know athlete in high school or college in some sport, but now they're like, okay, I want to do a triathlon. How do I train to run a marathon or you know do a 1500-meter swim, put them all together, strength and conditioning, nutrition, like what do I do? And so now we're now we're getting into triathlon. But my swim pro is the main focus of the company right now, and we're really growing into the triathlon space as well.

Awesome. Awesome. And uh give me some numbers, man. Like where are you guys at as far as what do you gauge subs? What are your what are your KPIs? Subscribers, what do you get?

Yeah, so we we monetize through a freemium subscription business model. So you can download the app for free, my Swim Pro, in the App Store. That's a free app. And then you can there's a few things you can do for free in the app forever. We don't want to block off people. So for example, uh let's say you have an Apple Watch or a Garmin and you just want to go and track your swim and you want to log your workouts, you want a journal. The workout journal, the logging is free. You can log as many workouts as you'd like, you earn achievements and badges and all that good stuff. That's for free. And then we monetize through uh the training plans, and we dynamically, they're personalized, and that is a subscription, monthly or yearly. And so we call it elite, my swim pro elite, and the elite subscription is $120 a year or $20 per month, and that unlocks everything in the app. What we've realized is that some people actually they don't want all of the elite features, they might only want heart rate graph analytics, like advanced analytics, or they may only want like the videos. We have like the Netflix for swimming in the app, and so they only want that. So we have different packs that you can unlock for a monthly or yearly subscription, and those are a much lower value. So for us, we have a few KPIs, like you know, obviously, we have you know the monthly active people on the platform, which is about 50,000 right now that are using it. Um we have another KPI, which is the number of like paying subscribers. Obviously, like the vanity metric is the total number of downloads, which we're approaching one million downloads on the MySwimPro app. So that's like how many people have total like engaged in this platform. So there's a number of that we pay attention to, but mostly it's you know how many people are like using the app and logging workouts. We have like millions of workouts logged in the app, and then how many people are paying for the product? And then on the My TriPro side for Triathlon, it's the same thing. So it's like you know, how many people are using this, how many people are paying it, downloading it, all that good stuff.

Yeah. So, you know, in development, it's been four years roughly, right? 2015 now or 2019.

Yeah, we so we've just passed four years on My Swim Pro on iOS, and we just passed three years monetizing the app. So the first year we just had that free tier that I mentioned, and we added the subscription in 2016. Awesome.

What have been some of the big challenges over the time?

I mean, you always say every day is a challenge. Um I mean, there's there's always challenges. Like, obviously, in the beginning, it's it's trying to get people to believe and trying to just get the thing to work. Like when you're trying to search for product market fit, so is this a good training plan? Like, is this actually making people better at swimming? Uh like trying to get that feedback down. Um, is the app actually working like at a literal sense? So they they download the app, they subscribe. Does that work? Like, so from a technical level, like is it actually doing what it's supposed to do? And um like integrations have been difficult, uh, some easier than others. So like we sync with a lot of different devices. And um, like even though it's swimming and you'd think it's pretty simple, but because we have so many different like you know, the Garmin and the Apple Watch and the Fitbit and Android Wear OS, those four that we integrate and soon more to come, they're all different. You know, so it's not like one app is the same on every smartwatch. Like so they're they're each basically their own app, uh, and it requires its own development and its own customer experience around that. And so trying to like manage all the different experiences and and for me, know how all of them work so I can we can help people has been uh a challenge. And I I mean there's just always challenges. Like from a business side, it's trying to, it could be raising capital, like we've raised a few different rounds of funding. Um on the marketing side, it's sort of what I said in the beginning where you're trying to get people to believe that this is actually gonna help them. And I think we've passed some milestones on that regard, but there's still a lot more to go. And yeah, I mean there's just an endless number of challenges.

Yeah. Uh that's that's cool, man. And um, so is this your full-time job? Is this what you do now? All time?

Yeah, since 2015. So 2014 was the idea period, I guess if you were to kind of plan it out. So in 2014, I have the light bulb. 2015 we launched, but not making money, but that's when I went full-time. And 2016 is when we started monetizing, um, and then I started paying myself. So I went 15 months without paying myself at all. Uh, and then we started going up, you know, dollars. But you know, it's I think I talked to a lot of other entrepreneurs who are not in the fitness space, and sometimes you know, everything takes longer than you think it's gonna take. You know, like a lot of people have, you know, they have the side hustle, they're working on it, and they want to take that full-time step, but they don't know when to do it or how to map it out. And I I speak now with a lot of my friends who are in that position, and they're trying to map out, and for everyone it's different given your financial position, like what it is that you're doing, you know, other team members, other considerations, family like expenses and things like that. But so I don't think there's one perfect time of like when you go full-time, uh when you go full time. I think it's important to recognize though that it's like a marathon more so than a sprint. So you have to be able to you know commit for the long haul and and plan everything around that because everything takes longer than you think it's gonna take. And I actually I I gave a TED TEDx talk uh not too long ago, like two months ago, where I talk about that the concept uh I quote Bill Gates and he says that everyone overestimates what they can do in one year, but they underestimate what they can accomplish in ten years. And the concept of I think is very real, and I feel it, and I continue to feel it, of like you have all this stuff you want to do in one year, and it's and then you end up not doing as much as you think you could do, and people sort of give up or they they let off the gas pedal and they underestimate what's possible in a longer time horizon because of the compounding effect of whatever it is that you're doing.

Yeah, it's a really good point, and this is you know, it took me until my 40s where I started planning things in 10 to 20 year increments, right? Like I'm building things now so that in 20 years it'll be X amount of you know, this much influence, this much income. And that that's fairly new to me in the last three years, you know, opening and almost starting all my businesses, it's been um twice as long to get to the point where I thought it was gonna be, right? If I thought I was gonna be at X amount of revenue in one year, it took me two, right? And I know I've read a couple um failing of of who the what book I read about or I read this in. But um, you know, if you if you stop something, right, maybe it's a corporate job or whatever it is, um, or you sell a business like I did and you're creating a new one, it's probably gonna be about three to years before you replace that income if you're doing really well, right? And that's something the reality of it that people need to understand. I mean, people that that that point that you're talking about when you go all in, it's it's you can say it's different for everybody, right? Um, I always tell people there's a couple different ways of looking at like, well, A, how much money do you have? Have you reduced your living costs? Because that's a big one too. Like you have to be willing to step back if you really want to go for it, right? Limit your exposure from a personal angle. And then, you know, what do you need to live? And uh, I think a big that question that comes into that point where people are wondering, should I go for it all in? Is well, number one, you know, what's the worst that can happen? Right? Ask yourself that question. And then would you regret not doing it in 10 years? The regret is the big one. Yeah. That's the big one, right? And then you and then you know, uh, yeah, man. So um we had an interesting little topic that we we started to uncover before this, too, of you know, I guess for I I'm using my own words, it wasn't the words you used, but like niching, right? Like, oh yeah. How how do you find little corners? I mean, swimming is a is a big deal. I mean, but you found something, you know, in a in a pretty large market. How okay, how big is the swimming market? Like how many people are recreational swimmers? Do you have that kind of data?

Yeah, so I mean, we can get pretty nerdy about this. Uh but so in the United States, um, there have been some studies in uh drop the footnotes, I guess, somewhere. Uh so in the US, there's 26 million people who swim for fitness. Now, fitness is inclusive of all the people who are kind of like floating around and the competitive swimmers. Within that 26 million, there's over 9 million adults who swim more than 50 times per year, meaning more than once per week. So these are more, they might be bobbers, but they're swimming back and forth on a somewhat regular basis, laps for fitness, like for exercise. And that doesn't include the people who are going to the beach or you know the pool party on Saturday. And then within that, there's a group that's sitting closer to a million that are actively pursuing some kind of a fitness goal, and they have some ambition of competing in a triathlon or a master's competition, an open water race. They're trying to lose weight, and they're very specific about swimming is going to do that for them. So that is a group, and let's call it a million, and that's only in the US. And globally, it's a global sport swimming is, and that's about five to ten times the size, the global market of what's available in the US. And and it could it could be actually a lot bigger than that, but it's hard to we're just talking numbers here. And I think even when we when it comes to doing a niche and really focusing on something, like we're way more focused than that. I mean, we're not really targeting a million people, we're targeting people who are swimming on their own. Because a lot of those people might swim in a group of friends or with a coach or with a master's team triathlon club. Those people are great if they want to use our platform, but for us, we deliver the value of a personal coach. So it's people who don't have a coach who are swimming on their own at maybe an LA Fitness or Lifetime or Aquatic Center, and they have that specific goal. So we we have like all these subsets. And I think uh, you know, before this, uh we were talking about you know, if you should go big or narrow. And I think, I mean, obviously you want to help a lot of people, but the world's a really big place. So even if you go narrow and you think you've really focused in, there's probably a lot of people who have that specific problem that you're trying to solve. And I think for us, you know, we find more success when we actually focus on a specific group of people rather than say, swimming, great, let's help you. I mean, yes, I want to help people in this in the world of swimming, but you know, for us from a business standpoint, and I think also from a marketing and branding, the more focused you can be, the more clearly you can communicate your value proposition and your messaging.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. So what you know, in the in the conversation prior to recording, which is always fantastic and no one ever gets to hear it. Uh what what what preempted that thought? I asked you, hey, you know, was there anything you feel like talking about today, Ferris? And you mentioned that. You know, people, you're you're noticing this trend of people really kind of going in and tackling something. What prompted that?

Yeah. So I think it's just been me getting older and more experienced and speaking with more business professionals, fitness professionals, and realizing that it's great to have a massive empire and company. Some people aspire to have this publicly traded company, or even maybe just a big business with like 100 employees. But they all started very, very like with a very high focus on something. And they've dominated that particular space. And I and I can from a business side, there's two sides. So from a business side, whether it has to do with anything with fitness or not, I see these companies that, and I speak with the founders or people who are kind of building these empires, but they're an empire within a niche. You know, it's it's not it's not Facebook. Like Facebook is huge right now, but Facebook even started very, very small. And so these companies are solving problems and they're dominating the market that they're solving the problem. And then on the fitness side, I meet a lot of fitness professionals, and whether they're doing online coaching or they're doing something more like on the tech side, like me, where they've they've kind of yoga, strength training, running, whatever. Even then, it's it's pretty narrow uh the scope of what they're trying to do, but they're trying to do it the best possible. And so for us, like for my swim pro, what I'm what I'm hopeful that we we can do is like we want to build the best coaching experience possible for swimmers, but not just that, but it happens to be on a mobile or wearable device. So it's like even more specific, and we want to be the best in the world at producing and creating that kind of value. Um, and that's how you can like dominate that space. And it's a lot better, you know, that quote of like it's better to have you know 80% or 90% of a smart small market and have like 0.01% of a big market. Like just the math, it's better to dominate something.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's um, it's just this I think there's this constant debate, right? Between, okay, do you go like let's talk about an online coach, right? I was just talking to a gentleman um just a couple days ago who's now starting to get into the online coaching space. And I'm like, well, who are you gonna serve? And he didn't really know yet. He's like, well, I got this program. I think it's mainly people who just want to stay healthy, don't care about too much about aesthetics. I'm like, okay, well, it's big, right? Let's how do we narrow that down, right? Like, I don't even know, like, how do you even message that? You know, it's a it's a generic message, it's not out there. Now, if you start to get into like what you're saying, is like you get it so minute that the messaging and the offer and the value proposition is so distinct, you can't miss it. If it's for you, it smacks you in the face so hard, you're like, that's me. He's talking to me. That's the problem I have. I want that marketing, yeah. Right. Um, so I guess you know, how how do people get to that point? I mean, you you came through it, you just saw it, right? It it it kind of you were aware enough to notice, like, oh wow, someone's asking me for a program while they're traveling. Look at that. Is that an opportunity, right? Um, is it instinctual, do you think? People just kind of see that and they grab it, they grab it out of the midair.

Well, I I think it's I I think even for me though, like uh yes, I'm a swimmer and I am around it, but it it wasn't it wasn't because I'm a swimmer necessarily. Um I think I'm just I have like a one-step advantage to a non-sewer of seeing the the problems in the market. I think you just need to be very good at listening and observing what's happening and asking the right questions because even from that very beginning point, like we're still doing a lot of customer discovery and trying to understand who actually needs like what problem are we really solving? Because there's a number of different problems that you can pick to solve. And it when it comes to online coaching, there's a number of different clientele that you could try and target, and some have different levels of competition than others, but I think you just need to understand, like, listen and observe like where where do you think the biggest opportunity for you to add value is. Um so I think from when it comes to the instinctual part, I do think the skill of the entrepreneur is being able to sort of like sit in the wilderness and observe in a specific market. Uh and that's why you see repeat entrepreneurs, I think, because they're they're good at that. And and it becomes better over time. But even if you don't have like that acute listening skill, you can just get better at it the more customer discovery you do. Like I think I'm a lot better now than I was a few years ago, but I still don't think I'm that great at it. And you're always learning the more you do it. So I think I think if you're that fitness professional and you're looking for how do I zone in on like if or do I not zone in if you go wide, you know, like I think you just need to talk to more people. It just sounds like you're not you're not talking to enough people, maybe. And then and then you have to sit back. It's the same time. You can't overcrowd with noise. You have to be able to observe, you know, maybe talk to 20 people, take a step back, and you and things start to elevate and rise from the rest, rise from the crowd. And then maybe you do more customer discovery on those specific topics or people or groups, and then maybe it's just like a never-ending process, I think.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And you know, I think it comes down to problem identification too. Can you see problems? And you know, I use this analogy. I have a um, you know, like a sprinter style van that we converted, right? And now we drive it around on the weekends and you know, do van life, right? Um before I knew I wanted one, I didn't see them anywhere on the road. And then I'm like, you know what? I want one of those things. I start seeing them everywhere, right? Yeah. Did they just exist? Do they just like come into existence overnight once I started, once I decided that I wanted one? No, it's because I started looking for them, I started seeing them, right? Yeah, you're paying attention. Like walking around with your eyes closed. Yeah. Well, it wasn't that because there's there's there's I mean, there's an unlimited amount of stimulus that we can look at, right? Yep. Situationally, and there's things going on all around us. But once you start to, and I think when you're talking about repeat on entrepreneurs, I think one of the skills that develops in that area is that it's problem identification. They start to see the problems that other people don't see because they're looking for them. They've got a trained eye. Right. Exactly. Exactly. That's and that's key. And I think that's a big part of it is like, well, yeah, you know, if you're an online coach, you can just start I I also think just start working with people, right? Yeah, talk to people. As many as you can, right? Overwork with you, make a great offer, do an eight week.

I mean, to a point.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, do you know, do a general eight-week challenge, see who you can get, right? Um, and then try to convert those into longer-term clients and see what happens, but really start to listen into the problems and starting to see, hey, who do you like working with, right? That too. That's a big part of it, right? Who do you enjoy working with? And then what problems are they really facing, and then how do you really get in and solve a problem? Um, and then you then once that's done, your marketing message is easy, right? Yep. Your product your service offerings are easy to figure out. Yep. You know, you could go scalable like you did in tech, or you could go high in service. Because you know, the more distinct the problem is, the bigger the problem is. Yep. Charge to solve the problem.

Yeah, you can increase your value for the bigger the problem. The other thing that's interesting, so in swimming, online coaching is not as common, but in triathlon, it's huge. I mean, it's like the mother of all like of people who do an Iron Man, which is the longest triathlon, 40% pay for a training plan or remote coach online. So there's like hundreds of thousands of people doing this all over the year. And they're spending anywhere on average from 100 to 300 per month on a coach, right? And so they're very specific, it's triathlon. So if you don't know anything about triathlon, this isn't the market you jump in. But it just, you know, as an example, like in that grouping, I mean, it's a huge business. And if you're good and you can add value to your clientele, you can charge more than 300 a month. There are coaches who do five, six hundred a month per client.

Yeah. Yeah, I know coaches who charge a thousand. There we go. They know what they're doing.

Yeah, so I think it it it's a couple of different things. When you sign up for a triathlon, the people who do triathlon are not normal people. Okay, so they're they're a different breed of human. They're very type A, they're very driven, they're normally financially successful, so they're in a position to spend money on anything. And so they're because they're type A, they decide, you know, this is generalizing, but this is a fair generalization. Like, okay, I'm gonna sign up for a triathlon. I have some interior internsic motivation to do it, so they're very motivated. And let's say they sign up for an Iron Man as either a bucket list item or because they love working out and they want to go to the next level. So they just sign up for an Iron Man, which is ridiculous. It's a four point, you know, four kilometers of swimming and 112 miles of biking and then a marathon at the end. So any logical person would think, I probably need a plan so I don't die doing this. So whether you end up Google searching something or you actually hiring a coach, like a lot of people hire a coach because there's almost no other way to do it. And that's actually one of the reasons why we started My TriPro, is because there's two extremes. There's either you try and figure it out on your own, or you spend $300 a month on a coach, and there isn't really the best middle ground. So we target people who they would love a personal coach, but they don't want to spend $300 a month. Because there's definitely people who will do that. Like we're not really trying to compete with them. There's people plenty of people who will do that. It's for the people who want to get into triathlon or they're not really they're not ready to spend $300 a month, and we can provide that similar coaching experience. So I think it has to do with the intrinsic motivation, their financial ability to pay for a remote coach, and the fact that triathlon training, because it's like multidisciplinary, it's more complicated. And the more complicated something is, the more willing people are to get help to try and figure it out. And they it's like reading the instructions. Like, I don't want to read this instruction book. Like, just tell me what to do.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I it's probably similar to CrossFit athletes. CrossFit's very complex. Yeah, you gotta be motivated. And it's super complex. And everyone has it brings in a different, you know, and in swimming and you know, triathlons, people are gonna have different very levels of of skill and expertise within swimming, running, biking. Exactly. And you have to figure that out which training you know gets priority, and and you know, CrossFit is the same thing, it even gets more complex. I don't know if there's anything more complex than that. And people will probably slay me for saying that, but I don't think there's anything more complex than CrossFit training at a high level. Uh it just takes so much.

But one thing I know you can do better, it's easier in triathlon coaching than probably CrossFit, is you can coach remotely relatively easily for like cycling and a few other things because you can look at a power graph. Like in CrossFit, I need to watch a video. Like you, you know, it's it's hard to know, like, oh, I couldn't do 265 four times. I don't want it, I only did it three, I failed. Like cycling, you can look at someone's power graph, and assuming they're fitted on a bike, which you can see and you would know, like the coach can create the next workout without even seeing the person ever. Um it's better in person, but it you can get a lot further, I think, in triathlon than you could in say CrossFit.

Yeah, and the and the the technicality of both, obviously, right? I mean, you you get into CrossFit, you got Olympic lifting, you got gymnastics, you got stuff that's crazy, crazy technical. There's a lot of technicality to swimming, running, biking, right? Yep. And you know, the the nuances of and the efficiency of the strokes and and how you um even breathing, yeah. They don't know how to breathe. That shocked me. Like once I got out of swimming. A lot of people don't know how to breathe properly.

Well, because yeah, I mean, swimming's hard, man. Water is 800 times more resistance than air. Yeah. Like walking is relatively easy next to swimming.

Yeah, it is. I agree. Um, what do you um so you got a lot of stuff going on, right? You you know, my swim pro is is moving, my tri pro. What where do you see, you know, in two years we're having another conversation, and maybe we will on this show, right? Um, you know, and everything's successful. What what what is taking place? What's what's gonna what's it gonna look like?

Yeah, so I think the next one to three years are somewhat more uh predictable. I don't know if predictable is the right word, but we can build projections off the next one to three years based on the history and what we've done and where we want to go. And I think for my swim pro, success would be the the platform itself is bigger in terms of all the KPIs we talked about. So number of people using the platform, number of paying subscribers, but also I think impact and being able to go from what is now maybe a more narrow focus of people who swim on their own, they got a coach. Maybe there's more of a community feel to it. We want to build a global community. So right now we just translated to French the application, and before we were just in English, and in the pipeline is Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. And by the end of the year, um we'll be in a few more languages as well. So in in two years, I'd like to see that we're in like 20 languages. And it's really a global platform helping people all over the world. I mean, most of the people who use the app actually are outside the US already, and it's not their native language. So I think we're we're obviously missing a big chunk of people. So to answer your question and define success for MySwimPro, it's putting it in a position where it's more of a global community. We're in multiple languages, there's partnerships outside the US that support that you know platform. And then on My TriPro, it's basically putting it in a position where MySwimPro is now, where it's a product that like people use and know about. My TriPro is very early. You know, we're talking about a few thousand downloads rather than close to a million where we're at on MySwimPro. And so putting my TriPro in that kind of a position where it's ready to scale globally, just getting to that product market fit on the triathlon side for my tripro.

Yeah. Oh, that's great, man. That's fantastic. I'm really excited for him and congratulations on all your success so far. I mean, you seem like such a nice guy and hardworking, and uh it's the type of people I like to see winning. So thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, that's really cool. Um Ferris, people want to get in touch with you individually. Um, where'd they go? What's the best place?

Uh we my Swim Pro is on all social media at MySwimPro um and myself at Ferris Sabati, my full name, you know, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, I'm all of those. But before we wrap up, we never talked about Istanbul. Oh, dude, yeah, yeah, please. I don't know if we want to throw that in there. Bring it. Yeah. Well, so okay, so what does that mean? We I'm I am going to Istanbul in a week. So maybe listen to this, this already happened. But I'm swimming from Asia to Europe. It's a swim that I've always wanted to do. It's the Bosphorus cross-continental swim. You swim between two continents. It sounds like it's really far. It's only a six and a half kilometer swim. It's actually a race. 2,400 people will do it every single year. I've wanted to do it for five or six years, and finally now it all just kind of the stars aligned and I'm able to do the swim. I'm really excited about it. And uh we'll see what happens. 1,200 from Turkey, and then 1,200 people are from outside. There's 40 people from the United States, a lot of people from Russia and Ukraine do this race, and it should be really fun. And after the race, our company is holding a meetup. So we have people on our team around the world, and we have one guy actually works and lives in Istanbul. So we're hosting a meetup, he's gonna be there. And then we have another who is in Ukraine and he's flying in with his wife, and they're gonna be at the meetup. So we're having it like in a park right after the race. It should be really fun.

Yeah, so uh how long is that? What do you think that race is gonna take you? How long? And is it uh what's the water temperature too?

So the water, it's a very pleasant swim in the sense of it's not really uh a physical challenge like doing the English channel where you have waves and cold water. So the water will be like temperate, it'll be like nothing crazy. And you're swimming with the current. So it's a very fast race. So it's six and a half kilometers, but you know, like someone, my swimming level, competitive background, should be under one hour, which is actually unrealistic in a non-current assisted environment. Like that's look ridiculous. So the current is moving anywhere from two to seven kilometers per hour. So that's really, really fast. So you actually couldn't swim in the opposite direction, which is really interesting. So it should be really fast. I'm really excited. Hopefully under an hour.

Yeah, and then there's another thing too. Um, World Swim Day. That'll that'll be a good timing for the release of this.

World Swim Day is October 26, 2019. Last year we had our inaugural World Swim Day. So, what is World Swim Day? It is an international holiday to empower humanity to be more active in the water. And so we want people to get out and go swim. It's uh it's a Saturday, so it's like a weekend. You have you know Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We have workouts at every level from beginner to crazy person advanced. And you know, it's a workout, and you can be a part of this global community and just go out in the pool and swim. And people who maybe they took 10 years off, maybe they took, maybe they swim regularly all the time. We want them all to participate. You can share your posts through the app on social media, hashtag WorldSwim Day. And if you just look at the hashtag World Swim Day, you can see from last year, in the inaugural year that we launched this, we had swimmers participate from over 100 countries. It was like insane, it went like way better than we thought. Like we were hoping, yeah, some people might do this, that'd be great. And sure enough, people got really into it. There was a team, a master's team in Morocco, and they printed a huge banner, like a 15-foot banner, and they had my swim pro logo on it, their team logo, World Swim Day, and they did the swim workout that we wrote all together, and uh, and they posted it on like Instagram and tell me I'm like, these guys printed a 15-foot banner in Morocco, and that was like year one with like not a lot of notice. So now we're gonna like amp it up, and I hope uh we're multiple times the size. And we also uh gave back to charities, which is really cool. So we were able to raise money at the same time. Um we had t-shirts kind of like this one, and on the back it said World Swim Day in like 50 languages, and we sold those online, and then all the proceeds, it was about a thousand bucks, um, really quick fundraiser, and we distributed those to three different learn to swim initiatives. Um, one of them was Detroit Swims, local to where we live. Uh, another one was um Swimming Saves Lives Foundation, uh, which is like teaching adults how to swim. And another one was the USA Swimming Foundation, which is you know empowering people at every level of the sport to improve. So we'll do something like that again this year, and we're really excited about it.

Yeah, man. That's awesome. Well done. Well done. You've uh you've inspired me a bit. I'm I'm this much closer to actually getting in the pool again. So let's make it happen. Let's make it happen.

Right now.

Well, Ferris, maybe we'll get you back on uh about a year, see uh see how things are going for you. If you don't mind, that'd be great.

Anytime. Thank you for taking the the opportunity to speak with you. I appreciate it.

Yeah, man. For sure. That's a wrap. Hey fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I asked you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge. That's a big deal for us. And we're we put a lot of work into these episodes uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness MarketingAlliance.com