HALO Talks

Eve Nasby is the President of Band of Hands, a company now in 11 states with a disruptive business model that helps small business owners manage their staff without having to worry about the administrative burden of being the "employer of record." She has over 30 years of experience in the staffing industry and is passionate about helping businesses succeed.  98% of businesses in America are small businesses-those with less than 50 employees. And (putting it mildly), staying on top of the latest rules and regulations (like California's AB5, Gig Worker Law as a recent example), is extremely onerous and time consuming. Eve experienced this herself when she owned a small business and struggled to manage her staff and keep up with all of the paperwork. In an industry that's so old and staid, BOH is poised to blast off! She states, "You've got to surround yourself with people that aren't 'Yes people,' that are going to challenge you, challenge the way you think, and challenge the way 'things have always been done

After decades of success in the fitness industry, George Jackson created TG-The Gym in 2018. It represents the next step in his career and a distillation of all he has learned. TG is an umbrella organization offering a license to independent gym owners with a tremendous number of benefits and proven business model that's readily deployable.  George is a well known, long-time industry veteran who started with Gold's Gym around 1983. He's gone through multiple iterations over the years, taking what is useful and constantly refining his model . . . and it's working! Peter San Nicolas is the The Gym's first licensee. He's another industry pro who decided to rebrand his facility to The Gym-Ramona and he joins us on the podcast as well.  George states, "Starting the brand in 2018, we just saw an opportunity, especially for people like Peter. You know . . . independent guys that would now have an opportunity to be supported with a bigger group. As Peter knows, I'm never gonna tell him what to do, but if he comes to

Dr. Sal Arria is one of the Founders of Lionel University (formerly ISSA College of Exercise Science), and an educational leader in the fitness industry. He's been around literally since the inception of the personal trainer education space. He continues his life-long mission of creating highly educated fitness professionals to help people change their lives. Sal had a serious wake up call many years ago when, after presenting his plan to a Vice President of a very large insurance company, he was met with the conversation stopper, "Sal. Stop and do the math on this! It doesn't work for me!" Sal promptly threw $100 on the table and walked out. The very real reality is the fact that the medical insurance industry doesn't make money from healthy people.  Arria states, "Could you imagine walking into a physician who spent eight years in college, many years in residency and say, 'Hey, I earned my certification . . . I took one class.' You can't do it! A single certification is great for entry level, but think abou

Taylor Stull, a former product manager for preventative health solutions, is the Co-Founder of Flowell, a platform that provides team-based experiences and lifestyle games to help clubs and coaches build communities and keep people healthy for life – all while navigating the challenges of helping them make good decisions for long-term success. "At the end of the day, we're working to try to keep people healthy for their whole life by helping them make good decisions. This way they can hopefully have longer, more enriching, more fulfilling lives. That's really what I'm here trying to bring to market," he states. Taylor was determined to find a way to help people make better choices after his own health journey and he wanted to pay it forward. He developed Flowell, a team-based fitness gamification platform, to bring the community together and nurture relationships, as well as motivate healthy lifestyle decisions.  Through trial and error, Taylor found that community, fun experiences, and rewards are key to lon

Doug Young, currently the COO of Easalytics, faces the daunting task of leveraging technology and machine learning to help struggling fitness businesses maximize value from their existing members, and increase revenue retention - all while avoiding unintended consequences. Doug is a Connecticut-based software and AI expert who has been in the tech industry since the late 90's. He has a background in ecommerce, SaaS, and ed tech, and has been in the HALO space for a bit over four years. He specializes in customer onboarding, product adoption, and using machine learning and AI to scale businesses. Doug saw the potential of data-driven analytics in the space, but also quickly realized many people lacked the time (and knowledge) to make the most of it. With the help of machine learning, Doug was able to help business understand new opportunities and help drive value from members. The ability to discern member value (and potential member value) enabled clubs to be more proactive and prioritize their highest value

Growson Edwards is a software entrepreneur and founder of CIPIO.ai, a Community Commerce marketing platform that helps brands mobilize & monetize their brand communities. He has extensive experience in the SaaS space, having grown his last company to $100 million in revenue and sold it. After meeting his two partners, they took on the challenge of building a Community Commerce Marketing Platform. A year later, he had close to 50 brands on his platform, including some of the biggest in the fitness industry. He was able to help them understand their followers better, as well as help influencers understand their own influence. His dedication to helping brands reach their goals has paid off, and he is now on a mission to elevate the lives of others. "Influencer marketing" is a very loaded term, and (generally speaking) tends not to be thought of highly (for various reasons.) Growson dives into that headfirst in this marketing masterclass! He states, "People who buy followers. . .it's a real issue and a very c

"No matter what industry you're in, you need to find someone with the trait of being passionate about what they're selling, teachable, and who has naturally high energy - those are more important than anything else," states Jeff Sanders.  Jeff was 17 and, and at one point had to sleep in his truck. He literally had no place to go when he decided to take control of his life and "become teachable." Through various jobs at AT&T Wireless, substitute teaching, a Smoothie Factory franchise, nonprofit and church sectors, LA Fitness and others . . . he learned the in's and out's of business, developing a passion for helping people and learning the power of relationships along the way.  His tenacity and skills eventually got him recruited to work at Radio Shack, where he learned the importance of operations, systems, and the value of sales training. This inspired him to create an Ambassador program at his current job, Energy Fitness, where he serves as Chief Growth Officer. His team is encouraged to reach out, get

Len Fridman was laid off from his corporate job in 2009 after nearly a decade, and upon doing a bit of soul searching, he decided to pursue his passion for fitness instead of continuing on in "corporate life." He started a small boot camp business in a local park which quickly went on to become the most successful outdoor program in Canada in multiple cities. Eventually, a need/business frustration presented itself on the software side, which then led him to his Co-Founder Sasha Davids, who promptly jumped onboard. They started out small but have now scaled to where WellnessLiving is now quietly powering 5,000 studios, and were recognized by Deloitte in the Fast 500 and Fast 50 in Canada. Len was able to bring on Don Williams, their Chief Revenue Officer after recently securing a $66M investment from McCarthy Capital. With a team of 354 strong and growing, WellnessLiving is able to create amazing tools with the sole goal of helping fitness studios continue to expand. He loves giving back to the community as w

J.Dennis Jean-Jacques is an experienced investor with over 20 years in finance. He is currently the CIO at Ocean Park Investments. His work is based on lessons from renowned figured such as Jeff Ubben, Peter Lynch, and Warren Buffett, and specializes in deep dive, fundamental investing and long-short equity investing. Dennis and HALO Talks host Pete Moore make this a master class! This episode is a "must listen" for anyone in the HALO sector who wants a basic primer on types of investments, deal flow, private equity funds, hedge funds, and more.  J.Dennis was inspired to pursue an investment career after Buffett's visit to his Harvard Business School class. He dedicated the next 20 years of his life to fundamental and long-short equity investments.  He eschews "trends," and . . . by following basic business fundamentals . . . is able to identify great opportunities in the public markets. He learned to find the best investments by understanding the deep reality of the businesses and avoiding fancy strategies f

John Merris is the CEO of Solo Brands, a public company that's making huge inroads in the outdoor space. With strong, in-the-trenches experience in sales and growth (he started as a door to door salesman!) Merris joined the company as its 7th employee and has since helped them acquire 3 other brands that now fall under the Solo Brands umbrella: Solo stove, Oru kayak, Chubbies apparel, and ISLE paddleboards. When he was approached by the founders of Solo stove, a smokeless fire pit company that was actually based in hometown which he hadn't heard of previously, he was very intrigued and, nine days later, ended up joining as the 7th employee! Through his growth mindset and track record of building teams, John was soon asked to become the CEO, successfully acquired the other brands, and helped take the company public. Going public, however, also brings some unexpected emotions and tricky waters you have to navigate as a leader. He quickly realized that by taking care of customers and maintaining a long-term view

Helaine Knapp, a self-professed "tech junkie" with a Big Ten education and a penchant for healthy living, risks it all to launch a boutique fitness empire, only to discover the water is colder and the monsters more fierce than she ever imagined. City Row is over 10 years old and they were one of the first to "make rowing sexy" and bring it to the forefront.  She is now an expert in connected fitness, having built a best-in-class software platform and content production.  Helaine was always a fitness enthusiast, but she had to learn the hard way to take it slow. After college, Helaine was working in tech startups when her love for fitness kicked in again. She was a "Spinning junkie," trying to out-work everyone else, but it led to her herniating three disks in her lower back. After this, she developed a concept for a boutique fitness studio, and recruited her old college friend Annie Mulgrew to help. Together, they built City Row from the ground up, and in the process, created an empire. Despite the challenges

Hassan Shah is an avid gamer and entrepreneur from Pakistan who is passionate about the intersection between connected fitness, sports, and gaming. He's set out to transform the fitness market with an innovative open world game, mixing Peloton and Zwift, which (among many other things) creates an all-encompassing experience with a unique monetization system. His company is called X-Originz and based in the UK. They're currently looking to raise £2.7m to order their first batch of 10,000 bikes and take them to market.  When it comes to starting a new business and the challenges it brings, Shah states, "Life is nothing without struggle. And that's always kind of stuck with me, and hopefully I'll pass that on to my children and we persevere and we keep going."  Hassan took note of the rise and fall of Peloton, some of the shortcomings of Zwift, and set out to create an app that combined the two, providing an engaging gaming experience. With his vision of a centralized data system and a bike costing next to noth

Jim Donnelly is the CEO and founder of Restore Hyper Wellness, a company focused on "making hyper wellness affordable and accessible for more people." He is a serial entrepreneur and a highly experienced leader with a passion for helping others. Six or seven years ago he found himself training for a triathlon and, after a friend suggested cryotherapy, he decided to try it out, but was unhappy with the experience-putting it mildly! He thought he could do it better, and he certainly has! They began adding other medical modalities (they offer 10 currently), have 165 locations open, a corporate office with 200 employees, 700 more stores on a development schedule, and a $140 million dollar investment by General Atlantic partners to top it off!  Part of their success stems from the fact that they've been very selective about their franchisees. They're continuing to aggressively expand with a new store opening every three to four days (as of this recording.) He states, "We've created a national infrastructure. We do

When Donald Kelly, Founder of the Sales Evangelist, attempts to teach a group of businesses how to infuse sales back into their culture, he discovered that the key to success is building genuine relationships with clients (especially during discovery) and establishing a bridge between the value of your solution and their problem. He states, "The most effective organizations . . . they all have the pedigree that everyone is in sales. Even if it's a brick and mortar with a cashier at the front, all the way down to a senior executive, if you can have that sales mentality . . . it's going to be a very successful company. Here's one of the reasons why passion is critical: If you have people on your team who don't believe in what you're doing, then why are they even on your team?" Donald grew up in Jamaica and shares his experiences around how everyone had to find ways to survive. It was tough going for sure. He went on to develop his skills through years of in-the-trenches experience in business-to-consumer sales

When Jason Moore, an entrepreneur with a background in data, software, and fitness decided to apply his expertise to the body, he quickly discovers a powerful, but ironic truth: The most valuable piece of equipment in the world is his own. He has developed a technology platform called Spren which uses device agnostic and camera sensing technology to deliver science-backed insights about the body. He states, "You have this high dollar, incredibly expensive equipment where if it fails, it can literally kill people or waste millions or billions of dollars. Imagine how much effort gets put into preventive and predictive care of that equipment! Eventually, I came to realize the most valuable piece of equipment in the whole world is my own body. So why am I not spending the same level of preventive and predictive care on myself?" Spren provides guidance and feedback on things like nutrition, inflammation, stress, exercise and recovery. They have been able to collect over 4 billion data points from 700,000 users, an

In his second appearance on HALO Talks and as the now newly installed President of Stronger U (part of the Self Esteem umbrella), Adam Zeitsiff discusses their Mission of helping people achieve their nutrition goals and build meaningful human relationships with RD's and certified nutrition coaches, challenging the 95% diet failure rate and revolutionizing the way we think about nutrition. Stronger U has now been in business for 7 years and has an incredibly supportive community of 50,000+ strong!  "There's no shortage of apps and tools out there that use technology and help drive people to understand [nutrition] education. I think what we've been really successful at doing is humanizing the approach . . . We're unapologetically about the human-to-human relationship, because what's more intimate than what you put in your body? There's not a lot of things that are more intimate than that. And you need another human to help guide you through it and understand not just the specifics about what you're eating, but

Join Randi Eisenshtat, a long-time industry veteran as she shares her story of initially starting out teaching everything from cardio funk and hip hop to getting involved with the fundraising world helping secure hundreds of thousands of dollars for non-profits like St. Jude, Cycle for Survival, the Sunrise Assocation, and others. She has over 17 years of experience having worked for Lifetime and Equinox, still teaches, and runs a financial planning practice as well. She's recently done a great deal of work with the incredible Sunrise Association, a now international organization that provides a full service summer camp for children with cancer and their siblings. She continues to work tirelessly . . . combining her love of fitness and fundraising. The second annual RISE UP for Sunrise was held September 2022 and raised nearly $14,000!  She's seen a lot of change in the HALO sector, and when it comes to the 'big box versus boutique' question she states, "I find that these big box gyms, because they are provid

With the noble goal of creating a calisthenics online brand to help others--especially those just starting out--Hampton Liu remains determined to maintain his freedom and authenticity while attempting to balance the challenges of growing his brand month over month. He is a certified personal trainer, passionate fitness enthusiast, and the founder of Hybrid Calisthenics, an online brand and community dedicated to helping others achieve their fitness goals.With just over 3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel alone, Hampton has made incredibly impressive strides in a very short time period. He states, "I haven't redefined what success looks like. For me, it's just doing what I like and being happy and helping others be free and happy. That's so cliche. But I can't give another answer because it is true, which is why I've repeatedly chosen freedom, which is one of the parts of the brand sponsorship things over money and people having leverage over me. Another thing that early entrepreneurs have issues with

Adam Molda is a former college tennis player-turned-fitness entrepreneur from York, Main. He's the founder of Spark Fitness & Tennis Club and has a passion for creating communities and fostering relationships through the sport of tennis. Since COVID, America has seen 5 million new players come to the game and the opportunity to promote the sport is bigger than ever. He talks about transforming a big box facility into something with a more "boutique feel" with the overarching mission of building a heavily focused, tennis-based community. On the operations side he states, "All our tennis is based around being social, being competitive, and just getting better. Our most popular tennis program is our own type of cadio tennis. I'm not a big fan of the 'traditional' cardio tennis, so we've created our own, and it's our most popular program. Starting Sunday morning for example, we have four courts and 32 people coming to do our version--Sparks version of cardio tennis. And then the next hour and a half, we have

Arnab Raychaudhuri is an engineer, tech entrepreneur, and former field organizer for the Obama campaign. He is passionate about fitness and is currently working to revolutionize the virtual fitness industry with his company, ZOMO Fit. Arnab was an engineer living in New York City when the pandemic hit. He noticed local gyms quickly took to running live Zoom classes to help keep things alive while they were shut down. This gave him the initial idea to create a platform--specific to the fitness industry--using his tech background. He created Zomo Fit, a platform which, among many other things, now gives customers access to every single instructor at SoulCycle for $34 classes. He believes that virtual fitness is an $8 billion opportunity that is projected to increase to $60 billion in the next couple of years. Prior to jumping into entrepreneurship though, an opportunity with his friends came up to work for a then, relatively unknown Senator Obama. He later hustled hard to later land a job in his administration