HALO Talks

As a very active kid, Bryan Clay (Founder of the fast-growing franchise Eat The Frog Fitness and 2008 Olympic decathlon gold medalist), found himself with an ultimateum by his Mom: Track and field or swimming . . . and he chose track and field because, "There was no way I was going to wear a Speedo!" he jokes. Clearly, it turned out to be the right choice. "The track became my sanctuary," he states. Clay went on to gain a Fulbright scholarship, compete in the 2004 Olympics, won the gold in 2008 in Beijing, and has been at the top of his game in the athletic world. How then, do you go from that-where every part of your life is controlled and revolves around your fitness-to the craziness that is entrepreneurship? It's not easy! Clay continues, "One of the hardest things about going from professional athlete to entrepreneurship is that when you're a professional athlete, everything revolves around you. If I need to get better, I have to put in the time. I fix it, I become obsessive about it until I have it perf

Daniel Tobon is a self-described "hard 48." He joined the military at age 17 immediately after high school and served for 7.5 years. Due to a serious back injury, he later went on to get the, "most boring job I could" and became a lawyer. (Ha!)  Tobon currently heads up iVIK Holdings. iVIK is a 100% USDA and EU certified organic cannabis production facility. They're also white-label, vertically integrated, and run a highly successful direct-to-consumer brand, Relevium. After selling his prior company to private equity, Tobon (also a duel citizen with Colombia) realized the incredible opportunity presenting itself in cannabis. He "had a front seat on the war on drugs" growing up in Colombia (one of the reasons he came to American initially) and saw the incredible effects of the plant on many levels, but especially for veterans suffering from PTSD.  "We collect more tax revenues from cannabis than alcohol,"  he states. "But it's critically important to get the cost down to commodity levels. A dry gram costs aro

Alessandro Biggi & Francesco Brachetti are best friends since college and grew up in Italy. They started Avocaderia- the buzzy new restaurant (now with 4 locations.) They have far from the "typical" background of hospitality entrepreneurs. Both studied and worked in the finance world but eventually, Alesandro came to the idea of,"Healthy comfort food that's good for you but enriched with healthy fats which could be cheese, almonds and so on. I realized that it was really hard to find healthy food. . . so I started playing with the idea of creating delicious avocado based salads and dishes. I shared that with Francesco who was living in Mexico, in the country of avocados!" The two self-funded their first two locations and not having any background in hospitality turned out to be a positive. In finance parlance, they aimed to create an MVP  ("minimum viable product") and did exactly that using, among other things, Instagram to create community and assess demand! "In our case, we didn't know anything, so we

"Remedy Place is the world's first social wellness club," states Dr. Jonathan Leary, Founder. There is an incredible amount of buzz around this company, and for good reason! Leary has been working on this concept for a solid 10 years, and their new location in New York City's Flatiron district just recently opened. (Their first is in West Hollywood, CA.)  "It's a whole entire club that's centered around holistic self-care, but it's made to enhance your health and your social life at the same time. So it's not like a spa where you go and isolate yourself in each room. Although everything in the club you can do by yourself, we'd rather you do it with others," he continued.  Leary and Pete discuss the (now very popular) workout recovery space and where it's going, sourcing talent and building out a staff, the common (but wrong!) perception of "oh, you're skinny so you must be healthy," creating authentic relationships with customers and patients, (lead by example!) the long term plans for Remedy Place, Jonathan'

Jeff Riney is currently the COO of the beautiful new St. James Club and has been in the industry since 1995. He got into the HALO sector, "By chance. . .and to avoid your classic 9-5 job. I started with selling memberships." Years later, the flagship St. James Club is a monster, 450,000 square feet facility with literally everything under one roof. It's a hybrid member/non-member model with all branded concepts developed in-house.  "From a branding standpoint, Crunch and Equinox were really the first big brands in the industry to help understand the relevance of a customer's relationship with a brand versus a commodity. We've all seen, in the last decade or so, this bifurcation of the industry from the HVLP sector up to the high touch, high price point. What I've learned is it's hard to play at the higher price point! That's why there's less consumers there, but there's also less players because it's much harder to deliver on." Jeff discusses the differences he's experienced management-wise over the years. (S

After playing Gaelic games professionally for nearly 15 years, JP and Dermot started Gaelic Performance, a firm which sold equipment into the highly niched Gaelic sports market. Sandbags and other products didn't really hold up and they ended up developing a much more sturdy and versatile product called the RAM and started RAMfit (Recycle And Move.) There's a heavily green ethos to the company and the product is made from recycled tires (which are heavily regulated in Europe) and steel from companies based in Ireland.  "Looking back on it now, we were that entrepreneur who thought we can go our own way. One big thing we learned from the Spartan Race partnership was that, yes, while we have a very good product, at the end of the day, we're not going to revolutionize the world of fitness with it. So what benefits us is actually going out there and seeking these partnerships. That's what has accelerated our growth and which will help our growth in the future," states McArdle. JP and Dermot discuss their fantasti

In this episode, we're pleased to present an informative and enlightening interview with Ben Ludwig, a growth pastor, and a fitness coach with a rather unique background.    "If you ask most people that are in ministry, that was never their original plan. For me, fitness was always my 100% go to. I started as a person trainer back in the day and worked my way up just through my passion for helping people. That's what I thought my career was going to be forever," states Ludwig. Ben and Pete discuss parallels between his career in the ministry and fitness, the growth of F45 in the United States and how the brand will continue to evolve, (despite it's most recent troubles,) Ben's thoughts on growth, mindset, and business, and more. Click here to download transcript. 

Who doesn’t love good, healthy food? Better still, who doesn't love the option to have it delivered while also knowing that the restaurant (not Big Tech!) is getting their fare share of the profits. Today’s episode of HALO Talks is made livelier and healthier by Josh Morgan, the founder of Sesame Order, a new marketplace created by a restaurant veteran squarely with other restaurant professionals in mind. Currently in approximately 250 restaurants in the NYC area, Sesame is still in beta and testing carefully, but by all signs, reception from both the restaurants and the consumers has been very positive. "Sesame came about in a post-COVID world. We started to think about how fundamentally challenging being in the restaurant business is. And even when times are good, it's hard--but in the face of things like COVID we came to the realization that we needed to make some changes. Sesame was a response to the challenges that we've had as restaurant operators fighting against the aggregators in Silicon valley and b

A former college athlete who moved into a fitness career (and became a pro MMA fighter!) industry veteran Emre Ozgur is now the Founder and CEO of a buzzy new brand with an extremely unique concept, Safe Sweat.  "When we started really working on this, initially it was a concept for the pandemic, but the reason we decided to push forward is because there is a very large demographic of underserved people that have been saying for years, 'I don't want to work out in the social environment. I don't want to do a class. I would rather work out on my own. And that's how we got to the safe sweat concept.'" states Ozgur.  The numbers bear this out. Currently based in Vancouver with aggressive plans for growth, they're seeing an average of $188 per unit with the lowest price of $150. "It is clear that people will people will pay a premium to have their own, private space with high end equipment, as well as digital content," he states.    Their unique concept is first to market, highly profitable, and easy to run. But

Recorded in NYC at the Boutique Fitness Solutions Summit in April 2022, Katy Richardson, Founder of Neighborhood Barre, a (barre studio franchisor) talks with Pete Moore about her (briskly growing) portfolio of 23 studios, which still remain self-funded. Katy was also the recipient of the highly regarded Pinnacle Business Award in the Young Entrepreneur category in Knoxville, TN. As a former cheerleader who suffered a severe accident, Katy got into yoga and other lower-impact modalities to aid in her recovery. She did not have an extensive barre background. "I didn't want to be influenced by what someone else was doing necessarily. I wanted to find the style of barre that connected the most with me and then research it. I had that yoga teacher training background and started to build my own program without too much outside influence . . . you definitely don't have to have everything figured out before you get started," she states. She talks about what she did to get through COVID and some of the lessons learn

Monique Nadeau is the Co-Founder of EatLove a company whose, "best-in-class technology delivers personalized, on-demand meal guidance that adapts to all lifestyles and food preferences and helps guide the 200 decisions we make around food each day." As a former investment banker, Harvard University graduate with an MPA in Economic Policy, Nadeau is well aware of the critical importance of nutrition and the obesity crisis currently facing America. "I've always been attracted to people who want to solve the hardest problems, even though it could take many years to actually come to fruition. Did you know, for instance, that the number one reason for rejection to the military is actually obesity," she states.  EatLove has 7,000 dietician approved recipes, 6,000 healthy restaurant options, AI to crunch the data, and more. It's a product that's "created to drive behavior change, it has the ability to process tremendous amounts of data, and it feels like we're just at the beginning," says Nadeau. She and Pete also

InTouch Technology is a business very familiar to the Milkie family. As the current CEO, Mary spent 15 years on the vendor / CMS side, and has about 30 years total in the sector. She owned health clubs prior and worked in nearly every position. InTouch recently secured additional investment capital and is now branching out into the consulting and call center side. Mary provides some very valuable intel into the changing landscape of the CRM world. Regarding pricing she states, "I've been in the industry for about 30 years and I've said it's a race to the bottom as far as price goes, a race to zero. I just feel like we've really hurt ourselves sometimes . . . if we are focusing on customer service and helping people get results and offering people, things that they need to obtain their goals, I just think that's a better value and better option than going into a club where there's no hand holding at all."  There's a lot of valuable takeaways in this one! Listen now to learn more. Click here to download transc

"I'm a tech guy / ex-athlete who became a big believer in this idea that food can get you sick, and food can also become the best medicine that you have," states Ari Tulla, CEO and Co-Founder of Elo. On their site they mention their vision is to "transform food from the cause of disease to medicine."  Ari is a serial entrepreneur and was an early investor in the (now very popular!) Oura ring.  When it comes to nutrition, where there's so much information changing (it seems!) weekly. Tulla says, "There's so many people who are giving you guidance and-really-it's like, 'I already have enough information!' So it's not about that. I can go online and find what I need, but to change behavior? It has to be made so easy that the new change makes your life easier than it was before." Elo aims to be the flag bearer for becoming the first "biomarker-first" and "smart nutrition" company. They built a cutting edge AI from a proprietary analysis of 3,000 peer-reviewed studies, and by looking at various biomarker data, El

Robbie Bent is the CEO and Co-Founder of Othership. As one of the first employees with Ethereum, Robbie is extremely well versed in community building and galvanizing people around a particular cause. When it came to what is now Othership (with a brick and mortar location in Canada and a highly successful app,) he built this community initially in his backyard which grew to 400 people (and then a few thousand) with ~$20,000 a month in revenue.  His initial entre to breathwork was, "As a way to continue to stay sober and build up a social community that focuses on other things besides alcohol. I left the Ethereum foundation and started with an ice bath in my backyard, just building crazy community of neighbors, people coming in using the ice bath every night, doing these crazy bonfires and just creating a really nice social environment without alcohol. . . I just realized that the hot and cold could be used to build amazing class-based experiences for people and a whole new way to socialize," he states.  In on

In one of our most important podcasts released to date, we're proud to talk with Dr. Laurie Whitsel, Vice President of Policy Research and Translation of the American Heart Association & Senior Advisor to the Physical Activity Alliance, a non-profit that, "Brings together stakeholders in the physical activity communities for us to speak with one voice on significant policy and systems changes," states Whitsel.  Joining her is Integrity Square's own Chief Political Architect and policy veteran, Tom Richards, JD who also heads up Activist in Motion. It is critical everyone in the HALO sector know about the work going on behind the scenes in something called the HL7 process (Health Level Seven International) and the steps currently being taken to, "Build standardized measures for assessing, prescribing, and referring physical activity for patients." Concurrent with that is the Time To Move initiative, a multi-year, multi pronged approach which (among other things) involves bringing in and standardizing billi

A veteran of Techstars in 2019 with an app that has 10,000+ five star reviews (along with the the US Air Force as a client!) Tom Kiss, Co-Founder and CEO of Ate-The Mindful Food Diary and Coach, has made tremendous strides in a relatively short period of time.  Formerly a consultant who was often on the road, he entered the HALO sector out of a personal need and frustration. "I had a wakeup call in the form of a panic attack, and realized I had to do something, and my trainer friend introduced me to food journaling," he states. "We built Ate with the belief that everyone is on an inner journey to become healthier and happier, and we think that building the inner curiosity about your choices and habits is the key to sustainable change. We built Ate with the intention to help ignite that curiosity and try to support people on their health journey. We're mindfulness based, nonjudgmental, and all about body positivity." Ate's grown has been impressive. They're up 300% in the last six months both on the revenue an

Integrity Square and TSG go back a long way. . . and we're excited to finally welcome Pierre LeComte, a highly seasoned private equity executive to HALO Talks. TSG began in consumer packaged goods but, "Just realized over time, what we were was brand investors. We really liked to back brands that were on trend and were riding consumer demand waves," states Comte. He continues, "We realized that could happen in a lot of different categories, not just historically food and beverage . . . but that you can do that in many categories, including retail businesses, which we expanded into aggressively over the last 10 or 15 years. We realized what we wanted to do was really focus on businesses that needed resources and support to continue to grow, to create the infrastructure around that, and really have a differentiated consumer brand."  TSG currently maintains both control and minority investments. (They're investors in Planet Fitness) and have a legacy of 30+ years where many of the brands they invested in are sti

Mohammed Iqbal is the Founder & CEO of SweatWorks . . . the company quietly behind the tech of a lot of larger companies you're no doubt familiar with--CrossFit, Spartan Race, and many more. They are, "The leading digital agency in fitness design and technology to create meaningful wellness journeys for everyone." Iqbal spent 7 years at Sharp and, while there, worked on the iPhone with Apple's team which strongly impacted him in many ways. Originally from Dubai, he moved to NJ in 1991. "I dove all in to Jersey culture . . .funnel cakes, the whole bit!" he laughs. "But I got out of shape and started my fitness journey. It changed my life and I asked myself 'Why didn't people get it?'" He started SweatWorks in 2012, around the same time FitBit began, and has been in business for 10 years. The HALO sector though has never been big spenders on, well, anything, and Iqbal chats about how they were able to break through that initial hurdle. He discusses how to reduce churn, (hint: it's not 'set it and forget it!

Carolyn and her husband Paul owned three private training facilities in Orange County, CA which catered mostly to higher level athletes. Nutrition was (obviously!) a significant part of that, and in 2013 they founded Balanced Habits™ as a way to bring scalable, personalized nutrition programming to the fitness industry. "It became something we were known for. It carried us through the financial crisis and really is what put us on the map . . . Fitness and nutrition go hand in hand, and for whatever reason, the industry wasn't embracing that and were kind of farming out nutrition somewhere else," Fetters states.   She discusses how facilities around the country use their program to generate revenue, ways the program is being sold/implemented, tips on bringing nutrition into your club, how their program is managed, the necessity of proper messaging, and much more. The fact is, "more people need to lose weight, than want to go to the gym," says Fetters and she's spot on. This is not something the industry can af

Becky initially began her career in ocean conservation focusing on coral reefs. "I wanted to save the world and see the world. . . and when I found Joyride, I found this authentic community and wanted to be a part of it!"  After moving full time into the HALO sector, she quickly realized there were no cycling studios in the San Antonio / south Texas region. She saw a need, jumped in, and become the first cycling studio to open in the area. Now, as the Founder of her newly launched, Amp Studio and President of Consumer Brands at GoSaga (working with Geoff Schneider, a prior HALO Talks guest) Cerroni discusses her plans for Amp, market differentiators, the importance YPO plays in her development as a business owner, and more! Click here to download transcript.