Kyle Jones - iCRYO & The Future of Longevity Franchising

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[00:02:06] All right, well, you're live. Kyle Jones, welcome to the Future of Fitness, my friend. How's it going, man? I always love to be involved with the future of things, man. Well, I try. I try. Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur in this industry, but yeah, we're trying to push this rock forward, absolutely. And this is my first recording of 2025, so I'm knocking off the rust. It took like three or four weeks off, but it's a really cool way to start.

[00:02:29] Admire what you guys are doing at iCryo and it seems like you have a very solid growth trajectory, but not super aggressive. It seems like you're doing it kind of the right clip, but we'll get more insights into that and the timing. You know, like we were talking right before recording of the consumer demand for these types of services and offerings seems to be very solid, if not huge, right? But demand for these types of things. We'll go over your service offerings and all that.

[00:02:59] So yeah, man, let's just get into it. You know, I always like to start, if you don't mind, Kyle, with just your background. How'd you get to be CEO and co-founder of iCryo? And then we'll take it from there. Yeah, well, that's a long story, but I'll shorten it up. You know, I grew up as a multi-sport athlete since the age of probably four or five. My dad had me in, you know, every sport known to man. And so, you know, athletics and just recovery and, you know, exercise and really discipline and, you know, all the things that are in a sport, right?

[00:03:27] So you talk about teamwork, talk about discipline, you talk about, you know, the sport in itself, you know, being around people. I'm a big people person. You know, I kind of feed off of energy. And so I kind of love to dish that back and feed, you know, give everybody else my energy too. And that's what kind of spawned into, you know, me working towards what, you know, was going to be a doctorate level degree in physical therapy. I wanted to be a physical therapist.

[00:03:52] I loved, you know, that one-on-one interaction with people to help them just become better, whether it's mentally, physically, emotionally, relationally, you know, just all the aspects of life that you look at. And, you know, it was interesting to me as I started to embark on my physical therapy degree to become a therapist. I stumbled across kind of the biohacking space, right? Back in 2011, 2012, nobody really knew what these modalities were.

[00:04:19] You know, cryotherapy, the first chamber had just hit the states in 2009, 2010. And so none of this was mainstream. None of it was talked about. Nobody was talking about red light therapy. Nobody was talking about infrared saunas. Nobody even knew what NAD was or any of those things that we talk about or do today. And so for me, it was a timing thing.

[00:04:39] You know, I always talk about there, you know, one or two pivotal moments in everybody's life where you can either, you know, take that moment and run with it and achieve great things, or you can let it pass right by you. And that was one of those moments for me. You know, I had to make a decision that I want to keep pursuing the physical therapy aspect and open my own practice. Or did I want to take, you know, what it kind of landed in my lap as, you know, cryotherapy, compression, sauna, and figure out if there was something else better for me. And I did that.

[00:05:07] You know, I leaned on my mentors in life. I mean, I kind of outweighed options and I took that leap of faith. So I actually got my undergrad in exercise science, kinesiology, you know, business management, all the above. You know, I really knew that I wanted to open up my own business someday. I've had that entrepreneurial spirit from my father, but I knew it was going to be in wellness, right? That was kind of my calling. And so when I pivoted, I ended up not finishing my degree from a physical therapy perspective. And I dove right in.

[00:05:36] I ended up managing a clinic. It was half PT, half wellness. They did a little bit of recovery post-workout exercise, strengthening type stuff. And then we ended up building a very small recovery portion in the back of the PT clinic where we had a couple cryotherapy chambers. We had some compression sleeves. We had, you know, a couple infrared saunas. It was kind of like a recovery corner, if you will. And, you know, it just lit my fire, man. I got really excited. I got very passionate very quickly. So, basically, I dove right in.

[00:06:06] I managed that business for about three years. And in 2015, you know, or 2014, at the end of that year, I started thinking, man, what if this could become its own business? Like, what if you create a retail concept? Not really a med spa, because med spas are more aesthetically driven with injectables and fillers and whatnot. But, you know, could you create a modality-based business that really thrived off of recovery and overall wellness? So, in 2015, I opened up the first iCryo location, and that's when the craziness started.

[00:06:36] So, you know, fast forward, I know we're going to talk about it on the podcast, but there's a lot of things that have happened since opening that first location. The journey of getting to that location, that first one, you know, was really a leap of faith. There was nobody doing it at that time frame. Nobody had a business model that was even close to, you know, getting into that new space of, you know, what was it? A med spa? Was it a retail recovery and wellness center? You know, the space really wasn't figured out yet. So... Yeah.

[00:07:05] I mean, that was 10 years ago now, right? Yeah. That's super early to be in that space. And when you first started, I guess one of the major questions I have is about, you guys have a huge menu of service offerings, right? I was looking at them, I don't know, at least, you know, 15, right? From various different categories, and we'll go through it. But it seems like, obviously for the name, you kind of latched on to cryotherapy early on. You know, I guess the question I have for you is like, why cryotherapy early on?

[00:07:34] And how has consumer demand or knowledge about these service offerings kind of directed the way that you increase or add on or take away from the offerings that you guys provide? Yeah. So cryo was the first service in the industry that I really found out about. You know, we started doing cryotherapy in the PT clinic and the stories that I was hearing were the things that really captured my attention. So, you know, we had bought cryotherapy chambers to treat, you know, post-op patients.

[00:08:01] So people that had a total knee replacement or a total hip or, you know, recover from an ACL tear or something like that. You know, we throw them in the cryo chamber for recovery and then we'd start doing whether it was strengthening, range of motion, you know, whatever the calling was for that day in that session. We would stick them in cryotherapy before we even touched them. So, you know, it was wild to me over the course of the first probably six months. Patients of mine were expressing different benefits than what we were treating.

[00:08:29] So were they getting benefits of reduced of swelling and inflammation on the affected area? They were right. That was easy. But then I started to hear stories about, hey, I've got more energy. I'm sleeping better. I'm sleeping deeper. I'm sleeping longer. I'm less stressed. My anxiety is kind of diminishing. We even had a couple of cases where people that were on antidepressants for, you know, 20 plus years were getting reduced on their milligram count. And we actually had one patient that got pulled off for antidepressants in total and complete.

[00:08:58] So I started to really under, I wanted to really understand, you know, there was something happening at a much deeper level than just reduction of, you know, pain. Right. And it's funny when you say reduce inflammation, most people don't realize that. But there's a lot of mental issues that people suffer every day because of inflammation. Right. It's not just physically. It does derive from a mental problem, too. And so I started to dig into the research and I realized that cryotherapy started back in the 70s.

[00:09:25] You know, the original intent was to reduce the inflammation in the body to hopefully treat and control a lot of issues that a person would have on the day to day. And I started to read research articles about anxiety and about depression and about the mental benefits of cryotherapy. And it just blew my mind. And so that's where that that's where the attraction came from first. You know, whole body cryo was kind of the first gym that I stumbled across.

[00:09:50] And it's funny right now when people, you know, talk about the name, look at the logo and they say, man, you guys do a lot more than cryotherapy. You thought you're talking about a name change sooner. And, you know, we've talked about it. We kicked it around. But, you know, I've always wanted people to look at this and see a lot more than cryotherapy. I want them to see, you know, a brand. You know, when you look at an apple, you don't think of a fruit anymore. Right. You think of a multibillion dollar organization and the apple is just the logo. Right. So at the end of the day, you know, I want people to understand that, you know, we're a beacon for wellness.

[00:10:19] If you see an iCryo location, we should and could have everything in the building that you would need to conquer. A lot of the things that people deal with every day. That was on the list of my questions, too, as a potential rebrand of the name due to the vast service offerings that you have. Maybe we'll touch on that a little bit. So now that we get into 2025, how has the service offerings matured? Like what are the, you know, kind of the full categories that you guys offer?

[00:10:46] Or what is the most popular amongst, generally speaking, amongst the people who walk through your doors? Like, yeah. How is it refined now? Yeah. So it's interesting, the evolution of our business model. When I started in 2015, it was just wellness services. We didn't have any medical services. It was truly cryo compression infrared sauna. And that was it. We did some localized cryotherapy, but it was very minimal. In 2015, that's how I launched the company.

[00:11:12] In 2017, we launched the franchise and we started franchising. So a couple of years later, it wasn't until about 2018, 2019, I started to see the IV industry really boom. You know, people were no longer doing IVs for hangovers. They were doing IVs for purposes, right? For a reduction of pain or better sleep or reducing anxiety or athletic performance or, you know, whatever it may be for libido. I mean, there were so many different IV formulations that were coming out.

[00:11:41] The industry was really taken off just as fast as the rest of the industries within recovering wellness. And so I didn't have anybody on my team that was really experienced on the medical aspect of a business. You know, we stuck into that wellness lane. So I had a friend of mine at the time. He was the CEO of a hospital and I was able to recruit him over and he launched our medical model. We launched our medical model from the ground up.

[00:12:05] We brought on chief medical officer, an entire medical advisory board to kind of run the protocols and make sure that we're doing things by the law. And he built that from scratch. We went from, you know, a basic wellness concept in 2015 to a medical directorship model in 2019. And then in 2021, we actually reframed all of our franchise documents. And we're now a medical franchise on papers.

[00:12:29] You know, we operate operationally and logistically just like, you know, an urgent care or a hospital or, you know, any medical facility. We are truly practicing medicine in the building. Now, I never wanted to look like a clinical environment. So, you know, when you walk into a doctor's office, it's really stale. It's really plain. It's the last place you want to be on the planet. So when you walk into an iCryo, I wanted to feel like a home away from home.

[00:12:53] I wanted to feel warm and comforting, aesthetically pleasing, but not so upscale to where you felt like you were out of your comfort zone. You know, something that felt pleasant where anybody could walk in and feel comfortable. And so when you walk into an iCryo, you're going to get that home-like feel. But on the back end operationally, we function just like a medical facility would. It's been interesting to watch the evolution. I will tell you that has also pivoted our services. You know, we've got what we call lifestyle services, which are our wellness services.

[00:13:21] So cryo, compression, infrared, red light, float. And then you have your medical services, which we've dug into heavily. So we've got a compromised menu of IV formulations. We do IV infusions. We do boosters, lots of different booster options where you can boost that IV bag to enhance the benefits. We do intermuscular shots, everything from B12 to amino blends, you name it. We launched medical weight loss a couple of years ago with the semaglutide and trisipatide. That's a big one for us, medical weight loss.

[00:13:50] And then from there, we onboarded hyperbaric chambers. We just launched this last year, stem cells and exosomes, which has been massive. So really just a whole slew of product offering. I would say one of my favorites is the ozone UV IV. So, you know, it's kind of like a disinfectant cleansing type of an IV solution where it kind of cleans the blood, if you will. So the ozone IVs has got to be one of my favorite. But it's interesting when we went into the medical model, it uncuffed us.

[00:14:16] Now we can, we are truly practicing medicine and we can do anything and everything under a physician oversight that a normal clinic would do. So I would tell you the product category has enhanced big time. I would tell you the house favorites when you talk about kind of the most utilized services in our franchise model. On the lifestyle side, cryo and red light are kind of neck and neck. Every month we see the most utilization from cryotherapy and red light therapy. Red light therapy has exploded over the last decade.

[00:14:46] I mean, there's thousands of articles coming out in red light therapy. And I would say on the medical side, our biggest hitters are NAD. So the NAD IV infusions and the intramuscular shots for NAD are massive. We see those flying on the shelf left and right. And then hyperbaric chambers is another one that that's really exploding right now. There's a lot of research being passed around on hyperbarics and hyperbarics is taken off in a massive way. And then a lot of people are now realizing that here in the United States, you know, a lot of people offer stem cell treatments, exosome treatments.

[00:15:15] We do that via a slow IV push. And so it's direct in the vein. You don't have to do a pinpoint injection in the knee or an elbow. So it's interesting how a lot of things are now being accepted into this space. And the space has changed, right? You went from a wellness and recovery-based space. Then in 2019, 2020, they started coining our model, the MedTel space, where medical met retail, right? It was kind of a new space that had embarked.

[00:15:44] And just recently, as of about maybe a year, year and a half ago, they've now coined it the longevity space. So they're focusing on people's health span, not really their lifespan. That's great. You live until you're 80. But did you live a healthy life until you're 80? Like, was your health span 80 years? Or did you start losing your health in your 40s and you were suffering half of your life? So it's interesting to see the evolution of the space. And I love the longevity space. And I'm all about the health aspect. So it's been fun.

[00:16:13] It's a very dynamic space to be in. I've said this so many times over the past year or so. But I just see our industry. And I talk about traditional fitness industry going through some sort of rebrand where we're evolving into health, longevity, like wellness, whatever you want to call it. That's where we're going to. And I think as long as we recognize that and take the opportunity to leverage it, I think it's really important because that's a big deal. We're not just talking about fat loss, right?

[00:16:42] And six-week challenges. We're not just talking about getting ripped. We're talking about, okay, well, how do we actually enter into the conversation about healthcare and make a meaningful impact and be a valuable service to people where a lot of things are broken in healthcare? I don't think we have to get into that. That's a very long podcast conversation that we can have on another time, Kyle. But one of the things I'm curious about is when you went from wellness to medical as a category, two parts is like what were the defining qualities that shifted you from one category to the other?

[00:17:10] And then how has it been maybe different or more challenging, less challenging to scale a medical model versus a wellness model? Yeah, that is definitely the question. So it was interesting around 2018, 2020, there were a good, gosh, five to 10 competitors in our space that were trying to franchise. Some of them got to be able to franchise.

[00:17:33] And so at that point, people were trying to understand like what is the cost of operating a wellness franchise versus a medical franchise? And I will tell you, there's a drastic difference, drastic difference. Just the franchise documents alone, you know, costs a lot more. You have to deal with medical boards, board of pharmacy, board of nursing. You know, it's a whole slew of compliance that, you know, from a regulatory perspective, you need to have the funding to obviously pay for the attorneys to do that work.

[00:18:01] All 50 states like to think a little bit different. So it's not like you can just throw a blanket all over the whole country and operate one way. Each state kind of operates differently. And so we had to make the decision, you know, are we ready for that? Are we ready to kind of embark on something that's going to be a thousand times more complex than really anybody's used to? And we did that. I kind of jokingly said when we started the call, I love to be a part of the future. I mean, I do. I mean, I love to be first to market and things. We're not scared to do things outside the box and get creative.

[00:18:32] Obviously stay in the legal bounds of things. We always want to do things by the law. But, you know, we always like to be first to market on things and we always like to try things that people are not trying. So we were definitely one of the first to adopt ozone therapy. We're definitely one of the first to, you know, make NAD on the retail side of the aspect. And, you know, one of the first ones to actually start doing stem cells and exosomes here in the United States. And, you know, some of these things operate in a gray area, like the laws aren't very defined.

[00:19:00] I think the industry is moving 10 times faster than the governing bodies can kind of project. And so, you know, they're playing catch up, right? So I think the biggest transition is as soon as you puncture the skin, you go into that medical environment. So, you know, being in the wellness space, it's everything that's kind of surface level. You don't really puncture the skin in any way, but as soon as you dig a needle into, you know, a vein or a muscle, you've now kind of really crossed that barrier, a barrier of your now medical facility.

[00:19:28] You should have all the things in place to where you are legally practicing medicine. So as soon as you puncture the skin, you go into a different environment. There are some nuances to it. Each state's kind of a little bit different from the legality perspective. And, you know, you've got some facials and some aesthetic things like microneedling that kind of scratch the surface of medical and you really don't puncture the skin entirely, but you do in a way.

[00:19:51] And so, you know, there's a lot of gray area out there that, you know, from a compliance perspective, you really need to make sure as a business owner, you're checking those boxes. And Kyle, how does that change staffing? I mean, I would imagine that it's a significant difference in, you know, getting a personal trainer against someone who can, you know, operate an infrared sauna or, you know, check people in at the desk, right? So how does that unfold for your franchisees and how do you guys handle recruitment? Yeah, that was a big shift for us.

[00:20:20] So we went from, you know, 100% employed by lay people. We didn't have any medical professionals in the building to, you know, not only starting from the top down, you know, you have your chief medical officer, which kind of governs everything for the company from a medical perspective. Then we've got a medical advisory board of about a dozen in total. So that kind of, you know, multi-state license, they can operate in any of the states that we own and operate locations in.

[00:20:44] Then we've got an entire telemedicine company, you know, comprised of about a dozen APPs, MPs, TAs that can pick up the phone and do telemedicine consultations to our nurses on the ground. So you talk about every single level in the medical space we deal with. That's a massive transition. You know, the salaries and pay is a lot different. They're accustomed to a different environment, you know, coming from the hospital space.

[00:21:08] And I will tell you on the positive side, we are recruiting more nurses and people in the medical space than ever before because it's a pleasant environment to be in, right? Being in the hospital, being in the, you're dealing with people that don't want to be there, right? And when you work in an iCryo, you're dealing with people that do want to be there, right? They're happy to be there. They want to get better. They're not yelling and screaming and causing chaos in the ER room. And so we've had a lot of nurses make a career shift.

[00:21:35] I mean, I'm glad they're seeing that as a career because we're here to stay. And so, you know, at the end of the day, it's a different and more pleasant environment for the nurses. It gives them the ability to do what they kind of went to school for, which was to help people that wanted to be helped. And, you know, from that standpoint, it's been a transition. So right now we have a split team. Every location has about four or five lay people and then about four or five registered nurses. We don't employ E or paramedics.

[00:22:02] You know, our baseline is that our attorneys have gave us is registered nurses and above. We are digging into some of the aesthetic space this year. And so we're looking at, we've got a bunch of estheticians that we're hiring in the business. So it's a mixture of registered nurses, estheticians, and lay people that kind of work at the center. As we go into 2025, I'm having a really hard time saying that. I don't know why. I mean, it's because it's so fresh, right? It's like first time you write a check. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you're like, oh my God.

[00:22:31] Anyway, when you look at this year moving forward, like where do you see the biggest opportunities for growth within the service offering side of things? Where do you think it's going to boom? Yeah. So I would tell you that there isn't a single service that we offer that has kind of stopped growing, you know, time and time again. It happened in the early 2000s. You know, people started to learn about, you know, trying to live a healthier lifestyle from a food perspective.

[00:22:56] I think in the early 2000s, people were realizing eating healthier and kind of pushing the McDonald's and Taco Bell and Jack in the Box kind of out of the door. And you had a lot of healthier, fast, casual restaurants pop up. And so I think that was the initial wave of getting people to think differently about their health, right? And so it started with the food and nutrition. And then in, you know, 2015 to 2020, it really started with the modalities. And so I think we're still at the basement.

[00:23:23] We haven't even hit the ground floor and we're nowhere near the peak of this industry. I mean, you talked about the healthcare system earlier, and I think this is going to replace the healthcare system over time. Big pharma is going to have a challenging year with new people in office. They're going to be hit pretty hard over the next, you know, four years. You know, I think there's a massive wave over the last 10 to 15 years, just of pharmaceuticals in general.

[00:23:50] You know, you had the opioid crisis, which hit us pretty hard for a long time. There isn't a person that I talk to that doesn't know somebody that was affected by that personally. And, you know, so you talk about all of the learning curves that we've had over the last two decades from food to pills to potions, lotions, cream, supplements, you name it. And people are getting more educated. It was interesting, you know, when COVID hit, our business multiplied year over year. We grew through COVID.

[00:24:20] And it's because people were really thinking about how can I be proactive in my thought process and prevent issues from happening, whether then be reactive, right? So, you know, we were always conditioned, if you have a problem, take a pill, right? That's going to solve everything. And then now there's a massive wave of, well, hey, let's not wait for there to be a problem. Let's take care of our health now so that way we can prevent these things from happening. So, you know, when 2020 hit and the first wave of COVID happened, we didn't have any locations that shut down.

[00:24:49] If anything, our locations were booming. 2021, we doubled in size. 2022, we doubled in size. And so people are searching for ways to feel better, look better, sleep better, think better. Overall, just perform better as a human being. There's been a lot of science that has come out over the last, gosh, maybe year. All the conferences that I've been to and all the speakers in the space that I've listened to, there's a lot of information that they're stating.

[00:25:15] If you can live through the next 10, we will have the understanding and the modalities and the know-how to live to 130, 140, 150 years old. I mean, we do have the knowledge. It's just getting that out to the masses. And that's one of the biggest missions of iCryo isn't really to just create a successful franchise model. It's get these services to the 8 billion people on the planet, right?

[00:25:38] If you can know what to do, but if you don't have access to those resources to do the things that you're supposed to, then you just run into a brick wall. And so we provide that solution. We provide that retail environment where people can learn and educate themselves on the internet or through podcasts or through speaking. Some that they go to conferences and we can open the doors and allow those people to do those services. Yeah. Crazy, right? 130? You're not the first person on this podcast to quote that.

[00:26:06] And I have to, you know, I'm biased when I say this, but I feel like podcasts have had such a critical and really like almost not talked about nearly enough impact on people's health. I mean, you talk about how many major, like there's stars, like there's wellness stars, right? The Hewermans and Dr. Gabby Lyon and like I could go on and on and on, right? About all these people who are like, they built tremendously large businesses.

[00:26:32] Kelly and Juliette Starrett, like all these people have built huge businesses around health and wellness and, you know, just by consumers wanting to know more. And I think that's really cool. I think that's core of what's driving it. It's just hard to quantify, right? But I think it's a really big part of it. Kyle, I want to touch on like the business side of things with you guys too. Maybe give us some insights and I'm sure you guys have your disclosure agreements that people can read online. But like, you know, if someone's looking to start an iCryo, what kind of like retail sales are they looking for? Is there any specific markets that tend to thrive?

[00:27:02] Yeah, costs. And then also from the consumer side, like how much is it on average is someone spending there? What type of people are walking in your doors? Give us some insights into all that. Yeah. So from the franchise side, you know, we do a good job of vetting franchisees. We want people that are passionate about this space. You know, when they call into our office or submit a form online and our development team reaches out, you know, one of the first things we want to understand, are you passionate about this space? Because, you know, there are a lot of people that kind of look at this as a money pit right now. They kind of see dollar signs.

[00:27:32] And now don't get me wrong. Are we here to make money? Are we a for-profit business? Of course we are. But, you know, I want to make sure that you have the passion for it first. I want to make sure that you're in this for the right reasons. So, you know, I definitely would say if you're looking at getting in the space, make sure that you're passionate about the space. You know, make sure you're passionate about truly helping people live longer and healthier lives. If the money's coming first, you're in it for the wrong reasons. I can tell you that, right? The people have to come first.

[00:27:56] And so that would be the first thing is, you know, make sure that what the industry is putting in front of us not only inspires and motivates you, but it's truly a part of your core and a part of who you are. Or secondarily to that, you know, our business, our industry has evolved so much where if you were to open up an eye crowd a day, it's going to cost you about one to 1.2 million to open on average. You know, when you take into effect all these pieces of equipment, the construction, which construction over the last three years has gone through the roof.

[00:28:24] I mean, commercial, residential, doesn't matter what you're building. The construction and labor costs are insane right now. So, you know, you talk about construction, equipment, all the furnishing fixtures, you want to set aside some money for the grand opening and for operating capital for, you know, three to six months. And so all in, it costs you about one to 1.2 million on average to open up an eye crowd location. So we want to make sure that we have people that are financially backed in that way, right?

[00:28:48] When we look at a group or when we look at somebody that comes in for a franchise, we really don't have people that buy one location anymore. We have a lot of people that buy three or five or 10 or 15 territories at a time. You know, they come with groups of people, right? It could be three or four people where a couple of them are the investors and the money men, and a couple of them are kind of the operational partners and are going to run the actual centers and develop them over time. So we take a look at that. We take a look at, you know, what is your operational strength in the group? What is your financial strength in the group?

[00:29:18] And we kind of set a development schedule that meets that requirement, right? So at the end of the day, Eric, if you were to come to me and say, hey, Kyle, I want to buy 10 territories in, you know, South Florida, and it's just me. I'd probably say, yeah, I don't know if I'm going to sell you 10 territories, man. I think you'd be a little overwhelmed on that. Do you have any partners, anybody you want to bring into the business? And maybe if it's just you, we do two or three locations, right? So just really understanding what is the power of that prospective franchisee?

[00:29:46] What access to resources and operational talents do they have? I never want a franchisee to get in over their head. You know, it puts you in a very difficult situation. So that's kind of how we structure things through the franchise, you know, I would say interview side of things and the development side of things. You know, when it comes to, you know, getting people to understand that this industry is pivoting so much. And so I need franchisees that are agile.

[00:30:10] You know, one month we could be operating one way and the next month we could be operating a completely different way because the medical boards decided to sign off on whatever new law went into place or the board of nursing or the board of pharmacy or whoever it may be. And so I always remind franchisees, our industry is moving and pivoting and evolving so fast that we have to be able to work as a team and work on the fly.

[00:30:35] If we're moving right and all of a sudden the law says we have to move left, I have to get the entire company to shift left at the same time. So it's not like a, you know, we talked about the gym space earlier. It's not like a gym space or the food industry where it's somewhat, you know, standardized in a way where you don't see it changing for some time. Our industry is not that way. We've got to be very agile. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree.

[00:30:59] I mean, it's, you're pushing forward and regulations are catching up constantly, right? And then when that happens, it's like, it's a weird way to work. It's like you're pushing forward and then you almost have to go back and correct due to something that they finally got to, right? To just do whatever limitations they have. Yeah. Right, right, right. What about the consumer? Like who's walking in the door? How much are they generally spending? Give us some ideas on that as well. So that's the really interesting part. When we started this model, you know, I really wanted to build it for the masses.

[00:31:28] I didn't want to build it just for the one percenters, not for the elites. When our services hit market, you know, 10 years ago, it was really looked at as like an elite treatment, right? You had your Olympic athletes that were doing it. You had your celebrities, you know, whether it was Kim Kardashian or LeBron James or whoever. And people were pricing these services at astronomical numbers. I mean, when I got in this space, there were people charging $120, $130 for one cryo session. I mean, it was wild. The pricing was all over the place.

[00:31:57] And I did the exact opposite. You know, we came in the industry. I was charging, you know, 15, 20 bucks a cryo session. We had multiple memberships you can choose from and packages, you know, with discounts. My train of thought was this business model is for the masses. So you have to make it affordable for them. And affordability is one of the words in our mission statement. Secondarily, that, you know, I always knew growing up that the best form of advertising is word of mouth.

[00:32:23] And so if I'm charging these astronomical rates and I've got, you know, 10 people a day doing cryotherapy, or if I can reduce my prices and still make a profitability, and I go from having 10 to 100 people a day doing cryotherapy, I've got 10 times the amount of people on the street talking about my business and my service. And so it really was a volume play at the beginning. It was driving people through the door at a comfortable price that, you know, they could afford.

[00:32:49] The college student with a part-time job could afford it, right? The single mother with two kids could afford it. And so that was kind of the mindset going in early on. And I feel like that's why we've caught a lot of good traction and we have great foot traffic coming in the door. We see about 120 new people every single month at every single location. And when we see those numbers and you think over 100 new people on top of the current environment of people that are already there,

[00:33:19] every single month at every single location, some centers see 200, 250 new people a month. And so the traffic is pretty crazy, but I think it's because our pricing model affords people the ability to come in and do it on a reoccurring basis. And is it a membership model? Is it a pay-as-you-go? Like how do you guys put that together? Yeah, we offer all the cart, obviously. We offer packages in form of 5, 10, 15, 20, and 40 packs.

[00:33:46] So people want to buy packages and they don't want to be bound to a form of a membership. They can. We actually have what we call lifestyle passes. It's our form of a membership. And so it's a month-to-month. We don't have, you know, a six-month or 12-month commitment. It's no long-term contracts and there's no hidden crazy fees. It truly is just one fee every single month. It gives you a certain amount of credits. Kind of like if you were to go to an arcade place and you just buy 50 credits and you can play any game in the building. It's very similar to that.

[00:34:14] So, you know, you kind of load your profile with credits. You can do two cryo sessions, one red light, three infrared saunas one month, and you can change it up the next month. So if you're not bound to a particular service, we kind of open up the array and let you choose from all lifestyle services. And we have three different tiers of lifestyle passes month-to-month. So you can pick a basic pass, which is six credits a month. You can pick a premium pass, which is 16 credits a month. And then our elite pass is truly unlimited. So, you know, three different tiers of offering.

[00:34:44] It gives people a lower barrier to entry to come in and enjoy the services. And then, like I said, not combining them into one or two services, but giving them the ability to pivot their credits wherever they want to. Hey, friends, this is Eric Valzone. And this episode of the Future of Fitness is brought to you by the Podcast Collective. Since our inception in 2023, we have emerged as the fitness, health, and wellness industry's premier podcast placement agency.

[00:35:10] We're honored to work with many of the industry's most prominent technologists, thought leaders, startup founders, and business executives. Why? Because they recognize that being on podcasts is the most effective way to authentically connect with their specific target audiences and rapidly grow a lucrative professional network. From podcast placements to speaking engagements, go-to-market strategies to investor relations, and media kits to press releases,

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[00:36:05] Podcasts are rising quickly to fill the void. Do not miss the boat. That's podcastcollective.io. So Kyle, if I walk in, do you guys help guide me on what particular service offerings are best for my particular goals or health challenges? How do you help them structure? Because I would imagine for a lot of people walking in, it could be overwhelming. It'd be like, either I want it all, or it all scares the shit out of me, or whatever, or a mixture of those two things, right?

[00:36:35] So how do you provide guidance within the system? Yeah, and you nailed it on the money. People walk in and they have no idea. They're so overwhelmed. They heard about it from a friend or they saw a video on Instagram and started doing research. And it's interesting, you know, people will come in for one or two things, but when they walk into the building and they see this massive 3,000 square foot environment with, you know, 15, 20 different services, like, oh, wow. Like there's a lot more here than I thought there was. And we get that all the time.

[00:37:03] People are like, man, I thought you just did like cryo and red light or whatever. And it's like, man, you do IVs, injections, body sculpting, you know, facials, whatever. And so it is. And that's something we knew very early on. When I opened up the first location, I told my team, I said, everybody that walks in this building is going to have no idea what we do. We had to educate them from the first step they walk in. And so we employed what we call our first time guest tour.

[00:37:27] Any time a first timer comes in the building, we give them about a seven to a 15 minute tour of the entire building. We take them room by room, equipment by equipment. We give them a good, you know, 30 second elevator pitch on what that piece of equipment is, what it does, how long the treatment time is. What are some of the benefits from it? You know, and in that process, we're wanting the guests to tell us, you know, what are you here for? What are you here to solve? What are some of the things that, you know, when you looked online and started doing research, what benefits that you were kind of picking up on?

[00:37:57] And it's interesting. Almost every single time when we give that tour after the tour is done, the guest says, man, why came in for, you know, my right knee is pretty bummed. But I didn't realize like this stuff can help with anxiety or it can help with, you know, a mental clarity or headaches or whatever it may be. And it's like you can see it registering in their head. They're thinking, man, I could I could conquer six of my problems. I only came in for one. So, yeah, it's an interesting learning curve.

[00:38:25] And as people start to do the treatments and the therapies more and more, they actually start to educate the newcomers as they come in the building. So, you know, if Susie Q has been here for six months and she's, you know, doing all these services and treatments and then Joe Smith walks in the door and sits down next to Susie Q. You know, Susie's going to be saying, oh, Joe, like, man, I came in here for my first time as well. And man, you got to try red light. You got to try the sauna. You got to try the NAD.

[00:38:50] And so it's interesting to see our, you know, our frequent flyers, as we might call them, are really part of the process of education too. For your franchise locations, what's like an ideal market? Are you guys looking at urban, suburban? Like what have you learned so far? Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, you would think that this would be kind of in a high populated, high net worth, you know, affluent area. The first franchise we sold was a testament to our model.

[00:39:16] We sold the first location up in Albany, New York, a small town called Latham. It was a city of about 20,000 people, you know, snows five, six months out of the year and we're launching a cryotherapy franchise. And so, you know, it was interesting. I remember flying out for that grand opening the night before a damn near blizzard came through about 18 inches of snow hit the ground. And I remember freaking out. I remember calling back and calling my family and said, man, I think we made a mistake. You know, this isn't going to be good.

[00:39:46] And the next day in grand opening, no bullshit, we had about four or 500 people come through in six hours. It was the most wild turnout I had ever seen before on a small business. And I remember that day, I remember thinking in my head, man, we are onto something very massive. We are onto something that is truly life-changing. We just have to scale it. And so since then, you know, we entertain all markets. We entertain small markets, midsize markets, massive markets.

[00:40:13] You know, when it comes to territory protection in the franchise agreement, there's few metrics that we look at. We look at, you know, population. We look at drive time. We look at population density to see where people are actually, you know, living in that area. And so, you know, different franchise locations have different protection areas based on some of those metrics. But yeah, we don't stray away from really any part of the town. We've been very successful in small markets and large markets. I'm going to put a timeline on this.

[00:40:43] Five years from now, in 2030, we've crossed that precipice. That's scary. What do you see? What do you see for the future of iCryo? iCryo, I mean, we're having a beer and you're like, man, this has surpassed my wildest dreams in 2030. Like, what would have happened? Yeah. So it's interesting. There are some conversations I'm having right now with some groups and some other brands that, you know, we're looking to align with this year.

[00:41:06] And, you know, I've said this and I, when I say it, sometimes I look back at things and I'm like, man, I kind of sounded, you know, a little too bold there. But, you know, it's the truth. I've been saying it for a couple of years now. The writing's on the wall. You know, we will be the largest longevity franchise in the world. We will. Right now, we're kind of in second. There's one company in the world that's a little bigger than us, but they've remained here in the United States.

[00:41:32] We were the first United States franchising company in our space to go into another country. Last year, we actually two years ago, we launched Canada. We had a master franchise group in Canada that bought all of Canada from us, the whole country. We're going to build 50 territories over the next seven years for us. We've got some LOIs out in Asia. It looks like we're going to sell six countries in Asia probably this year and start to embark on the Asian market.

[00:42:00] And then we've got a group in Europe that's looking to tackle the United Kingdom first, along with some other European countries. So the goal has always been global. It's never been just to stay here in the United States. We have plans to go in, you know, a dozen plus countries over the next decade. I also get asked the question about, you know, am I ever trying to sell the company? And I'm not. You know, this is my baby. This is my child. I'm a younger guy. And so I've got another 30, 40 years in the tank.

[00:42:26] I look at this as a legacy company, something I want to hand down to my future kids someday. Whether it's a son or a daughter that I have in the future, I think I can, you know, help mold and grow my kids to take over this company and really be the next wave and the next generation of what health care could look like. If you kind of gave me a wishing ball and I think that would come true, we'd be the largest longevity company in the entire world probably here in the next five years.

[00:42:53] Scaling and growing on the appropriate side is probably the most pivotal. You kind of touched on it earlier in the interview, but there are companies that grow really, really fast, right? They kind of have a three to five year exit strategy where it's like open as many doors as possible and then sell it off to private equity. And we just I just don't think that way. For me, this is not just the passion project. And I always tell people iCryo isn't just a company to me. It truly is who I am. It's ingrained in my DNA.

[00:43:20] And so, yeah, that would be where I would see if we did this podcast in five years, that would be the conversation that I said, remember what I told you in 2025? Noted. Duly noted, Kyle. I like it. What do you need help with right now? And when I asked that question, I mean, people are listening, you know, partnership potential. You know, obviously interest in buying a franchise or multiple franchises. What would you like to hear from people about? Yeah.

[00:43:48] I mean, I think the biggest thing and I love that you use the word help. That just really hit me as soon as you said that, because I think that's what we need to be thinking about in this industry is helping each other to allow the industry to grow. The faster this industry grows, the faster the education gets out there, the more of these businesses we can open. I mean, I tell people all the time, if you walk into an iCryo and you love it, but it's just not for you, like owning a business or starting a franchise is not in the cards to you. That's OK.

[00:44:17] Open up your own longevity center or join another franchise in our space. I mean, at the end of the day, it's all about core values. So as long as the core values match with yours, it's a marriage in my mind. And, you know, for me, I think, you know, helping each other to grow the space, but in a safe way, because one of my biggest fears is people kind of opening up a mom and pop shop and kind of bending the boundaries a little bit and maybe doing things that are not just in the gray area, but in the dark area where we don't want to be.

[00:44:44] And so, you know, being compliant, staying on task with what are the updated laws and regulations and doing it together. But for me to help iCryo, I want good franchisees. I want franchisees that are passionate about what we're doing, passionate about helping people. You know, it's funny, we've entertained going to market for our first Series A, like our real first investment. You know, the company was started from the first location and kind of organically grown from then.

[00:45:09] We've had a couple of friends and family kind of invest in the company, you know, kind of tack on to our skirt and, you know, ride this train and be successful from a financial perspective. But we've entertained, you know, going out and really acquiring some serious dollars to get to the next level. We know it's going to take big funding to get us overseas into a few of these countries. And so by no means do I come from money. The Jones family doesn't come from wealth.

[00:45:35] And so, you know, we've kind of bootstrapped it from day one and grown the infrastructure, sold territories, open location, grown the average unit volume just organically. We haven't had a massive infusion where we put in, you know, 30, 50, 100 million dollars in the company. It's just been organic growth. So for me, I kind of live my life by relationships.

[00:45:56] And so I'm always looking to connect people, connect with people in the space, whether, you know, it's influencers, athletes or celebrities that can kind of take the brand to the next level from a from an awareness perspective. And then from there, you know, capital funding to get us to multiple levels where I think I get a phone call every week at this point from, you know, a VC office or family office or private equity. You know, I would entertain those offers, but majority of them want control, right?

[00:46:23] They want 51% of the company and I'm just not going to give up control of this company. So I would I would entertain a minority deal. At the end of the day, you know, we've got to mesh with core values first. It's awesome. Awesome. And if people want to get a hold of Kyle's or any specific place you'd like them to go. Yeah, I always tell people go direct to the website that does not go to a third party broker. And I know a lot of time in franchising, people hire brokers to kind of field those leads. That comes right here to our corporate office.

[00:46:51] So we've got our own internal franchise development team that, you know, is obviously employed by me and the company. And I wanted to keep it that way because sometimes brokers dilute the brand and they're just there to make that commission. So I would tell you, just go right to iCryo.com, go to the franchise tab, submit an inquiry. You'll probably get a call from our franchise development team within that same day. But yeah, that's the easiest way to get a hold of us. And I always try to remind people it does come direct to our office.

[00:47:19] It doesn't go through like some CRM funnel for some third party broker. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Kyle, you're in a great space, man. You really are. This is a very exciting time for what you guys are doing. I have some ideas we could talk about later for maybe a rebrand. We could do that off record. I like it. I like it. Yeah. It's been a real pleasure and thank you for spending the time. Thank you, Eric. I appreciate it. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, Kyle Jones. Take care. Hey, wait, don't leave yet.

[00:47:49] This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Fitness. If you did, I'm going to 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.

[00:48:19] Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and 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 or get in touch with me, simply go to thefutureoffitness.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.