Kevin Dawidowicz: CoachMePlus - Enterprise-Level Fitness

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. Hey friends, if you follow the show, you may have picked up on my passion for heart rate variability when it comes to recovery, performance, and longevity. I track it religiously and I'm always looking for ways to improve. Over the past few months, I've been taking this new supplement called HRV Plus by mode and method. Over that time, I've experienced significant improvement in sleep quality, faster recovery, and an objective uptick in my average HRV. About two to three points on average. That's a big deal. HRV Plus is the world's first expert curated, carefully sourced blend of all natural micronutrients to optimize recovery, increase performance, and boost heart rate variability. Formulated by some of the world's leading experts, HRVLUS combines their proprietary hemp extract with omega-3 oil, magnesium, and curcumin extract to target inflammation, improve sleep, and supercharge our endocannabinoid system. I encourage you to give it a shot. Go to modemethod.com and enter discount code Eric15. That's modemod.com and enter code Eric15 for 15% off. Go get it. All right. We are live. Kevin Dovudevitch. Welcome to the future of fitness, my friend.

Yeah, good to good to talk to you, Eric.

Yeah, and I'm just excited I got your last name right. That was uh little nervous. Everything's going well so far. So here we go. Uh eager to have you on, man. I was ref trying to think where uh your platform came on my radar. I think it was uh uh Jason. That's who it was. It was uh Jason Crow from uh the Sagehouse. He was asking me if I knew about what you guys were up to, and I'm like, no. And then I looked it up. I'm like, well, maybe I should know. And here we are. So I'm eager to learn a lot about it. I mean, we're doing some really interesting things. I noticed you have some news to break, um, but maybe we can just start with a little bit of your background and then uh we'll we'll go from there. Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

And you know, it it is interesting. Like we we're one of those companies that we think everybody knows what we do, and then you know, you you find out that you're actually operating in stealth mode for some some organizations, and then you know, finally have to kind of get everybody up to speed on what's actually going on. But uh yeah, my background, so you know, by trade, I guess you can call me a you know software developer, right? Like a problem solver. We as some of the co-founders of Coach Me Plus were actually all involved in a uh in a business together prior to this, and you know, we had served a lot of different entrepreneurs and building technologies for their startups, getting involved from a marketing standpoint, and um, you know, helping uh creative ad agencies and things like that develop and launch different technologies. And uh a couple of projects had come up during our tenure as as this agency and uh a couple of more fitness-related, including a project that we had done for the Buffalo Sabres from the NHL. Um their players were getting their off-season programming and content in paper format, or like legitimately like getting a notebook, uh, you know, your trapper keeper, three-ring binder for your off-season strength conditioning workouts, your nutrition education, um, you know, what supplements should should you avoid and and uh things that you should take and so on. And we did that on a CD-ROM. You know, this is something that we took from paper to digital, and instead of uh, you know, this giant notebook, players would get the CD-ROM, pop it into their laptop and get the day's workouts or get their um, you know, nutrition guidance and in and all these other things. We did that project for several years. And the the idea that, you know, I mean, this is this is pre-mobile phone, right? Or pre pre-iPhone. We we we would kick around this idea, and it's like, well, are people gonna take their laptops to the gym and like put a CD in? Or is this gonna be a website? Like, how do we do this? And it never really kind of you know sineated into this like single great idea until uh until the mobile platforms finally came out. So um fast forward or go backwards to 2010, 2011, and we begin to really kind of you know put this into an online version, and our first customers were in that pro sports space, right? You're talking NHL teams, you're talking peak performers, top, you know, top highly motivated individuals who who don't need a lot of you know um extra help to get you know involved in in fitness. You just need coaches to kind of guide them through their um through their conditioning and workouts and nutrition and and just about everything else. We launch our first version of this. We get our you know, our our local team, the Buffalo Sabres, involved. We uh my my partner and I, Steven Ostro, literally drive to, you know, we drive to Toronto where they they hold the NHL Combine and and literally sneak into this combine room, right? Like it's being it's being held by the airport. We know some people there, like let's let's get in there and talk to some other coaches and signed two more teams. We signed the Oilers and the Blue and the Blue Jackets. Like it was like, oh my god, there's a real need for this. Um so we ran this a little side by side with some other things that we're doing. Uh Philadelphia Eagles show up, uh Oregon Ducks show up, like these, you know, these these high-profile organizations, and we realized that we actually had something here. And Coach Me Plus is born. Now, working in pro sports is excellent. It's a lot of fun. You get to, you know, get behind the scenes on a lot of these organizations and things like that, but the market size is so small and finite. There's only so many pro teams in in North America and and and even in the world. And what we had what we had realized was, you know, not only do we have a tool that would be um helpful for organizations like a professional football team, but we also thought that this would be a great solution for gym owners and fitness providers and and things like that. But it turns out we were way too early. For for anybody who's ever owned a gym, whoever's whoever's been a personal trainer, they believe in that personal relationship, right? Like that one-on-one, hands-on, you need to be face to face to work with somebody. And prior to the pandemic, 95% of gym and fitness revenue happened inside the four walls of that fitness facility. Well, obviously the pandemic changed everything, opened up the whole um, you know, idea of like hybrid at home, gone, you know, in the gym, streaming channel, whatever it is. But now that traditional four walls of your fitness center have broken into three walls where you have your facility, but you also need to engage with your membership outside of that facility. And that's where uh the company has taken a turn for uh a very interesting approach over the past couple of years.

Right on. So, what is it that you guys do? I and I was, you know, I was talking to you beforehand. You you had mentioned that in one of your posts, and this this caught my eye. And I maybe it'll set the table. Is you you consider coaching plus the first enterprise level fitness platform. So let's start there. What does that mean exactly? What does that mean to you? What does that mean to the world?

So no, it's a it's a great, it's a great question because we didn't we never realize where we were as an organization until you begin to get outside input. And um, when we started working from um professional sports into large fitness organizations, uh started working in the US military with the Navy, um, you know, most recently in the Army, there's this uh, you know, you're just kind of like living in your day-to-day operations and you're working into anything else like that. And everybody would compare what we do to fitness apps. You're like, oh, it's like my fitness pal, but it does this, or it's like, you know, this other gym and fitness tool, but it does, you know, these other things and so on. And while at the surface, your your user experience might feel like my fitness pal or feel like these other um, you know, kind of like easy, small applications, like I'm just gonna track my workouts or my nutrition. The um what's happening behind the scenes is a very large piece of software that can manage locations, roles, and permissions for who gets to see different parts of the data, um, different um different expertise in the system. So you might have strength coaches working side by side with nutritionists or dietitians, occupational therapists, sleep therapists, um, you know, physical therapy, athletic trainers. Like everybody's got these different roles within a large structure, a large organization. And I still to this day cannot find another fitness technology that can operate in that environment. Right? Like where you're where you're thinking, you're thinking along the lines of like a Salesforce or you know, other large tools where you need to control who gets to see what and who has access access to these tools. How do you manage multiple locations, multiple permissions, and so on? And and here we are as this you know fitness-facing front-end app with the power of you know a large organizational structure behind it. And I know companies like Mind Body and things like that have that mindset in the billing or scheduling parts of the fitness industry. But when it comes to actually tracking workouts, tracking nutrition, uh providing educational content materials and things like that, I simply don't see any other tools out there on the enterprise that that allow you to do that.

Yeah, that's interesting. So if I'm gonna repeat back what you said just so I understand it. So it's basically, you know, it's built for the capacity to handle large uh bodies, large groups that have, you know, um, yeah, like you said, I mean, just a lot of people working, a lot of cooks in the kitchen in various different departments, right? Um data is flowing in all different directions. I presume you have a lot of integrations, you have a lot of uh ways, you know, um, you know, inputs uh on that side of things. So it just manages the whole things for the complexity of a large organization. Is that is that a good summation of what you're what you're saying?

No, that's absolutely correct. Like you you've read it back perfectly. The the uh ability to build in um your business's rules into how this application works is is key, right? So if you're if you're uh you're opening up a facility, you're gonna focus on um you know uh weight loss and care, right? Like just nutrition, um, you know, some some physical fitness activities, uh, maybe there's educational content, there's you know, there's a structure to how you're running your your shop, right? Um and in this, you know, I walk into the doors of your gym and I'm gonna meet with the dietitian and I'm gonna receive a plan. Um maybe we'll have some touch points, and that, you know, so I'll get this plan on paper. Uh I'll talk to you via, you know, text or WhatsApp or some other chat tool. Um maybe we'll do workouts in the studio or outside of the studio. I might track my nutrition in my fitness pal and and you know, take a screenshot and text that to you. Like all of these different rules and tenets are built into the structure of a fitness organization. Well, we can build those rules into the app that we have, right? So you have a structured um plan that you want to give somebody, a 90-day fitness plan. You want to feed them uh nutritional guidance and educational information, you want to receive wearable device tracking from their Apple Watch and track their meals and all this other stuff. Like that kind of flow is usually given in a very rigid kind of app experience, whereas we really try to understand the focus of your business and give you something that's gonna work within the rules of how you do things.

So I the question uh, and this is you know for more clarity for for me and my listeners, the um now if you're gonna compare this to you know like athlete management platforms that uh maybe don't offer the enterprise level service that that you guys do and and features, who who would be that type of competition?

So um typically when somebody's looking for like a way to connect with their clients or their athletes, they might look for uh a workout planning app. Okay. So you might run into um like a true coach or a trainerize or uh team builder or you know, applications like that where you're like, oh yeah, I just want to track a workout, and um, you know, that seems to be like the the first thing that people look for when they're trying to, you know, get into this hybrid kind of experience. But you've hit the wall pretty quickly, right? Like, okay, I can deliver my workouts or I can work as a single person or maybe a team of like two or three, you know, uh coaches or or trainers in a single organization, like that's fine for that type of experience. But the minute that you begin to think outside of fitness as only a physical domain, and you start thinking about sleep quality and nutrition and mental health and all of the components of of health and wellness, you break those, you break those down pretty quickly. And that's where um you know the the competition begins to shake out and we're we're we're short on a list of you know potential solutions.

Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating. And I mean you mentioned stuff like Salesforce, uh, you know, is is a probably a really good example to to compare to for what you guys are building in this space. Uh one of the things I've noticed, because you know, I've back in my uh I've worn a lot of different hats over my business career, but you know, a lot of times I start working with these larger platforms and uh it's too much for one to three people to really manage and handle. Like you have to bring in like a third-party consultant, like Salesforce has you know so many different third-party independent consultancies to help people set it up properly or manage it. Is that is that like a market that you guys are starting to see necessary? Because uh, I'm hearing what you say, and it sounds very robust, right? But also to someone who's you know monkey brain like myself who would just hammer on a keyboard, like I would need help. So, do you you know, where where does it come in for like the support? And we'll talk about the DOD in a minute because I think it's just a great example to you know, 9,000, you know, choosers, I think I saw in there. So let's start with the first question, then we'll get into the example of the DOD.

So, you know, the hardest part about the hardest part about learning out where your business is gonna play out is you walk in with a plan and then watch the plan explode and then you know, like figure, figure it out along the way. Yeah, and we we we had walked in with this plan, we're gonna be like, where'd it be the fitness platform? And everybody's just gonna go in and know what to do, and so on. And you're like, oh, like why am I on a call for an hour and a half with like this personal trainer trying to understand, you know, what he's doing to help his clients, and you know, the the price point at the end is so like he can't afford it, like you can't do that. So we had to learn um how to kind of like dumb down our own stuff, right? Like, so yeah, okay, you you think of Coach Me Plus, you're like, okay, what do I got? Well, I got workouts and nutrition and mental and spiritual and sleep and like all these things. You're like, man, that's a lot. Can I just get a workout builder? Yeah, yeah, you can. And we we began to shrink, shrink down uh the massiveness of what we do into these really easy to bite packages. So, like, no kidding, for as little as 19 bucks a month, a personal trainer can walk in, get a very basic, I need to assign my workouts to my people kind of experience, and they're done. And that's it. And it's a very simple tool. We turn everything else off. But then as that person grows and begins to think about maybe opening a facility or expanding services or things like that, the system will grow with you. So, as you know, they're gonna start start thinking about dietitian plans on top of my workouts. All right, turn that module on, the 19 bucks a month now goes into a different package, and you kind of go from there. So it was uh it was a it was a difficult lesson to learn. Like, how do you dumb it down into the gold, silver, bronze uh kind of experience? And and you know, we have to listen to our customers. We have to understand what they really, really want. Because if if we had walked in thinking we're gonna deliver what they need, it never would have worked. Instead, it's like, okay, listen to the personal trainers, listen to the physical therapists, listen, and deliver packages that make sense to them so we can reduce the amount of stress of loading up and getting in and doing these things. Something as simple as um, well simple now, but something as simple as like turning health kit on and and having your Apple Watch go in, or if I've got a whoop or a polar or a Garmin or Aura ring or whatever the cool new tech is, that personal trainer or that gym owner wants to see that information because it helps that relationship, and that's that's what we're here to do. We're help, we're here to help that relationship become stronger. But it's so complicated. Like if you walk into a gym and you say, okay, everybody raise your hand, how many people do you have in Apple Watch? 30%. How many people have a uh you know, Polar, 10%, 5%? Like it's all over the place. There's a lot of complex ideas in that, and we really have to work hard to simplify that experience so that the the user, you know, the end user, whether it be uh you know, a client, an athlete, a soldier, whomever, super simple app experience, connect that data, and to then to the the coach or the person who's on the other side, um, be able to quickly see that information at a glance and make decisions. Um that that did take a lot of work to bundle those things down into packages so that so that those folks could engage in it.

Yeah. And I I'm hearing too that uh, you know, you're you're looking to work with a wide breath from the individual trainer all the way up to the large enterprise account. I mean, as you look forward into uh, and we're keep people inside, it's Q1 2022 as we record this, but as you guys look forward into the next few years, are you looking to really focus on that enterprise level? I mean, I would imagine, you know, you could get a couple big enterprise accounts and uh it's kind of a game changer, right? I mean, let's, you know, it has it has been. Are you refocusing it all, you know, now that you've learned so much over the last 10 years?

So the one thing, the one massive lesson that we've learned was um the fitness industry, you know, kind of started off as like you go to the gym and you talk to a personal trainer and that's it. But now the you walk into your um your primary, you know, healthcare provider and they have a fitness component to what they're doing. Um maybe your office has a corporate wellness arm of what you're doing. Uh kids now go to, you know, kids' gyms. Um your your your coach or your trainer, that persona, that that that fitness expert, whether it be somebody who's an exercise physiologist or you know, a physical therapist or whatever pipeline you know they went through to become involved in this fitness industry, is showing up everywhere. And the problems that they're solving remain the same. That is, I need to enrich my relationship with the person I'm trying to, you know, help through their fitness goals. And I need to do that in you know, through technology. But the technology is is evolving so quickly. I've got a Peloton, I've got a this, I've got a, you know, I've got all this stuff. I don't want to think about that. I need a simple way for me to connect better with my athlete. Our job is to do that. Now, that relationship, that coach and athlete relationship shows up at as a personal trainer, it shows up at the gym, it shows up at your physical therapy office, clinical, you know, social uh, or I'm sorry, your um uh corporate wellness and your healthcare, in the military. Like the military is hiring thousands of strength edition coaches right now. Like that's never happened before. So, like this persona, this this profession is reaching all parts of our lives, and the solution is really solving the problem for that coach. Now, whatever industry that shows up in, whether it be the personal trainer around the corner or the US Army, um, the the end solution doesn't change all that much. Really, just you know, what changes is like how you scale it and and what do you do with that. So we are finding ourselves in um, you know, my my uh coaches and and business advisors are would would constantly yell at me, like, focus on one market. And it's like, I am. He's an NSCA strength conditioning coach, like that's the guy, but he works everywhere. So, like, you know, it's like you're you're kind of stuck with like, okay, like I want to serve this person, um, and you know, how do I do that? So we're uh we're finding ourselves in unusual places. We just we just sort of closed up a um uh a year-long pilot with a mining company. Now, I never would have thought that a human performance fitness you know individual would be in charge of ensuring that these mining these miners who are going into uh you know like a precious metals mine are dealing with human performance issues, sleep, uh fatigue, dehydration, um, you know, not bringing the proper meals with them down to you know down to the mine shaft, like all these things. And you're like, yeah, that makes sense, but now they have an actual like structure to achieve better performance and better outcomes through a fitness professional. And in in this particular case, we saw dehydration rates go, or uh yeah, dehydration rates go from 60% down to 10%. We saw like a doubling of their like you know subjective wellness scores. So people who were going home feeling better because they ate better, they slept better, they were hydrated, you know, they um, you know, they they did some mindfulness activities and things like that. Like that never would have been uh something I would have even considered if you were talking about this 20 years ago, going, yeah, we work with a strength coach with a professional hockey team. Well, now I'm working with a human performance advisor for a mining company. Like, very unusual, but the solution remains the same. So we do have to always like be very careful to like maintain our focus and go after like the right kind of um market and everything else like that. But uh, you know, honestly, the same folks are showing up to our doorstep with similar problems, but it's it's a very open kind of industry uh mindset now.

Yeah, you know, this year was the first time I heard the term industrial athlete. And uh and it came up um, I want to give credit where credit is. I think it was Stephen Webster from A Sensei, because you know they do movement capture and uh assessment. And uh it's a fascinating term. And then when you think about it, you're like, oh my God, what a huge potential market. Like that's huge, right? Train workers, uh, you know, mine, like anybody, like any factory worker, like that's that's a big deal. These people need to stay healthy. And it means a lot to the company if these people are healthy and happy and staying there. I mean, retention, that's something that we've seen, you know, this year is employee retention has come to the forefront. Companies are willing to do a lot to keep their employees safe, happy, and healthy and there. And that that's a big deal now. 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 ban 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 finished 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 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 Insight Tracker store. Just go to insight tracker.com forward slash future to check it out, learn more, and get your own. Insight tracker.com forward slash future. On to the show.

Yeah, and it shows up, it shows up in like your family life, right? Like my father was a um, you know, he worked in a steel plant, right? Like uh I remember the worker safety books when we were kids because they were like the most gross books ever, because they would open up the page and it would show you like what happens if you stick your hand to this machine. You're like Augur. Like, don't ever do that. Um, but now you're like, you know, I can't imagine my dad coming home saying, Hey, by the way, I have a meal plan and they want me to sleep, and um, you know, they provided me with hydration, and uh like that wasn't happening 30 years ago. And now it's commonplace, and you know, like the quality of life for those workers improves. Um, you're reducing muscular skeletal injuries and and and risk to you know the cost of uh employee uh injuries, you're improving safety records because people are more alert. I mean, you're gonna go down into this, you're gonna go, like my father, you know, was was operating multi-million dollar pieces of equipment on no sleep, you know, crazy kids at home. I was one of them. Um, you know, like probably just pounding coffee all day to stay through it and everything else like that, and you're just like, hope it works. Well, it doesn't. And, you know, I or it did, but you know, now you're thinking about okay, let's let's put this additional layer of safety on uh with those folks. And what used to be, you know, earplugs and and safety goggles are now becoming more rounded in um you know in in overall health and wellness. And again, we're not dictating what the fitness industry is doing. The fitness industry is showing up in all of these different parts of our lives. And again, our our main focus and value of what we do is to improve that relationship. And if we can do that through wearables and and and other you know uh technologies and things like that, and put that into their hands on a on a mobile device, then then then we're doing our job well.

Yeah, awesome, man. And so a couple more clarity questions for you, and then I want to get into the DOD stuff because I find that fascinating. The um, so I I understand you know, workout and fitness tracking. That's you know, um talks about ad nauseum on the show. Uh wearable integrations totally makes sense, right? Nutrition. Um the mental and spiritual wellness side, how how are you what are the inputs for data on that? Is it all subjective? Is there any objective measures? Like, what does that look like for the coach and the the consumer on that side?

So the the you know, it we'll we'll just like kind of segue right into um the military on this because it's something that we've we've been aware of for a very, very long time, but we've we've very rarely seen this um actually play out in in the real world. Our first our first exposure to a mental readiness coach, quote unquote, was um uh the starting goalie for the Buffalo Sabres back in the 2000s had a coach, and her job was to make sure he was focused and you know did all these um mental rep exercises and things like that with him, which is pretty commonplace now you think about it. Like your quarterback's closing his eyes and doing the reps and and all this other stuff in the NFL on a daily basis. Well, that was structured for this, for this, uh, for this goalie back in back in the uh 2000s. And um she was putting um videos and PDFs into the system. Uh so there was like these breathing exercises and talk down, anxiety talk down uh clips, and um, you know, just sleep talk-down uh audio and things like that. So really just you know, the things that we think of in like a headspace kind of a uh experience, um, where you have a structured way to engage in mindfulness activities. Um, but then like it just kind of evaporated, like nobody else is really doing it. Fast forward to the last couple of years, and we've been watching the army um bring that to the the overall shape of fitness in in the military. And they call it the holistic health and fitness program, H2F. There are five pillars of this H2F program: physical, nutrition, sleep, mental, and spiritual. Now, everybody loves to focus on the physical. How many bench presses can you do? How many, how fast is your run? How fast can you jump? Or how high can you jump? Like those things are measurable, and you can, you know, compete against your buddies and you know, do group PT and do all these things where you're like, hey, we're all gonna run together, we're all gonna go out there and deadlift together, and now we've got an obstacle course. Like that is one of those things where everybody knows how many push-ups and sifts you can do. But nobody knows how many mental things you because it's not a it's not an easy to measure and and nail down kind of thing. So, how do you get into these softer skills and understand the value that you're trying to provide in in this technology um and and and shape that into a program? And basically what we've done is you know, we've had to learn this over the past couple of years, and and very um recently in uh 2022, we went through a six-month um competitive pilot in the army to understand can you deliver value across the mental, spiritual, and sleep domains, as well as the nutrition and physical? And we were able to actually do that pretty effectively. So, some of the tactics that we used, um, back to that, like, I don't know what yoga is or why it's important, or I don't know what this mental anxiety thing you want me to go look at. Like, if you put that in a library on somebody's phone and let them go figure it out themselves and search for it, chances are their the curiosity will like drive people to it. And it's like, all right, what's this yoga thing all about? I'm gonna go watch this and and actually you know check it out. And you try to make it as easy as possible for for people to self-explore and look through uh the technology and through our application to find information from this this trusted source. Now, um that's one way to help engage. The other way is to um provide a uh uh um kind of like this this curriculum of information, intro 101 to yoga and why it's important. And that might have a series of videos and PDFs and infographics and maybe even like a survey, like how are you feeling before this? And now watch this video and how are you feeling afterwards? Um, or you know, what is your, you know, we're we're noticing in a in a daily wellness um survey that your mood and your sleep deprivation are really tied together because you're just telling us you're you're feeling like crap, you didn't sleep well, you're feeling like crap, you didn't sleep well. Well, those things are really tied together. So why don't we talk about that and deliver some educational information on how to sleep better so that we can improve your mental state? And what has happened is this this whole series of educational and support tools have shaped themselves around the problem. And the problem is um I see a poster on the wall that says it's mental readiness month. What do I do with that? Right? I don't know. Right? So so like we had to solve these questions. Be ready mentally is what you do. Yeah, yeah. I'm good. Yeah, I I'm a trooper, I'm feeling great. Um, so uh delivering educational content has been very, very effective. Uh tracking things in these like daily wellness questionnaires and um you know surveys and things like that have been very effective as well. And a lot of folks in the military are being proactive about bringing in their occupational therapy team, their uh physical therapy teams, and things like that, and shaping um shaping these softer skills programs into the system. I'll give you an example for the spiritual readiness as well. So, you know, the military is very close to um having a strength in spiritual readiness as part of the overall experience. I mean, there's chaplains in the military since since day one, and they have to do this in the very non-religious, non-denominal, dominant, I can't say that word, um, kind of way, right? Like, hey, I'm just here to help you and here to guide you, and offer you spiritual guidance in whatever uh religion or non-religion you practice. Now, that's a very heavy subject, right? Well, we're gonna do that with an app. No, you're not. Like it's like you can't really do too much in the technology to do that, but what you can do is offer a way for that soldier and that chaplain to connect quickly through the app, like, hey, I'd like to talk to you or I'd like to see you, and then take that experience outside the application. And when we ran through this pilot, um, and I'll be careful not to share anything I'm not supposed to, but let's just say there was an interesting amount of people who said, I would like to talk to the chaplain today. And the chaplain, um, you know, they did their job. We were hands off. Uh, our our job is done, like we're we're not allowed to really do anything else in engagement in that. But we asked the chaplain afterwards, like, how did things go? And he said, nothing bad happened. This was great. But for somebody who a young population of 19, 20, 18, you know, 18 to 22 year olds are in the military, they're used to talking through technology. They're used to chatting and apps and all this other stuff. If they have a button that says, I'd like to talk to someone, they'll use it. And as long as those chaplains and those occupational therapists and mental readiness folks can get that information and know that they need to now have that engagement outside the technology, um, we've improved the outcomes for those soldiers. So, you know, the like shrinking it down to the quick, easy thing is like have ways to distribute, distribute educational content, uh, put out learning programs so people can, you know, check this stuff out and view it, you know, either in a structured format or just freeform, and have a uh a way to raise your hand and say, I need some help and talk to somebody. Like that that's all you really need to do as a technology company and facilitate those relationships. Um, and that's really where we've been where we've been successful. Like we go from workouts to uh connection between individuals and and who whomever their coach may be. Uh, and that coach can take the shape of uh many different types of personnel and people. So like we're we're really good at making sure that the usability is easy, the connection is easy, and that we're driving those relationships, those encounters, those one-to-one communications, those, those, those, you know, things that that make the coach and athlete relationship special. Like that's that's where we try to put everything.

Yeah, it's it's it's really an interesting value proposition. I mean, I I've never been in the military. A lot of my family has. And, you know, traditionally it's it's like you're having a hard time, you know, personally with your whatever spirituality or mental wellness in the military. The answer is generally nut up, right? Like shut up and nut up and shut up would be the the normal, but to have these resources where you can get to a chaplain and talk about whatever it may be, you know, something traumatically happened, or you know, just even as simple as like, I miss my family. Like you can't just say that to you know your your superior uh in the military, right? It's just not gonna not gonna work very well.

Traditionally it's never been that way, yeah. And and usually it's like, okay, yeah, I'm having a problem, but you know what? The chaplain is like across the base, and I got other stuff I gotta do today. I'll deal with it later. And you can programilize, you put it away. But you know, it's a very, very delicate subject when it comes to military suicides, but the military has completely um, I would say, lifted the veil on the stigma behind it to realize that we've got to help people, right? Like we need to we need to be there because folks are going through the worst, you know, and going, going and getting deployed can be very, very difficult. Um, and then coming home and like you said, shut up or you know, shut up and just deal with it, suck it up, embrace the suck, whatever you want to call it. Like we used to call it shell shock, we used to call it, you know, uh, all these things, and then now it's PTSD, you know. But you know, all of those factors are usually just people, I'll just shove that down in my stomach for some other time. Well, guess what, man? That that comes back. It it always comes back, it doesn't go away. So um, we've been very fortunate to watch uh the army embrace the softer sides of uh overall holistic health and fit and fitness and really think about every single one of these pillars as an important piece of the uh of the structure of what fitness looks like. So again, we could talk workouts and nutrition all day long, like in you know, supersets and you know, set and reprogressions and model block model periodization and you know, uh precision nutrition and macros, and like, yeah, that's all great, but uh how you doing? How you feeling? You know, and it's like didn't get any sleep last night, had a fight with you know my girlfriend or my wife, uh, the kids are up with colds, uh, you know, mom's not doing well with a thing, like all these things add these mental stresses on top of, you know, anyone, and that affects physical performance and and everything else.

Yeah. It's and to be able to do it at scale. I mean, that's where you guys come in, right? I mean, like let's you maybe talk about the enormity of the project you're working on with a DOD. I mean, I I think I saw somewhere and I alluded to it earlier of 9,000 participants in this program. Like, well, how many people are you working on with what is the scale of this thing?

So um the way the army is rolling this out, they're they're going to have 110 uh brigades that have this H2F staff. And each of these staffs are about 35 people, and it's a blend of strength coaches, physical therapists, nutritionists, the whole stack. Um, those 35 people are serving between 1,500 and 5,000 soldiers. So you talk about, you know, the military loves its org charts. Um, you talk about what that org chart looks like, and you're you're dealing with a structure that is pretty wide and flat, like 110 brigades, 35 sets 3,500, you know, practitioners dealing with a million people. How do you scale that and how do you actually effectively roll something like that out? And the answer is you need to be able to spread the load of the work across the entire organization. If I walk in and I'm like, oh yeah, the strength coaches are gonna do everything. No, they're not. They gotta go, they have a full day already, right? Like they gotta make sure that they're safety with the workouts and and you know, this person has a uh you know, fitness challenge or this one has an injury or whatever it might be, and and go in and personalize the experience and things like that. Like their job is already full. How do we make that easier? Well, we give them the the bare minimum amount of tools that they need to deliver those fitness programs and you know, track attendance and activity and things like that, and like that's all they really need to do. Their information is then going to their uh performance advisor who's then you know reviewing multiple groups and you know and so on. Um the physical therapists need to be able to focus on their jobs, dietitians need to be able to go and review macros and body weights, and you know, everybody in the organization has a role and a responsibility. And our job is to deliver the most effective amount of information to that role and to that responsibility without getting overloaded with too much, right? So, our ability to take a person's um, you know, fitness journey and experience and turn that into some charts and graphs and you know, how are you doing? I'm getting stronger, I'm getting fatter, whatever it might be. Um, deliver that into a large population, allow that uh organization to uh compartmentalize on who gets to control different parts of the data, allows you to deploy in these large organizations. And I'll give you a small, um, a small example. The army has a um a role called the master fitness trainer. It sounds pretty interesting. It sounds like somebody who's gonna work out a lot and help you with your workout. Well, typically, um, that master fitness trainer is like a tank mechanic or an office worker or something along those lines. They have a primary job. They just happen to be probably like somebody who works out a lot or is interested in fitness and went for a couple of classes that the military offers so that you can then offer guidance in a fitness framework around, you know, your group. So, you know, I happen to be the most fit guy in my group of 30. Somebody designated me as the master fitness trainer. Now I gotta go take this course and make sure everybody's doing their workouts. But I got a day job too, right? So I gotta go fix that tank. Uh guys, just do a bunch of push-ups. I'll see you later. Um, let me know if anybody gets hurt. Like that's typically how it's been handled. Well, what if that person all they had to do was check attendance and open up their app, take three seconds to take a look at it and go, okay, these five people didn't do their stuff today, hit a notification button, they all get a little buzz notification, everybody's off and you know, doing their work. Or the one person who is out of whack from that 30 needs a little bit of help. Now you're reducing the workload for that master fitness trainer so that they can go off and you know do their primary work, but still kind of maintain this this uh this other stack of responsibilities. And that can be that little story plays out in just about every role that we work with in the military. And for the army to um look at this, the only way that we were effective and in and successful in the uh the six-month pilot that we ran back in 2022 was to um be able to spread the load and uh allow different folks to kind of like be really successful and focused on their one job. And now that we're um currently extended into that next phase, you know, the army is looking to figure out how to roll out the the technology to a million people and 3,500 practitioners and 110 groups, and you know, the commanders that deal with them. And if we had taken a top-down approach or, you know, uh picked one person to be like responsible for everything approach, it would have failed completely. So um, much like listening to that personal trainer at 19 bucks a month to figure out how does he better connect with the 20 folks that he's you know providing fitness plans for, we spent years listening to the army talk about how that structure is set up and delivering them solutions that actually made sense in that in that large organization. And um, you know, as a company, it was uh a lot of lessons to learn and a lot of tough challenges to go through and things like that. But it really starts off with listening first and understanding what the problem set is to be able to deliver working solutions.

Wow, man, what a uh what a challenging and rewarding problem to be working on. You know, I it really like I'm I'm excited for you. I think it's great. I mean, especially as you get to extend that opportunity out to the, you know, to more of the the military uh family is is is huge. So well done on that. Um, you know, we we have you know just a few minutes left, but I I do want to get some insights from you. Like uh you this year I I saw that you raised a million, right? And I mean, in today's day and age, it's not a ton, but you know, it's really helpful. But what what do you w what's going on for next year for 2023? What do you what do you what do you think and what are you looking at?

So um we're we've been very deliberate about how we capitalize the company and how we raise our money and and and what we do. And and one of the things that you know we could have raised a whole lot more, but really focused on what is the effect we need to have to to grow the company the right way now that we have these opportunities in front of us. And when we raised the the uh the the capital that we did, it was really to just kind of put some extra juice into the uh business development pipeline because the technology works, like everything's there. It's like, okay, let's go sell some more stuff, and we could sell more stuff if we hire some more marketing and sales people. So that's really what the focus was. On the um technology side, uh my job is to make things easier all the time, every time, all the time, no matter what, right? Fewer clicks. Clear job description. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just make things, just keep making things easier. Um, you know, it's it's fewer clicks, it's uh, you know, easier integrations. Like people are busy enough, man. They don't want to like have to think about I gotta look at this chart if I hook these five things. Like, no, man, it's gotta be like one click, easy, simple, and and so on. And our job is to forever continuously do that. And when the new cool hardware comes out, the next, the next thing after Aura Ring, you know, whatever, whatever that form takes, whether it be, you know, in your belt or your underwear or your t-shirt or in your hat or boots or wherever it might be, like it's gonna happen. We just gotta be able to make it easy as possible to to pull that information in and make coaches and athletes last uh and you know, kind of improve that. Like our goal, like personally, um, I enjoy the experience of helping coaches, right? Because uh I I you know I know that their their jobs are hard enough as it is, and whatever I can do to provide them tools to impact their lives, um how you know, for for me, like that's the reward. Interestingly enough, and and not by any you know, direct way did we ever think about this, you start thinking about the scale of the army and you start thinking about a million people. We're now impacting the lives of those people and their families because now they're going home with less stress, fewer injuries, and less issues. And now you're impacting multiple millions of lives. And that never would have occurred to me as we were doing this. But I gotta say, when you think about, you know, where you are and what you're doing as a as a life mission, um, that gets me going. It really does. So knowing that we are really making a positive impact on potentially millions of people is is is quite incredible. So um, you know, just keep that focus in mind as we keep moving forward.

Yeah, right on. So uh last question for you, Kevin, and I try to ask us as frequent as possible, but in in the spirit of collaboration and and you know the fitness community, what do you need right now? What should people uh want to hear from people? What do you what do you want to hear about?

You know, um honestly the uh the biggest thing is you know, how can we solve unique problems? Uh and it goes back to what we've been doing from from day one as as technology guys, is how do we solve unique problems? But now we have tools to do that. So when when uh an organization is sitting there trying to structure like, uh we're gonna buy these wearables, we're going to uh buy this app, this app, this app, and this app, like back up a little bit. Like you can you can achieve a lot of these things uh through a single piece of technology. So if you've got a box of really weird problems that you think you you can't solve, um bring it to us. We'll we'll be happy to take care of it.

Yeah, right on. And and if you want people to go anywhere particular online or if they want to reach out to you, Kevin, where uh where would you like them to go?

Yeah, I mean obviously coachmeplus.com, um, you know, my my most of my uh social media posts are on LinkedIn and things like that. But uh yeah, Coachme Plus.com is is the the place to go. And we'll be uh we'll be doing a lot of new educational content over the next year or so. So um feel free to subscribe to our newsletter um and and just you know understand uh you know we're we're we're over here trying to solve big problems.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for spending some time. Congratulations, you know. Uh what they say, overnight success took 10 years. Only takes 10 years. Only takes ten years. So really appreciate your time, Kevin. Keep up the great work, and I look forward to uh maybe get you back on the next year or two and just hearing an update on all this everything that you're doing. It's it's really uh it's fascinating, great work. So thank you again, um, ladies and gentlemen. Kevin Dubadovich. Thank you, Eric. Talk to you soon. 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. 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 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 Feature of Fitness. Have a great day.