Mike Taylor - BeaverFit & Bespoke Training Solutions

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 Melzone, 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. There is one thing that fires me up. It's elevating the personal training and coaching industry. For that, the workout app is an absolute game of changer. No more promoting top brands without confusion or dealing with confusing social media lights. In just a few clicks, Workout's user-friendly app lets top trainers and coaches curate and share the world's most sought-after fitness brands like Hyperite, Vega, and more. Product lines covering everything from fitness equipment to supplements and apparel. Save time and boost your earnings with generous commissions and bonuses every time your client purchases the product you've already endorsed. Do not waste it. Maximize your income and streamline your business store by workouts.com. That's w-r-k-o-ut.com. Just 1-0. Go get it. All right, we are live. Mike Taylor, welcome to the future of fitness.

What's happening, Eric? Thanks for having me on today.

I'm giddy. The conversation we just had, uh, you know, number one, we're two, you know, adult ski bums, right? Uh you living in in Lake Tahoe. I'm in Whitefish. Uh, you know, we could talk about that for hours. That's probably a topic for another podcast. But, you know, the let me set the table as, you know, I had the opportunity, I've been following Beaver Fit for a while. You know, at Ursa, I had the opportunity through uh Brandon Kirk at Metabolic, and we'll talk about how you guys are working with that brand and your TJ and your team. Finally got to, you know, mingle a little bit and see what type of people who uh you have on your team. And it's it's great. Very authentic, very energetic, a lot of fun, very fun people. Um, but you guys have always, you know, I've been watching this kind of steady yet seemingly meteoric growth of this thing called beaver fit and you know how to even categorize it, you know, what you guys do. Uh so I think there's a lot of information. We're gonna talk about some really fascinating stuff and um what you're doing with the DOD and you know, the term I've never heard before is you know the human weapon system and how that's advancing. So a lot of good stuff here. Um I'm gonna just stop talking and let you give a little bit of your backstory, Mike, and then we'll we'll take it from there.

No, uh Eric, thank you. And uh, like you said, kind of a ski bum at heart. Uh I live in uh Taho City, California with my wife and two boys, and and we spend a lot of time in the mountains. Uh, but I obviously have uh Beaver Fit uh is our passion project and our company that we run with an amazing team that you got to meet, uh, and we run that out of Reno, Nevada. Um, jumping back a little bit, um, the company actually started in the UK in 2010 uh by a father-son team named Tom and Jim Beaver. Uh they were actually a family uh bridge building company. Uh they're building municipal bridges, and the son Tom Beaver, that's about my age, you know, 42, 43 years old, um, was big into fitness. He was going through the SAS reserve training and and he he could weld like an animal. So uh he started doing functional fitness rigs. Um and that's really how Beaver Fit started and uh myself and Alex Roothouse. Uh I met Alex uh in a previous life when I was in the Navy and we were running uh these little jet boats on on rivers in Iraq and uh started this uh the first riverine unit since Vietnam. So Alex and I were buddies then and uh we were working in the industry and we're following what Tom and his dad were doing. And then they came out with this container gym product and we saw it and we're like, man, that's what's next. Um so that's you know, you know, jumping forward, that's what started BeaverFit is this container gym that we thought had a unique value proposition to uh folks in the military and also commercially to train outside. And from there, um, we've really you know uh had a passion for building an incredible team while also having a really close relationship with our customers, understanding their requirements, and then you know using the incredible team to design products to meet people's requirements.

When you look back and you you mentioned you kind of knew this was the next big thing, talking about the container uh model. Why? Like what was it about it that you're like, okay, this is this is uh gonna be big?

Yeah, at first it was very specific to the military. So with our military background, we knew the military moved a lot of equipment around in shipping containers, uh, whether it was ammunition, communications equipment, uh other supplies. Uh so when we saw uh everything packaged up in a shipping container uh for human performance or strength and conditioning training, we're like, whoa, that's awesome. Because the way we used to train in the field uh was with uh sandbags and cinder blocks and things like that, doing like prison style workouts. So that the ability to get um actual strength and conditioning equipment into the expeditionary or the field environment, we knew what had value to uh the community that we came from and uh was advancing on some of the stuff that was already happening. So that was immediate what it was. And then we honestly sold a ton of them to the military in the first couple of years and still do to this day uh provide uh, you know, we've sold over 5,000 container gyms to the U.S. military. Um and and now it was the customers they started saying, hey guys, great. Um, you know what? Yeah, this is awesome when we're deployed, but we also want this outside of our workspaces or where we conduct maintenance on our vehicles so we don't have to, you know, go 30 minutes across um the military installation to the fitness center uh to work out, and then 30 minutes back during lunchtime, we could just put these rate-offs out of uh where we work. I'm like, okay, awesome, let's do that. Uh and then you know, eventually hired a commercial team uh led by Nick Vayne. You mentioned CJ and Brett and Aaron Mosier, uh Molly, Jake, like they're just incredible. And they came in with uh relationships and and knowledge of the commercial fitness industry and we're able to play or parlay all of the work we did uh for the military to outdoor fitness commercially and uh in pre-pandemic, we said, hey, our strategy is outdoor fitness. Let's go. This is who we are. Uh the pandemic happens and everyone wants to train outside. So sometimes you just got to get lucky too, Eric.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. The uh explain to me, like when I if I have one of these container-based gyms, like what's that experience like? You know, does it is it closed in? Do I open the front doors or does it side doors open? And what kind of equipment am I looking at? Or is it all custom? Like what is that experience?

Yeah, 100%. So we have a bunch of outdoor products now. Uh, we have the container gym called the shredshed, because uh not everyone loves a shipping container and sometimes a commercial or a corporate or you know an academic setting. So um in our mind, they all have similar value propositions uh and similar designs. So uh on the outside of the box or the container or the shredshed, uh you get a squat rack. So uh but the cool thing is a lot of times with outdoor fitness, um, you need a concrete pad or something like that to anchor the rig or the rack to. Um well, the box acts as the anchor to the rig or rack. And you can go crazy, you can put monkey bars or anything like that, but um the box is the anchor to it, so you don't need to go have a concrete pad where you go down into it, which can be very expensive to do. Um, so first thing you got your functional training rig that attaches to the outside, and then when you open the doors, um, you've got all your barbells, your kettlebells, your bumper plates, uh, medicine balls, everything you need to set up this kind of small group functional workout uh in the outdoor environment, and even all of our accessories. We we have our own line of accessories and they're all designed for outdoor use. So our medicine ball has a UV additive and it's made in a marine buoy factory, so um you can train with it outside and not worry about damaging the equipment. Um, but yeah, the idea is um uh the box has the anchor to the rig, inside has all your training equipment. We also have trailers now. Uh trailers are super fun. Uh we launched it at Ursa. Very similar, you know, kind of uh product mix, but more in a mobile fashion. So instead of needing a forklift and a flatbed to move a container or a shredshed around, now you just need a small SUV and you can tow that trailer behind the small SUV. You got your squat rack, your pull-up bars uh inside, all of your kettlebells, barbells are secured with straps, so you can go to any park uh or go see a client at their house and run a kick-ass workout.

Incredible. Uh you know, one of the things that we we were laughing about before we started recording today, Mike, was like, okay, so you started there and now you're like everywhere, right? Like you have products, you're doing custom, you're doing all these, like that's that's just the tip of the iceberg. And so explain to me like from a high level, what is it everything that that Beaver Fit does now, and how did you get there? Yeah, I mean I touched on it in the beginning a little bit.

Like, we really pride ourselves uh of having like a close relationship with our customers, and we feel like they're part of the team, and uh we have unique resources uh that can make them successful. And if if they're winning, we're winning. And that's our mentality. It's like, cool, uh, we don't need to be at the forefront in our brand or anything like that. Um, we just want to uh surround our customers with the resources that we have to make them successful uh and and win. Uh and that's been our mindset in the military. That's our mindset when we work with our commercial customers, whether it's a corporation trying to launch uh a corporate wellness program or you know a franchise that's trying to scale quickly and do it efficiently. It's awesome. We've got an incredible team of talented people and we can apply those resources uh to your problem set and solve it for you.

What uh what type of products and projects have you worked on that surprised you? Something that kind of came out of the blue, and you're like, I didn't see that coming, but I'm glad we're here.

Yeah. Um it's something that we in the commercial space refer to as contract manufacturing. So it was, you know, that this whole mindset that these boutique fitness franchises that are trying to scale quickly, um, and honestly, they were getting product from overseas. And we pride ourselves in U.S. manufacturing for a number of reasons. Uh, one, we just believe it's the right thing to do to build our economy, create jobs here in the U.S., uh, and keep a close eye on quality supply chain. Um, obviously we're veteran-owned, um, so it's important to us uh to keep stuff on shore. And we think it's a matter of natural security, to be honest, to build you know our industrial base uh here in the U.S. Um and during the pandemic, uh when supply chain overseas was a shit show, to be honest, and even getting stuff in and out of ports and all that, um, there's these boutique fitness franchises that couldn't get their equipment. Uh and you know, because of the awesome team that we have on the commercial side and the relationships they had, folks started coming to us and we're like, oh, like, yeah, we can make that bench, we can make that rig, that rack. And uh, here's a design uh for your custom pieces of equipment that our engineers just did uh from your paper napkin drawing, and they did that in like a couple days. Everyone's like, Wait, how did that just happen? And I'll be honest with you, Eric, we had no idea the process that um these customers were going through to get equipment from the manufacturers overseas. Um, and nothing against those manufacturers. They are they obviously provide like decent service and equipment, but it just takes longs and there's takes longer and there's challenges, and it's hard to go see the equipment be made. So we had people come to us and we thought what we were doing was pretty normal. It's like, hey, yeah, here's our our badass team, here's this laser cutter, automated powder coating system, all this stuff, and uh we can design and prototype stuff pretty quickly. Um, everyone was like blown away. We're like, man, uh, but this is cool. People seem to like what we're doing. Uh so we've done that a couple of times now, and especially with um Brandon and Kirk at Metabolic came to us with a similar problem set as um some of the other contract manufacturing customers, and we've got this little bit of a process now that seems to be repeatable, and uh folks find value in it. And uh a lot of business owners do strategic planning and all this different stuff. Three, five-year plans. Uh, I'll tell you right now, that was not on our three, five-year plan uh to have these incredible partners that are uh boutique fitness franchises that are scaling quickly with franchisees that are awesome operators, and we're able to design custom equipment for them. And and the great thing is once you design it once, um now we produce it at scale. Um and it's modular in nature. So uh, I mean, it it it that's only been going on in the last you know 24 to uh 18 months, and it's been an awesome part of our business. And um we're stoked to and you get to have a long-term partnership uh with these folks. It's not like just hey, one off sale and go. Um, we we much prefer um the longer-term partnership. So um there's a ton of value in that as well.

Yeah, let's let's use that as the uh, you know, I'm good friends with the the guys at Matabolic or the team at Matabolic, and um they are a sponsor of the show, and I do truly believe in in their franchise and the model they have and um the business they built around it. I think it's one of the best on the market. And you know, I'm not afraid to tell people if if you're looking at a fitness franchise, I would highly recommend considering them. Um so walk me through that process because he showed me at Ursa, you know, what you guys built, this the problem that you guys solved. Um, there's numerous you know, problems that you helped him solve. But maybe walk us through that. Like, how is it that you work with a boutique and and how how did you affect their business, their business and their bottom line?

Yeah, I mean, uh, obviously that they have a unique training model that in theory would take a lot of space. But in in the real estate market, space equals money, right? So he's like, hey, here's our programming, here's our methodology, and we have you know uh strength and conditioning coaches, we have this guy, Chris Frankel, uh, and other team members like Jason Clark, Brian Carey, um, that are uh the PhD level uh for Chris Frankel and human performance exercise fizz and uh folks that have been coaches. So that's like, okay, let's look at this model they have, it's awesome, we love their model, and how can we design unique equipment to store their uh their training accessories and uh run their programming uh in a small space possible because, like I said, space equals money and this real estate business that uh is a big part of franchising. So we just sat down, started paper napkining, drawing. Um we've got uh we have a product team, so we've got uh human performance product team uh led by Lindsay and and Jason Hayes, and they were looking at different stuff, and our engineers had just uh I hate to say we're supposed to have an incredible team, and they take this problem set, and then real time, uh we can just move equipment around and we can model out what that space would be like with people in there. Um and then uh it goes to our fabrication floor and we can test and prototype it uh fairly quickly, and and all of a sudden like, okay, cool. Um, you know, what was gonna take 2,500 square feet, um we could do it in 2,000 square feet uh with uh the same experience for the folks going in and training and coaching and all kinds stuff. So it's like and they're like, whoa, wait, what? We we could do that? I'm like, yeah. Here's some drawings, here's the layout, here, here's how it's gonna work. Um, and uh I mean, I'm not trying to oversimplify it, but when you put uh awesome team members um with a partner that's willing to be transparent about what their problems are and and understands their requirements, uh it and then you know you you solve that problem. Uh but it's it's all about that communication and and having awesome people.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with oversimplifying anything nowadays. Uh everything's overly complicated. Heck yeah. Uh you know, yeah, it it's you can't argue with the unit economics of it, right? When you can help solve that problem. And when you're talking about, you know, uh, you know, boutique models like that, like Matabolic, it's like that. Every square inch within that gym needs to be valuable, right? It needs to be optimized. And when you can do that and then you know do it at scale, um, that's that's a very strong value proposition. And you know, as you went through the pandemic, I'm just curious, like obviously you had the outdoor fitness component of your business, which I'm sure just exploded. You know, that the probably if you know if you're servicing gyms that may have slowed down a little bit. I doubt the DOD slowed down at all, but you can tell me. Um, did you ever though consider like, okay, we shoot, we got to get it to the to that home consumer market? Did you ever like consider that way? Did you ever put resources toward it, or did you just say, you know what? No, this we got something good, we're gonna stay on this path.

Yeah, uh, I'll be honest, like not a ton. You know, the only thing that was really there was the great kettlebell crisis of 2020. Uh and literally nobody had kettlebells um except for Beaver Fit, because we made them in a in the US. And we were coming off the back end of a government contract where we had to supply 36,000 US-made kettlebells to um the US Army in like six months. So we had this incredible capacity to produce kettlebells. Um, and then all of a sudden supply chain overseas just went away. So we're getting phone calls from like the the biggest players in the industry, like Rogue and you know, Life Fitness and all these other companies, like, oh, we heard BeaverFit has kettlebells that you make in the US. Can we get some? I'm like, uh, huh? Uh and and we know all these people, right? We work with them, but we never had a phone call like that. Um, so uh we did supply some folks with kettlebells. That that was probably the one product, and um we knew that that was gonna uh probably dry up, you know, once the supply chain opened up again. So uh we we took that on. We didn't get crazy um with with trying to target the home consumer. Um it's funny you say we do everything, but uh we've got all these product ideas for home consumers, but um, you know, right now we're not really prepared or built to support the home consumer. Um, you know, our our model is more uh B2B or uh B2G mean business to government.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. One of the things I've noticed whenever I talk to uh executives and entrepreneurs who have a military background is there's a unique value set within the company. Uh, you know, especially like, you know, if people have been paying attention, how many times you use team, right, in your conversation? Like that seems to be a value. Um, there's definitely a work hard, play hard kind of mentality as well. Uh explain to me, like, what do you think having that that strong military background within your company, how how does it make you unique? How is it attributed to the success you guys have seen?

Yeah, um, you know, I think one, it's the team, uh, but then uh, and that's what Alex and I and Tom Bieber talk about all the time. Like, our job is to build the best team ever. Uh, and if we do that, uh, some of these other harder problems are gonna take care of themselves because we've got incredible team members. Um, and then when it comes to our customers, since we have a service mindset like where we served our country, uh, it's awesome. We take pride in that. Um, and uh we want to serve our customers in the same way. Uh and that's what I said. We put our customers uh at the center of what we do. Um it's because of that that servant mindset. Um that hey, we're that's so what we do. That that's we served our country. Now we want to serve our customers, and we take passion in that. In our military business, we feel like our services continued. Uh, we're doing uh what I think is is awesome stuff for our our military partners, both in human performance, and uh we have a whole tactical line of equipment and uh we take pride in that. But I would say it's um you know that that service mindset. And then the other one is um yeah, I was talking to Brandon uh about this the other day uh from Metabolic. It's this idea of uh of hot wash and always getting better. And hot wash in the military, when you finish a mission, uh you sit down and you debrief it. Like, oh, here's what went well, um, here's what didn't, and really focus on what didn't and what we can do better next time. Um and that same mindset here is like, okay, got it. Um everything's going well, but what are we gonna do to continue to get better? Um and when we make mistakes, let's own those mistakes um and fix them. Because like, right, like manufacturing's hard. We're gonna screw stuff up. We we've had some big mistakes. We made 18,000 uh hex bars for the US Army that had a manufacturing defect and we had to replace them all. Um that was now fun. That's expensive. Yeah, uh but um we we learned a lot from that and we're just continuing uh to always evolve and get better. So I would say that those are a couple things that um yeah, with our our military background, we try to apply uh to what we're doing uh at Beaver Fit.

Yeah, that's great. And so let's get into the um we'll get into the the human performance side of things in a minute, but the tactical training, you know, when we talk about that for the military and and how you guys kind of play a role in in the equipment and the um facilities, how's that different than what a normal consumer or a normal, you know, everyday Joe like myself would see?

Yes. So um on our military side of the business, we have a product line we call special operations equipment. Um so we sit down with our customers and look at what they refer to as their mission-essential tasks, and that can be breaching through a door, repelling from a helicopter, um, doing what's called subterranean uh warfare. Uh and we design products to meet those mission-central tasks. So uh we design repel towers. So we uh just finished a project down in um in Air Force Base in Arizona that is like a five-story high uh tower um that has uh simulated helicopter hulks uh where our you know the military folks can uh train to repel from uh that simulated helicopter. So when they get up in the air, um they know the process and procedures to do so. Uh and we build obstacle courses, like obstacle courses are super fun. Everyone loves an obstacle course. Military, that's that's part of the heritage there. So uh we design obstacle courses that have a little bit of a different spin on them because they'll have breaching doors and um you know uh uh confined space, tubes that you have to crawl through, do all this different stuff. So um it's definitely more of a custom side of our our business. And we tell people like uh not not to like uh be too audacious about it, but hey, like if we can build this, you know, a six story tower, then you know, yeah, we we can take on your problem set in in the fitness space. So um it's a fun line of business for us. We've got an awesome team you know out there working on that, and and it does you know give us the ability to uh do. unique projects. We've got one going on in Romania right now where we're building a fake ship that is literally going to like float on a barge and it's out of containers and they're going to practice boarding that container ship. Cool. You know, for the Romanian Defense Force.

Wow. That's really fun work. You know, and I think as a you know like I said, kind of an average Joe fitness consumer, it makes me really want to try this stuff. You know, I want to do like a breaching door. I want to do a breaching doors are super fun.

Anyone can do it. Like yeah, let's go. So yeah, so we we have that whole tactical line of business and then on the human performance side of the business, you touched on it in the intro. It's really evolving and the Army has a new fitness test. They used to do a two-mile run, push-ups and sit-ups, and now they have to do uh a deadlift. They have to do uh a shuttle run where they do a loaded carry, a sled drag, and a sprint. They do an overhead med ball throw. And honestly a lot of that's coming from you know the strength and conditioning community and they're realizing that if we really want to train to be truly lethal and resilient war fighters, we can't just do push-up sit-ups and a two-mile run anymore. So I would say that was a lot of um kind of expertise they took from the strength and mission community and designed this new test. And then now the warfighter is being designated as a weapon system. And when we say we're we're not we don't really build gyms in the military anymore, we're building maintenance facilities for the human weapon system. And it it's funny though, Eric, they have the same challenges that um boutique fitness studios do. It's about throughput.

It's like okay we have a uh a limited amount of time and these are the number of soldiers that we need to train how do we design uh these facilities uh to train uh the most people most efficiently uh in in the in limited time uh so uh uh I feel like we're spoiled because we can go back and forth we can take the lessons learned um from boutique fitness franchise like metabolic uh apply that to uh designing a facility to train 180 soldiers in an hour and get max throughput um so yeah we just like to take lessons learned back and forth yeah it's almost like a first multiplier right and it's like you can like take this one and this one you learn things over here uh you know it's it's like uh whenever I I've been at a point where maybe I'm advising or coaching for multiple clients right it's like I have to thank them because I'm learning here and then I'm applying over here right and you get to you know when you work across a when you're in like kind of this you have the core of what you do but then you have these different communities or these different subsets of of clients and you get to learn and move over here and now it becomes new in this application it's it's pretty it's a pretty cool thing to see right it's like artistry.

No it is and it's just like constantly evolving and it's like oh okay there's a little snippet here and like you're saying you you can apply that um to to other problem sets and and back and forth and to me that's just how we continue to get better.

Yeah awesome um okay so let's let's dive into this uh human weapon system like you you brought that up before we started recording I got really excited you know I'm still a 12 year old boy at heart right um you know I'm like okay well that sounds really cool uh it sounds like G.I. Joe you know like well tell me what that is how that term kind of started and evolved and you know how what that means to you and Beaver Fit specifically.

Yeah I mean it it really started in um the SOCOM community so our special forces um you know about 10 plus years ago they had a program called PODIF uh preservation of force in family and they were hiring and this is awesome they were hiring civilian uh strength and condition coaches from professional collegiate sports uh to come in uh and train um the special operators uh as athletes because they they are uh performing these tasks uh that that are very athletic in nature, you know, quite a bit different but still athletic in nature. Um and then now the the conventional forces are realizing the benefits of that program to uh reduce injury, improve mental health, um, enhance readiness of our force uh across the board and they're realizing that hey if we invest in this and we maintain this human weapon system in the same way we do our our aircraft, our vehicles, everything like that, we're going to be able to have people that um can perform their job better, they're happier, they get hurt less uh and they can serve longer, right? Because a lot of times people get hurt uh doing their job in the military and they're forced to uh retire. So if we can better kind of maintain them as this weapon system uh and it sounds terrible but um specifically in the army they have it it's holistic health and fitness so it's across the board there's a spiritual element to it um cognitive training sleep nutrition it so it's everything it's not like hey just go to the gym and PT your face off uh and that's what's gonna make you better it's like oh yeah you know that that's what we thought 20 years ago but now we're having all these issues so uh even though like the human weapon system sounds a bit intense um it's really not because they're realizing everything else that goes into truly maintaining humans and making them us better to do our jobs and also be better you know spouses at home and and parents as well so it's that holistic approach um that that that goes with it so um it's changed the way we look at facilities and I think everybody has right like it's about um recovery um and yeah like I said we don't just need to go train our faces off every day uh how are we gonna recover um how are we measuring our sleep um how do we have a what we know our sense of purpose is uh and then uh all that together so now we have to create spaces for that so no longer is it just a massive floor with as many squat racks as you could put in there it's like okay where are we gonna do cognitive training? Uh where's the recovery space?

Uh all that kind of stuff so it's changed how we look at um designing laying out facilities and partners uh in the industry as well yeah let's dive into that I mean I had uh you know Coach Me Plus there on this podcast a few months ago and and you know they're kind of with from a software solution overseeing the uh what what's the Army initiative the holistic holistic health and fitness H2F is uh kind of the input that's right H2F thank you you know and and how they manage very complex right they need to like essentially they built an enterprise level software to help build these things one of the things that you know caught me um not by surprise but uh I I just didn't think of it was the you know the religious aspect and like the access to like a chaplain or a priest you know through the app and just immediate you know contact and that that's that's new right that's spiritual like wellness like that's you wouldn't associate that with with the military necessarily but I also know you know from having a lot of family in the military that you know that there is you generally very tie in between you know the religious life and and the purpose of of the work right um cognitive and recovery so tell me a little bit about that let's get granular like what does a cognitive um facility and a cognitive training facility look like and same with like a recovery facility how how are those different yeah uh so cognitive uh I'm not an expert on this we should get Chris Frankel to come in here and talk about this but um i I always oversimplify it but it's like uh especially unique to the um the human weapon system is uh a lot of times you have to can uh perform cognitive tasks uh when you're tired, when you're spent so uh we're doing things where um you know uh the simplest form some coaches will uh you're doing your squats in the squat rack they'll come up to you with a Where's Waldo book uh and after you just finish your set and you're smoked they'll hold up that book in front of you say find them uh that that's a kind of rudimentary way uh there's other systems out there um like blaze pods or something like that and and right next to the rack we'll have a blaze pod system and again you you'll you'll do your sets you'll be totally smoked and then boom you'll go in there and uh have to go through the the blaze pod training and recognize the different patterns and things like that.

So I would say that's like cognitive performance training. There's other companies out there because we we deal with a lot of um traumatic brain injuries um so there's actually like cognitive treatment companies out there that we work with a company called Wave Neuro that is just incredible that they can scan your brain um determine if you're operating uh at the highest level possible and if you're not um they can actually uh treat you uh I didn't want to go into any of the science behind it because I I will miss say something but hey they can tell if you're messed up and they can fix your brain. So that's like cognitive treatment uh in there. So uh we've got uh spaces to do that cognitive treatment and then we have uh cognitive training elements uh built into the equipment and how we're doing it uh and then the recovery side like you know there's obviously a ton of equipment but it's focusing on nutrition and sleep uh to make sure that that is built into the program so folks like Coach Me Plus build that into the programming so uh folks understand you know when you when you need to do those things and then you know obviously all the the mobility recovery tools whether it's uh cold tubs or you know hyperized therapy products I'm not trying to pitch anyone but there's uh a ton of focus uh on exactly um how we're going to prepare ourselves for the next workout in between workouts.

Yeah and I know this isn't your field but what about like wearable data? Is there you know is the DOD latched onto any particular um brand or you know uh data sets that they're looking at you know HRV obviously sleep monitoring is huge like what what have you seen on that side?

I I think the concept absolutely there I know there's active tests right now with a bunch of different devices but um this is going into the the human weapon system idea uh there needs to be a diagnostic system right so for our vehicles the first thing when you take your vehicle to go to um uh the mechanic they they run a diagnostic system or you know now these days uh car tells you when when it needs maintenance so what the what the DOD is trying to do is figure out what the diagnostic system is for this human weapon system same thing with aircraft right that aircraft tells you when it needs maintenance it tells you what's wrong um we've got to figure out what that diagnostic system is for the human weapon system so that we can properly train and treat it. And then also like hey let's be honest it's our taxpayer dollars they got to figure out how to justify it and are we actually uh getting better so they're looking at both of those things of uh how do we track data to make sure that um we're meeting certain metrics when it comes to specifically injury prevention um and then also um how can we get ahead of the game a little bit and know when something might be going wrong uh and we can have proactive treatment for that instead of always being reactive. It sounds so futuristic, right?

Like all this stuff like I'm thinking about like when I was younger uh you know the guy was like the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie where he's like a you know a bionic soldier right and they had these diagnostics built in and you know uh it it's really crazy. I mean, you know, compared to you over your military career into now the private sector working with the company I mean how what do you think about when you when you see the advancements going on in the DOD? Oh it it's crazy.

Like we never had this stuff. Like we were the ones that were you know out there just you know PTing our faces off every day a lot of times body weight stuff uh and we didn't have these facilities or wearables or any of this kind of stuff. So and there's a lot of that old school mindset still um that isn't bad um but folks are are coming aboard and getting educated on it um and it I think people get it they they understand that hey we're broken you know our military service broke us we're hurt how how can we do better for the next generation and even what they're doing is different like the cognitive load like you're out there you see guys in the military now we used to carry a lot of weight now they've got you know four different types of radios in their ear uh they're looking at 10 displays of different um unmanned vehicles doing providing data and that's where the cognitive side comes from like oh wow there's a lot of information coming in uh how can I slow down my breath focus on what I need to focus on um to to do my job uh and it's not always carrying you know 80 pounds on your back and and rucking you know 10 miles anymore it's it's a lot of this cognitive stuff as well as well depending on you know you know what your uh community is or what your job is in the military. So to us like it's it's crazy to see like honestly and um you know going back to the commercial side of our business uh we'd like to learn from both sides and and yeah maybe some of this stuff is futuristic I'd say commercially is probably a little bit ahead of the DOD right now but do is catching up and whether they leapfrog we'll see um and you know uh it it it's good to see uh learning going back and forth where I think in the past maybe it was very much segmented but now that dod is you know hiring a lot of these you know professionals um you know from strength and conditioning communities or uh occupational therapists, physical therapists, uh personal trainers, athletic trainers, um it it's pretty cool to see the learning going on back and forth. And I think advancements are going to happen even faster in the next five years than they did in the previous 15.

Yeah awesome yeah it it it's interesting for you to to hear that because I always think about like professional sports and dod kind of at the forefront of performance right but it sounds like dod is a little behind would would you say that at this point?

Ah I I think in the um for our special forces community SOCOM uh I I would agree 100% with you that that they're with there with professional sports um the conventional side um maybe is a little bit behind um and they're realizing the benefits of it now um and are gonna see folks catching up uh but they have a different problem set right in and I think that I don't know if people on this podcast have seen it um there's a lot of information out there that um the civilian population that is actually qualified to join the military right now uh is lower than than our history um because uh unfortunately because of obesity um and you know folks aren't meeting the initial height and weight standards so uh what I think the conventional forces are realized is like holy smokes um we've got this problem where um we've got people coming into service that aren't quite prepared um so we need to invest even more now to get those folks prepared to do their job uh so I think it was it's very much an eye-opening uh moment and now there's like a soldier prep course um that the Center for Initial Military Training does um before you go to boot camp to make sure make sure you're ready to go and you're not getting injured in that so um I I think there's just been a few eye-opening moments in the last you know uh five to ten years that um folks are realizing how much of a focus this needs to be uh for our conventional forces as well as our as our special operators.

Gosh that's a sobering sobering realization right like we're we're just let's just say what it is we're just too fat like to to perform in the military. That's it.

No, it's it's it's disappointing but you know it's awesome that uh there's folks like us talking about it, being honest about it, um recognizing that it's a problem. And then I know there's a ton of people listening that that have ideas of how to solve it. Like let's come together as a community and there's a bunch of like task force right now that are are really focusing on this uh to make sure that you know as a population and and you know we can be you know better prepared for life and and to serve our country.

Yeah yeah so this show is called the future of fitness right uh when you look at the next I don't know let's put a timeframe on it next 10 years of you know the industry overall and beaver fit's role like what what gets you excited? How do you see BeaverFit expanding? Is there any particular parts of the fitness health and wellness industry that get you that you're kind of eyeballing like okay this could be really big. You know what what what gets you fired up right now? What what's the vision?

Oh this is this is a good one. I'm not sure like we want to be there to support folks like I'm not sure that we're gonna come up with the next best idea. We want to be there to stand behind folks when they have that idea uh we can help bring it to life um and we've had some of those conversations like there's the idea of like digital weights like oh wow we can now create a load like lots of load like 300 plus pounds um in in something uh that's quite small uh and portable like uh that's interesting um that this might allow us to train uh in ways and places that we never thought we really could because um it couldn't bring weights there uh or uh it it it just wasn't possible to move that much weight around uh to certain uh locations and spaces so uh that's interesting I think to us we're we're not really sure which way that's gonna go but the idea of you know creating a lot of load in smaller devices is like huh because we're we're mobile outdoor fitness company like okay cool um we we want to bring a bunch of weight somewhere but man it won't fit in that trailer um because no vehicle would ever be able to tow it right so it's like huh that that's interesting to us we're not sure uh exactly where that's gonna go or what we're gonna do but um I would say that's uh that has piqued our interest recently um we need to make some decisions on what we're gonna do with that interest and uh but we're we're keeping an eye on uh kind of the direction folks are going with some of those ideas.

Yeah interesting uh no you guys are a private company is that correct we are private so we're we're uh owned 100% by myself uh Alex Ruthhouse who I mentioned uh and then uh Tom Bieber and his dad Jim Bieber uh in the UK cool um if you if you don't mind share what you can I mean just about where the business is at I know you guys probably want to keep things a little close but you know as far as employees you know revenues like if you guys take an investment like what what does that look like?

Yeah so uh as far as team members we've got uh 80 team members in the US um you know a lot of our sales reps live in their sales region and then uh at our headquarters in Reno Nevada where uh over the last couple years uh we vertically integrated a lot of our supply chains so we have our in-house uh lasers and powder coning systems and things like that that I talked about uh in the UK uh so it's pretty cool we have the ability to support um the European market with direct manufacturing in the UK uh so we've got uh I think about 40 team members in the UK um that office is just awesome it's on um the Beaver family farm uh we've converted this farm into a manufacturing hub it it's just a cool experience because you know you know you look outside the fab shop and there's sheep up on the hill it's it's a pretty cool spot um so uh we we are gonna go through a global merger um so we've been uh right now it's two separate entities um with slightly different ownership structure but uh we're we are combining those two entities um here in the near future we've been working on that for a while and we think that um working closer together as a global brand is gonna benefit our our customers a ton and be able to apply those different resources in other places so um we're excited about that initiative uh moving forward you know and then say we we love uh being wholly owned by the owners uh nothing against uh investors or anything like that there's a ton of value there but sometimes they can drive decision making and uh you know we're lucky that it's it's myself and and alex and and tom and his dad Jim as well as our key team members that um you know we're the decision making team uh and we we do take advice from consultants and advisors and all that kind of stuff but when it comes down to it um there's no outside voice that's influencing those decisions so um we take pride in that uh we've been able to fuel our growth um through you know internal resources to date um if something crazy happens and there's uh you know something we need to do we would look you know for outside capital but uh right now you know our plan is to continue to to grow and fuel the growth by the resources that we have in-house uh unless something crazy happens which uh we feel like we've got some partners and we're prepared uh for that moment if we if we do need that outside support.

Yeah yeah that's awesome man and so I mean you're bootstrapped essentially right yeah the whole way through yeah the whole way through I mean that that's that's so critical and I I've had you know I've been involved with companies that are both heavily investor based and bootstrapped and there's just uh how do I describe this um more sense of a calm in a bootstrap company you know like it there's uh it's like okay no we can we can take our time in you know there's urgency always right urgency when when it's needed but when it comes to like okay no we we know what we want to do let's execute in the right and very time let's you don't get forced to do things too early right you don't get pushed too hard when you shouldn't be pushed you know there's there's all this exterior pressure I mean um do is that ring true to you and your experience so far?

Oh yeah we feel it every day like and we we see other people doing stuff like man why that why is that going on um and yeah you we can make our own decisions and uh we've got a ton of ideas we do struggle with decision making still uh let's be honest here right um and there's a lot of things you want to say yes to but not not all of them you know make sense to say yes to uh we we do say yes to a lot and we're getting it better at saying yes but um so uh let's not say that um there's not those challenges and competing priorities you know I I think like all companies we definitely struggle with um setting true priorities sticking to them and having you know concrete strategy um you know we're we're not great at that um and and it's something that we're we're trying to get better at so um it and and sometimes like you know investor led companies are way better at that like oh no here's the strategy here's the priority here's why um the these are key metrics that we're always measuring uh for success like there's tons of benefit to that and and and we're not great at that we're getting better uh because we've taken some advice from folks um so it's it's always like anything right there's pros and cons. Um but you know we we do um feel very lucky that when we can make our own decisions.

Yeah yeah I think a lot of people including myself it's like you know it's hard to say no and feeling yes feels so good.

Yeah saying yes feels so good right that's for sure uh what do you uh what do you need right now you know I asked that just spirit of collaboration you know the audience of uh in the community we have you know what what can we help you with what's uh what's important to you yeah um I think feedback like we we love hearing from you know people in the industry or customers like hey man this the new trailer that you guys came out with um you think it's awesome but hey uh have you thought about doing this or that or um you know uh maybe it's not so great because of this so uh you know we we love feedback um we we pride ourselves in in listening to that and um kind of trying to understand the why behind that feedback and trying to get better so uh or you yeah I think that's the biggest one Eric is like hey let's let's communicate but let's be transparent let's be honest with each other and um you know that's the only way we're gonna get better.

Yeah awesome well uh Mike I I really appreciate your time on this Friday. Uh I know there's still snow in the Sierra so uh you know hopefully I didn't keep you from uh you know here we are in in May of 2023 and it looks like you're gonna have a lot of skiing left very jealous.

Yeah folks are skiing until July out here so come on out and get some ski runs Eric let's go.

Oh that's wild. Yeah coming in um it's been really great talking to you I I really admire the business you know I love bootstrack companies I love the stories behind them I love the values and the culture you guys have and you know um when you get to partner with people like Matabolic and and you know the military and all this company you're obviously doing something right so congratulations so far and uh yeah thank you for for joining me today Mike thank you Eric and you know to all the listeners out there thanks for giving Beaver fit a shot and I'll look forward to working with you. Yeah ladies and gentlemen Mike Taylor hey wait don't leave yet this is your host Eric Malzone and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Futurist 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 for iTunes Spotify Cat Box 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 or whatever it may be, please share this episode because we put a lot of work into and want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly if you'd like to learn more or get in touch with me simply go to the feature of finites.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 Malzon and this is the feature of Fitness have a great day.