John Ford - EGYM's Bet: The Untrained Market Is Where the Real Health Impact Is

Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice supporter review wherever you consume your podcast. If you're interested in staying up to date with the future of fitness, go to futurofitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now on to the show. Instead of forcing you into their closed ecosystem, their Perfect Gym Marketplace connects with over 120 integration partners. So want to use your own app, your preferred payment processor, class pass for booking? No problem. Whether you're running a single studio or managing a multi-location enterprise, Perfect Gym was built from the ground up for multi-club operations. They've invested a ton into this platform, and now they're bringing that European engineering excellence to America. The migration experts have arrived. Check out perfectgym.com where enterprise level sophistication meets operator freedom. All right, here we go. John Ford, welcome to the future of fitness.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Eric. Thanks for having me. Long overdue. Long overdue, man. And uh and looking forward to it.

Yeah, it's I I've got to know you more over the last year just through seeing you events. I've always kind of seen your name, you know, in the in the eGym uh elite C-suite of of products and and uh information technologies and all the things that you've done. And I I didn't realize this. I was looking through his background. You're a gaucho. I didn't realize you're uh you lived in Santa Barbara for a while.

I did. Great uh great town, great place to go to school. I had a really good time.

Yeah. And you've so you you worked well up. So I saw, you know, if if this is correct, LinkedIn is the source of all truth, of course. But like, you know, you kind of started your own company. You got into I think it was Netpulse, right? Netpulse was acquired by EGM and you kind of so walk me through that hierarchy. How did you how'd you get to the be the chief product officer there?

Yeah, so there's actually a company even before Netpulse. So it's been, I guess, almost a 20, 20 year journey now. And so it started with my uh my first startup was called Virtual Active, little company I founded in San Francisco. I was working in corporate finance at the time at Clorox, and uh this is like 2006, 2007. Everyone around me is launching startups, right, in San Francisco. I remember and I'm like, you know what, I'm I'm not really enjoying counting all these beans. Uh I had some buddies who were into video technology, so um I was a fitness guy, I was always a soccer player. And uh and we had this idea of these screens are popping up all over all the equipment, treadmills, etc. What if we had some good content for those other than you know, daytime TV or whatever you're forced to watch while you're you're on a jog? And so we uh we came up with this concept of going out filming all the most beautiful places to run or walk or ride, and then yeah, filming those and licensing the content to the major manufacturers of exercise equipment. So we ended up licensing uh first a matrix, then to life fitness, and uh later Peloton. And Life and Matrix actually still use those uh the same videos I personally shot uh running with a 40-pound steady cam rig down trails um in 2010. I guess 16 years ago, I shot some of these videos myself and they're still uh out there being uh embedded in every new treadmill that shifts with the screen for from some of these major players, so it's pretty cool. But that was the first one. Then uh I sold that one to NetPulse, who had a uh content platform for equipment, and uh and then we rolled Netpulse into eGym, so it was kind of like definitely a step-by-step thing.

Yeah. Well, you so did you play uh soccer at Santa Barbara?

I didn't. No, I played uh I played some semi-pro ball there. Okay, my claim to fame is is uh at one point I got paid 200 bucks uh a month and free Mexican food uh by the team's sponsor.

That qualifies as professional.

Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Uh but you know, to a college kid, it was huge. I was like, man, I would have played for free, obviously. But uh but I I I did not play for UCSB and uh I regret it a bit because I did have an opportunity there and it was conflicting with my other priorities in Santa Barbara at the time. And uh and they went they ended up making a deep playoff uh national championship run. I I don't think they won it that that year, but they went pretty deep, and I would have enjoyed that.

Yeah, I was gonna say because right around that time, I I remember it in the news. It was like uh I feel like they or maybe they got to the finals and they lost.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, really interesting bit of history there, but that's that's really not relevant to our conversation today. Here's what is relevant to our conversation today is you know, the industry's changing. It's it's morphing kind of under our feet, and it's a very good thing. I think it's been something I've been hoping for for a long time, getting in the past like this, you know, very consumerized, like fat loss uh aesthetics to like, okay, we're getting into the healthcare conversation very strongly. Of course, EGM, you know, is is the unicorn, one of the unicorns in our industry that are really pushing hard and building infrastructure and leading the way for that. And, you know, with the recent uh announcement of the merger with playlist, uh, which we don't have to get deep into. I think there's plenty of headlines about that. That that presents a whole world of opportunities that I'm sure you will uncover over the next few years. So it's it's pretty exciting. You guys, you know, uh to know and seek, I'm a big fan of of the EGM team and the technology, what you guys are doing there. So I'm excited to get a lot of your insights. So maybe, you know, as a as a product chief product officer, you have to have a certain amount of vision for what you guys are creating, right? And you have to have an understanding for the industry. So where do you think our industry is going right now in that context I was talking about? Like we have to move into this world of healthcare, health prevention or sick prevention. I don't know what I don't know what term we want to use for it, but we have to get in there. So what do you think we have to be doing in order to make that happen?

Yeah, uh how how we get into longevity prevention and and actually solve for it, I think is uh is the thing I've been focused on since I came to eGem. It's what really attracted me initially while I was at Netpulse to partner with eGem and then and then also to to consummate the uh the acquisition by EGem. When I looked at the product, what I saw is a set of strength machines that could actually, in a scalable way, help someone who has no idea how to do strength training to successfully complete a workout and even help provide them some motivation to complete the workout. And there just aren't a lot of solutions for that targeted at beginners. And of course, when you speak about health, you have to speak about beginners because the people who aren't fit right now are the least healthy people, right? Uh that's where all the upside is in health, is uh is the people who aren't going to the gym. And so we're not in that world of how do we optimize the performance of an athlete by an additional 1.5%. Or in the world of how do we get Joe who hasn't touched a weight 15 years and doesn't know anything at all, to be able to um to have the confidence to come in, not not be worried he's not gonna know what to do, not be worried he's gonna get hurt, have the proper motivation, all of those sorts of big problems that these people have, right? Is are the big problems that we're trying to solve. And so I I think that's what eGym Technology's role is. And then uh, of course, in the portfolio, the the aggregator business for us is is another way that we can just reduce barriers. So if you can get your company now to subsidize access to all the best gyms in your area, that's just taking down the cost and convenience barriers. The equipment experience inside those buildings is taking down the intimidation factor, the knowledge gap. And that's what it's really about, just knocking down all those barriers because it's it's not that these people don't really highly value fitness. There's sometimes like a misconception, like, oh, they just don't understand how much healthier they would be if they trained. Like most of them do, actually. It's just, you know, the barriers prevent them from doing it.

You know, what one of the things I've always saw is like I think it's obvious that better fitness creates better health. I can't can we just I think anyone who's listening, like, okay, we I think we can assume that most people would agree with that, right? Certainly not the opposite. People are gonna say, well, if you're fitter, you're less healthy. I don't think that's true. So it's like when we look at like how do we integrate into the medical system and things like that, I feel like the one of the things we've we've lacked is well, we can't really prove it. Like I can't have someone like how we can, we can look at someone be like, well, they're obviously fitter and healthier. But you know, from a medical standpoint, we've had a hard time of saying, like, okay, this person came in, they did eight weeks here, and now I've shown that their, you know, cholesterol's down or this. And those tools are starting to emerge now, right? Um, from a lot of different sources. So when you look at, and it really comes down to, I guess, just like a common language, maybe that we can interact with the medical field or a healthcare field. So when you look at that, I'm sure that's something you've thought about over time. Like, how do we start to prove out that what we do is is actually part of the health paradigm?

Yeah, uh, we have a group that's that's doing uh investing quite a lot into clinical trials, so clinical studies of the impact of e-gym training on specific chronic conditions. It's been underway for a while, multi-seven figure budget. So on the pure research side, we know what the outcome of these trials is gonna be, right? That if, for example, you're on GLP one and you do well-structured and well-designed strength training alongside it, we know the outcome is gonna be significantly better. We know your body composition at the end is gonna be better. We know that you're gonna be able to better tolerate reduction in your dose or getting off the drug at some point. But we still need to do the work and and sort of show the proof, as you mentioned. So on the research side, that's all underway. But I I think what's interesting about you also brought up sort of proof from a different perspective, which is there are going to be incentives involved in motivating unhealthy people to become healthy, whether that's by insurance or otherwise by companies. Those incentives, we're big into behavioral science and fully understand that in incentives can cut both ways. They can be done really badly and they can be damaging. But um, but there are use cases, especially in early activation, where the incentive does make sense to get people started. And the problem is incentivizing something that uh that you can't tell if they've actually done or what they've done, which is basically the world that we've been operating in in the past. And that's where connected equipment, I think, can uh can help solve that motivational issue. And then the last piece is when equipment can actually measure outcomes during use rather than uh just activity, right? On our equipment, for example, we're frequently testing the one repetition max across each major muscle, and we can report that data back out. And so it doesn't have to become a a question of whether there was benefit or not anymore. I think all of those things are important.

Yeah. So that's interesting. So in like measuring outcomes as they happen versus just like a periodic testing date, right? That's right. That's uh that's in so when you talk about like outcomes, is it would it be in this particular use case like power generated amount of reps, total load over time? Like what what are what exactly is an outcome that we can measure at this point?

The biggest ones that we're measuring are are uh body composition, so muscle mass and maximum strength. We think those are the two most important.

Okay.

And I think that's pretty pretty well validated from a health perspective, uh, that those are the two big KPIs for health, right? Now, if you're an athlete, like you might care about some some other nitty-gritty stuff, right? But uh but yeah, those are the big ones. And then, you know, it's also important not just from a proving health outcomes perspective, but it's one of the most powerful things about our motivational system, right? You're measuring while you're doing, and what I can tell you is that as I mentioned earlier, this is a behavioral science problem. The people we need to help have a hard time exercising regularly. That's the big problem. And when you can show them that they're getting stronger, which you can do incredibly quickly, and we know this from the data. You can if if they train even for a few weeks, a couple times a week, they will see their one RM go up significantly because a lot of the changes are neuromuscular, right? And so they see, wow, I just pushed, you know, six pounds more than I could two weeks ago, three weeks ago, right? Um, and and that is super motivating for people to see results because you know they're not going to see the result in the mirror, right? Um, they're not suddenly gonna be ripped. And and it's it's that slog of I have to put in continuous effort doing something I don't love doing for a long period of time before I see any benefits. That's one of the big barriers to training. And and so the outcome data helps solve that.

Yeah, I mean, and we're not selling immediate gratification, right? We're not selling, you know, a roller coaster ride or a basket of French fries. Like we it takes a little bit of time. And uh it's it the I'm glad you said it because I I think people who maybe haven't spent some time in the trenches, you know, we think about, well, what what business are you in actually? Right. And people are like, well, we're in fitness. No, we're actually in behavior change. That's that's ultimately what we do. And if you've uh worked with people over time or you just looked at enough data, you start to realize it's it's not it's not easy. People are it's it's hard, you know. Um some of us are lucky enough to have you know done sports early on, and that that was like you know kind of a no-brainer if it stuck with us, but it it it really is. That's the core of what we're doing here.

Yeah. Yeah, look, I I think it's uh a travesty that that physical education classes, for example, for kids are having kids out, you know, messing around, half pretending to play volleyball, instead of learning how to train so that when they get older and they actually do want to train, they are motivated to train, they're not walking into a gym feeling terrified and clueless. Like that that would be, in my view, a much better use of the the time. But uh that's the world we're in.

Yeah. Well, I had a you know, one of my friends is Hewitt Tomlin, he's the uh CEO and founder of Team Builder. And one of the things he one of the topics he's really uh keen on discussing is how maybe like this type A sports personality we have in America, like if you're not if you're not the top one percent, then we don't care. Right. So it's be like, well, it's either you're elite or you're out of the system. And that doesn't do us a lot of good because like you learn so much if you stay into a sport and maybe you just learn to love the sport and the training and the weight training and all that stuff that goes along with it. Like you learn that to love that environment. That's not what we do. It's like people are enrolled in camps and very early on to with the goal of getting a scholarship someday, right? Or making the, you know, A-team, and then if they don't make it, then they just get kicked out and it's over.

And that's now you're digging into my current world as a parent.

The Future of Fitness podcast is proudly brought to you by EGM. In an industry full of noise, with more features, more screens, more promises, eGim is focused on something far more meaningful progress that counts. EGM is a global fitness technology leader, building the infrastructure behind real results. Their open ecosystem connects smart strength equipment, AI-powered software, and data-driven services to turn fitness into measurable, repeatable progress for members, trainers, operators, and communities. Now, what really excites me is how EGM brings its ecosystem together with Wellpass, their corporate wellness platform. By combining their strength equipment with AI-powered software and their corporate wellness platform WellPass, they're leading the shift to proactive, preventative health. Isn't that what we all want? That's why we're here. The result? Members feel more confident and motivated, trainers have better tools to support people, operators see stronger retention and growth, and employers benefit from healthier, more engaged teams. This isn't innovation for show. It's progress you can see, measure, and repeat. To learn more, please visit eGym.com.

So I have a 10-year-old daughter and and she's uh a club soccer player. Um I I'm telling you, man, this world is uh club sports world is is getting dark. There's uh uh you know PE money coming into it and a lot of overoptimization, and there are these mega clubs now that have popped up where a single club has dozens of teams even in one region and then they're multi-regional across the country. And so they have administrators, the leaderships of these clubs, you know, making lots of money, and they're dependent on just growing the number of teams because each team is just a certain amount of revenue, right, per season. And uh, and so what ends up happening is they they'll have, you know, I have we have clubs in this area that have an e-team, you know, A, B, C, D, E, and they're they're taking kids into club soccer, which is supposed to be a competitive, like big commitment, you know, you're trying to go here, and they're taking kids who've never even played before, and it's not the right development environment, and they don't care, and and they're just collecting money. And it's uh it's unfortunate direction that's going in my view. But uh I don't want to ramble too long off topic. Yeah, yeah.

Well, it is because like also if you like I my nephew in uh Brazil is a very gifted soccer player, but he's all in. And if I mean if you think it's competitive here, like go see Brazil. Like the everyone wants to be a soccer star. And it's like I worry because I'm like, if he doesn't make it, he's really good, he's really good. But if he doesn't make it, like there's no plan B here. And I think that's something also to consider is like you know, you get so invested in a sport, one single sport, and then what happens to our identity if that doesn't make it? So yeah.

Anyway, how do you mitigate that without crushing the dream, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the way. Well, let's let's get back onto the the major track here. So uh I was uh honored to be um at your guys' uh kickoff this year um in January in Germany. And of course, AI was a big conversation. I don't know if it was you or Florian who said like 2026 is gonna be the year where we see some dramatic changes in artificial intelligence, right? And um we're starting to I think we're the the kind of the proverbial frog that's just starting to feel the heat in the pot, right, of of what's gonna happen here. Um so AI is everywhere. I think there's still some very limiting factors. I mean, a lot of it is just how all the data works together and what cut what the quality is of the data and all that. But um you guys are working very hard on genius AI. That's kind of the I think where you guys are putting a lot of time, energy, resources into. So maybe give us a little insights about what is different, like how are you approaching AI differently with genius? Um and what's what's the hope for what's what's the goal?

Yeah, so I think the the biggest key differentiator between genius and both what we typically are seeing in the market, in our market, as well as outside of our market in fitness in the consumer space, for example, is the connection to hardware. So connection to the e gym connected hardware and partnership hardware that's connected, but also connection to the hardware that's living in the gym, all of the tools that are available in the gym, so context. For the prescription engine, if you will. And we think those are pretty key differences. We're always trying to ultimately our customer is the operator. And we're always trying to think about how products are going to impact the operator's business, not just the end user's experience. And, you know, so we're thinking a lot about how is this, how is Genius going to make the operator's business better? And of course, there's a lot around efficiency, especially efficiency of onboarding, helping trainers be more efficient. You know, the the AI basically pre-calculates a workout for the trainer that they can then modify quickly with a couple touches and then submit. Used to be a 15-minute process, now it's 30 seconds kind of thing, right? And those are powerful. But also we think it it has a big potential impact on how a person gets onboarded to the gym, even when they're not being onboarded by a trainer. And we think that the connection to the hardware really changes the value perception to the end user. And you may be the kind of business like an HVLP, a budget gym, for example, that wants to monetize different aspects or different services in your facility as a business strategy. Or, you know, you may be a premium gym and it's all inclusive, but you want the experience to be that first experience is obviously critical from an initial engagement and retention perspective. And so in either case, though, what you're really concerned about is the initial presentation, the marketing, and the initial experience of the AI. And what we believe is if I walk in the door and I see some really freaking cool set of strength machines and you know, a fitness hub with body composition attached, and I go through this quick onboarding and I'm testing my maximum strength and my body composition and all these sorts of things. And then I see the wheel spinning. We're calculating your plan. I think the value perception is very different when the user knows that the AI actually knows something about them, right? And uh, and that's that's a big differentiator. And also of like, of course, the end result is more accurate prescriptions. Of course, the end result is we can prescribe you not just, you know, what exercises you might want to do, but also tell you what weight you should apply and how that should change over time because we actually understand your 1RM. Those things are important too, but I actually think the value perception difference is probably the most important thing. That's what's going to lead to, you know, an EOS having the success that they have with upselling their top-tier membership based on this experience, right?

Um, you said something then there, I was kind of curious. Uh the connection to the hardware from a member exper member perspective is a is is valued as more or perceived as more value. I'm massacring this. Like what did you mean by that? Like how from the member experiences, having that connection to the hardware seem really important and valuable.

Yeah, uh it's just around um belief in the product, right? So if you give me uh just an app on my phone that's supposed to calculate a training plan for me, just take your typical leading consumer app. It's just gonna ask you a set of questions and um they're all pretty basic, right? And then it's gonna prescribe you a detailed plan. And and like my first thought is always like, well, wouldn't expect something really highly personalized because it doesn't know anything, right? And it certainly doesn't know much over time other than what I specifically tell it. And so that's that's I think the key differentiator versus a pure digital play is getting all of that additional concrete data on the person's capabilities and uh and then even receiving outcomes over time as to how those values are changing. And I think that generates a totally different level of belief in the product and belief in value in the product with a user than a pure software app based AI.

Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I'm just walking myself through both scenarios, right? And I feel like, okay, well, if I walked into my gym and it said, okay, Eric, today go over to you know room three, go to machine four, and be like, hey, here's your reps and sets, and this is what you did last time, and be like, okay, this feels very much on point to what I'm experiencing in the moment, right? Not having to like walk around and be like, is there a tricep extension thing here? Like, you know what I mean? Like it, yeah, totally get it. Um where in a perfect world does genius come into the member experience? Is it like in the onboarding? And then is it like when is it integrated into the experience and then how pervasive is it throughout? Is it something they're checking at home? Is it just in the gym? Like what where is that tie in?

Yeah, it it's 100% the onboarding is where it gets initially tied in. It's it's answering the question for the user, okay, now I'm here, what do I do? Right. And uh most gyms already have an onboarding experience that involves a tour of the club, you know, or with a trainer, first workout. And trainers execute on some of these types of things. In a lot of cases, a trainer will give you a first workout that you can go to trying to help the user get to that 90-day mark that that we know uh results in higher retention. And uh and so that's where it starts. And then in terms of, you know, once you have a plan, what's cool about the genius plans is it's super dynamic. So we're tracking everything you do in the gym and also via wearables, things you do outside the gym. And so uh if you jog to the gym, we're not gonna prescribe you cardio like at the gym, right? So long as you have that Apple Watch connected. And so it is something we envision you know using primarily at the gym. That's that's where it's strongest. But uh but we we fully understand that there are home use cases and it absolutely supports exercises at home as well. But uh our sweet spot is definitely uh helping use the gym properly.

And like if I if I'm using it and I get sick or I'm traveling, right? And that shows up in a wearable, or can I notify Genius like, hey, maybe this week I back off, or it makes that decision for me? Like, is it is it contextual like that as well?

Yeah, uh we we're actually rolling out shortly some improvements there that uh yeah, you'll hear more about when they when they go live. But uh but yeah, ultimately our our vision is you can give it any sort of instantaneous feedback that you want, and it'll be able to take that into account and adjust your your prescription. Whether it's for the session or permanently, depending on what you say and what your needs are.

See, that that to me, like I've I've written a thousands of programs for people over the years, and it was, you know, so time consuming. And then so many times, like over, I'm gonna say over 50% of the time, you'd have to change the program because of travel, vacation, sickness, a slight injury. Like something happens, right, where they get derailed, and the program that you wrote out so perfectly, right, is like now it's kind of it's just not good anymore. And so I'm gonna ask a question, I'm gonna answer it myself, and then I want to get your take on it. So for a lot of people who uh are listening to this who are trainers and coaches are like, well, this is this is this is a threat to my job, right? And I'll I'll say first of all, if you are still leaning on program design as your unique value proposition as a trainer and coach, then you're already behind. Because people who it's like the thing, it's like you can name any basically any occupation now. You could say, well, no, like you know, uh electricians will not get it, you know, replaced by AI, but if electric electricians who use AI will replace those who don't. Same with trainers. Like it's just a tool that you need to get used to. So when you hear, I'm sure you've heard that before, right? Like it's a threat to the to the occupation and to the the profession. Like what what's your immediate answer or long answer?

Yeah, uh so immediate answer is we know that it's not from the data. So we um we have plenty of data at this point to prove in lots of different types of gyms, etc., that uh what we typically see is an increase in PT after we roll out. Um and I I guess then the longer answer would maybe dig into the why we think that's happening a bit. And the the main reason is I think that buying PT for a new to exercise member, you know, it's usually the beginners who come in and want PT. Uh, but it's a really difficult sell for these beginners because they don't have the self-belief or the confidence that they can even do training or stick with training, and then you're putting in front of them immediately, like after their first onboarding workout, a potentially hundreds of dollars per month proposition. And that feels like not just a leap, but like a chasm for some people, right? And uh and so I think what the reason why we see an increase in PT is that people are attracted to the onboarding sessions by the idea that they might get some value out of it other than a car sales like pitch for PT. And so that's how Genius is positioned for a lot of onboarding workouts is hey, look, our trainer is going to help you through this onboarding. No matter what, you're gonna walk away with a super well personalized plan that can get you started in the gym. I think that actually helps the PTs sell better. Number one, it's attracting way more people to those onboarding workouts. So they just have more bites at the apple. But but then it also puts them in just like a much nicer sales position, which is if I'm trying to sell you something, I want to add value for you. I want to be like a consultant. I don't want to be like, uh, okay, I I really can't do anything for you unless you pay me two. And uh, and so it allows them to sell more effectively. I think it gives them uh a different sort of angle on things. And I think overall, I mean, and and who wants to spend you know hours tweaking plans that you know any any algorithm can do. I mean, I'm positive that some trainers already used AI to do some of this stuff themselves.

So it's a thousand percent.

It's not like we're replacing a a portion, as you said, a portion of their job that they love, right?

So well, I mean, and here's the other part of that truth is that so is the consumer. The consumer's getting workout plans written by AI all over the place. Right. Like exactly. I mean, I've I've talked about this numerous times in this podcast, but you know, ChatGPT health announcement, and they put in there something that's still blown in my mind, is like 230 million people per week ask Chat GPT health-related questions. So you don't think a percentage of those are like, hey, write me a six-week program to lose weight. I've done it. I think I just did it last week. I'm like, I'm a little, I feel like I'm a little heavy. Hey, ChatGPT, like what should I do?

I had a I had personally a health breakthrough from from Chat GPT. I'm definitely a health question asker. I'm one of those 230 million. I I had chronic insomnia the last 15 years, basically. Well, that's for real early start startup days. And uh and I was just digging around on uh ChatGPT and it recommended to me a particular therapy that of course my doctor never told me about, even though we've had tons of discussions on this stuff with actually multiple doctors. Um and it it it was a miracle solution. It's totally changed my life, and that's just from ChatGPT, right? So was it? So it's a specific medication that is a newer medication, and because of the price, doctors don't talk about it because um sure doesn't cover it, doctors and talk about it, and so they they'd be happy to prescribe me lots of the um, you know, old-fashioned ambient style just knock you out and destroy your sleep architecture type drugs that are you you know, that you'll need uh 200% of the current dose in six months to get the same effect and then you know, and so on. They're happy to prescribe you that stuff because it's cheap. But yeah, yeah.

Well that that's the rub, right? It's like when um you go to whatever you want, chatchupiti, grok, claude, whatever it is that you're using for health-related questions, there's no judgment, there's no agenda. I mean, maybe there is a little bit, right? There's definitely some ideology that's sunk into these things where it's like that's just part part of society. But like for the most part, it's not gonna be like it's not gonna look at you and say, well, that's a stupid question, or you know, well, that why would you even think of doing that, right? And like it's so you can have a meaningful conversation. It's it's just really I I think it's gonna be essentially kind of be the front lines of healthcare moving forward. Like that's where people are gonna go first. You know, they're not gonna they're not gonna go to their their general practitioner, right? They're gonna go there first. And if they need something, and this is kind of sucks for now for doctors, is like they're kind of like just gatekeepers, right? To medications or procedures and things like that. But I think that will have to evolve as well. And I think that would free up, hopefully, in a perfect world, free up those medical practitioners who do the work that they probably got into medical school to do in the first place, right? Which is really help people. Totally agree. Yeah. What what else? Like, I mean, obviously you guys are working on the member experience. Um you're nailing that down so that operators can, you know, have their businesses can can grow. Like that's kind of like put it so simply, like that, that's the point, right? Where else do you see like um genius AI playing a role in the operators' world besides just the member experience? Is it gonna be you know specifically useful for um showing a retention risk, or um is it gonna be useful for, I don't know, um selling additional program? Like where where else where else do you see the benefits?

Yeah, uh we're uh a a pretty partnership focused company. And um one of the reasons why I think we've become the largest uh platform in the industry in terms of the number of major partners that connect to us and rely on our platform with customers, is that we are really clear about where we play and where we don't play, and uh and where we think the opportunities are for us and where their uh the opportunities are for our partners where we can be an enabler. And these other AI use cases um around business optimization for the operator, I think are super powerful. Um there's some big opportunities there. They're just not our opportunities. We we're uh we're really about the training, the uh the health angle, how do we impact health in the long run? Uh how do we take down all those barriers to access, uh to behavior change, uh, et cetera. Uh but the data platform that we're creating to do that 100% supports these other use cases. And so, for example, um, with our our membership management software partners, which we we partner with all the majors globally, we're regularly syncing with them and talking to them about how our data could help power features that they build along the lines of what you're talking about. Um, you know, enabling transactions, enabling CRMs to target better, uh, all these sorts of use cases, I think, are being worked on. We're sort of proud to take the position that we're not trying to take over everything. We have our very clear focus and we leave space for our partners to build their businesses on the platform.

I like that. I like that a lot. Uh kind of zooming out, right? As a technologist, not even like it within your role at eGym, but when you look at the industry, I mean, is there any specific pieces of technology? I mean, AI, of course, but any anything maybe AI adjacent or related or non-related, then you're looking at like, okay, you're kind of tracking it a little bit. You're like, this is some technology that could change the game. Is there anything that that comes to mind for you?

Hmm. Not really, man, to be honest. Yeah. I mean I'm I'm watching lots of stuff. I just don't very frequently see something where I'm like, okay, that could be a key part of the solution for the 80%, the ones who really who really struggle to get fit. That again, that's the hard problem, right? And um it's it's also uh a harder to monetize problem, which is why so much of the investment of our industry goes into the aesthetics and the sports performance sides of the business, because those people are driven to pay lots of money, even though there aren't as many of them. They don't at least they work out regularly without issue. And so you actually have a long-term customer to serve, and then they they uh place a lot of importance on optimization. So um I just don't see a lot of viable products attacking our problem. Um and that's okay because anyone let me know.

Yeah, I I like I can't say I I know one either. I mean, four years ago, maybe even longer, I I would have said, oh, well, wearables are gonna change everything, right? They're gonna be ubiquitous. And they kind of are now, right? And they have. They have changed a lot of things. I mean, and talk about behavior changes, they've they've given people a lot more knowledge about their bodies so they can make better decisions. Um, it doesn't guide those decisions, but I haven't seen anything other than artificial intelligence sitting on top of the data that we're that we have or continue to build. And I'm like, okay, that's that's changing. I mean, if you want to call GLP ones a technology, sure. Right? For sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that's a good point. I obviously wasn't even thinking about GLP ones. Well, yeah.

Well, it's not like a tech.

Certainly. We follow that very closely, and and certainly we think that can have a huge impact on health overall as well as the health and fitness market.

Yeah.

Is there um is there anything you can talk about within the world of GLP ones that um you know you guys have your eye on, or maybe you see opportunities for e-Gym to to get involved and leverage?

Yeah, definitely. We think there's a a big role for e-Gym there. And and it's because of what I discussed previously. The people on GLP ones, they need strength training. Uh, I think that's super clear now. We don't even need to do a deep dive on why you need strength training when you're on GOP1s, everyone's saying it. It's well covered. Yeah, it's well covered. So they need strength training and they don't know how to strength train. That's the majority of them. Otherwise, they they wouldn't be obese in the first place, right? And I think we're working exactly on the problems that they have, which is I'm intimidated, I'm not motivated, I don't know what to do, uh, etc. Right. So right now we're just really working to figure out how we kind of connect things up, right? So that there is a clear journey for someone who goes on to GLP ones to also get prescribed some personalized programming that uh that they can actually complete because all the app-based solutions are out there. Well, they could just have an app and it'll tell them to do some bodyweight squats and stuff. Like this stuff doesn't work. Everyone knows it doesn't work, everyone pretends like it does. It's crazy, right? Like it's been around forever, it's never moved the needle, it never will, but people will keep believing that it will. But if you go into a YMCA that has e-Gym, you will see it packed with you know people who look like your grandma who before they ran into e-Gym had never strength training in their life, and they're just loving it, right? And they've been doing it for eight months now. And so you got to come with solutions that actually work. That's that's part of the issue.

Well, you know, uh, last year I joined you guys at the Innovation Summit, which is mostly YMCAs and college rec, right, or rec centers. So the nonprofit sector of what you guys do. And I sat at a lot of the breakouts and I was talking to people, the operators from YMCA, and hearing the stories, and that is like the biggest thing that I took away was like they're getting a lot of people who were generally, you know, maybe like boomers, really, like never really did anything. And now they're like they're lined up at eGym machines because it's easy to use, they're starting to see results, it doesn't hurt, right? And I think the common joke amongst the YMCA people was they're like, I hope that eGym doesn't get more adoption across you know the states because this is kind of our secret advantage, you know. Like, that's funny.

Unfortunately for them, it's happening. But uh I think they're still gonna be doing fine. Um that's that's right. It's it's incredible seeing the results that the product can have on these, you know, previously never trained, unhealthy populations. And what it continues to reinforce in my mind is that integrated hardware software products, I think Peloton is a great proof point of how engaging those can be. Like whatever you want to say about, you know, Peloton has obviously had their struggles over the years, but they built an incredible product. And from an engagement and ongoing engagement perspective, it just blows everything that ever existed in home fitness out of the water. And uh, and I think that's in large part because of the hardware software integration. I think that uh that sort of product is um it gives users who are new to exercise the feeling that all they need to do is sit down and push go, right? They're gonna be guided through everything they need, and it's all in this one box, right? Um they're not gonna be, you know, directed to do 50 things that they don't know how to do, etc. Right. And um and I think that's powerful for users.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, obviously it is, right? Last question I got for you here, John, is as a the chief product officer at eGym, like what's a challenge that you're facing that we can help you with as an industry? You know, is there anything that you're you're you know, top of mind where you're like you would love to hear from people about XYZ? I'm not sure I got the question. Yeah, when you say did you mean like like you in your role, like a challenge you're facing, maybe you're looking for like a partnership or you're looking for a specific type of technology, like something that a challenge in your particular role right now that you've that you're you could use some help with.

Yeah, you know, outside of the standard partnership stuff that we love and we're executing on right now, I I don't really see uh a huge gap. I think uh there are gonna be some opportunities for for deeper partnership on the health side, but we already have some stuff kind of in the works there uh that I feel you know well covers some of it. Um and the rest of it's a bit unclear as to what's needed. So I I feel like we're in a pretty good spot with the partnership platform that we built, but I'm sure things will come up.

Yeah. Well, you let me know. Um, John man, if people want to follow you or get in touch or do anything like that, is there any specific place you want to send them besides the website?

Yeah, I know it's archaic, but I'm not a social media guy at all. So LinkedIn is pretty much it.

Me too.

I need to probably change that at some point, maybe, but not anytime soon.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it. I think you're doing just fine, man. Yeah. Well, John, thank you so much for joining me. I'm glad we finally got to do this. And um, yeah, man, I'm sure we'll talk soon, ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks, Eric. This is John Ford.

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, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the feature of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the Future of Fitness. Have a great day.