Growson Edwards: Cipio.AI & Solving Fitness Business Problems with Data

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 InsightTracker. 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 at Harvard. InsightTracker is a personalized health and wellness platform like no other. So what's our secret? First, 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 to Insight Tracker today. InsightTracker, because change is an inside job. This episode is also brought to you by Morpheus, the world's first and only fitness intelligence platform built by coaches or coaches. Look, there is a ton of fitness and health data being collected on you and your clients, but are you leveraging it? And perhaps more importantly, are you saving yourself time and making more money because of it? 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 trainwithmorpheusmo r-h e-us.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. Ross and Edwards, welcome to the future of fitness. Fired up to have you, man. I'm trying to think how we came across. I think it was first of all, it was an introduction by Adam Zeitze from IntelliVideo and formerly Gold's Gym. And then your name came up again in a recent interview I did with Andy Pete from Lyft Brands. So your name, Scipio, it's getting around, man. You guys are here in the market. So I think it's a great time to talk about what you do and get you, you know, introduced to our audience as well. So it's a it's a great pleasure to have you. And um, you know, let's let's start from the bottom, man. How did you get to be, you know, leading this company, Scipio.ai?

Yeah. Uh well, first, um, Eric, thanks for thanks for inviting me to this. Uh I've actually been listening to your podcast since I met you a few a couple, two or three months back, and actually went back through all the old episodes and you know, congratulations. It's a really great forum. Um, you've done a great job with it. So thank you again for having me. Um so yeah, I mean, my background, um, and I'm not a big big on talking about myself a lot. Uh I'm not a big spotlight guy, but I'll tell you, you know, I've just have always been in tech. Um, it's always been building businesses and technology that solves business problems. Uh, my last company was actually a business process management platform. Um, and you know, my specialty, I would say, kind of my area expertise in most businesses that I work with, and really my passion is around customer success um as well as sales and marketing. So even at my last company, Micropact, uh, we created the title Chief Customer Officer, right? Um, because it's just so how passionate I am about um customer engagement, customer success, you know, through the really the whole life cycle of acquisition, retention, and growth. And and so now Scipio, um actually I met uh our co-founders, uh Dharmesh and Minoj. We were actually all advisors inside of a um uh DX partners venture studio. And we would often talk about um, you know, acquisition, retention, and growth, especially as it related to the B2B SaaS space where we where I grew up. And it was really originally Darmesh who said, you know, guys, like there's just this big opportunity to, you know, to bring the capabilities and the technologies that we we've brought to the B2B SaaS world um into the B2C consumer world, right? Especially as it relates to memberships and subscriptions. And and Darmesh obviously knew the fitness industry extremely well. Um and uh, you know, he said this this would be a great place to start. There's a big opportunity here. Um and so that was really how Scipio was born. Um, our obsession every day is you know, how do we help operators grow through increasing acquisition, retention, and growth? Um, we're uber focused actually on retention right now. Um we think there's a obviously a huge opportunity. I'll tell you in the B2B SaaS world, um, average retention rates is like four, you know, four, four percent, right? Um uh or average churn rate, I should say, not retention rate, sorry, average churn rate is four percent. We're in the fitness industry, for example. We all know, right, it's it's north of 30, 35%. Um, so we're putting a lot of attention there. Actually, I just listened, speaking of Andy Pete, great, great session you had with him a couple of days, uh a couple podcasts back on on that very topic. Um and so yeah, we're we're super obsessed with uh with helping our customers grow. Um, and then really taught using, you know, how do we use technology to solve business problems um and not just solve data problems, right? Obviously, we operate in the data space, but really interested and focused on I don't want to solve data problems, I want to solve business problems.

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's really um, I love the way you put that because it's so critical. And you and I were kind of joking before we started recording is um, you know, there's just I I feel like a broken record sometimes because I talk about this particular topic. There's so much data everywhere, right? And you know, the consumers have have it, these, you know, now fitness professionals and gym owners and operators are getting all this data and you know, but we we just don't know, you know, it's the now what okay, cool. Well, I can see all this stuff on a dashboard. Um, I know that trends are going this way, but now what? Like, what do we actually do with it? And how do we apply it and leverage it in a way that uh um you know changes our business and the impact that we have on our clients and all the things that people get into the industry for. And you know, it's always fascinating talking to someone like you too, process, because you came outside of the industry and you chose the fitness industry, right? Like I just told a story about you selected the fitness industry, you're like this would be a great place to dive in. I just don't think that conversation would have happened five years ago. I don't know why. I just feel like the fitness industry has just seen um uh such a metamorphosis over the last two years, you know, partially due to COVID and of course some stuff of some trends that were starting before that. So it's just really interesting to hear people who have your background, you know, your experience coming in and seeing this industry as an opportunity to really make an improvement. So it's great to have you. We're excited to have people like you, um, for sure, you know, and and uh I guess let me let me talk about that for a second is when you compare it to the other industries that you've been in, what have you noticed so far about dealing with the fitness industry?

Yeah, so I mean, number one, one of the things I love about this industry is the operators in this industry and the vendors um, you know, servicing and supporting and supplying the operators. They're just super passionate about what they do. Um and that makes it a lot of fun, right, to be in a place and to be in an industry where people really, really care about what they're doing, right? Um I think also what you said was spot on, which is this industry was already pre-COVID um uh innovating and modernizing uh and evolving, right? And then I certainly think COVID just, you know, at first um, you know, really scared the heck out of everybody, uh, but has then also at the same time just accelerated what was already happening. Um, and so the other thing I think is just a really unique opportunity and kind of really cool is there's just a lot of innovation going on. And so now you get this melting pot of innovation with uh, you know, people and operators who you are passionate about what they do. Um and you're right, I mean, there's just there's so much innovation happening on it in you know, um, the back office systems, you know, the OTT platforms, the member management platforms, the mobile apps, the the engagement apps, uh, you know, the survey tools like MXM, the onboarding and rewards tools, you know, like uh Masterfit, Andy's product, uh, you know, um, even Morpheus, right, which I think is really cool. I'm becoming a big fan of. Um there's a lot of innovation, but that also brings a lot of data, right? And then obviously from our perspective, it all drives back to well, there's a big opportunity with that data, but I think everybody's kind of big challenge and in, you know, what we're working really hard at is helping people learn and understand what do you do with that data, right? Um, and how do you, I think too many people right now are really kind of focused on, well, I need to bring the data together and I need to create reports. Um, and I need to, you know, you'll hear people talk about unifying data and 360-degree view of their customer and dashboards, and you know, the issue we see with all of that is that's really just solving data problems. Um, you'll often hear me talk about great, like you have dashboards and you have unified data. Um, that is actually a pillar of what's needed to get to the ultimate solution. But then what, right? What do you do with that unified data? What do you do with those dashboards? Um, and really, you know, that's where Scipio comes in, is is you know, we believe you have to use that data in an actionable way, which is really through predictions and recommendations, right? At our core, what we're doing is building relevant um and actionable predictions and recommendations. Um, and then we're automating what you do with those recommendations. And I think that last part is important um because it also I'm you know, seeing and hearing people talk about predictions. But again, and kind of your analogy earlier was like, oh, I'm I have an app that's telling me all my metrics about myself. But as a as an individual, I'm I'm like, well, what do I do with it? Right. I need I need someone to give me some recommendations, right? And I think businesses are the same way, right? Who they need tools that give predictions and recommendations and then automate what to do with that so you can do it at scale.

Well, you you look at what you guys do, and I'm have a million questions about exactly what Scipio does, but you look at an operator or um, you know, maybe a boutique gym owner, or even like in a you know, a larger kind of health club atmosphere. Uh the fact is, is there someone sitting there who is going to look out over all the data and do all the things necessary for retention without having some sort of guidance? Right? Are they like there's no one, there's very few people either have the time or the intention just to sit down and try to figure all this out with just a dashboard, right? They need the next thing. And so when you guys let's talk about like the retention piece, like what data are you guys talking about? Like, where are you gathering the data and how does it walk us through a maybe like a you know, a usual case scenario, right? A use case when you would walk all the way through this.

Yeah, it's funny. Um, you know, so first off, we we have a army of data scientists that are just passionable, passionate about, you know, how do I get to business outcomes with data. And so if you were to ask any of them, like, well, what data do you use? Their answer would be as much data as I can get my hands on. Um, you know, so but I'll tell you, you know, we have a great slide, like when we do our our kind of education and presentations, the typical gym, right? Whether you're uh, you know, whether you're a big box gym, a full service gym, a boutique studio, you know, it's been really exciting to us because we've actually have customers in kind of all those segments and really validating the value we bring in all those segments. But regardless, right, you're you're likely, you know, you likely have some type of marketing automation tool, like a HubSpot or a MailChimp, right? You you might have a separate CRM sales tool. Um, you definitely have some kind of member management, club management platform. Most everybody these days has some kind of on-demand or streaming, you know, what's just categorized as OTT platforms, right? So you mentioned Atom earlier, you know, IntelliVideo is a great example of that. Um and then, you know, most gyms have a mobile app. Most gyms are using Google Analytics as part of their acquisition process. Uh, most gyms are using, so or I'd say everybody's using a social platform. So there we just just named off a half a dozen apps and we are platforms, and we haven't even gotten into the tools like MXM or you know, like Morpheus or like Master Fit. Um, so that that first set of tools is really the core tools that we start with. Um some operators have already figured out how to unify that data through a data warehouse. If they have, that's great. We actually then tap into that data warehouse. Other operators have not figured that out. And so we have um what we call the Scipio data hub, which already has all the connectors to all those tools, brings all that data together into a unified data model. Um, one of the really cool things that we do is we actually offer a free um interface to our unified data model so that any operator could plug in our unified data model. And then if they'd like to plug in their favorite third-party reporting tool, they can do that and just get access to our unified data for free. Um, we then ourselves use that same unified data, whether it's from your data warehouse or from the SIPO data hub. And then we plug in what we call um data apps. And a data app is a collection of really the business intelligence that kind of tells you where you are today, but more importantly, is starting to or not starting, applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to start generate very relevant and personalized predictions and recommendations at an individual member level. Um, and then the last thing I would say is that's really, really important is we measure the impact of every one of these recommendations, right? So we can actually kind of complete this loop and understand which of the recommendations are working, which of the ones are not working, and then continuously optimize that model. Um, it's also a great opportunity. We have a lot of operators starting to use our models and capabilities to do A-B testing, right? Um to really understand which recommendations or set of recommendations worked better than others and with what type of members.

Man, so uh to kind of digest that, you are uh enabling an operator to pull data from all these sources, put it into a dashboard, and then it will, you know, signing up with Scipio and using your service, we will have an opportunity to see exactly what we should do for each particular member depending on where they're at. Like, for example, um Susie maybe, you know, has missed a couple classes, uh um, I don't know, pulling in information from social media or things like that. And you start to see that, well, you know, Susie may need a nudge or she's a retention risk, or how does it actually boil down into the to what the the operator does with it at the end of the day?

Yeah, so we have a variety of data apps um in the categories of acquisition, retention, and growth. Okay, right. So this one example where we're talking about now, yeah, we have a retention data app, right? We understand at what we call micro segment levels all the characteristics, patterns, and behaviors of your current members as compared to those patterns of historic members, right? And and then I can look at your attrition uh you know patterns from based on those historic members. And exactly what you said, I can start to make predictions of you know, Susie's at risk, right? Um, and then more importantly, though, is let's use what Susie's been interested in and her patterns and behaviors, as well as look-alikes to Susie, right? People who look like Suzy and their patterns and behaviors, and make recommendations and deliver those recommendations in your preferred um manner, right? And that preferred manner could be uh an email, could be a text, it could be uh some uh a record we put in the CRM system for someone in sales and or customer success to call. It could be uh something connected to your mobile app, right? So we have all kinds of capabilities on how we automate that engagement of these recommendations. Um that's you know, that's a retention example. At the same time, and actually where I'm really excited is we're doing a ton around um how your club members are interacting in the club and with your digital either on-demand or live stream content, right? Um there's this whole new opportunity, obviously. And I know everybody uses the the phrase the hybrid world, but it's it's real. I mean, we will truly live in a hybrid world now, and there's this huge opportunity to understand um member subscriber patterns and behaviors in that across that hybrid world. Uh so we're doing a lot with like IntelliVideo, for example, around um and around content optimization, around um recommended playlists, uh, you know, recommendations on upcoming content, even recommendations on, hey, look, the weather Friday looks terrible, right, in Chicago. Um, hey, Susie, you know, take take the new yoga class that's getting released on Friday at home versus coming to the club, even though we know you normally come to the club on Friday, right? So um really using that data from that hybrid world um for better engagement, which then just increases retention rates. Ultimately, as I increase retention rates, I then increase my opportunity for upsell, cross-sell. So then that leads me to a whole nother topic, which is we have data apps that were that are being built out around um personal training and uh group classes, right? Um, we're starting to do a lot of work in engaging with uh other technologies that support the personal training community. Um, and we think there's a big opportunity, you know, we personal training, as you know better than me, is a whole business in and of itself for these operators. And so we see a whole opportunity to help with uh both acquisition, retention, and growth, just as it relates to personal training andor uh group classes.

I mean, it's it's uh I'm reflecting now, Grossen, on like seven years ago when our focus on retention consisted of a spreadsheet with uh my coner and And our head coach, and we'd sit down once a week, be like, hey, have you seen Susie? No, I haven't I haven't seen Susie. Does anyone talk to Susie? And that was it. We should reach out to Susie. And that was it. That was our retention plan, man. Um, which wasn't horrible. You know, it worked pretty well. Uh, you know, we were in the 90%, but something like this is just so way like next level. It's it's really cool.

Um well, and I think what's driving it, Eric, too. I mean, if you think about it, seven years ago, the amount of innovation that, you know, going back to where we started in this conversation about just the amount of innovation that's happening in this industry of just a variety of technology, right? Um, but that's driving all this new opportunity for data points, right? You know, several years ago, probably 90% of your engagement with Susie happened in your brick and mortar walls, right? Um, and so that that probably was the right way was just you knew every member, you knew when they came and, you know, when they were coming and going, you knew uh you could just know that stuff. But now with all these other engagement models through mobile, through, you know, um on demand and live stream, uh, through the, you know, the more offerings that gyms even have, and you know, the more services that gyms are now offering their community, um, and that innovation is is really what's driving this opportunity to use all of that information and intelligence coming from that innovation to really start to automate, you know, predictions and recommendations and engagement with your members and subscribers to ultimately give them a better experience. You know, I hear stories all the time where like, well, yeah, I do get some messages from my gym, super just not relevant to me, though, right? Uh you know, and that that's the that's the trick. We got to make um that engagement super relevant to to the member.

You know, it's uh can we go back for one minute too? Because um this term gets every once in a while now gets thrown around more often of OTT. So maybe if you can explain to people what that is.

Well, so OTT goes uh pretty far back to um uh technology that was delivering content, uh you know, so whether that be TV shows or movies in some format outside of your typical cable provider, right? So they that it stands for over the top. Um and it was it was um, you know, providing content outside of the standard television networks. Uh, you know, we all know Netflix. That that was one of the original guys. But now today, if you even think about the golf channel, right? Um, the golf channel provides their own content, right? That they they build and deliver uh in the fitness industry, right? Now there's um actually, I think a lot of great brands building great content, um, whether that content comes in the format of on-demand or live stream, and then delivering that content through these OTT platforms. Um, and now these OTT platforms are getting pretty sophisticated in just the um like the player and and the engagement. And uh by no means am I an expert in OTT, um, but it's just this whole new opportunity for how content can be created, uh, digital content, and then that content can be delivered to your members or subscribers if it's a pure subscriber. What's interesting to me, um, you know, we're doing we're doing a lot of work with, for example, um uh sorry, uh, you know, boutique studios that are building um significant content, they spend a lot of like exponential, for example. Um, they spend a lot of money on the content they build. And so understanding how that content is used uh by their consumers is super important, right? And then optimizing, you know, we deliver recommendations on how to optimize content, um, what consumers will be interested in what content, uh, and then how to increase the engagement with the consumers on that content. Um, so that's even a whole nother segment of of what we're doing with Scipio for the fitness community. And we're not seeing a lot uh any other tools really doing this for the community.

You know, looking at your guys, thank you for that. That was a great explanation.

I think it was really well we should call Adam and ask him.

Yeah, he'll give us a much better explanation. Yeah, he will. It's true. Uh I thought that was really good though. Um, so when you guys, when was Scipio founded?

Yeah, we were founded uh the beginning of last year, uh really actually late 19, but we really kind of started to come out and talk to people um the beginning of last year. Of course, it was right before COVID hit. Uh that was a little scary, like it was for all of us. But you know, what was exciting to me is I think, you know, as we were out talking to the community, you know, really validating our thesis, we just got tremendous feedback even during COVID. That yes, this is real. Matter of fact, actually, what I I tell everybody, what what I usually get these days is uh, wow, this sounds great. I could absolutely use it. Um, it sounds too good to be true, right? Uh it's uh so I think there is a big opportunity. Um, we're we're starting to see the the ROI. Um, we are Uber obsessed. You know, I had a CIO ask me the the other day, you know, hey, so what do I tell the CEO you're gonna do for us? And the answer to that is um grow your revenues. That's all we're obsessed about, is increasing retention rates, increasing cross-sell update rates, increasing acquisition rates. You do those things, any one or more of those things, we're gonna increase your member subscriber base and we're gonna increase your revenues. And if we're not doing that, I tell people every day, if Scipio is not doing that for you, then we should go home, right? You should deactivate your subscription to the platform. We should go home. We're not doing our job. Um matter of fact, we're uh anybody who sees a demo, we make it very clear in our platform the ROI that's coming from the uh predictions and recommendations. As it relates to churn, for example, we're actually very transparent about here were all the members that we predicted that were at risk. Here's the ones that we did not save, right? So we'll tell you where we weren't effective. And at the same time, we'll tell you where we were effective. And then we start to break that down into um here were the recommendations that were most effective and the ones that were least effective. So I think a lot of people don't necessarily trust AI and ML, which is what we use, right? Artificial intelligence and machine learning. I don't think it's natural for humans to trust that. And so for that reason, we put a lot of energy into being very transparent about the influencing factors, very transparent about what worked and what didn't work. Um, and then it also, of course, supports our value prop, which is we we want to show you that ROI.

And you know, it sounds like such a simple thing. Like we drive revenues, we provide ROI, but so much software, especially in the fitness industry that we've been used to, has never been able to promise that. Well, you know, or you know, I came from a digital marketing background, and it's like to try to nail someone down on ROI, they're like it's just like people squirm, right? They can't get so when you guys tackle it head on, it's so refreshing to be like, you know, that's what we do, we just drive more revenue. Because at the end of the day, you know, kind of circling back to our original conversation. If you can't do that, then it's just another dashboard, right? It's just another shiny thing. And I think there's a lot of shiny things in the fitness industry, and there has been for a very long time. I mean, I've I've switched CRMs in the past just because I could now put someone's uh face on a TV, right? That was it. That was the only difference in the CRM, right? I went through months of pain, uh painful agonizing to do a uh a migration, and that was it. At the end of the day, that's just what I got. But I was it was worth it for me because it was something new, right? But this actually drives revenue, which at the end of the day, man, who doesn't need more revenue?

Right?

I mean of course, yeah. No, and we, you know, I think it drives revenue, it drives better engagement, and it drives what going back to early in the conversation, what our operators are passionate about, right? They're so passionate about giving, you know, the members, helping their members with their health and fitness, and you know, uh creating just a killer experience. And um, these are the types of tools that can help do that. And of course, if you do those things, then yeah, you're gonna grow your business. Um, but I agree. I mean, I think we also overcomplicate the world. I mean, this is obviously a you know, this is big data, this is data science, this is artificial intelligence and machine learning, and you know, this it certainly is super complicated. But from from our from my view of the world and what we're obsessed about, it doesn't need to be, you know, complicated, right? The engineers will deal with that complication. Um, but we need to be focused, you know, we need to be clear on what's the value prop. And if if we're not really building an ROI, matter of fact, we have stickers on all of our Macs that say outcomes as outcome obsessed, right? If we're not achieving that outcome, then we're not doing our job. Um, and so yeah, we always start the conversation of what do we do? We're gonna help you grow. That then leads to, well, how are you gonna help me grow? I'm gonna help you grow by increasing retention or increasing upsell, cross-sell or acquisition. Okay, well, then how are you gonna help me do that? Well, we're gonna give you very relevant personalized predictions and recommendations. Okay, well, how are you gonna do that? Now that's when we'll start to get into, well, we have these AI machine in ML algorithms that are you know looking at this unified data and et cetera, et cetera. But the other thing I'd tell you, Eric, that uh has gotten a great response. We've started, or we we've not started, we've been doing it for a little while now, but we offer a free trial to the platform. Nice. Um, we tell everybody we talk to, look, come onto the platform, use one data app, start, for example, with the retention data app. If in in 60, 90 days I'm not showing you a clear ROI, then don't don't activate the platform. Don't, you know, you don't don't move to a paid subscription. Um, if I am showing you that clear ROI, it'll actually be a no-brainer. It'll pay for itself. And we are today, right? We're showing um uh we're showing you know a number of brands that clear ROI. Uh and I think that's why earlier you said, hey, I'm hearing the CPO name more and more, which gets me excited to hear. Uh but I think it's, you know, because we are starting to be able to show this clear ROI to customers.

Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, the best thing you can have in an industry, especially in an industry niche like this, is buzz. Uh, once the buzz starts going around, then it's uh it's a really good thing. And I I'd be curious, I I'd like to kind of dive into Scipio as a company too, because you know, like you say, you started in late 2019, early 2020. Um you come from a non-fitness industry background, although I know you know you're you're an Iron Man guy as well, so you're you're not uh naive to fitness and training. Um but from a company standpoint, like you've mentioned some really cool things about culture. And, you know, of course, you guys have been out looking for institutional investing, um, gathering rounds and things like that. That's something that's fairly new to the industry as well. And I'd be curious, you know, if you could provide some advice to maybe, you know, uh tech companies or you know, franchises that are looking to grow or people just looking to seek investment and kind of becoming I'll just say a real company, right? A real corporation. Um what what advice do you have them, having done this a few times?

Wow, yeah, that's uh I don't know if I can give good investment advice, uh, but but yeah, a couple, so let's see, a couple of things there. Um, you know, we're lucky. Um, we have so number one, I'd say have a killer co-founder team, right? Um, so you're right, my background. So we have three co-founders in this business. Um, and we were we're fortunate because we complement each other extremely well, meaning uh my background, as I mentioned, is all around customer success. Uh Minoj's background, our other co-founder, was around marketing automation and data science. So um, prior to co-founding Scipio, he was the chief product officer of Marketo, which is a major marketing automation platform. He was also the group vice president at Oracle for their what they call CDP customer data platform uh called Unity. Basically, these CDP platforms are they orchestrate data, right? They bring they unit, they're the ones who are known for creating 360-degree views customers, right? So um, you know, Minoze is just brilliant in that regard. Um, and then Darmesh uh has both got a data science background as well as uh he worked in the fitness industry, right? He was one of the uh the executives that helped grow Motion Soft. And so he's well known across industry and of bringing technology to the fitness industry. Um so really he he also brought us all that domain expertise. Uh so we, you know, one of our co-founders really did help us accelerate our domain expertise. But back to your question, I think my advice would be, you know, have a killer co-founder team. Um I really do believe in our obsession around outcomes, be outcomes obsessed, you know, really understand what is the value proposition you're gonna bring with your technology and stay true to it, right? Uh really stay true to your value proposition. Um, because if if the value proposition is real and is impactful, um and you have a killer uh founder team, you know, then then the sky's the limit. Um and yeah, there was uh we are, we we did uh complete a raise. There's actually a press release actually, I think went out yesterday, both a press release and a story uh with at Club Industry, which I was very thankful for. Um Club Industry did a great story on us. Uh Pam literally got released, I think, last night. Um and uh, but it talks a lot about this subject. So I would definitely uh obviously encourage everybody to go take a look at that too. And then the other thing that I I've, you know, and I think Eric, you're uh our our relationship and partnerships, an example. I've there's so much opportunity. This industry is great at building partnerships, you know. So you mentioned Adam, you know, we have a partnership with IntelliVideo. Um, I'm a big flank fan of uh MXM and you know, Blair over there. I'm a I'm actually as I mentioned earlier, a big fan of Morpheus. Um, so I think, you know, as all this innovation occurs, there's a lot of opportunity for all the innovators to to really partner together and grow together.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, we're reaching the the fitness industry. I mean, there's a couple good things that came out of this pandemic was that um, you know, allowed fitness technology to take a bigger stage, which I think is a good thing. Um, the industry has needed better tech and better relationships with our end users and clients. And also there's been such a um, how do I put this like well, a greater focus on health, I believe. People are starting to understand that, you know, through uh lockdowns and things like that and and what about who a pandemic actually affects, that health is a really big deal. So we're seeing, I do believe, and uh to say this as kindly as possible, we also saw a culling of the herd, you know, when it comes to operators and fitness professionals out there. So when this thing is starting to come back to normal now, I think this mixture that we have of you know, the all those different things you talked about, right? The the in-person, the OTT, the remote, um, the all the content. There's so much content. It's really a fascinating time to be uh in the industry. I I talk about this every once in a while, about two years ago, or right before probably the pandemic started, I was thinking, like, all right, maybe it's time for me to shift and try out a new industry for a while. And then things got really interesting. Um, things got really fast. About billions of dollars dumped in from investors and you know, as this industry just seeming seemingly just uh hit rocket status. So it's a fascinating time. And I'm curious, you know, having come from where you come from in the SaaS world and now seeing the fitness industry and really have rolled up your sleeves and be in it, how do you think it's gonna be different in three years? What do you think it's gonna look like?

Oh God. I mean, I think, you know, so a couple of things, and you know, as you were talking there about money coming in to the industry, especially around tech, um, it reminded me, uh, when I quickly pulled it up, you know, Brian O'Rourke just put out an article, I think uh a week or so ago. It was on LinkedIn, and he was talking exactly on this topic, right? Literally talking about you know billions of dollars uh that has been and and and continues to be and is accelerating to come in from um institutional investors. Um I I loved the end of his article and I'd encourage everybody to go take a look at it. But section five or bullet five in his article is titled The Need for Serious Innovation. Um and and I would I'd go the need is I'd translate the word need to opportunity, right? There's just such a huge opportunity for innovation. Um, and we've seen it in other B2C markets, right? And he talks about that in here as well. That um, you know, when you think about like the retail market, for example, um, they they've done this. I sometimes people ask me, how do you know this will work? Like, how do you know AI ML-driven predictions and recommendations will work? And and part of my answer to that is because it's been done before, right? It's been done in retail, it's been done in other consumer segments. Um, and it can be done here. Um, and I think it's about it's happening, you know. And so your question was, what will we look like in three years? Um, one thing I'll tell you is, you know, the fitness industry has been growing. I think there was kind of this big question mark of like, oh, is the pandemic gonna disrupt that? I'm gonna I predict that that the fitness industry industry is gonna come out stronger. Um, they've been forced to innovate, they already were. Um, health is just critical. I think the pandemic has actually even proven and emphasized that. Um, and I think clubs are reopening. I think now everybody understands what a hybrid model looks like and will take advantage of it. And I think all of this innovation will lead to ultimately better consumer experiences. Um, and better consumer experience experiences lead to growth, right? You know, consumers will just want more of it. Um, so I think that I think it grows. And also, by the way, you know, institutional money is generally, they know what they're doing. If they're investing into this industry, it's because they they they can see that opportunity. Um so yeah, I just think it's a big opportunity. And I I uh really hope that those who you know may still be struggling keep the fight up because I do think we're coming out of it across the board. Um, you know, kudos to the those who adopted and who continue to innovate. And I just really hope the industry keeps the innovation going. And I I truly believe they will.

I I think so too, for sure. As we start to wrap this up a little bit, Gross, and you know, for people listening, um, you know, from a networking perspective, like what's one of the biggest needs you guys have at CIPO right now?

Partnership. Well, so okay, needs hiring is always a big need. Uh we just, you know, we've been fortunate that we're seeing a lot of growth. And so, you know, I'm actually looking for uh marketing folks, I'm looking for sales folks, uh looking for engineers. So on a person, on a business uh need front, well, hiring is is definitely a need. Um on a uh what I would love front is two things. One, I would love partner more, you know, anyone that we're not talking to about partnerships, um, I I would love to talk to you. Um and and, you know, Eric, you've introduced me to some folks and I really appreciate that. I just I really truly believe in this opportunity for tech companies to partner and grow together. Um, and really not just grow together, but serve the industry, right? Um and help the industry grow. Um, and then two, obviously, uh anybody who's interested in a free trial, we would love to engage them, get them on board and start to show our value proposition uh, you know, to the industry and to operators.

And Krasny, who who makes good partners for you guys at this point?

Wow, that's a great question. I mean, so far, it's if you're if you're I mean, literally we we partner with the OTT platforms, with member management platforms, um, mobile apps. Uh, I think, you know, I think we're we're exploring like Master Fit and Morpheus and um, you know, folks serving kind of the PT community and um the onboarding and rewards community. So it really is technology companies that um, especially that have data, but that that's not really the motive. It's it's um, I think everybody serving the industry from a technology perspective ultimately is trying to serve the member and the member experience and create a better experience. And I feel that the more integrated these technologies are in working together to increase that better member experience will reward the member and reward uh the gym and reward us technology companies. Um, because that that's at the end of the day, that member experience is is everything. Um so yeah, I would say anybody who's really uh a technology that's you know serving member experience or serving club operations is a great partner for us.

Right on. Awesome. So, Grass, and where do people, if people want to reach out to you, they want to check out the website, yeah, everything online. Give us the goods, man. Where do you where do you send people?

Yeah, thank you for that. Uh so obviously our our our website is Scipio.ai. Um, Scipio, by the way, yeah, C-I-P-I-O um dotai. You can email me, anybody can email me directly. Um it's uh Grossengro W S O N at Scipio.ai. And uh yeah, I would I would love love to talk and and collaborate with with anybody, both on the operator side, on the tech side, uh across the industry. And Eric, yeah, again, this I really appreciate the opportunity. Uh it's uh you've you've had some amazing people on this podcast. So to be able to be on this podcast and join the ranks of of your of your past past folks is uh was really cool. So I thank you for the invite.

Oh man, it's my pleasure. It's it's really exciting what you guys are doing. And you know, I always uh tell people just the ethos of this show is to get the industry skating to where the puck is going. And definitely, you know, it's it's going your way. So uh, you know, it's it's great for people to be aware of it and start utilizing and start understanding it. So yeah, it's uh it's all my pleasure, man. And um really appreciate you taking the time this morning to to come on. And uh yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Gross and Edwards.

Uh thanks, Eric. Have a great day.

Uh hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, Catbox, 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 featurofitness.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.