Vincent Miceli - Verb.co & AI Based Habit Development for Coaches & Gyms

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over two years and running. It is 2021, and I am your host, Eric Malzone. I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. When you do what you love, running, racing, or simply enjoying the great outdoors, you want to do it for life. Insight Tracker can help. Insight Tracker was founded in 2009 by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Using their patented algorithm, Insight Tracker analyzes your body's data to provide you with a clearer picture of what's going on inside you while offering highly personalized, science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. Okay, time for straight talk. It's time that each single one of us takes responsibility for our own health. 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Please go check out our wonderful sponsors. And if you get value out of this show, I ask you to do three things. Please go subscribe, give us a favorable rating, and share this episode on social media or wherever you like to go chat with friends. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and once again, welcome to the future of fitness. Oh, we are live, Vim Selly. Welcome to the Future of Fitness, man. Just uh two guys on a Friday morning with names, uh last names that end with vowels chatting it up about uh fitness technology, right? What what else uh what else would you want? Um man, I'm I'm it's gonna be a lot of fun talking to you. You you got great energy, uh, you got a great backstory. I mean, you've come into the industry uh in a much different vector than most people have, and uh that brings a unique perspective. And I think um, you know, what you're doing at Verb uh is really interesting. You know, you've kind of picked a lane and you're you're really hammering at it. And uh, you know, I've been impressed with that scene so far. So I'm excited to get you more exposure as well. So start with uh as we always do, Vin, man, give us your backstory, how'd you get to be where you are now, and um then we'll talk about Verb a little later on.

Yeah, awesome. Thank you again. Thank you for having me. And um I love the opportunity to share kind of how I how I tripped into this industry. And um, I definitely had a an odd way into it. I I you know graduated college and wanted nothing more than to be like the uh guy with the three-piece suit, power broker, investment banker of the world, right? And I I did have some early success in that industry, which led me into the hospitality industry in in New York City, opened um a number of nightclubs and and restaurants, um, either as you know a small partner or investor, and ended up managing those as well, um, which, you know, as a five, six, hundred, fifty-pound guy for the majority of my life, um the lifestyle that comes with that uh was was really easy in helping me get to 250.

Wow.

Right. So in in being in the hospitality industry in New York City, um, you know, you talk about being out seven nights a week, uh, entertaining clients, living a uh as unhealthy a lifestyle as you could imagine, um, getting up to 245, 250 uh happened almost in the blink of an eye, right? You know, I went from wearing uh size 30 jeans to I I remember the day that my 38s were too tight, and I'm like, huh, we're going in the wrong direction, right? So uh that pairing with losing my businesses and and being bankrupt, I I had nothing going for me as far as anyone would consider, right? I was unhealthy, I was unhappy, and I was broke. So, how does that actually lead me into the fitness industry? I just spent probably uh one or two years just living in Google, teaching myself. Um, lost 100 pounds, gave up every bad habit, drinking, drugs, smoking, you know, being out every day, and then was, you know, 157 pounds and like 5% body fat. I was like, cool, what am I gonna do next? And I tell this story to a few people, but I was looking at at the time it was a uh muscle and fitness magazine, and there was an ad for the Mr. Olympia, and then there was an old Rich Froning ad for BSN supplements where he was like doing a box jump. And I think at the time he had like maybe won two of the games. And I was like, oh, and they were they were you know page one and page two, right? And I'm like, oh, I I I mean, I'm in shape. I do all this amazing stuff, I could do like a hundred pull-ups. I I could either become a uh you know world-class bodybuilder or I'll win this CrossFit Games thing. Um I had never heard about it, nothing, right? So I flipped the coin and it landed on CrossFit Games. Um so signed up for the games, like went to the website, read the book, the whole thing. Never stepped foot in the gym before in my life, a CrossFit gym. And I'm like, cool, how hard could it be? Like, and it's uh embarrassing when I say it now, but I'm like, I'm obviously in better shape than this guy doing the box. So I like signed up for the game. Yeah, yeah, right. Like, so just to kind of I guess highlight the way that I look at tackling something like that. I was convinced in my mind I could go on the website, read the rule book, sign up for the open, find a gym close to me, do these five workouts at the time, you know, that's that's how you made it to the next stage, and then go win the games. So then I'm like, cool, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go all in on that. So signed up for the open, paid, still had never done a Watt or anything, don't even know what a CrossFit gym looks like. And then Googled CrossFits near me, walked into the gentleman who eventually became my business partner and said, Hey man, like we spoke on the phone, I'm here for the games. Um, so that's how I actually like tripped into the industry. Obviously, I didn't, not only did I not qualify for regionals at the time, um, but I didn't win the games. So what I recognized though in that first night in that gym, um, which is in which was in White Plains, New York, which is a suburb of Manhattan, I I looked around and I'm like, oh, there's there's something going on in this room that was different than any other gym I had been to. I'm like, people are like committed to each other here. There was energy here. And I said, Oh, look, this is this is awesome. I could definitely build a business here. So I went home the first night after taking back-to-back classes. I did a wad and then Oli, and then I couldn't walk for a week. Um, like I had just destroyed my body, and then started researching opening an affiliate. So you're talking about like in the course of a week, I convinced myself I could win the games, signed up for the open, stepped foot on a Wednesday into a CrossFit gym. By Thursday, I had filled out my application and started um interacting on like their uh their message board and researching what it actually meant and looking at properties. So uh I meet a lot of people in our industry and they're like, oh, you're the exact guy no one wants to open a gym, which is actually a hundred percent correct, right? Like the first class I had ever taught was the first day we were open. So now I'm in the fitness industry. I had look, you know, and in my mind I convinced myself, um, which like knock on wood, I'm like, oh, well, how hard could this be? Right? Like, as long as I don't blow out knees or shoulders and I generally keep people healthy, I should be able to navigate this. I, you know, I have 300 employees. How hard could you know owning a gym be? And I and I I said to myself, I gotta pay rent and utilities. That's not that much. I can figure this out. Um, and that's how I entered the space. And almost instantly it was like, you know, living in the gym. I I couldn't afford a scrubber at the time, so I'm like mopping all night just in time to get to the opening class, right? Um and I just took it from a different aspect, right? Like my partner Chris at the time, you know, his gym had been open for four maybe four years prior. I I knew I never wanted to be writing workouts. I never thought that like the workout specifically was the thing changing it. It was just about consistency and these like these general lifestyle, which ultimately became the the underpinnings and the ethos of what Verb is today. Um but uh you know that God willing, we're at eight and a half years or and change open. And you know, we made it through COVID and all the other things and ups and downs of owning a gym. And you know, we started with 3,000 square feet and we're a 13 and a half thousand square foot facility with multiple rooms and you know, different programs. So that was really the the the place, the lab, if you will, of where Verb was born.

Awesome, man. Yeah, it's uh you know, one of the drawbacks of the CrossFit community early on was I mean, it was it was a strength and it was a weakness, was the low barrier to entry, right? It it brought so many people who never would have otherwise been in the fitness industry in, but it also there was a big, you know, quality control issue. And I I wasn't, I mean, I was in athletics my whole life when I started my first CrossFit gym. I had had the ability to coach at Low Lane Fitness before, but not much. And you know, I really came at it with a business perspective, kind of like you did. You're like, you saw this, you're like, I can do this, right? I could run a business like this for sure, right? Um, which actually is very I think rare where people come into the gym business having a business side versus kind of working up through maybe being a personal trainer or group trainer and then seeing like, okay, my next logical step is gym ownership, right? And then they go that way. And then they have to learn the quote unquote business side of things. I hate that phrase. But um it is uh, you know, it's unique. And and I'm curious, like when you look at your entry point and starting in gym, do you think having that know-how of how did your background benefit you? I know you talked about you you were lacking some things, but how did your background benefit you in that?

Yeah, so uh and I and I got into quite a few debates over this theory. Um, and this is like 2012, maybe 13. Um, everyone measured the success of their gym in numbers, right? Like, how many members do you have? Oh, how many members do you have? And I never I actually never knew or I always measured it by my revenue. Um and that's and I think that was one of the things that allowed me to look at the business differently, right? So um I I really only ever early, early days when we were still playing, I call it the cash game, right? Where you're like uh, you know, you're like robbing Peter to PayPal and figuring out how to get it all going as you're as you're growing. For me, it was always about uh is our revenue growing? And as our revenue's growing, are the expenses to capture that revenue decreasing proportionately to the amount that we were actually growing, right? So I'm not actually trying to go negative expenses, but I want, you know, let's say my expenses were going up 10%. I wanted my revenue to be going up 30 or 40% so that there was actually spread as we grew. Um, and one of the things that I had learned in the hospitality business, and you see this a lot in the franchise business as well, um, the businesses become super fruitful at two, three, four, five locations because the the back end expenses to capture that revenue get smaller at each new uh location or at each new revenue source. So early on, the idea was always multiple gyms because if I could you know operate on, let's say, uh a 10% or 15% profit margin, then in theory, gym number two and gym number three should be you know 11%, 10%, 9%, and because it's uh your your accountant is account doing accounting for all of them. Your you know, social media is doing social media. So that scale is is really what I thought about. Um and again, my part my partner Chris, who I had had uh made a deal with early on, was um, you know, wouldn't he have rather partnered as the second location of his brand than be the first than me open the first location of whatever town I was in at the time. Um so I I looked at scale a little bit differently. Um and and the the other thing that I think I did differently is I never wanted to use that business um as my personal piggy bank. Meaning, you know, it was never about a lifestyle for me. It was always about building a business that would eventually just run completely without me and um meaning I'd probably never, you know, make this this lifestyle salary or take home that these other success successful gym owners make, but that it would always be there as some annuity payment. Um and building real careers for people. I knew that if I was able to give trajectory and a career path for some of these younger guys that that were wanting to be trainers or coaches, that it would build loyalty in the in the company. Nice.

Yeah, I love that, man. So let's uh let's take a step forward, let's talk about verb a little bit. And I guess before we get into what it is, what what was the what was the problem that you saw that you wanted to solve? What how did this whole thing start?

So I I have a a pretty large distaste for social media as a whole. Um, I think that social media creates what I call manufactured superstars, right? So that means that um most of us are are not happy, healthy, and wealthy all the time, but social media teaches us to portray that, which means that typically if you see a post, it's probably the third or fourth picture, it's probably got an edit, you know, and there's some thought behind all of it. It's not raw, it's not off the cuff, um, and you're not really getting too much substance. Now I think now you're starting to see some of that change where I think they're it's becoming a lot more welcome to share failures and to share what people are actually doing. But uh early on it was it was that I saw, you know, everybody was always PRing and everyone was always losing weight, and everyone was always selling their company, and every like it was just completely fabricated. Um, and this is going all the way back, like, you know, when I was in college, I was one of the first like nine or ten or eleven schools that had Facebook. So you're talking about since 200 maybe three, almost my entire journey had been captured on some platform. And you see it in a way that it's only what people always wanted to put forward. So I saw that there was this big gap in people actually taking responsibility for their own accountability and their own health. Um and and I saw that there was something going on when I was able to talk to a person one-on-one. If it's me and you talking, you know, we we're inherently storytellers, we want to share the bad parts, right? We want to share the good parts, we want to share all of it. And the risk of a million people laughing at you for tripping on yourself or for you know binging three days in a row, people tend to not share it as much. So I was looking at this idea that there was something missing, and it wasn't you know a completely private platform, it wasn't another social media platform, it was just a way for people to talk about what was going on. So a lot of times I would sit with clients and you know they they they all were uh all having similar problems. It's you know, they're going to the gym six days a week, they're trying to pay attention to what they're eating, but uh either the scale's not moving or they're not happy in their clothes, or they're not happy in their body, or their career wasn't moving in the right direction. And there was always this this small, to me, puzzle piece just missing for them. It was one or two small things that if they just paid attention to would help them move the needle. And I think that's really what like what made me think about habits and accountability in a different way.

Yeah, awesome, man. I love that. Yeah, and I do have a disdain for more for social media. In fact, this podcast would probably be 10 times bigger if I enjoyed if I enjoyed social media, you know, and I I think about that all the time. Like if I just like sucked it up and I did all the Instagram things and you know, uh was constantly on Facebook, I I would I would have a bigger following, but I just can't do it. I would it yeah, it disgusts me when I get on there. Not disgust, that's a strong word. It doesn't it doesn't bring it doesn't uh restore faith in humanity, let's put it that way, when I look at social media. Yeah.

Look, and I think there's a ton of good that comes from it, but uh it's just I I just felt the same, right? Like people were too people were too hung up on on worrying about the wrong thing if their health was the number one thing they wanted to be worrying about.

Yeah, well, I mean, how many times like I've been in a good mood, right? Things are going great, and then I'll open Instagram or something, and then something'll piss me off. And then I'm just like, whoa. Yeah, everything like everything before that was great. And then this little image that popped up on my phone ruined my afternoon or my evening, right? And it's uh it's a powerful thing. So um people are probably wondering at this point. So what is Verb? Like what exactly is it? What do you what are you guys doing?

So Verb is uh an SMS platform, um, which is text message, right? Green bubble for all the the Apple people out there. Uh it's a SMS platform that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning uh to help people understand their daily habits. So uh it's a very broad topic. We as a core business focus on a few measurables sleep, water, stress, food, and workout. That means that we'll help you on a daily basis pay attention to the unsexy things like those five topics on a every single day over and over again and help you understand the trends within them. Right? And um we've seen that as long as people are willing to understand and document and keep track of what those habits are, they're gonna move the needle in their own life. And it might be in health and wellness, or it might be in business, or it might be in their relationship. Um you know, once you start paying attention to these to these general habits that we all know are help are important. Everyone knows they should sleep, but the vast majority of us sleep four or five hours, and even if we're in bed for eight. Or nine hours, we're probably not actually sleeping fully. We're out on phone, we're doing this, we're rolling around. So I think that um just understanding these basic starting points is something people haven't even really looked at. Um and and early on in in the business, I didn't know that there were people that never drank a cup of water in a day. And like we're just pulling out one really, really small subset of what the platform actually does and what I'm looking to help people do. Um, but I didn't know this until we had hundreds of people saying that they drank zero ounces of water in a day. And then when we pull at that string a little bit, it's like, oh, I had um, you know, a two-liter soda and coffee all day, or or something like that. So I didn't realize generally how unimportant some of these things actually are. Whereas, you know, yourself or me or or the people I tend tend tend to be around, health a healthy lifestyle is generally just par for the course. You're you're actually thinking about what you're eating at each meal, you know, and you start to see where people are trying to be healthy, but like they're eating a bacon, egg, and cheese on a and a on a bagel for breakfast, and they're having a Italian combo for lunch and then pasta for dinner, it's very easy to see how they could just be moving away from that. So Verb helps the end user um understand those basic habits, and we give businesses the tool to have this augmented communication platform to help them build that um open dialogue through their clients.

Yeah, interesting, man. Um I mean, when I look at fitness professionals, I mean, that right now there's there's a lot of room to grow in the area of habits or just being aware of what people do the other 23 hours of the day, right? When they're not in your gym, they're not communicating with you. That's the name of game. I mean, we've talked about you know how can Morpheus and Verb combine forces and look at the data that Morpheus is bringing in. One of the things that's really interesting just to kind of vert about is that um, and why I love this type of technology, because I think it supports what fitness and health professionals want to do quite well, because we can't we can't scale ourselves in that way. Um but one of as we're building more and more testimonials for Morpheus about the data that's bringing in, the conversation it's having, there's two things that seem to be consistent, which aren't shocking but yet a little bit surprising, is that um people just using the Morphe and probably saying with your platform is like, okay, now there's awareness. People are starting to become aware, right? And that that's like it's like a wake-up call. And then what happens is that awareness brings more curiosity, which brings more questions to the fitness per health professional, which deepens a relationship. And that uh people would think about, you know, well, AI or we're separating, we're we're too focused on data, we're too whatever. No, man, I I don't think so. And I'm curious to get your thoughts. Like, you know, how is this? We're not taking away opportunities with tech, right? We're offering a deeper relationship. And I'm curious to see from what you guys are doing, how are you seeing that unfold?

Yeah, it's it's very it's very interesting to see kind of how technology is playing a huge part in the in the industry overall. Um, and and I I like to uh I bucket fitness professionals and gyms into two categories, and I see it a lot, right? Because in in the wearable space, in the in the hey, download my app and get my workout space, and you know, trying to scale and make that financial freedom money, you see a lot of people who actually want to do less work. And then there's certain people who really want to be engaged with their clients, right? So for me, I think that technology does do two things in this industry. One, it lends itself to the person who uh has some amount of insight, education, and background that they can scale themselves by doing less work, right? And you could see that in uh a lot of the you know pre-packaged programs out there um that touch millions of people and have huge successes, right? Um, and then there's the other person that's they want to have that interaction and they want to leverage technology to make their coaching better, right? So that might be um the the gym that has 500 members and they want to utilize technology to enhance their in-gym experience and then leverage some technology like verb to understand the out-of-gym experience. Um, and then at the same time, that might be the personal trainer who you know is working with 100 clients and he wants to figure out how to work with 200 clients without diluting himself. So I think there's two ways to look at technology, and that's you know, augmenting or or magnifying yourself or you know, removing yourself and figuring out how to deliver a product that's worthwhile at the same time.

Yeah, it's uh I I want to dive into because you you focused when we were talking right before recording, you touched on a conundrum that's been in the fitness industry for a long time. And it's um, you know, well, we're where do we really deliver results for people? We deliver results in small digestible changes over time, right? Habits really is what it is. And that's just not sexy and it's not good marketing. And uh the fact of the matter is I remember um, you know, from a personal anecdote of when the six-week challenge format came into the industry really hard. And it was like it was this lead generation uh miracle for gym owners and trainers who are like, oh my god, I can get. I remember the first time I ran a challenge, I got like 120 people like came in, and you know, it was just this. I'm like, I'm gonna do this every month, right? And then you start to see, like, okay, well, what am I actually promising here? I'm promising transformation in six weeks, or um, you know, and then then the retention was horrible on the back end. I think at one point after my first challenge, I retained 4% of people that came into the challenge six months later, right? Because their mindset was already set. It's like, well, I just need six weeks to this. And, you know, so it became this thing too. So it's like, well, if I don't do the challenges and I don't, you know, talk about the results they want in a certain timeframe that may be realistic or maybe not, because we don't know. We don't know the habits of each individual, we don't know what their motivations are, we don't know what's gonna happen next week. Are they gonna lose their job? Are they gonna go through a divorce? You know, all these things are gonna happen in someone's personal life. But hey, the guy down the street or the woman down the street is gonna talk to people about these, you know, 30-day, you know, fat blasting results. And we're gonna lose that client. They're gonna walk down the street. So what do you do? It's this conundrum. It's like, well, I gotta have, you know, do I give people what they want until I can show them what they need? Uh and it's a it's a frustrating thing. So on, yeah, man. Uh I'm curious to get your thoughts on what you've seen.

Yeah, so it's it's definitely we sell as a uh as a whole, the industry, um, buy more, do more, you know, be more extreme, and you could get what you want as fast as possible. And and I think a lot of that comes down to um there's a lot of choice for the client, right? So whether you're um th I'm 30 pounds overweight, I drink, I smoke, I work all the time, and um I'm either looking for a gym to go to or an in-home experience, right? Or some platform to deliver those experiences. No one wants to be told, hey, um, you've got to change your lifestyle, and it's gonna probably take you six months to a year to get to a stable place um in your weight and and in your general health, right? So that's a really ugly sales pitch. Yeah, it's just way easier to say, like, hey, we could do this in six weeks. Come in, I'm gonna sell you nutrition, I'm gonna hit you for three times a week, and I'm gonna have you do, you know, this in-home video workout. Also, that's an extra $20. I could get that person for some amount of money. Um, and then we know most likely they're not getting their goal in six weeks because they're not gonna be strict on everything they eat. They are gonna probably have a family and kids and work and and all these things that actually happen. So I think too often people people don't take their reality into account and what that actually means. And you know, for me, I lost a I lost 97 pounds in one year. Um, and I did it in these really aggressive sprints where I went, I did the first 30 days, I did nothing. I gave every single thing up and I ate perfect for 30 days. I lost 30 pounds in 30 days, and then for four days, I did every possible thing I could think of. I like slingshot it in the other direction, right? Went out the whole weekend, ate everything you could. I mean, I just felt like pure garbage. Then I'm like, okay, I saw traction in 30 days, I could do something. Let's see what 60 days will do. Did the same thing. Then from 60, I was like, cool, let's see see what 90 will do. And then all of a sudden, I like I walked myself down a year. And, you know, I I I think from my experience in the public market, I always look at, and and this is gonna be a recording, but I'm on video, so I'm gonna I'm gonna use my fingers to show Eric, like I look at everything like a stock where it's like, cool, I'm gonna go up 30%, I might drop 15. Then, but as long as I'm trending in that up to the right direction, and I'm in within some channel doing that, and maybe that's you know, my weight is going from 250 to 240 to 245 to 239 to 240 to 235. I'm like in this seven-pound channel, but I'm moving in the right direction, I know eventually I'll hit there, and we just don't have the patience to do it. Um, and overall, I think people just ignore these general habits of like, hey, get a decent amount of water in, you know, get a decent night's sleep, pay attention to most of your food and do some physical activity, you're gonna move in the right direction. Um I have an analogy that that I use for anyone who wants to come to me to lose weight. And and I have uh uh an ab uh almost an abrasive way to talk about. And I think because I was so overweight, I'm not shy to talk to people who are overweight. I'm like, look, I've I've been a hundred pounds overweight. I had a 40-inch waist at 5'6 and and nothing. Um it's not gonna be easy. I'm sure your knees hurt. I know you go home and eat things you tell you're not telling everyone else. So I I I feel like I can actually resonate with people that are struggling. So paying attention to those general habits over time will move the needle. But I I I give an analogy to people which is hey, look in your front lawn. Is there a tree that's been there since you moved there or since you were a kid? It's probably 100, 200, 300 years old. And then is there one that was planted recently? Maybe it's 20 years old or maybe it's two years old. And everyone's like, yeah, I know exactly I I have a I have a picture of these three different types of trees. I'm like, okay, well, which one's the easiest to rip out? And they're like, well, obviously the one we planted last season, I could probably just pull it right out. Like, okay, well, how hard do you think that two, three, four hundred-year-old tree is gonna be? They're like, well, you're gonna have to pay someone, they're gonna have to come in and cut all the roots, and the roots are probably, you know, 20, 30, 40 feet out. And again, I have no scientific proof behind this. And maybe one day this will be like my swan song. You know, the fat cells that have been in my body since I was 15 are I I have a hypothesis that they're harder to get rid of than the ones that I put on last month. Um, and I'm only basing that off of this tree analogy that that tree is rooted, it is not going anywhere. So that fat cell right by my belly button, and that's the hardest to get off, I I believe is the one that's been there the longest. And people just want it all to go away instantly, right? They come in and they're like, Hey, I want to get the fat right around my belly gone. But so many times people don't realize, you know, uh fat, uh, you lose fat towards the middle and you gain it towards the extremities, which means typically your face will start to lose weight first, your legs, and you'll like move in from limbs to to core, um, and and vice versa. So this is this hypothesis that I have that uh people who have 20, 30 years of unhealthy habits, it's not going away in three months. It's gonna take way longer than six weeks, and it's probably gonna be a pretty arduous journey. It's not just like snap your finger, you're done. And the vast majority of people, if they just paid attention to these basic habits, um would get where they wanted. Probably in one year, you could really, really change everything. Right? If you paid attention for one year, and and that's the actual thesis of the business of verb, is I did nothing for one year, right? I said, hey, look, no one's I think there's something missing. I think people are ignoring general habits, and I think people are just too afraid to go all in on something and see if they could move it. So I said to myself, look, I'm gonna give up one year of my life, I'm gonna do nothing except concentrate on my career. And that meant I skipped Mother's Day, I skipped weddings, I skipped funerals, I'd video log it, document the whole thing, and say, look, if you gave up 1% of your life once, which is about it was about 340 days if you live 80 years, I'd round it up to a year because it'd be cooler for a book. Um, could you actually change everything? And that was the entire thesis that that ended up becoming verb. I was just gonna write a book on positive sacrifice. And I invited five people to be chapters. I said, look, I'm doing one year, but Eric, pick a goal. I don't care what it is, and you have 60 days. I want you to run as hard as you can, and every decision has to be towards that, and or talk about why you didn't do it that day. And let's see what happens. And we had people like curing themselves of uh diseases they were told they'd have their whole life, losing 60 pounds when all they wanted to do was stop drinking, changing a career when they thought they wanted to leave their wife. Um, like these really profound things were happening, and all people were doing was just paying attention to their general habits around a thing. So I think I I I kind of uh drifted from there, but it's it's important to understand really how I look at habits and how I look at just just general daily actions, right? You know, um we've we've been talking for 30-ish minutes. I've been up for two and a half hours, it's 8 a.m. where I am, and I've been up for two and a half hours prior, and you know, I got my coffee in and I did some reading and I made sure I got some emails out of the way. And now I I know that I always set my day the same way based off these few little tiny habits that one or two days in a row mean nothing. But you stack those day after day after day, that's where it really makes a difference.

Yeah. Yeah, I I 100% agree with you. Josh Hillis has been on this show. He's uh a really smart guy in the area of habits um and fat loss, right? That's his that's his game. And I can't remember the exact quote, but it came down to this would you rather lose, you know, um 20 pounds in a month, or would you rather lose one pound for life? And that was I was like, whoa, yeah, that's really powerful because it's all about that. Like if you create the habit and you lose a pound, that pound's not coming back, right? It's but if you just focus on, well, I just need to lose, lose, lose, and then you just boomerang back, it's just human behavior. And uh it's it's a hard thing to combat. And that's once again getting back to it, it's not sexy to sell that as a gym owner or fitness professional, be like, hey, I want you to, we're gonna lose one pound every month by changing your habits. And then be like, well, I can do that on my own. Can you? Right? Can't can't. Can you? Because why would you if you're you wouldn't be here if you could? And uh I think that's something we we can but it's changing, you know, things are shifting now. Stuff like this is happening. People are putting huge focus on recovery and sleep and all these things that really matter for the longevity and long-term success of clients. And I guess one thing that would be helpful for me in the audience too is maybe anecdotally kind of describe like, let's say, uh a gym owner, maybe some stories about how Verb worked for a client so people can conceptualize in a little more detail.

Yeah, of course. So something we see at the gym owner level is um the owner has his set of relationships that he interacts with either in or out of the gym. The the coach or coaches or GM, they they also have their their own set of you know, um above surface level relationships, whether that's people you've built friendships with, whether you personally train them, they they like your class the best. And one of the things that that we've seen at the gym level is all of those people typically navigate those relationships using their own personal phone, you know, to some degree, whether that's coaching, whether that's personal training, um, whether that's uh hanging out on the weekends, whatever it is, right? So that means um not only as an owner do I have, let's say, 400 members, um, but those 400 members are then chopped up and sliced up and navigated by some subset of my staff. So where does verb come into play there? What ends up happening is um one, we take away the use of those personal cell phone numbers for things that are related to the business, right? So that means that you as my GM, you have the ability to touch every one of the clients through a dedicated phone number that one, um, protects the gym, protects the coach. It helps us as a business understand what types of conversations are actually going on. Are our staff members happy? Are clients happy? And then what the other thing that starts to manifest itself is you could start to see when clients are entering that fringe client level, right? So there's always this like subset of clients. They're like, you know, the people that are are movers of your business, there's that stable client, there's that fringe client. And then I would say there's that client that like on any given day, one bad experience there out there. Right, right. Right. Uh and what Verb helps the owner do is uh understand how that how that conversation manifests itself. You know, whether it's from an attendance standpoint to they're not having good workouts, to they're not hitting their goals. And then from a coach standpoint, um, it gives them some privacy in their personal cell phone. This is something we saw happen without us expecting it, is more and more businesses and coaches and trainers are coming to us and they're saying, Look, man, like I love that you're giving me a real phone number because it's really challenging to get all of my personal conversations and all of my clients texting me on my personal phone number. You know, it's it's clouded, it's um congested, there's no good way to keep track of things. And it's and the more we are attached to our phone, the less actual alone time privacy happens for any of these staff members, right? Because again, as a client, we don't think anything of it. I have my coach's phone number, I'm paying him for personal training. Like I should be able to text him at whatever time I want and and get some sort of assistance. So something we're seeing increasingly is that it's allowing professionals in our space to actually have some semblance of, you know, um, when I'm working, when I'm not, and how to navigate that correctly. So from the gym aspect, we see that you know, we help with retention, we help navigate conversations uh around these food, water, stress. Are you going to class? You know, uh, oh, you want to measure this, Eric? We can help you do that, and then automate the majority of that. So, you know, if I were an owner, or let's say I was a GM and you were a client at my gym, you know, we could work together on Verb's platform and it might be an upcharge, it might be included in your membership. That's all different depending on the gym we work with. Um, but you're like, look, I don't drink any water, man. I it's I I my food's on point. I measure my food every day for 10 years. I that's not something I'm interested in. And we could actually tailor this communication around Eric's need for water throughout the day andor something, some other variation. You know, we have a ton of clients in gyms that that they work on shutting their phones down at a certain time so that they could be ready for bed and actually get the sleep they need. So on the gym level, you know, we look at it it inadvertently became a retention tool, and it wasn't something that I initially set out to do. I just always knew that if we helped a client and a coach understand the client's habits in a way that typically falls through the cracks, they would both have success, whether that's professionally in the coach's business or the gym's business, or in the client's outcome of what their fitness journey was. And we ended up noticing we were becoming a tool that assisted in retention and in building um a communication channel that otherwise was being ignored.

Yeah. Wow, great description, man. So uh where are you guys at now from as a business standpoint? Are you guys bootstrapping, looking for investment? What's what's important to your business right now?

Yep, so so we are looking for investment. I think anyone who's ever started a company that ever raised outside money, I think everyone kind of knows you that that journey never ends. We are looking for investment at the moment. Um we've to date bootstrapped the business. That's myself and a few other investors have have been really driving the truck on on that. Um and you know, for me, uh in the business, we've always looked at like these small milestones, um, especially in technology, right? There's this like uh amount you need to move prior to generating enough revenue to matter or or or really get the traction you need to be sustainable on your own. So we are raising. Um obviously, if if anyone's interested, that's a conversation I'm always open to have. I think people in our industry who understand the product tend to tend to be the ones interested in this in this type of product. Um and then we are working with uh a handful of large fitness franchises at the moment to help them with their you know corporate down to individual franchise owner communication, um, which is another channel that's been significantly overlooked. Uh we are working with a number of micro gyms, uh whether that's um, you know, uh a CrossFit gym or or uh a Barry style gym or you know, a small group class or or a nutrition counseling business or a weight loss spa. Right. So for us, we're really looking for brands, coaches, and businesses that understand the importance of communication with their clients and understand the importance of these general habits. Um, you know, SMS is predominantly an unsexy, low-tech considered business. Everybody wants, you know, this mobile app that does content and videos and and all, you know, all these bells and whistles. And for us, uh it's not about that. Um I think that there's enough of the, you know, there's enough of the true coaches and the trainerizes and and uh the pelotons that that are all in this like content workout space. And I don't think the world needed another person trying to deliver workouts. Um because it's for me, it's significantly not about the 40 minutes. Uh when when I have clients come to me and whatever they're doing isn't working, you know, they're like, look, man, I I I go to the gym five times a week and it's horrible and I don't enjoy it and I'm not losing weight. I'm like, well, go try every gym you could find and find one that you enjoy that hour. Because it doesn't matter what you actually do, as long as you're enjoying that time. Whether it's a 20-minute workout or a two-hour workout, it doesn't matter. Um, it's the stuff outside the gym that that really interests me. And and for for Verb at this current juncture, we're looking for those brands and those businesses that that feel like they're missing um that piece, that that private communication, that um ability to scale their coaches, that ability to pull out those data points and really give clients that extra bit of feedback that that might be overlooked.

Yeah. It's it's um God, I can't remember the number, but there's um this theory that you can only have 150 meaningful relationships in your life, right? And it was so critical as a you know, having a few boutique CrossFit gyms, which you know we rebranded later, but um that number was so true. I don't know if it was just like my subconscious limiting it, but it was always that point you get to 150, and you're like, okay, everything above that seems 10 times harder to maintain, and retention starts to hit. And so that's why tools like this I think are spot on. Like you're picking a very specific problem, right? And and you're that's what I like about it, is you're you're picking a specific problem and you're going at it, right? Really hard and solving that issue. And I think there's a lot of room, there's a lot of people who need help with communication. And one of the biggest uh causes of burnout within the gym owner uh realm is just having too many relationships, especially if you're someone who's somewhat introverted like myself, like that it's it's it's hard, you know, it's just hard. And yeah, and uh you don't want to give out your private, but you you know, it's it's like everyone wants a little bit of peace of you, whether they know it or not, and what that effect is. Like they, you know, for like how many weddings was was I invited to being a boutique gym owner, right? And I love all my clients, but I'm like, my wife was like, Are you are you serious? Like, we can't can we just you know, so you you just end up giving everything, and there's no you can't, it's not sustainable, and you have to find ways to to leverage yourself that don't take energy from yourself. So I I get it, man. I totally get it, and I think it's a really um it's a really valuable asset. Uh yeah, I I don't uh I think that covers a lot of it, man. Where if people want to get hold of you, they want to talk to you about, you know, trying it out or you know, learning about the business plan for investment purposes and all these good things, where where do you send them online, Vin?

Easy enough, just shoot me an email, right? Vin at verb.co. Uh about as short an email as you could get. Um, you know, you could you could get uh you could get us on on our Instagram as well at get verb. Um either of those will work. And uh again, at a at our website as well, if you wanted to just do some some background or or even just fill out a questionnaire, it's uh www.verb.co. Um you know it's that that above the 150 number is is that it's a very transient relationship, right? So as the gym owner, you you navigate those really well, and then all of a sudden above that you find you can't get past 200. You can't, you know, it's it's really hard to to let someone else navigate their own 150 clients within your gym. And then that's where that that that first big step up comes. And whether that's in a GM or or a really effective coach or or a staff member or a business partner, but what we're what we are seeing with Verb is that we see coaches and brands, once they figure out their business on our platform, um, are able to then magnify themselves 5, 6, 7x. And whether that's you want to run an entire remote business or you want to navigate your current one, uh, it really lends itself to helping navigate more than what an individual can navigate on their own without diluting that one-to-one interaction.

Yeah, I love it. And uh Dunbar number just came. That's what it's called. It's the Dunbar number for people who want to look it up. Um, right on. Well, Vin, thank you so much for coming on the Future Fitness. It was a pleasure. I I really enjoy our conversations. Uh, you're a fun guy to talk to and uh really interesting stories. So yeah, thanks for coming on. Ladies and gentlemen, Vincent Masselli.

Thank you. It was my pleasure. Have an awesome day, everybody.

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