Keith Rumjahn - OliveX & The Fitness Metaverse Explained

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. I've worked with more business softwares than I can remember. The common theme is that they are overcomplicated, difficult to set up, far too many features to navigate, and most of all, expensive. But Pocket Suite is different. If you are a business professional or gym owner that needs clients to book time with you and want a seamless billing solution, then look no further. Pocket Suite has you covered. On average, fitness business professionals that sign up for this app see a 30% boost in income. That's because it's simple and has everything you need and nothing you don't. You can easily sell packages and subscriptions. Control your billing in one place, no need for Venmo, PayPal, or any other merchant solutions. Save backforth time with clients and prospects with a custom booking link. Set up automations to cut down on admin time, like client renewal reminders, seamless client onboarding, contracts, intake forms, etc., etc. Look, I know this because I used it myself. It took me less than 10 minutes to get set up and fire off my first client invoice. If you're looking for a time-saving, simple application that allows you to combine three softwares in one with a clean, professional look for clients and prospects, then you have to check out PocketSuite. Go to pocketsuite.io. That's S-U-I-T-E. Check out the Apple App Store or Google Play to learn more and give it a free test run. You can also click on the link in the show notes for my special referral offer. That is PocketSweep.io. When you do what you love, running, racing, or simply enjoying the great outdoors, you want to do it for life. InsightTracker can help. InsightTracker was founded in 2009 by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Using their patented algorithm, InsightTracker analyzes your body's data to provide you with a clear picture of what's going on inside you while offering highly personalized, science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. Okay, time for straight talk. It's time that each single one of us takes responsibility for our own health. Personally, given the results of my Insight Tracker DNA and blood tests, I now have a clear and simple game plan to lower my cholesterol and stave off my family's genetic history of heart disease. The best part is that the plan doesn't include any kind of pharmaceuticals, just personalized nutrition and natural supplementation. Possibly my favorite feature of Insight Tracker is the inner age score, a singular metric that shows me how my biological age compares to my chronological age. They just gamify longevity. It's crazy cool. For a limited time, you can get 25% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to InsightTracker.com forward slash future. But wait, there is more. If you're a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or any other health and wellness practitioner, you can now leverage Inside Tracker services to help your clients perform better than they ever have. And you can offer them discounts while you earn revenue. Insight Tracker Pro is your gateway to offering your clients Insight Tracker, the science-backed, ultra-personalized performance platform trusted by elite athletes and top coaches. Just go to InsightTracker.com forward slash future to get more information and enjoy deep, deep discounts. That is InsightTracker.com forward slash future. Keith Romgen, welcome to the future of fitness. Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited. I dude, I'm excited. I I've been looking forward to this for a while. I uh let's see, you know, I talked to uh Natalia Carbosoba from the Fit Tech Club a little bit about what you're doing. Uh I know you're within that community as well. And I'm just really fired up to learn from you because you're uh you're, you know, the I'll let you give your background, but you know, as kind of leader of all of X, you guys are really in the middle of this fitness metaverse thing. And, you know, I'm 45 years old. I'm not too sure what the metaverse is, and I'm sure much of my listeners don't know either. So it's gonna be really exciting to learn from me and I have a lot of questions for you. But Keith, let's start with this. If you don't mind, give us a little bit of your background and kind of how you got to be the CEO of All of X.

Yeah, sure thing. I'm CEO of All of X. Uh I started off, I went to Canada to compute uh study computer science. And then in my spare time, I became a volunteer basketball coach, which led me to uh create my first kind of basketball app on the side, which became the number one paid sports app on iOS and Android. I sold that business. And then I said, well, what should we do now? Let's try to aim for bigger, more than just basketball coaches. Let's try to gamify fitness. So we started OliveX about four and a half years ago. Uh fast forward to today, uh, we're heavily focused on the fitness metaverse, which I'll go into, but uh we have a token, DOSE, dopamine, oxytoin, serotonin, endorphin, all the great chemicals you get when you uh exercise. Uh so we have a token that we already launched, and uh we have two gamified uh blockchain games. Uh one of them is Dust Line Runner, so you're running to earn uh tokens and NFTs, and the other one is Dust Line Rider, which is a cycling game.

Okay. That that's a lot of stuff that I know enough to be dangerous with, uh, but I know very little of the detail. I have a good friend and you know, long-term colleague of mine, Ray Raina, who's been deep in the world of of crypto and now NFTs and just you know a technologist. So I I kind of understand from a high level. But let me ask, let me go back. So you said we with Olivex. Who who is we? Who is your team?

Yeah, my team is uh we're actually a listed company uh in Australia. Uh we have actually 40 people uh globally. I can't do this alone. I wish I could, but uh I think uh I claim all the credit for my team's hard work. But we have offices in the UK. Uh we have offices in Taiwan, we have offices in Hong Kong. Some of them, for example, we acquired Zombies Run, which was the number one audio running app in the world, uh, and we were turning that into Dustline Runner. And we acquired a gaming company in Taiwan to work on the cycling game and in Hong Kong. And the people that we have, I think uh specifically a couple of names. Adrian Han is an expert in uh gamification of uh fitness. He's been consulted by Disney, BBC, the UK government. Uh we have Andy Hall, our uh head of BD. Uh he used to work at Les Mills. I think uh that that name's uh familiar with a lot of fitness people. Yep. Uh and so these are the kind of composition of my team members.

Right on. So uh let's get right into it, Keith. Well tell us what is the fitness metaverse, and please explain it to me like I'm I'm six years old.

Yeah, I love to talk about it. And uh the way I talk about it is it's called Fitness 4.0. So fitness 1.0 is DVD and cassette tapes and uh Jane Fonda. Fitness 2.0 is uh live streaming on demand and connected fitness, and then fitness 3.0 is where we're at right now. Are you familiar with Swift? Yes, very much. Okay, so for the audience that doesn't know, uh it's a cycling game where you have a stationary bike in your living room. As you pedal, you you power a virtual character on the screen, and you're just a massive multiplayer game. You're there cycling with millions of people online. So that's Swift. Uh Ring Fit is uh this Nintendo game where you have a Pilates ring and you can use it to kind of fight monsters on the screen as as you progress. Uh they sold uh 10 million copies. Uh and then you have Pokemon Go and a whole bunch of other fitness games. And and you're seeing right now with all the connected fitness, uh, they're all turning into games. But the problem is all these games are silos, they're all independent games. Imagine I let's say you play Dustland Rider and you ride for 100 kilometers and you earn a blue hoodie NFT. This blue hoodie NFT gives you a boost in speed by 2%. But you don't only use it in the cycling game. You can now use it in the running game, you can use this in the boxing game, in the rowing game, and all these games that are interconnected with NFTs and our token.

Interesting. So it's multiple games within kind of the same universe, metaverse, am I getting that right? Like you it's it you can use these tokens across multiple contexts and games within the the same how do okay. I get it, at least a little bit. Uh for people who may not understand this one too, because I know there's a lot of confusion about this, especially over the dinner table. Quite often we people start talking about it, I realize they don't know what they're talking about. What is what is an NFT? What does a non-fungible token mean?

Yeah, a non-fungible token is uh for the first time you have something that is uh rare and unique uh digitally. Because look, let's say you I have an image of you, right? Uh and then I I I I say I give it to my friend, and then you can just copy and paste and make unlimited copies, right? Yeah. And so therefore, for the long, longest time, digital things weren't worth much because you can just make as many as possible. And you have to go back to the principles. Why are like certain things like gold and certain materials worth money? It's because there's a limited number of them. So with NFTs, for the first time, you have digital rarity and you can prove the authenticity of that thing. Uh so let's say uh you're a cyclist, right? Or or what should I say? Okay, let's say boxing, right? UFC. I have a I have a digital character of a UFC of uh O'Connor, right? And then this digital avatar, we prove that there's only gonna be a hundred of them. And actually, like two of them has been owned by you know Mike Tyson and like GSP, and then so if they're owned by more famous people, you can check on the blockchain who owned it, and you can see a history of who owned that item. Uh, and so that's kind of what NFTs are.

Okay, cool. That's a good explanation. Let's go back, uh, sorry for that segue. Let's go back to what you were talking about within uh your guys' uh uh ecosphere that you got going on there. The Dust Runner. Explain to me and the people listening what is that experience like from a consumer standpoint?

Yeah, so we call it uh move to earn. Um so I need to take a second to explain kind of uh what move to earn is. Sure. Uh in the gaming industry, we went from uh pay to play, which is I pay you $300, $100 to play the game, to free to play, which is it's free, but you have a lot of in-app purchases. And I think uh at that time when it came out, people people thought it was crazy because why would I, you know, how do you make money with a free game? But now 93 of the top hundred games are actually free to play. The next movement is to play to earn. Actually, you you actually earn money for playing. And we can go into the why that's so cool uh and the philosophy behind it. But what you do in Dust Land Rider uh and runner is that uh the world is uh post-climate change and it's really dangerous. And uh you as a runner, uh you're basically a delivery person. Uh we call you dust cap. And you have these missions to deliver goods from one location to another through this treacherous land. And so you have these missions, right? And so when you uh open the game, you open the app, you click on it, you have these slots to equip yourself. Uh, you can decide on what equipment and what cargo you're gonna bring and what mission you're gonna take. And then you press start, you go outside, you put on your headphones, and you'll hear an audio story. And then along the way, there will be monsters and different challenges that will chase you and you have to run faster. Uh and then if you do escape, then fine. You you get to your destination, you complete it, uh, then you'll get a chance to earn tokens as a reward, or you'll get a chance to earn some NFTs. So you actually earn something for running.

Awesome. So within that circumstance, what if I get a token, I get an NFT, is there any what what's the value outside of the context of the game? Or is there any yet?

Yeah, so so this is first time ever. The things you earn as a gamer uh are not virtual and they don't store it in the game. So imagine you play your favorite game for like five years and you spent thousands of hours in it. But if the game series decides, okay, we're gonna turn off the game, you lose everything, right? But with the tokens and NFTs, uh the value is returned to the value creator, and basically you own it forever. Even if I turn off the game, uh you still get to keep it. And the other beauty is that the marketplace for buying and selling these things, uh, you don't have to go through us, you know, OpenSea and all these external markets. So your token, uh, those tokens, for example, is available on OKX uh and a whole bunch of different exchanges. You can take this token and actually sell it on the market for money. Uh and then also our NFTs, right? You earn NFT, you can actually sell it on platforms like OpenSea and other NFT platforms.

Interesting, man. Yeah. Gosh. How does one and I'm probably gonna not like myself for even asking this question, but how does one create a token? What is that process like? Because, you know, I've I uh I do a little bit of crypto research every week just to kind of stay at least with a base understanding of what's going on because it's fascinating and it has so much promise, right? But how what is the process of actually creating a token? Uh explain in layman's terms.

Yeah, creating a token is uh actually really simple. Uh there's a lot of tools out there you can just basically say, hey, you have to ask yourself, is it a fungible or non-fungible? Like so is there a limited supply or there's an unlimited supply of tokens that you want to generate? Let's say I want to generate a limited one million token, right? There's a ton of websites you go on, you type in, you know, Eric coin, and then type in one million, click a button, and you you you make the tokens. So the issue is not making the tokens. The the issue is who's gonna use your token. That's the problem.

Right. Uh so play to earn, let's get back to that. And I'm I'm curious now. I mean, we we can we'll kind of duck and dive into the technology and back out again, but when the rubber meets the road, it's what motivates the consumer to engage in the program, the fitness program, the game in this circumstance. Uh how what are you seeing from a consumer behavior standpoint as far as how they're engaging with these, you know, are they getting actual fitness health results? And then how is that comparing against the traditional fitness market, uh, you know, that most people would just look at as like gyms or omni-channel now or you know, home fitness connected solutions?

Yeah, I think the most uh exciting part about uh play to earn is this the number one game that took off uh is called Axie Infinity. Uh they they have so much trading volume that uh they are actually one of the top ten game companies in the in the world in terms of revenue, uh, you know, with the likes of Blizzard, you know, Take Two, you know, Activision, all these great companies. But the difference is this most games have uh you don't play a game forever, right? You play for a little while and then you drop off, right? But the Axi Infinity players to have like an 80% retention rate for like 30 days, so people play it almost like a job, and so the retention is insane, it's so motivating, right? So imagine the fitness industry, like you everyone's uh coming to keys to me and saying, Oh, I want to work with you because like we have a retention problem. And it's like, well, this could be an answer.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, who are the big players right now in in this fitness metaverse? Is it I mean, obviously, you guys, I know Apple's made a lot of big, you know, announcements that they're really focusing on fitness and health, but are they doing it from a gamification standpoint, or are they you know doing it through kind of a data management standpoint?

Yeah, look, I think uh we're still very early days in the in the move to earn space, like super early. Uh and I think the two major players uh kind of going in uh Nike and Adidas. So Nike uh they took different approaches, right? Nike took uh acquired artifact, which is kind of like one of the best uh NFT studios out there. Uh but then Adidas took more of like a collaborative approach and they bought a piece of land inside a sandbox of working in Board Ape Yock Club. And so those are kind of like the biggest moves in the fitness industry right now. But if the if Nike and Adidas are doing it, uh then uh you know they really set the tone.

Yeah, it's a pretty big indicator for sure. Uh who is adopting from the consumer standpoint? I mean, who what what is this uh what is the demographic, what is the sociographic, what what are who are these people that are engaging so far and where you guys are at?

Yeah, so so the crypto industry and the blockchain industry move so fast. If you just backtrack, you know, and about six months ago when we first started on uh blockchain, it's a lot of crypto boroughs, right? So like young, uh 20-something year olds, mostly male, uh, they see this opportunity because like they couldn't in buy house, right? And they're not making money. And it's not like crypto was a chance for them to actually uh you know get financial freedom, right? But uh the market has shifted. If you look at the statistics, the number of people who have wallets on OpenC and created crypto in the last six months has just like tenfolded, right? And everyone, uh, I don't know about your town, but in everyone that I know, even my you know, my sister's you know uh boyfriend's grandmother, like that they know about MTs now, right? So it's gone mainstream. We're at the mainstream stage, uh, and that's why you know we're excited because we're getting to mainstream people, get them uh to exercise.

Yeah, it it is, man. I would say most of my friends that I talk to on a regular basis, everybody has some crypto now. You know, like whether it's it's me who's just kind of uh you know, buy it, hold it, you know, a very basic, you know, Binance or Bitcoin um or Ethereum, just kind of hold. It seems like people are are kind of catching on, like, well, you know, if I just get a little bit of money over here, who knows what's gonna happen, right? That's kind of the mentality of like, well, if I'm wrong, I'm out a little bit of money. If I'm right, well then, you know, things can change my life forever. And I was actually down uh last year in Brazil visiting my wife's family, and you know, Brazil isn't it's not a wealthy country at this point. And a lot of people were talking about NFTs and seeing it as a way to kind of rebalance the wealth structure around the world. And that was fascinating to me. I mean, that I was actually learning more through a language I didn't really speak well, Portuguese about NFTs through my brother-in-law than you know, than I have through my own research. So it's it's definitely getting out there. You know, I'm curious if if people in their 30s and 40s and 50s are starting to engage in, and let's kind of circle it back to to the fitness metaverse in these games, or is it still you know kind of the 20-somethings that are engaging in these games?

I think uh look, the 20-year-olds are are definitely uh in at first, but uh again, we moved from early adopters to mainstream. I think the 30, 40, 50 year olds are are also gonna come in as well.

Yeah, ma'am. So what's what's what's your plan here? What uh you know what when you look, let me put a timeline on it. Five years from now. Now let's do 10. 10 years from now, Keith. What what is the fitness metaverse gonna look like? Paint us a picture.

Yeah, so let's start with the mission of our company. We're trying to motivate a billion people to move more. Uh and while doing so, we want to be the the the kind of the first place for them to earn NFTs and uh um crypto through our our games. So onboard a billion people. Uh and I think it's life-changing. If you change like one of our board members, Sunny Vu, he he used to have uh a fitness ban called the Misfit Fitness Band. And uh if you just motivate the world to move one percent more, that's actually life-changing because uh you you prevent so many diseases and so many things. So that's the division of what we want to do. But we also know that in order to onboard people, like it's like games, people don't just want to play one game, and we call these people fitness omnivores. You don't, if you're a runner, you don't just run, you probably throw in some yoga, or maybe you you bike as well, or maybe in your spare time you lift, you know. So, in order to onboard a billion people, we really think that it requires multiple games that are interoperable. Interoperable meaning all the NFTs can be used across all those games, all interlength, right? Uh so that's the vision. So, how do we do it? Well, we build, partner, and uh acquire and invest. So we build our own game, which is Dustland Rider and Dustland Runner, running and cycling, and join sport, great. But we also invest in partner. So we have a location based game called DeFi that's coming out. Uh, and then there's a couple more games we've also invested in. So, yeah, we're not like uh winner takes all, we just want to be part of every single move to earn. Game out there and build this ecosystem so people like you can come on and play a bunch of different games.

Yeah, it sounds fascinating. And is it, you know, when you engage in these games, is it going to be primarily through virtual reality, augmented reality, audio, like, or is it going to be all of it? Like how how how are what are what are the inputs?

Yeah, the way I see it is uh back to the omniscience, uh fitness omnivore kind of analogy is that there's no one specific vertical, but this is how I see it. I think in the connective fitness field, you're gonna get a whole bunch of stuff, right? So rowing, boxing, you know, treadmill, all of them's gonna have a game. Uh that's uh blockchain. Then you have uh some VR game for sure, uh, and then you have some AR games, and then you have some motion capture games similar to uh just dance and you know uh using the camera to detect your motion. Uh and that's kind of my thoughts on the verticals that that we'll have all these uh blockchain games.

Yeah, interesting. What what is the uh appetite for investors in this right now? Are are they jumping on it? Are they hesitant? Are they kind of you know watching from a short distance? What are you seeing from the investment community?

Yeah, look, I've been an entrepreneur for 10 years. I've seen I've been doing apps for a long time, and and uh yeah, it's I we were oversubscribed for every single round that we raised. There's just a lot of interest in uh blockchain gaming uh and fitness. Uh because look, I think uh previously I was working on a connected smart mirror device uh called Coward Smart Fitness. And that business is hard, like hardware is hard. So I give a lot of respect to fitness people who work in that field. But like imagine this, like I have to deliver like a 20 kg mirror to you and have to do inventory customer, but whereas my game is just all software, right? I'm selling you an NFT. Uh and NFT market is so hot and so lucrative right now, it's just very attractive.

Yeah, yeah, it is. And and who are these investors? I mean, are they traditional investors, venture funds, you know, individuals? Like what or is it all across the board?

Yeah, actually, what's interesting through our fundraising is that uh there's a new breed of investors who are very they grew up in the Web3 field. And so they're sitting on so much money because uh they started early and now their portfolios have rolled like a thousand nicks, you know, and they have so much capital because crypto has made them so much money, right? And I think uh the new VCs are actually more useful in the blockchain field uh because they're more in tune and they don't they have more connections with other projects and you know they just bring more value. Traditional VCs are actually starting to come in. Uh they just realize, oh man, I'm gonna miss this. So though, like you see Andreessen and everybody trying to raise a new crypto fund. So traditional VCs are trying to come in as well. So everyone's trying to come in.

Yeah. Yeah, interesting, man. Tell us a little bit more about the games that you have now and where, and if you can, like what what are some of the obvious opportunities within the types of games and the type of workout programs that you guys don't have yet that you want really bad. I mean, rowing, you mentioned a bunch of them, right, that are very, you know, well accepted already. But I'm I'm talking to this for as a fitness guy. And there's an off obvious merger here between the gaming world and the fitness world. You know, if that hasn't been made obvious so far in this conversation, I don't know what has. I had Jeff Morin from Lightboxer on not too uh, you know, fairly recently, and he's same thing. He's a he's a gamer, he's a gaming guy who's seeing the opportunity within fitness and health. So I guess when you look at this, are you looking at it as, hey, we need to get more of the traditional fitness world in here, or we're gonna get, you know, we're gonna go heavy on gaming as that side of it. How do you balance those two worlds? People age at different speeds. And the date on your license may not represent your inner biological age at all. If you're looking for ways to extend your health span and slow down the aging process, the keys to health and longevity run in your blood. That's why Insight Tracker provides you with a personalized plan to boost your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics, Insight Tracker analyzes your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking data to identify where you're optimized, and more importantly, where you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition, and supplementation for your body. Add interage 2.0 to any plan for a definitive calculation of your true biological age to see how you're aging from the inside out. I was proud to find out I'm a few years younger than I thought I was. For a limited time, you can get 20% off the entire Inside Tracker store. Just go to inside tracker.com forward slash future to check it out, learn more, and get your own. It's insight tracker.com forward slash future. On to the show.

Yeah, that's a good question. Actually, uh, we look, we we partner with a lot of fitness brands already to help them enter the metaverse. Uh so we we have uh stages, uh, the bike company, right? Uh we have tribe uh a chain in the UK. We have Salsacian, which is like a salsa dancing lesmo type kind of workout. So we signed a lot of them and we we helped them. We have a plot of land inside the sandbox. Uh, and basically we have a fitness city, and we have like a building for each of them, and then uh you can come in and you can go to all those buildings and and play different games and also meet other people that are also part of that that love that brand. So, why why do I talk about that? Because actually, there's a disconnect, there's like the web 3 crowd that kind of stick together, and then there's like the the non-web 3 people, and then there's no bridge in between right now. Uh, and so we want to be that bridge uh because like I said, I want to onboard a billion people, right? And the way to do that is to work with brands, and why should brands and fitness companies work with us? Well, it's actually really hard to to like to do Web3 well, the move to earn well, it actually requires game design. And how do you design a game loop that have syncs that actually you're not just given tokens non-stop, right? You have to balance it so that you actually take tokens back. And to do that, you actually need a legit game company who knows how to design games, not a superficial game with points and badges, but what actual game loops, and we can help them do that, right? So that's the opportunity I see right now.

Yeah, that is interesting. Q back, man, and explain because you know I've I've heard this term, and you're a great guy to ask this. What does it mean when you say sandbox, right? What is that? A lot of people don't know what that is, including myself.

Yeah, so sandbox is actually it's confusing because it means multiple things. Uh, but in this case, I'm referring to a game uh that has lots of digital uh land, and then on the land you can build things. So it's very similar to Minecraft. And I think a lot of people know Minecraft because their kids play Minecraft and also Roblox. Uh, and so you have these like pixel voxel uh elements, these are the cubes, and you combine them to create characters and buildings, right? And so sandbox is like the blockchain version of Roblox and Minecraft, where you have full creative freedom to use these blocks to build Lego pieces of whatever you want. You can have a building, you can have characters, and you can make games uh like that. So Sandbox is one of the leading metaverse virtual lands out there. There's a couple more, uh, and uh a lot of people buying virtual real estate. Wow.

I gotta give myself a VR set, man. That's just becoming more and more uh apparent for me because I could experience all this. So, you know, we we talked about a lot of major movement and you have huge goals, right? One billion people, that's that's no small feat. I guess when you look at the adoption of this and in your timeline, what what is the timeline in which you know there's enough adoption widespread that not the large companies but the mid and small B2C brands and companies can start to you know find tangible and affordable ways of entering this fitness metaverse?

Yeah, so that's a couple questions in one, but I think uh look, uh it's all about timing. I think uh for me, the personal computer created uh Apple and uh Microsoft, and then you have the internet created Google, Facebook, and then you have the mobile. Mobile created Instagram, WhatsApp. Uh, and then each of these uh kind of waves they last about 10 years. And I personally experienced it because I was at the early days of mobile, first two years, right? And when I came out, I was like one of like the first 20 sports apps on the app store and it became number one, right? And then over time it matured, and I saw that evolution, and now we're the final, like it's the 10-year, we just crossed the 10-year mark of mobile, right? And and it's really competitive, right? It's really, really mature, right? I think uh the same thing is gonna happen with blockchain games, where it reminds me of so much of the first two years of the app store. Like you're gonna be blown away in a year or two, like everyone's gonna be doing it, uh, similar to having people having an iPhone and apps. And you go back, if you're you're old enough, you remember people made fun of the iPhones of who's gonna buy this really expensive phone, right? It's a brick, right? Uh and I think uh look, the early days, the the small brands, right, they didn't go into the app store, right? They waited till like year seven, uh, and then like every gym has an app that you can book, you know, like so it's coming. And so if you're forward thinking, then come work with us and we'll help you.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. So okay, so there's a little bit of a pitch. Explain what you mean by that. Are you looking to, you know, are you looking for, I guess, influencers within specific niches that you can help them take advantage of of this growing market? Like what who who are you looking to work with?

Yeah, everybody. Uh we I think to achieve our one billion people, we want to work with everybody. And we have different uh yeah, solutions for everyone, some small scale, some large scale, because look, we have the game, we have the and it's equivalent, right? Like you take the biggest game on the planets right now, right? Like uh League of Legends, and imagine having one of the characters branded to you, or you know, or having an event you know around you. So so many things uh we can do.

Yeah, what are one of the projects right now that you're most excited about, Keith?

Okay, well, two things.

Uh are you talking about my projects or with within within Olivex, like what you guys are doing, partnerships, creation of new games. Yeah.

So so three things. Uh I talked about Zombies Run, Audio Running. Uh so audio running, we signed Marvel. So we're the first fitness brand that Marvel has uh worked with. Uh so that's huge, right? Right running with Spider-Man? Uh that's pretty cool. Yeah. So second thing is uh we uh have uh a couple brands that are launching NFTs, you know, uh inside the sandbox. Uh so as a reference, you know, Snoop Dogg just launched his NFT collection on the sandbox and it became number three on sandbox. And they made 25 million dollars in the last like 12 months, so we're excited about that to help brands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, you can get a voxel version of Snoop. Uh yeah. So, anyways, we're excited about that. And the third thing is uh if you go to the dustland.com, this is the last day for you to sign up to get a free NFT. Uh, we're excited, but the launch of our running game is coming out very, very soon. So check that out.

Okay. Now I'm 45 years old, man. I'm probably I I do, I think in my age group, I kind of bridge a gap between I was actually, I saw no technology when I was very little technology when I was young, right? I saw the evolution of the internet. I remember sending my first email to my brother when he was in um the Arctic doing research, and I thought it was mind-blowing, right, that I could do that. I remember uh my dad had a mobile phone that was a large, like the size of two bricks, and it was a you know, shoulder strap, right, that he had to wear. It was ridiculous. I remember having a pager. I remember doing a lot of things that uh a lot of people now would, you know, we laugh, we look back and we laugh. But technology has advanced so fast, and you know, there's so much of it that has enriched our life, and there's a lot of it that hasn't. And I guess from a moral or not uh, you know, just a responsibility standpoint. I mean, we can't stop this train. Fitness is on an I mean technology is just out of the gate, it's it's happening, right? It's just it's inevitable. But do you ever stop and wonder, like, okay, is virtual reality a good thing for the human race? And I know that's a huge question, but I I mean I can't think of a better person to ask than you at this point because you're in the middle of it, man. Like, what do you what do you think? Is it a good thing to get people more you know connected um into technology, or do we need to take a, you know, maybe encourage people somehow to to just get outside with no technology? Like what do you how do you walk that line?

Yeah, you know, that's uh that's a tricky question. And I I think uh I think the the way to think of it is like just think back in history, right? When when the TV first came out, people, oh my god, the TV, you're watching too much TV, right? And then you know that the phone came out and everyone's glued to their smartphones, right? And I think uh regardless of what what I think it's gonna happen, right? People are gonna spend more time uh in the in the metaverse, so to speak, right? And so, yeah, it's gonna happen. And I think uh the the other way to think about it is like instead of them spending time uh you know just doing like non-healthy things, like at least there's they can spend time doing some healthy things, right? Like, what's the downside of them working out like eight hours not and stop playing a boxing game, right? Maybe they get super fit doing it, right? So what would we believe we're helping that cause?

Yeah, no, I I get it. I totally get it, man. And I'm I don't mean to put you on the spot. I'm just honestly very curious about your opinion of it because you know, I look at you know, a friend of mine and colleague Jay Croft wrote an article on WebMD that uh I put up on my LinkedIn, and it got some I mean it's got an astronomical amount of views for some reason. I don't know why, but it was about virtual reality and fitness, and he specifically one of the things he pointed out that I thought was pretty cool uh was VR for senior populations, especially those who live in you know assisted living places, right? And how it outside the article, he was just talking about how cool it was that you know people who maybe aren't that mobile anymore, don't have the means to travel, could put on a VR headset and see the, you know, see the pyramids, right? Or do all these cool things. When you look at kind of the special case use for what you are you guys even focusing on kind of the this the more you know specific populations that we have, or are you guys just shooting, you know, looking very broad right now?

Yeah, actually I gotta clarify one point. Um, when I talk about the metaverse, I'm actually not just referring to a VR. Actually, like I don't have any games using a VR headset right now. And and I think the metaverse could exist on your mobile phone, on your desktop, you know, all these things. I think VR honestly uh is still quite early. Like, how the question is like how many people do you know have a VR headset? And number two is like, how many people use a VR headset all the time? Or is it like in a in a in the cupboard somewhere like you know and not being used at all, right?

That's true. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, man. But I guess getting back to the and thank you for that clarification, Keith. Uh getting back to the question is, you know, are you guys looking for specific applications of the metaverse that can help, you know, special populations? Is that uh a potential for you guys as well?

Yeah, look, I think uh VR is great uh actually for certain like your use cases, right? So helping elderly people, uh I I heard about rehab being really good and like like mental stuff, and and so that's great. But again, back to my point is that uh we're trying to reach a billion people. So just by default, we we have to give up on some smaller pocket stuff like these. Uh we we have eco masks, and I think uh if you look at Facebook's acquisition, right? They have uh Supernatural and a couple more, they're very like mass games. Uh so no, but you know, if if somebody else wants to do it, uh you know, great for them, and we're happy to invest in them, but uh that won't be our main focus.

Yeah, interesting, man. But let's talk about meta and what used to be Facebook for a second. How big of an advantage do they have you know in this in this new frontier?

Yeah, so I actually think uh they don't have much of a of an advantage.

Uh really pleases me.

Uh because look, I think fundamentally, uh what is the philosophy behind Web3? Is it decentralization, right? And returning value to the value creator. And let me talk about that a little bit. Let's say you use a fitness uh app, right, uh to exercise, which a lot of people do. Who who are who are the value creators for the fitness app? It's actually you because you're giving data to the to the app to let them know how often you exercise, how long, at what time, you know, like what's your gender. Sometimes you put in a lot of information, right? You're generating data, but you're not getting rewarded. You actually like get you get nothing. And so who are the biggest middlemen in this uh fitness app economy? Who are the yeah, take a guess? I don't know, trainers? Who's the middleman? Uh actually no. So nice guess. But the the middleman is actually the app stores, they take a 30% cut of all the subscriptions, right? Oh, I get it.

Okay, yeah, I get the context. Yeah, that makes sense for sure.

Yeah, yeah. And so, like, so there's a trainer who's live streaming you, uh, and then you're on the other end, and in the middle, Apple and Google takes like 30% cut, right? So imagine uh using Web3, you kind of cut that out, and instead of the 30% going to the app source, it's now rewarded back to you. So now uh, or or the the the 30% is you know, you can split it between the trainer and you, right? And so now you both win, right? The the the users and the developer, they both are incentivized really well to grow together.

I mean, I love that vision, man. Especially I you know, I'm a creator. I I've got hundreds of thousands of downloads out there, and you know, who benefits from that? Well, Apple Podcasts primarily.

Yeah, to come back. Facebook's kind of uh philosophy the business model is based on being the middleman, right? Like traditionally, you want to reach audiences, you gotta pay Facebook to advertise for the to the people, right? But now people can cut that out. And how do they do that? Well, I just directly give people NFTs and crypto, right? And then people will automatically come. I have the direct relationship, right? Facebook needs to disrupt that. And I I think I that's gonna be hard to disrupt their own business model, and people don't really do you trust Facebook to be got decentralized, fully decentralized uh system. I don't know.

No, it's no, I don't. It's horrifying, the thought, to be honest. If you're asking me. Uh yeah, so yeah, a lot of challenges. Yeah, yeah. Jeez, man. Well, I guess you know, I I know it's uh early in the morning for you there in Hong Kong, and I I want to respect your time, but you know, what what else do we need as a fitness industry, right? As uh, you know, I guess someone who's been in it for a little while and people who you know may be confused or not quite sure or not seeing the opportunities, what what do we need to know as a fitness industry around the fitness metaverse? Like what tell us what we need to know, man.

Yeah, no, there's a couple of interesting points to to think about. Uh first of all, uh think of all the fitness events right now and your proudest fitness moments. Um are they all online, right? I mean, are they all offline? So like you run a marathon, right? You high five, or that's real life, right? Like basically, and you do CrossFit, right? You're in a gym and you hire five people, but you don't get that same feeling online, right? There's no online uh multiplayer fitness experience right now. I think in the future that's gonna happen. Uh because gaming, remember gaming? Uh you used to have to sit next to your buddy in the same location to play together, right? Yep. And but now you you look at all the kids, where they are they sitting next to each other? No, they're playing online. And their biggest like gaming moments are all through a headset, like just looking at a computer screen at a home, right? I think that might happen in the fitness world.

So that's true.

And number two is like your your your your identity, right? So what's the first rule of CrossFit?

Uh you have to talk about CrossFit.

Yes, you have to talk about CrossFit, right? So there's a lot of people have fitness identities, right? And they show it in multiple ways uh in the physical world, right? And identity is very important, right? Uh but how do you show your fitness identity online? Right? So one of the things you can do is like, by the way, we're we're launching an avatar, a PFP. So like if you set that as your LinkedIn profile, then people will know you're a runner. But you know, there are different types of people, right? You're a rower, how do you represent that digitally online? So that's the second question, and then the third question. Is I think the tipping point of the metaverse is when people value digital goods greater than their physical goods. And so people love medals, right? Especially marathon runners, right? They love their medals. But how many of them at this point really cherish your digital? Like, did anyone show you their digital medals at this point? Probably not. But in the future, uh imagine I can go to like uh Eric slash whatever dot com and then I can see a virtual room of all your digital medals for fitness. Wouldn't that be cool? So those are the thoughts I'm gonna leave you with.

Yeah, yeah, I love it, man. When one quick question on that. So are you seeing like you know, mass participation events done through the fitness metaverse? I mean, for example, the Boston Marathon, right? Something similar to that of that nature with just you know 10,000 people participating. Is that where you see the like do you see the future part of this as being mass participation events?

Yeah, so I just know that how it's how gaming moved to massive multiplayer online. Uh and also before COVID, right? Like no one thought that you can have the entire uh office remote, right? I think fitness uh it's gonna you're gonna have mass fitness events online, uh for sure. It could be marathon, it could be some games, or it could be a lot of things, but uh online multiplayer.

Very cool. Very cool, man. This is the last question I just asked just about everybody, but and this is in the spirit of collaboration, people may be listening. But what do you, you know, as of March 2022, uh, what do you need, man? What's what are some of the biggest use needs needs you have as an entrepreneur in a business, a business band?

For our business. What do I need? Well, I I need I need to work with more more brands, uh, fitness people to collaborate with. I think uh it's still early days and some people are more reserved, right? But I think uh now's the time. Uh so come come reach us to us, and then uh if also you're building some interesting technology company in the in the fitness space, we're also we want to invest in you and help you. And so, yeah, everybody, please come to us.

It's one heck of one heck of sales pitch. Well, hey, Keith Man, I just wanted to uh very genuinely say thank you for explaining this to me. You know, this was honestly a more difficult interview for me to do because I don't fully, like many of the things that come on this show, I usually understand pretty darn well. This I'm still wrapping my head around, and uh I hope, you know, uh through my naivety that people learned you know something through it. And you explained it very well, or you're very patient with it, and you did a great job. So I really appreciate coming on, Keith. And uh I would love to maybe check in uh in about a year or so and see how things are going again.

Yeah, no, thank you. Actually, you don't have to be so guilty because uh this is actually really important. Actually, a lot of people uh are not you know familiar and it and it's normal at the early days, and and you asked some great questions. So thanks for giving me this chance to explain to everyone.

Yeah, it was my pleasure, man. Literally my pleasure. I really enjoyed it. So, yes, thanks for coming on, ladies and gentlemen, Keith Romgen. Thank you. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.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.