Jack Daly - The Future of TRX

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[00:02:03] All right, we are live. Jack Daly, welcome to the future of fitness. Thanks, sir. Good to be here. It's great to have you. We've been working on getting this podcast scheduled for a while. We were going to do this live at IDEA in July.

[00:02:22] Unfortunately, you sustained a small injury, merely a flesh wound as we were talking about, but you're back in action. I'm glad we got this rescheduled, so I appreciate your tenacity in working with me and getting this done. Yeah, so my look injury is all a part of sports.

[00:02:37] Unfortunately, we weren't able to do this at IDEA. I blew out my bicep, and I was getting surgery instead of talking with you, but I'm glad we got it back on track. It's been six weeks, so as you can tell, things are coming back to normal eventually.

[00:02:49] Yeah, you're moving well. You know, there's so many things I want to cover today and a bunch of the things that we just discussed in the pre-roll are really fascinating too. I mean, you're now at the helm of TRX, what I would consider an iconic legacy brand

[00:03:04] within the industry. Anyone in the industry knows it. Most consumers know the brand name, so you've got something really special there. And of course, with your background, which is at this point in time unique to leadership in the fitness industry. You're a Wharton MBA.

[00:03:21] You came from the private equity world. You've gotten into leveraged buyouts, which is something that seems to be coming up every once in a while now on this podcast, which is interesting. So you've got a unique background compared to what typical CEO of a brand like TRX

[00:03:36] comes from. So I want to get into that. I want to get into, of course, the future of TRX, where you see the innovation, something that you're very passionate about coming from a recent trip to London

[00:03:46] of live activations, live events and being live in real life as the kids are saying, IRL nowadays. So much to get into. Let's just start with your background, Jack. How did you get to be the CEO of TRX? And then we'll take it from there. Okay.

[00:04:01] Well, look, my journey started with a friendship with Randy Hedrick. It really came from that. I'm on the board of the Navy Seal Foundation. I've been on the board for 10 years. My oldest friend from childhood served for 30 years in the SEAL teams.

[00:04:13] So I just got to know Randy through the Navy SEAL community. And like you do with many friends, he gave me a call and he said, hey, I sold control of the company and kind of exited the company a couple of years ago.

[00:04:29] I'm not sure they're doing too well. They're doing financing. Can you take a look? And for me, I've been a buyout person. I was a partner at Goldman Sachs, a partner at TPG, and I was doing large cap, meaning kind of multi-billion dollar companies taking control positions there.

[00:04:43] So that's my swim lane, like looking at companies and thinking about them is what I've been doing for a long time, although I was focused on industrial services companies. So when a buddy like Randy says, hey, can you take a look?

[00:04:55] I'm not sure what's how they're doing and they were doing financing. For me, having been retired from the Wall Street career two years ago, my wife and I just decided to focus on our lifestyle, focus on health, wellness and happiness.

[00:05:11] And instead of investing other people's money and large billion dollar buyouts, we decided to invest our own money in things that are important to us. So we're building a hospital, helping to build a hospital in LA with some friends, help

[00:05:24] to open up an M.A. gym in San Francisco with some friends. And then as Randy came along and said, hey, take a look at TRX, led us to the opportunity to actually acquire it. So it's really that.

[00:05:34] It's through a friendship with Randy, a desire really to focus on health, wellness and happiness kind of as an investor and professionally. And then the opportunity with TRX that came available, those three things came together. I'm a fitness nut but I'm not from the fitness industry.

[00:05:50] So I'm a bit of a new guy in the industry. I don't think that's necessarily a hindrance. I think that could be a advantage in so many different ways. When you looked at the opportunity at TRX, I'm sure coming from your background,

[00:06:01] you did a certain amount of diligence, right? You probably know how to do diligence as opposed to most of us. So what was it when you looked at it from both kind of the side of this is something

[00:06:13] I could be passionate about, the emotional side, but also like the business side of it. What were some of the attractive things that made you eventually push forward on it? Well, the real passion started off with this is just as you mentioned.

[00:06:27] It's an iconic brand in the industry. It's really known as a premium fitness products company. And that's attractive because look, I'm choosing to do this. This is very much a passion play for me and my wife.

[00:06:38] And so for us being associated with this world-class brand, and I say world-class because it goes far beyond the US, that was really attractive. It's just what it stands for. The company that Randy built, right?

[00:06:52] I mean, just the journey that he was on in forming this innovative company that's, you know, look, I'm close with a bunch of SEAL Team 6 guys. They've been working out with TRX suspension trainers for 30 years. They don't chase fads. This is not a fad-based business.

[00:07:06] This is a really foundational tool. And so that the premium quality, the quality of the brand, the ubiquity of the brand was really attractive. So that was the first thing. And then getting to know the ecosystem, the people who've chosen to associate themselves with this brand.

[00:07:26] We have over 300,000 certified trainers worldwide. And I mentioned to you, I just came from London. We had a bunch of people get together. And so I'm getting to know them. That ecosystem is really attractive because as a community of people focused

[00:07:40] on health, wellness and happiness, that's what I wanted to run with the top team. So that was attractive. So there are many reasons to then say, wow, I would really love to be a part of this and help take the company to the next level.

[00:07:54] And then you mentioned the diligence side. So that's my passionate fitness person side. And then from a business diligence, because you're right, that is my slim lane. I've done a lot of that. The intellectual property wrapping around the products, the strength of that product line, that's very attractive.

[00:08:16] The ecosystem, the fact that those 300,000, 350,000 certified trainers, two-thirds of those are outside the US. So it's a global ecosystem. Being able to sell product and services throughout, that's pretty attractive. So the ecosystem and the people are as important in my view as the intellectual

[00:08:33] property, which is very strong. And so the business opportunity with that kind of ecosystem, that set of products, and then the iconic brand. If you look at the brand of all the words typed into Amazon, we're in the upward point zero something percent of words, not just brands

[00:08:49] of words typed into Amazon. It's just such a powerful brand name. We think we can, with that combination of factors, we can do some pretty great things. And so we put a team together to do that. But that's how I approached it from a passion and understanding,

[00:09:05] as well as from a look at the end of the day, I'm a business guy from a business standpoint. Sure. Yeah. And you touched on it by your team. I mean, in our first conversation, which I think was,

[00:09:16] or was I think it was May of this year, you know, one of the things that you very excited about, very proud of, I would say, is is how you're going about building the leadership team at TRX. And obviously there's some people who have been in that organization

[00:09:32] who will stay in that organization for a long time, but also you're bringing in some some fresh perspectives and unique talent sets. So tell us about that. Like how are you going about building your team?

[00:09:42] Yeah, you and Eric, and I gushed with you the first time and I tend to. I really do when I talk about the team. And we've we've I lovingly referred to the team as a team of Avengers, right?

[00:09:51] I really do because if you look at the senior leadership team, it is a combination of the OGs, you know, Randy is in as chairman of the company, right? Rick Yousik, who ran sales for the business prior to, you know, 2019, 2020 came back in and Yoshetti,

[00:10:09] who we lost was a former CFO of the company. So I was able to lean on, you know, the OGs, you know, Brin Elliot, who runs our education department, you know, Fraser Qualcomm. So we have the OGs, but some of the new G's, right?

[00:10:20] That have come in, you know, people like we just hired Matt Brown from Nike, senior engineer at Nike, led the development of the Nike Fuel Band. Being able to attract a world class talent like Matt is phenomenal.

[00:10:34] He's coming in as our senior engineer in the product development side. Our head of supply chain, Jeff Woodhouse, ran global warehousing for Nike for 12 years and for 10 years before they ran sourcing supply chain for Nala's. You know, our IP, you know, lead who helped me through diligence,

[00:10:50] who's protected the company. Guy named Ellen Bill in the way of it was a senior partner of Dwayne Morris who protected TRX for, you know, a dozen years, including a federal lawsuit in 2015. One of the top patent attorneys and litigators.

[00:11:04] There's a difference between people who file patents and people litigate them. World class panitary decided to join our team as in-house general counsel. I mean, it's crazy, right? I have a, our CFO is the CFO of Ruggalong, you know, Doug Greff.

[00:11:17] Our CTO is the chief product officer at Fandom who built Crunchyroll at Warner prior to being chief product officer at Fandom. Took Crunchyroll from a couple hundred thousand subscribers to millions. He's an iconic tech, you know, executive.

[00:11:31] He came on board as our CTO because he and Randy went to Stanford Business School together 20 years ago. I look at this team of Avengers and look, my approach and some excess, the excess that I've achieved, you know, through the,

[00:11:45] my Wall Street days and vinyl days is really gathering world class people to come together with a common purpose. And I can name others on the team, you know, our board, Mark Fields, you know, CEO of Ford, CEO of Hertz, Susan Kilrain, second woman

[00:11:59] to pilot the space shuttle had two successful flights. Frank McGuigan, you know, one of the top logistics executives of the world. So we're bringing this world class team of people together with this common purpose to take TRX and this platform and really promote

[00:12:14] this health, wellness and happiness throughout the world. And I am so excited about that because, you know, obviously it takes a lot of great people to make this work. Yeah, that's really impressive. You know what I think about you kind of taking the helm here.

[00:12:28] What were, say this in a constructive way, what were some of the biggest opportunities that you saw for improvement immediately with TRX? Like what were the things like, OK, we got to tackle that. We got to tackle that ASAP.

[00:12:40] Yeah. So for me, look right out of the gate, it's I will say it's a lot of foundational work in this first year of our journey. Right. So a lot of foundational work for us, you know, as I think about as constructing a house, right?

[00:12:53] The foundation, the electrical, the plumbing, the stuff behind the wall that you don't see really in my view needed to be brought up to a world-class level. And I say that and it's easy to say it's very hard to do, right?

[00:13:05] To bring up a supply chain to a world-class level, to bring up a, you know, systems, finance and administration up to a world-class level. It's hard. It's hard work and you really got to grind through it to get it done.

[00:13:17] But as I look at this business for the next 20 years, you know, I'm 57 years old. I can be involved in this business for the next 50 years, right? I really wanted to have that core foundation really in great shape because you want that foundation strong before you

[00:13:31] start building rooms on your house, right? So the first opportunity for us was let's get back to the basics and do it right and do it well. Right. So world-class marketing, you know, Mark Fields came out of the marketing department before he became CEO of Ford, right?

[00:13:45] World-class marketing perspective coming in and we wanted to get those kind of foundational elements right. So that was, you know, 10 years ago, right? That was, you know, task number one, build that foundation. What I also saw and what we all saw was the digital opportunity here is terrific.

[00:14:03] You know, our TRX Training Club, which is the TRX app, where we have, you know, 30,000 people who are regularly participating, you know, on our classes, you know, online. That's a huge opportunity for us. Why do we have, you know, how are we going to attract

[00:14:22] somebody like Quincy Carroll to come into CTO, the company who's taken companies to millions of subscribers? We've done that because we have this great core foundational app that we can then build from. So what we've been doing there is doing a lot of

[00:14:34] foundational work on the app as we then turn to really accelerate growth. You wanted that foundation first and that's a lot of tech behind the scenes to make it a really good platform. That's one opportunity. I think leveraging that global community of 350,000

[00:14:51] certified trainers worldwide, half of them open our emails. Right? That's another opportunity. How do we excite that ecosystem with additional products and services because we are products and services. We're not just a products company. Randy continues to remind me we're an education business that also sell products.

[00:15:08] So that's another one. And new products, right? There's a digital strategy for us with connected fitness that is really exciting. And how do I attract and how do we attract somebody like Matt Brown from Nike to come in and quarterback our connected fitness is really the

[00:15:23] strength of the opportunity out there. That's as exciting as him coming in and working with this team on this brand. So those are the opportunities ahead of us. And then frankly, it's just it's inventing new products and adding new products to our ecosystem,

[00:15:36] which we've already demonstrated we could do. Yeah. Fascinating. I mean, it all makes completely good business sense, right? The TRX app tells us what can we expect? Like what is in its current iteration or when you took over, you know, what was the state of

[00:15:53] the app and then where are you guys looking to take that? So the state of the app, when we took over had really good content on it. Really good on demand and live training, right? I think they did a really good job.

[00:16:06] And the tech stack was pretty good. The user interface and the workability and the search and trying to get to of the thousand different choices you have and get to the one quickly that you want, that was needing some work, right?

[00:16:20] So now if you go on, wow, it's just much easier. It's presented in a much more exciting way. So just the user interface, frankly, a lot of that, and I say just that's a lot of hard work to do that right

[00:16:32] and well, but we had to spend a good bit of time on it. We've just started adding, you know, make it multilingual. We just added Spanish content. My goodness, right? We're a global business. We sell products all over the world.

[00:16:44] You can't go to a place without seeing, you know, suspension trainers and our other tools out there. Yet we were 100% English, right? So, you know, we're migrating into obviously multiple languages. That's pretty straightforward. And then the capabilities when you have your ecosystem,

[00:17:02] your digital ecosystem, there are other places where we can go, like I said, a connected ecosystem. When you like to have on that app the ability to track your performance in a suspension trainer, right? That would be pretty cool. And that way we can also drive more engagement

[00:17:15] in the app, more community-based services, right? With inside the digital ecosystem that then complements our products that go out, you know, into the market. So there's a lot that we can do with that digital ecosystem. And then our, you know, our educational programs, right?

[00:17:34] And that's not just for instructors because we do have a very strong educational program for people certified as TRX instructors. But we also have educational programs for consumers, right? Fitness fanatics like I used to be before we came part of the industry, right?

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[00:18:42] with Store by Workout. Discover more at workout.com. That's W-R-K-O-U-T dot com, just one O. W-R-K-O-U-T. Go get it. You know, education, you and I were touching on this earlier. You know, I feel like it's an estate for our industry and a state of evolution.

[00:19:12] You know, there's like you eloquently put like people can access information like podcasts, like YouTube, like, you know, all kinds of things, you know, for free and on demand. And, you know, when we look at something like Idea because we were both there, you know, it's still great.

[00:19:30] Like I get to see all these people that I know and as you're getting into the fitness industry you're seeing like it's a pretty tight-knit group. Like, you know, everyone kind of most closely knows each other and been around for a while and in that part's always great.

[00:19:41] It's always good to be with your community. On the education side of things, I feel like there needs to be some, there definitely needs to be some iteration, right? Things need to shift and change and kind of get up with the times because that seemed a little lackluster.

[00:19:57] I mean, the TRX room when I said, when I walked by when they were educating trainers that was robust. Like there was a good amount of people actively engaging in those rooms. But you know, when you look at it overall, you know, how do you think we need

[00:20:10] to shift the education for our industry? Yeah, well, look, it brings up a lot of topics. By the way, the education side, we talked about my Wall Street background for 25 years, but also prior to that, I spent six years on the faculty of Case Westerners at Irvine University.

[00:20:25] I taught mechanical aerospace engineering. So I was teaching classes in product development, design and manufacturing. And then I went off to Wall Street. But so I do have an education background. Education is near and dear not only to TRX but it's near and dear to my heart.

[00:20:40] I started off my career that way. So as I think about education, you know, you think about how the industry and how the world's migrated, you know, over the past few years with COVID and we were talking about is now people have different tools to gather information.

[00:20:57] And frankly, people becoming more digital and how they get information. It was a time and it wasn't that long ago where really to get depth of expertise, you all had to get into a room and everybody had to sit and listen to a speaker, right?

[00:21:10] To really get a level of understanding in the fitness industry. Well now I can pop on your podcast while I'm working out and I can listen to Tom Dahl which you just did recently talk about what's going on at F45. If I can get that depth of expertise

[00:21:26] by doing it in an efficient way on my terms and my time, you know, then I think the industry has to recognize you have to change, you know, your thinking of what education really needs to be when people come together. I frankly think there's no substitute

[00:21:41] for people getting together and activating. You were kind to mention an idea as we gather people and it's true. I mean, I love getting together in those kind of settings working on it. Just came back from London. We had a summit in London.

[00:21:54] You know, we had 18 of our senior master instructors. We had people from all over the world, Australia, you know, 20 different countries coming together to work out for three days. There's no substitute for that in the fitness industry, social people who love coming together.

[00:22:09] And by the way, if you wanna learn how to use a Y-bell, you gotta get hands on it working with somebody and working out. So there are parts of education in our business that need that. I think we're all tend to be

[00:22:22] and it's funny I'm new to the industry but for the year I keep telling everybody, oh my gosh, this is such a positive energy industry, right? You have a bunch of social people who love to come together, right? So I think there's a need by the,

[00:22:36] by virtue of the people who are in the industry who really do get a lot of benefit of engaging. And I was talking to somebody who was running a gym in the middle of England and he was saying, you know, sometimes, I'm running the gym and everything else,

[00:22:49] but it just feels good to get next to people who are more peer-like, who are doing the same thing, right? And everybody needs that burst once a while, right? So I think there's a need for social gathering. I think there's a need to educate people

[00:23:02] hands on in some of our products. And then you also can get skills by being more immersive and engaging, which is not what you're going to get from getting through a digital ecosystem stuff coming at you, right? But I do think that education side

[00:23:17] of our industry has to adjust because you can't use the models from the past, really gonna do it going forward. But I'll tell you, February, at the end of February, February 25th, we're gonna have 700 instructors gathering in Athens for three days of TRX training. 25th to 26th.

[00:23:33] So if you think about something like that, hundreds of trainers come together for three days. How much fun are we going to have? How much education can we get across? And as we think about that, and you'll be, we're gonna have the penultimate event

[00:23:45] in the ancient Olympic stadium, looking out over the Acropolis, up to the Acropolis. Like, you can't recreate that digitally. You just can't. It's not that satisfying. Be there in the moment being engaged while we can also educate you on the business of fitness.

[00:24:04] Maybe social media skill training while you're doing that. A lot of hands-on workout training. I think we all have to collectively think about the best ways to deliver content. And I think that's the same thing with the trade shows, right?

[00:24:16] I think people can't go back to the model, hey, COVID's gone, now people are coming together. Let's go back to grab the program that we did in 2017 and try to wash your hands and repeat. I don't think that's going to work. I think you'll lose people's interest.

[00:24:28] Yeah, those are all excellent points. And I think people also have to get a little grace this year. The things are kind of expensive. Like inflation is really high. That's something that wasn't talked about. Like where is everybody? Well, it costs a boatload to get here nowadays.

[00:24:43] When I think about like a trainer, if I was going back to some of my early days as a coach and trainer, there wasn't a lot of digital education. I started in the CrossFit space and I was constantly, I was gobbling up every CrossFit specialty certification

[00:24:57] I could get my hands on, I was driving and flying. And luckily I was in California. So it was like all I had to do is maybe drive like to LA, right? Which was like five hours. But the relationships that I made at those is can't be understated.

[00:25:12] Like these are people that 16 years later I still talk to and they've arisen to certain areas within the industry. I can call them, we can chat about things. We can collaborate. There's something about that too that you just don't get from the digital.

[00:25:26] And of course to your point is like when you're teaching somebody, how to snatch a kettlebell or work with something like that or work with a barbell, like those physical cues and seeing how someone who's a master does it and moves through the room and touches on people

[00:25:43] and how they speak, when they speak. Like all of that stuff you can't get from a digital certification or anything like that. So I think that's something I really urge people who are coming into industry now is like, get out there. Like go meet your peers.

[00:25:57] Go lay hands on people as you're training because this is a very hands on job at times, right? And you have to do a lot of that. So yeah, I'm curious to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, I agree completely, but there also,

[00:26:10] I look at it from a couple of different perspectives. One is if you're a new person in the industry, I mean my goodness, I've met so many people going to those kind of live events that have been transformative in the short period of time I've been doing it.

[00:26:23] Yet when I was in London this past weekend or any of the other summits that we've done, when you see your master instructors coming together who have known each other for 15 years, there's a benefit to those people in getting together and sharing perspectives.

[00:26:40] And there's also a benefit for somebody like me, right? A new person doing it in the industry. So I think it really does touch on all different levels. But I'll give you an example. I was at Ursa, right? And now I'm the new person,

[00:26:50] I'm one of the new people in the industry. And in Ursa, just for me to just meet people was important. And but as Lawrence, Aaron Lawrence as the founder of Y-Bell came walking up to me in our activation, we go to these things, we really bring it, right?

[00:27:09] So with people working out all the time, it's just very high energy and a total blast. And for me, I'm getting to know the players, the companies, our customers. I'm really trying to get to know everybody. And as walked up in our booth

[00:27:25] and he was walking up carrying a Y-Bell, right? And he literally came up with his hands and I looked at him and I said, don't even say a word. Like you don't even have to pitch it, you don't have to explain it.

[00:27:37] I go, I've been working out with dumbbells and kettlebells for, I don't know, going on 50 years. Holy cow, somebody innovated on something like that. And I said, you have it, hello. I actually don't want to hear the pitch. And he laughed and he said, hey,

[00:27:49] you might put your hand in it, right? So I put my hand in it. Like those kind of things, they don't happen unless you have those kind of events and unless you, because you do it's expensive, it takes time.

[00:28:02] Unless you take the time and energy to come together. But how does that translate? In that case, right? And by the way, I'm focused on foundational elements of the business. I told our board, look, I'm an acquisition guy. I've built businesses acquiring companies for 25 years.

[00:28:18] I said, don't let me come in with an acquisition for the first 18 months. We have foundational work to do in the company. I want to get that right before we start adding in. And I told you, I'd be very serious board.

[00:28:27] Of course, I only control the company, but they don't care. They're going to tell me what to do. And having met as, we then set up a workout. He sent me a couple of widebells. We sent out a workout and then we were able to acquire the company

[00:28:40] and bring it into the TRX family. So it's been transformative for his journey as a fitness instructor at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia for 25 years coming up with this innovative product to then be able to join the TRX family. It was great for us because it gave us

[00:28:54] widely, wildly innovative acquisition. And we wouldn't have done that had I not met him. Now what we did do was we leveraged that initial meeting. And he sent me a couple of widebells and he took me in and a buddy of mine through a virtual workout.

[00:29:10] He was in Australia. We were in my backyard in Delray Beach. We did a widebell workout together. So you can enhance it with the tools that we have today, but there's no substitute. I don't think we would have connected. I know we wouldn't have connected through video

[00:29:25] conferencing and everything else in the way that we needed to for us to be in a position to bring widebell into the TRX family. So there are things like that that, look, is that going to happen every time we get together? I don't know.

[00:29:38] But the prospect of that makes it pretty exciting. Those things will happen. And I will guarantee everybody, they won't happen if people aren't making the effort to gather and come together. So that's kind of how, that's how I think about it, whether you're new to the industry,

[00:29:52] been here for a little while or you're an OG, there's just so much benefit with people gathering. Yeah, I agree. And you have to, if you want to build your network by just sitting in your house, right? Or sitting in your gym,

[00:30:08] it's you have to be extremely intentional. Like you have to be like making phone calls, constantly on LinkedIn, you have to be out there. But what you can get from one weekend of just walking a floor or having lunch with somebody, having coffee, whatever it may just random

[00:30:23] encounter like you had, you just can't replace it. One weekend can be worth a year of potential networking and exposure to people within the industry. I wanna make sure we give enough time because we've touched on this. Eric, what you can do digitally is start a podcast

[00:30:44] and do what you did. Oh yeah. Right? You were able to connect with everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you've done it for us. So we could, you know, it's actually, it's remarkable what you've been able to build. Yeah, well, I mean, I kind of had to.

[00:30:55] I mean, no one's coming to the Northwest quarter of Montana very often. So, you know, I gotta, I gotta figure out how I'm gonna do it. So I appreciate that. The innovation, all right, you've touched on it like a couple of different things

[00:31:07] through the app and the connected and, you know, mergers or acquisitions. Like there's a lot of different ways that you're innovating, but what is your vision for TRX? And maybe we can just put a small timestamp on it for clarity like five years from now, Jack.

[00:31:23] Where do you see the biggest innovations in TRX? So if you'll forgive me a little bit for answering about what it's not going to be because I'm a private equity person and private equity people and for 25 years I've owned companies for five to seven years.

[00:31:35] I'd improve them and then sell them. That's the private equity model. So if people here are a private equity person, they might think that that's what I'm thinking about doing here, but that's a context where I'm using somebody else's money, a funded money,

[00:31:48] where we have the relationship with our investors that we're gonna take their money for some period of time and then we turn it to them with returns. In this case, I'm not using anybody else's money. This is our money, so this is a family business,

[00:31:58] which is very different. So I don't have that five to seven year clock in my mind on where, you know, what's my exit strategy? People always ask me that, I'm a private equity Wall Street person. I said, exit strategy. This is my passion play.

[00:32:13] This is my second half of life. You know, what I'm going to do? Why am I building a headquarters that I can bike to? You know, Mark Fields, who's on our board, can walk to our headquarters. Why are we doing it? We don't have an exit strategy.

[00:32:25] This is our life strategy, right? So it's not to, you know, I bought it well, flip it, that kind of, that's not it, right? We're in this because this is the lifestyle we want to lead. So that's what it's not.

[00:32:39] What it is five years from now, seven years from now, the innovation will come in a couple of forms. One is our education certification process and really engaging with our, you know, ecosystem of people who are certified in CRX.

[00:32:54] Like there's, we're going to do a lot of, you know, the fun activations like our Athens, Big Summit, those kinds of things, but really just engaging that community and really helping them build their businesses. So there's going to be innovation on that side of it.

[00:33:06] On the product side, you know, I spent six years teaching mechanical engineering and doing product development design. So on the academic side, Randy's the greatest inventor in the world, right? In the fittest products in my view. So you team, you know,

[00:33:18] the academic discipline business guy side of that with Randy's creative genius, I think you should expect to see more innovative products coming out of us. Also, my ability to acquire innovative companies like a Y-Vel, like that's just, that's part of what I do for a living, right?

[00:33:35] So we will add others as we go. So you'll have innovation on new offerings coming out of TRX in a couple of different forms, right? And we think broadly about health, wellness and happiness. We really do think broadly about that category.

[00:33:48] So, you know, we'll see where that takes us on the journey that we're on. I'm a year old in the seat. So we have lots of thoughts and plans. I will say, regardless of, you know, lots of other things, the digital strategy I talked about earlier

[00:34:03] and then the connected fitness strategy is very real. And, you know, look, I think I go back to my engineering days, lifetime ago, right? And the kind of technology that we were doing back then more of a biomedical side, but the kind of technology that could really,

[00:34:17] I think it can really impact the fitness industry, particularly the functional training space, I think it's terrific, right? And so getting the right engineering talent around with the right, you know, create a fitness genius, you know, inventor side with really good disciplined approach to business

[00:34:36] and investing in the right places. Cause I've seen people blow their brains out trying to chase the latest technology and it's a flash and then something else comes through. We won't, we'll be doing it in a foundational way for the long term. That's where we're going to be.

[00:34:50] If I think we're, you know, when we get together, you know, five years from now, we look back, hopefully we will have all the foundational work will be done and you know, our supply chain and our systems will be a competitive weapon in the market

[00:35:02] instead of a liability. That's what we'll get to. Our foundational products will go through the redesign will go through, you know, we'll have the right, you know, supply chain, all of those things that will have been done now and then you'll see the new products that come out.

[00:35:17] But, you know, like I said, I think we're already demonstrating that, right? We're already demonstrating that with the Y-Bell. I think the feedback I've gotten from the industry on Y-Bell, people are like, oh my gosh, it's really exciting. I can't believe you're able to do that

[00:35:30] and kind of get it. And you know what? For me, it was just instinctual. Like as had me at hello, like I said, I just look at it and so I come at it and look, it wasn't just me. It was our whole team that made that decision

[00:35:42] and did the work. But I fell in love right away, like right away. And it was, and then we did the series business diligence found that it really was a good fit. And he had great intellectual property, protecting it. It was an innovative product.

[00:35:55] As is such a good person and that matters. Like at this point in my life, I've been fortunate I've been able to pick and choose who I do business with in the past and we could still do that going forward.

[00:36:07] I only want to do it with really good people and as is one of those really good people in the industry. So I don't know, I think that's what you'll see. You'll see that we'll partner with great people. I think we, you know, my zone, just an example,

[00:36:20] like Dave Wright, I have to know Dave Wright. We're both in Sport Tech together in Tokyo, you know, innovative companies, great businesses, good people, right? Those are great partners for us and we want to run with that kind of fun crowd that are leaders in their space.

[00:36:35] So you also see us do those kind of partnerships as we go forward. And frankly, what we want to do is we want to be a force for good in the industry, right? And by the way, sorry, I'm going a little too long

[00:36:46] but let me just make a point. The fitness industry is going through a bit of a tough time, right? Because uncertainty, the economy's slowing down. By the way, there's, I think there's real clouds in the economic outlook. There's some bright spots with AI,

[00:36:58] but there's a lot of clouds in the economic outlook. And so people are a little anxious, right? And TRX went through, they may have been a canary in the mineshaft, they went through their troubles before I got involved last year.

[00:37:11] We want to, we just want to be one of those players telling people what's good about the industry. And by the way, I've been an investor for a very long time. The time to invest is when people are feeling the way

[00:37:22] a lot of people in the fitness industry are feeling right now because it feels really uncertain and we see some really dark clouds in the horizon. As an investor, now's the time to lean in. When it's blue sky and everybody's crazy good and everything else, as an investor,

[00:37:36] I mean, it's good to be there but I wouldn't be leaning in investing then. So, but not everybody thinks about it that way. So maybe I can provide that outsider's perspective to them. Yeah, I would love to expand on that.

[00:37:47] I think it is a very unique value that you can bring. I mean, I had Bill Davis from ABC, Finnis was on a few months back and one of the topics, the major topic that we covered in interview was like build buyer partner, right?

[00:38:01] Like how do you make those decisions when you're going on the market? And of course, ABC has been, consolidation is a huge trend this year across the industry due to a lot of the economic factors that you're talking about. So, when you look at the market,

[00:38:15] I mean, do you have any, I'm sure you do, like any kind of analysis that goes on in your head or on paper, you know, of like, okay, well this is a good buy opportunity. This is something that I'd rather just take and build

[00:38:25] and this is something I'd rather partner with. Like how do you approach the market when you look at those types of relationships and opportunities? Well, it's interesting. So I am very deliberate in my approach to business but I just explained my getting into the industry

[00:38:38] wasn't that, am I getting into, I didn't look at the world and say, okay, where do we want to, I'm building a hospital, I opened up and worked with some guys to open up an NMA gym. Like I wasn't saying, oh wait, fitness products, let's go in.

[00:38:51] It came through a relationship with a friend. So in some ways, I can look at the industry analytically but then oftentimes for business decision it becomes people driven and just opportunities present themselves. Having said that, right? The way I think about business in general

[00:39:11] is we look at where we occupy in this fitness industry which is a huge category, right? What space do we occupy? We occupy the space that's functional training. So I wouldn't sit back and say, oh, now's a good time to invest in the industry.

[00:39:24] Let's look at everybody in the industry and I can bolt on wherever. We can swim in lots of different other pools. We wouldn't do that. We'll stay where we belong and we'll stay where we have real expertise.

[00:39:38] And so we'll stay very focused on our piece of the world on the functional training side, intellectual property protected, functional training tools, that's really where we belong. So but when you do that, right? There's, that takes the big ecosystem

[00:39:55] all the way down to a very small part of it and then you just get depth of expertise in those areas and then you go through the, do we wanna invent new products? Yes. Do we wanna acquire a new product? Yeah, sure.

[00:40:07] If I have the same reaction that I had with Libell and AS with another product, then yeah, we will acquire it. Cause I think that's when you have an ecosystem like ours and you've earned the right to educate the market about a product and you have people

[00:40:26] and programs to be able to do that, adding things in, but then also partners. So all of those decisions partner has to be like-minded people who are just doing things in our view in a world class way. Those are the kind of people we wanna partner with.

[00:40:41] So that's how I kind of approach it but what I always talk about kind of internally on our side is let's stay in our swim lane. Let's not try to be all things to all people. Let's recognize that there are a lot of great people

[00:40:52] out there and let's find the best and let's see if they wanna partner with us as much as we wanna partner with them. And when they do, let's lean in, let's make it really valuable to them, right? To do that.

[00:41:04] And my guess is if we partner with right people they're gonna make it really valuable to us too. So it's all those approaches but it's really stay in your swim lane. Yeah. And by the way, do it in a very financial responsible way.

[00:41:15] The other thing that happens to people, let's borrow money and go out and buy companies. We don't have any debt on this company and I didn't buy this company with any debt. Right? When you start borrowing money to do that

[00:41:25] and by the way, you're talking to a leveraged buyout guy. Yeah, right. 25 years, I borrowed billions of dollars to take over businesses. That was a different, that was just a different role and a different approach to what we're doing. In this case, that's not what we're doing, right?

[00:41:42] What we're really doing is we're building this business that just keep going through the foreseeable future rather than trying to optimize returns in a very short window of time and pick an exit option like those kind of things. It's actually pretty refreshing from my perspective

[00:41:58] to be in a business and think, I can be in this business for the next 40 years. I actually can. I just worked out a buddy line who's 96 years old and been working out with him for 10 years, right? Awesome. And I'm like, yeah, he's 40 years, he's actually, I'm 57,

[00:42:12] so he's almost 40 years older than me. And I look at him thinking, well, I could do this for the next 40 years. So let's build it for the long term. Yeah. You know, I would imagine people are hearing you talk like, I want to partner with TRX, right?

[00:42:24] What are the, who are you interested in partnering with right now? Like what are kind of the key strategic partnerships or just partnerships in general that you'd be looking for? Yeah, you see it. You see it in real time, right? Our partnership with, you know, MyZone

[00:42:39] and we were side by side at Sport Tech, right? MyZone came out to London with us, right? At our summit. That's it, that's a company. You'll see that. You know, TheraBody, you know, Jason Worslin was with me when I blew up my elbow and my bicep.

[00:42:55] And so, you know, we've done some really good activations with them. You know, they're a cold plunge. We just came out with a very kind of fun and exciting. We've gotten so many responses from our joint activation with plunge, right? And there's a giveaway, you know,

[00:43:18] you'll get a cold plunge in the TRX suspension training system with some of our other products, right? Those are really fun things to do. And so, you know, you'll see on all different levels how we can really activate. Like we have two million social media followers

[00:43:33] on our various platforms. And that's the base that we're growing from. So that will just obviously grow from here. We can bring that ecosystem in with other people who have many more than us or a lot less than us. But they're all fun.

[00:43:48] And if we look at these products and these partners and there are things that we would like to use and they're driven by people who are like us and really approach this industry and business like us, come on, because we can all do,

[00:44:04] we all benefit from just continuing to just promote the industry. So those are just, those are a handful and I'm missing a bunch of others, but there are a lot of them. And then you look at all of our partners, right? I mean, our customer base, right?

[00:44:20] All the large gym chains and the big players, the small players, the boutiques. And there's so many ways for us to partner, right? We can partner with gyms and do an instructor training session at a large gym and bring trainers from the whole community together

[00:44:42] to do a couple of day workout with us. And that's great for trainers to get the inside look at other gyms. It's good for gyms to get the hands-on look at other trainers, right? And it just connects people. We can do all that, right?

[00:44:54] So those are the kind of things I'm excited about. Yeah, well, it's... By the way, one other thing I gotta tell you what I'm excited about because I'm in Delray Beach right now and we're building our headquarters in Delray Beach.

[00:45:05] And so, by the way, I think our approach is it feels like Miami and Delray Beach are like Los Angeles and Manhattan Beach from 20 years ago, 25 years ago. It's so up and coming right now and the excitement and the number of people

[00:45:22] are coming down here is it's very real, right? So we're going to have our 13,000 square foot headquarters with a massive commercial gym that will be running TRX based classes throughout two filming studios, new product development lab in our corporate offices. And yes, I can bike there,

[00:45:42] which is very cool too. So we'll have a place to be able to gather our partners, our trainers worldwide to really do our part for the fitness industry and having a place for people to come together. And Randy did this from the start.

[00:45:59] Our headquarters in San Francisco always had a gym and one gym location has 85,000 Instagram followers on a one gym site, which is the TRX Training Center. So this becomes really a hub for people all over the world to come together and work with us on our tools,

[00:46:17] but we'll have lots of partners come in and work with us there too. Maybe we'll convince you to come down and do a podcast from that one day. Oh yeah, man. It's not hard. It's not hard to convince me to do that. Yeah, for sure.

[00:46:28] I guess one of the last questions I always ask people is how as an industry, Jack, can we help you? In the spirit of collaboration, I mean, you mentioned potential partnerships, the plunges and all these and all great brands,

[00:46:41] but what do you need from us to be successful at this point? Be there to run with us and have fun with us is really helpful because doing this with like-minded people is good, but tell us what we're doing wrong. Really give us negative feedback

[00:46:57] because I assure you, however proud we are, we get many things wrong and we try and we try really hard and we're fixing a foundation, we're coming up with innovative products and services and we know we're going to not make all those decisions as the right decisions.

[00:47:14] And what I find is very valuable is hearing right away from friends, right? And even people we don't know, hearing right away, hey, here's how you can be doing it differently. The quicker I get or we get that negative feedback, the faster we can act on it

[00:47:28] and the faster we can make a bad decision a good decision because we will make bad decisions. We just will unfortunately. I wish we didn't, but we will. And so hearing that and getting that feedback and then joining us on this journey

[00:47:42] and then also expect us to join you on the journey and bring what we can to the table. Like those are the things that we can do collectively in the industry. I'm absolutely convinced of that. And once again, we were talking about this a little earlier,

[00:47:55] the industry's a very positive energy industry. You all out of the fitness industry probably take it for granted by now. I've been buying industrial and services companies for the last 25 years. And by the way, it's not that they're bad people there, but there's no real psychic energy, right?

[00:48:13] That comes from delivering some of those products and services. Now you feel good because you're providing jobs, you're providing growth and economically it can be very beneficial. But the widgets that you're making don't give you the psychic burst that being in the fitness industry does.

[00:48:28] And I have to tell you that part is a blast. And I get it. Like I talk to people now, I'm associate. I get a little burst of endorphins every time somebody finds out I'm associated with TRX. My grandmother, my child, my friend, I,

[00:48:45] I was rehabbing way back from something and a PT introduced me to the suspension trainer changed my life. I was a high performing athlete and my strength and conditioning coach got me a suspension trainer showing me what I can do. Now I'm an Olympic Olympian, right?

[00:49:01] Like those kind of, it knows our little burst of energy, but also the purpose of down the street who has that, I know something, I did something. I hope I never take it for granted. And I hope those of you who have been in the fitness industry

[00:49:14] for a long time can still appreciate the fact that it is a very positive energy industry. Cause that's, I gotta tell you, that's fun. That's one of the reasons why I'm here, right? I actually was hoping, and that part of it's really delivered, right?

[00:49:29] It's a great lifestyle, you know, business. I love that you love it. I mean, that it is really cool. I mean, and I have to say it's been many times I've taken this industry for granted as far as like the type of work that we do, you know?

[00:49:46] I think if you look at like a factory line worker versus a personal trainer, personal trainer is there for a lot more than just the, you know, whatever $30 an hour they make. I don't know what the average is now, but you know what I mean?

[00:50:00] Like there's more to it. And I think that that is really cool. And I think we do take it for granted oftentimes. So I'm glad you brought that up. And Jack, if people want to reach out to you

[00:50:11] or get in touch or anywhere you prefer to send them online, where would you like people to go when they're done listening to this? Yeah. And by the way, I'm learning. I'm such a neophyte when it comes to the social media thing, right?

[00:50:24] Like Goldman Sachs, we didn't even have the name of our company on the side of our building. So on the social media, I've really only linked in from a digital footprint. But you know, TRX Training, you know, our Instagram account, all our social media accounts

[00:50:40] really cut a channel through that. So it just, people can reach out to me anytime, anyway, right? My email is jdaily at trxtraining.com. Awesome. Jack, thank you for making this happen through the whole bicep elbow issue, travel, all that I really appreciate.

[00:51:00] And you're a super busy guy and it means a lot to get you on there. So I think a lot of people are very keen on what's next for TRX. So it seems like it's falling into great stewardship. I'm excited about that.

[00:51:10] And we'll be excited to get you back on and gain an update in a year or so. Thanks, Eric. It's a pleasure joining you. And thanks to you once again from on behalf of our little spot of the industry, providing a platform like this,

[00:51:24] because I've learned by listening and watching your podcasts. It's just a great resource for all of us. So thank you. Right on. I appreciate that. Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Daly. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode

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