Hello, folks. Welcome back to the Stronger is Better podcast brought to you by Starting Strength Gyms. As you know, on the Stronger is Better podcast, we focus on principles and process. I will screw it up. Principles and process. So today, guys, we have our favorite guest, Ray Gillenwater. He needs no introduction. Maybe. For like 10 people, I don't know. So I don't really know what we're going to talk about, but there's probably a lot to talk about. So we'll just get into it and see what happens. So Ray is – well, I'll let you give your info and bio. So real quick, if you've been around for a while, you remember Ray did the Starting Strength Gyms podcast. That's been a few years now, right? Yeah. A couple, two, three years. Two years, maybe? Yeah, two years ago. I had a great run, did it for a while, and then we had a break, and then now we've got the Stronger is Better podcast. This is going to be episode six, I believe. So he's in town. We had our owner's meeting this week and figured we'd sit down and have a talk. So yeah, have at it, man. Okay. Tell everybody who you are. Hi. Yeah, I started the franchise company, starting Strength Gyms. And then before that, I did some stuff in tech, entrepreneurship. Right. And then I was a telecom tech executive when I was young, in my 20s. So I did corporate, did tech startup, and now I'm doing bootstrapped small business stuff with Ripito and you guys. Yep. Yeah. Okay. So obviously, he's underselling himself, so let's get into it a little bit. So yeah, I met you in, God, it was probably 2017 or so. I bet you it was earlier than that. You think so? Yeah. Because I found the program in 2020. I found it in 2012. Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I started getting in touch with Rip no later than 2013. And then I think I started coming to seminars like 2014 through 2016. I think I remember the first seminar you came to was in Atlanta. Was that right? Yeah. You came to Atlanta, and you were at least 60 pounds lighter. Dude, that was me grown. So that was me. Yeah, that was me. You were already getting bigger? That was me at like 200 pounds. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, how tall are you, 6'2"? 6'2". I was way too lean to be accepted into your community. Well, I remember. So I remember meeting you, and you're you, so you were very positive, very cordial. And you meet so many people at these seminars, it's like I'm meeting somebody, and I'll probably never see this person again. Yeah. But I remember thinking, because you had like a little leather, you had like this leather notebook or like an iPad or something. Oh, good memory. And you were all like yuppied up, like just dress nicely, you know? And you looked like a dude who had kind of just found starting strength. So I was like, oh, okay, this dude's all right. Yeah. And then. And then I remember – I mean you didn't know anything about us or – I mean other than talking to Rip. But we did the whole seminar. I remember – I think I did the programming lecture and I remember having a back and forth with you about conditioning or something or something about Muay Thai or something like that. I was training for a fight at the time and I didn't understand – I couldn't lift heavy barbells and train for a fight. So I just didn't understand the distinction you guys were making between strength and conditioning. And the conflation was deep in my brain. So I just – I didn't understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was fine, right? I don't know. I don't know if I was convincing or if even I was right. I mean shit, that was 10 years ago. So I may have been saying some stupid shit at the time. I think I truly just didn't understand. And then it was common to say things like don't run. You don't need to run for certain sports. And I was like, ah, I think that's too extreme. I think for some sports you have to train conditioning. And then you have to train strength just depending on the needs of the sport. And I think I think we all agree on that. We do. We do. Yeah. Well, yeah. And actually, probably part of the discussion was on on distance road running, if I remember right. Yes, because in Muay Thai training, it's just you're running, you're going to run three miles, you're going to run five miles, then you're going to train. Right. And part of the reason why that's important is you can be light on your feet. You know, you can run because you're on the balls of your feet. So then you can. It's easy when you're trying to slide around the ring. Right. And then if you do if you do a three or five mile run and then you train for an hour and a half or two hours, the psychological grueling this or whatever word you want to use is useful. So that way, if you're in a fight and you can't breathe and you have no energy left, you still you know how to push forward. Yep. Yep. I think I remember. Did you did you opt into that seminar? No, no. It was later. Right. Yeah. And actually, let me tell you real quick how that all came about. Yeah. So when I found the program, first of all, it all started with with like an Internet search. Yeah. I was. I was 168 pounds, six foot two living in Singapore. Actually, I was living. Australia. I just moved from Singapore. Then I quit my job at Blackberry and then just started traveling the world. I wanted to have some fun. For nine months, I just lived out of a suitcase and then did the starting strength program and ate lots of food. Then along the way, hit a couple of snags. I contacted Rip firstly because I was just really, really impressed with his book. I hadn't come across a piece of material that I just ate up to that degree. I never enjoyed school. Learning was something I did but didn't realize I was doing just in things that I thought were interesting. When it came to starting strength, I immersed myself in it. It was so cool. I hit up Rip and I was like, hey, man, there's a lot of skinny Asian guys out here in Singapore. I know people that can connect you and we can do a seminar here. We can do Indonesia. If you could tell these guys they can add 20 pounds of muscle and this is the format, this would be big. We were talking about him coming to Southeast Asia. Yeah. Then he decided that he wasn't interested. Right, right. So fast forward a while later, um, I hit him up asking him if he would coach me and he's like, you need to come to a seminar. Um, and mind you, he had just, he had sent me his phone number over email just saying, call me with your questions. And I got on the phone with Mark Ripito and he didn't even say hello. Who does? Yeah. Right. But, but what author does that? Right. What author just is, you know, especially with as many books as he sold. I mean, he's on the, he's on his forum every day answering questions. Um, and, uh, and then when, when somebody like you or really anybody, somebody shows interest or, uh, somebody calls up with a, with like a severe problem. Yeah. Uh, he, he, every single time goes out of his way. Like, yeah, he enjoys it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But, but it's like you said, he, he picks up, you answer the phone and you just start to talk. Right. How tall are you? Or whenever, like whenever you don't know him, when he emails you, the subject will just say Ripito. Right. Oh, right. Yeah. He's a character from his AOL email address. So that's how. So I discovered, and then I went to the seminar because he asked me to, and then I was like, okay, I thought I understood this. I don't know anything about this. Steve Hill was my squat coach, and he was telling me that I had to put my chest between my feet, and my grip was all wrong, and I wasn't setting my back on the deadlift, and. when I did for the first time, I actually popped a rib that weekend. Do I remember that or not? No, I don't know. I remember it. And then I think I went to like three or four more seminars, and then you and I got to know each other better, and then it all stemmed from there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think, well, after whatever, maybe I do remember the popped rib because there's always like in my head, it's like, okay, this dude will never be around again. It's like one of those kind of things. Yeah. But yeah, I remember, I don't know, maybe we had already kind of started talking or. something, and we were doing a seminar in LA, it was still when we were traveling around, and then we met up for lunch at one of them. Yep. And. And then shortly after that, you and Grant had just opened the Strength Co. In 2017. Yeah. And I think you were opting in for that one. Uh-huh. And then, or maybe you were already a coach. No, you were already a coach. You were already a coach because the gym was open. Mm-hmm. And I met Kathy and then we drove around all over California that night. Oh, okay, okay. So you were already a coach. I'm glad you have a better memory than I do. Yeah, it's something like that. But anyway. Okay. Yeah, and then not too long after that, right, then you dreamt up this idea of the franchise, of franchising. Yeah, I kind of had a vision for starting Strength on a Storefront from way back when when I first started reading the book. Yeah. I was reading the book and I had a vision in my head for starting Strength on a Storefront because I, you know, my whole thing in life is solving problems for groups of people that have problems that haven't been solved yet. Yeah. Like, that's what entrepreneurship is. Right. And I'm like, well, this is kind of a pretty big problem that lots and lots of people really. want to solve. And the solution's right here in this book. Why do I have to spend dozens of hours learning the solution? That's what. material. Right. Why can't someone just show me how to do it? That's why I contacted Rip. I wanted him to just guide me through the process. Sure. Sure. Um, and then there were other solutions for that and stuff. And, and Grant and I, uh, we're going to do the affiliate thing and we'd discuss growing the affiliate thing, but that, that didn't work out. Um, so I was like, yeah, this idea still has legs. Like we gotta, we have to make this thing nationwide. We have to make this thing global. Right. But we're going to start in the United States. Right. Well, I remember, I remember we were in the strength co, um, and it, it had opened not too, not too long before. Um, and I think Rip had Rip had told you, I don't know. He didn't really ask. Right. He told you to, present either at a, at a coach's conference or strength con or something, probably not strength con. It's probably a, probably a coach's conference. And then, um, we were hanging out and you're like, what, what should I talk about? And then like, we're sitting in the strength co and I know, I remember the story. It was like cashflow positive before, you guys even opened the door. You had all these interesting ideas about, um, not, not selling. inside the gym people transacting outside the gym yeah booking their booking the rack coming in just ready to go yep so we we I was like you just need to like Jim in a box like just tell everybody how you did this and then yeah and then and then a couple months later you and I don't I don't remember at what point it clicked for you but a couple months later you called me I remember I. was in the back of WFAC and I was I was like in WC training and then I saw I saw you call so I went in the back and and you said dude I think I think we need a franchise yeah and I was like I was like my first thought always almost every time is like that's fucking stupid hmm but then then I was like okay wait so if this is gonna grow and affiliation everybody knows what happens with affiliation right it is the as it grows and you get the affiliate programs been awesome for starting strength but even today all the affiliates are fantastic. but they all we do ever that they're bought you call so I went in the back and you said dude I think we need a franchise yeah and I was like I was like my first thought always almost every time is like let's fucking stupid but then the then I was like okay wait so if this is gonna grow and affiliation everybody knows what happens with affiliation right it is the as it grows and you get the affiliate programs been awesome for starting strength but even today all the affiliates are fantastic but they all we do ever their body in we know them, And the affiliates have even gotten more and more like starting strength focused than even in the past, right? So that's great, but how do you control? How do you control that? How do you – and not control. Control is the wrong word. But how do you ensure quality and how do you ensure that the brand doesn't dilute with 100 affiliates, with 200 affiliates, right? And if everybody who's an SSC can be an affiliate, which is the case, if our objective was to get more coaches to make this more accessible to people, you're just going to have people who aren't as familiar, aren't as bought in, and are just adding it to their like repertoire of things that they do. And then potentially you end up with something like CrossFit or Krav Maga or any of these kind of affiliate-based programs that don't have really, really tight controls because it's really difficult to do, right? Exactly. So anyway, with what we're doing. Because the method is – at least the base of the method is very well defined. The principles are very well defined. defined. Right. So even if the method is, is, uh, uh, especially post-novice, it's a little bit loose, so to speak. Um, but, but the principles are very well defined. Um, franchising makes. perfect sense. Exactly. Yep. Yeah. Um, so I remember you and I had spoken about doing starting strength in retail in some form or another at one of those seminars in LA. Yeah. And I, I don't recall if the strength code opened yet or not. Um, but then I remember, uh, yeah, I wanted, I wanted to grow fast, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to hit the gas because, um, I just have big aspirations for what I think this thing can do for the public. And then for just the scope of the kind of job that I want. Right. Um, so I ended up selling. my share to grant of the strength co and then I was like, shit, what do I do now? And I, um, actually interviewed at, uh, DoorDash. They were, they were, they were trying to spin up a new team. They wanted to, um, expand into, um, enterprise B2B partnerships. Yep. And I'm like, you know, I could just go. the easy route, get a cushy startup job, get some equity, grow this thing like I did in my previous tech jobs, and then refill the coffers and just have plenty of cash to do the next thing. But I just couldn't shake it. So that's when I pitched you guys on, like, the interview process reminded me, I really. don't want a job. Right. I left corporate in 2012, and it was 2018 by now, I think, like, February 2018, maybe March. I was like, I really don't want a job. Yep. And I cannot stop thinking about this idea. I'm like, what do I do? Open another gym in SoCal? No, I don't want to do that. Let's just go straight to franchising. Yeah. You know? So I sat down with, we have this gal working for us now, Mandy, who's helping us with franchise sales, and she was president of True Rest Flow Therapy, and that's a company. her dad started. And he and I sat on the board of a realty company called the Realty One Group, and I remember taking him to lunch, telling him about my idea, and he was the one that convinced me that franchising was the real thing. Right. Was it? right model because affiliate has all the problems you just outlined, not tight enough controls. Corporate's cool, but you need a lot of money. A previous tech startup I did, shit the bed because we missed a round of funding. That was a brutal experience. We actually had a venture capital firm give us a verbal offer and then just string us along for months and it almost. bankrupted us. I was like, wow, that's a learning experience. Do you have any idea what it would have cost startup-wise to do this corporate? Is it 10 million, 20 million? Yeah. I never even mapped out the cost, but I think 10 million is a pretty reasonable low-end guess, $10 million. The problem with that though is you have a fundamental disparity of motivation and incentive. Rip and Steph are the ultimate artisans. They're the ultimate, the truth and. the adherence. to a model that conveys the truth in the best possible way is the pinnacle of what you can do as a productive human. And then corporate land is, where's my check? And then you're beholden to investors. 100%. So if you don't want a job... Don't make one for yourself. Exactly. And I was still planning on raising money for the franchise company, actually, because I mean, you run the company now. It's expensive to run this company. You need to have personnel. You need to spend a bunch of money on making things look really great and approachable. And the marketing, it's all packaging, really, right? The models already existed. Gyms have already existed. This is just taking different concepts and ideas and just packaging it into something really simple to understand and execute. But dude, we did this thing self-funded. Yeah, pretty amazing. And we survived COVID-19. As golds went out of... It didn't go out of business, but went bankrupt. And 24-hour fitness went bankrupt. Right. And... Yeah, that is for sure the hardest thing I've ever done in my career. And if I remember, I added at least one franchisee during that time, right? Maybe a couple. Oh, we sold, I don't know off the top of my head, but let's say seven during COVID? Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty wild. It just shows you, I mean, the people that discover this program, it absolutely blows their mind. And that's one of our biggest problems because we do have this insight that is so different than everything else that exists in the industry and is so important and so valuable. But people are so used to the way things are that they can't even envision what that actually means until they experience it. And then our challenge as a company is to get prospective coaches and prospective members and sometimes prospective franchisees to understand that. And it's like, well, you just got to do the program. Yeah. I want to, if you don't mind, I know it's maybe uncomfortable or whatever, but you don't have to spend too much time on it. But I think it's important for people to understand how all this came about and maybe why. So if you guys are doing the math, right? He's... He's talking... you know, how old are you? 41? 40? 40. Yeah. So 40. So, you know, 2012, you're talking about like. running BlackBerry, BlackBerry Asia and stuff like that. So like you're very young, right? So a young executive, like give us, give us like ages, timeframes, what you were doing, um, in your mid twenties. Yeah. Yeah. I started my corporate career, um, at 19 at Verizon. Uh, and it was just in retail, but then I went to the corporate office within like a year and a half or so and was managing a region for data sales. This is when 3g was brand new. So I ended that in oh seven, I got passed over on a job because of my age basically. But I was more, I mean, just trying to be objective. Like I was, I was right for the, for the job. Right. Right. So that frustrated me a bit. And I was, um, in 2007, it would have been, you know, 22. So I talked to my BlackBerry rep at the time. I was like, Hey, I love BlackBerry. You guys have a lot going on for you. And, um, I would love to work overseas. He's like, shit, I just hired someone for my team, but if he talks to my counterpart on T-Mobile, he's looking for somebody. And so these guys fly down from Canada. I roll up in my nice suit and stuff. And in the interview, I said, I want to work for BlackBerry because it's a great company, and I want to go overseas. And he said, if you do two great years on my team, you can go anywhere in the world you want. So I said, if I'm not the number one guy on your team, you should fire me. How old are you at this time? 22. Oh, 22. 22, yeah. And he didn't know that, actually. So we all went out to a team dinner my first week. Everybody flew in. And one of my 47-year-old colleagues was like, how old are you? And I was like, I'm 22. And you should have seen the faces. And I later found out that he, my boss, thought that he had made a mistake because of my age. So I love that type of stuff where it's like, let me prove you wrong. So I kicked a lot of ass on the team. SoCal became the number one region for my entire tenure. And after the two years, I just said, hey, is the deal still on? Yeah. And this is a job as a sales rep, a regional sales rep. Regional sales rep for what? Channel manager T-Mobile are the T-Mobile is the channel that's selling Blackberry to the consumer. And my job was to ensure that they sold as many Blackberries as possible. And so what I basically did was I had relationships with all of the leaders and all everyone down to the retail sales level, like thousands of people all across Southern California. And I always ran campaigns and made sure they all had the latest Blackberry and they were all super stoked on the product to the extent that you had regional guys at T-Mobile saying we're only going to sell the Blackberry. Smartphone, nothing else. Nice. So we were just crushing it. Yeah. So the question is, what was the difference between you and the other guys doing that job? Was it the relationships, the relationship and just the desire to go big and win? I just I just want to see. I'm always interested in like, what's possible? How big can this be? How big can you grow it? Yeah. And I just always want to be the best and set the standard. I'll give you a perfect example. We had access to a field marketing team, field marketing team or a bunch of kind of, Low-wage guys that would go out and do events for you on the weekend. Okay, yeah, sure. Sit in front of a Costco or a Walmart. These were all some of my accounts, and just hand out balloons and promote BlackBerry, right? So T-Mobile had field teams, too, and so I just opened up my field team to them, and then they could use my field team any time they did an event. So I grew my field team to, I don't know, over a dozen people, and every single weekend there were events all over Southern California pushing just BlackBerry for T-Mobile. And my peers, for example, might have a rep or two, and they might schedule the rep when the T-Mobile person asked them for it, but I'm actively making sure we're busy every. weekend, right? So it's just stuff like that. And then incentive. It's always incentive alignment. So I always had reporting and KPIs and rankings, because that gets people fired up, and I made sure that people could achieve the latest BlackBerry, which if you're a 22-year-old guy working at a T-Mobile store, it's a big deal. And it was even a big deal if you're a 55-year-old executive sitting in a T-Mobile office, because I would give him the BlackBerry. two weeks before anybody else had it yeah so it's just stuff like that yeah and I had I loved it man I had so much fun yeah I drive around all over SoCal in my car and have a trunk full of. blackberries and gift cards and basically just like Santa Claus just like Master P in that movie remember that movie no I don't but but I like I would like to Master P so yeah um so yeah so and then after that my boss fulfilled his end of the bargain and by the way just I started the job with not only the age thing like that I had overcome but um I had a brain bleed when I started the job and my my first customer meeting on my way to the meeting I fell down the stairs and then I was I was hospitalized and then I I had to they took a spinal tap and stuff and I had to be in bed like. for a week I couldn't move yeah you know what I'm sorry I went to the customer meeting after the spinal tap yeah and then because I just wanted to win I didn't want I did like I just started this job yeah and and then I got what's called a spinal headache if you move the area around apparently spinal fluid goes right to your brain or however it works, It's pretty awful, I imagine. It was just, dude, that's pain and just nausea. So then the bosses thought, who is this guy? 22-year-old, doesn't show up for his first week. And I just was absolutely determined to prove to everybody, hey, I'm the young guy and this isn't a good start, but I will be number one. So then 24, 25, you're headed to Blackberry Asia, is that right? This is… When I say 24, 25, I mean your age. Age, yeah, even younger than that. So I started at 22. No, you're right, 24, 25. And then I had, I told you this the other night, but I had just gotten my degree after nine years of night school. And Mom in Singapore, the Ministry of Manpower, they have really creepy dystopian names for all their shit. Mom is the name of it? It's called Mom. Their media company is called Media Corp. Oh, man. Or Media Corp. So creepy. They… They made that Mom… Demanded that I, that I have a degree for getting my work permit over there. And, um, I got my degree, I think like a couple of weeks or a couple of days before I applied. So everything just worked out perfectly. And then, um, the story I can keep rolling if you want about when I got to Singapore. So, so I get to, uh, I get to Singapore and we have a regional office there that covers the 10 countries in Southeast Asia. And I meet my new boss, this crazy Australian guy that I love that helped develop me in a bunch of ways. Um, and we're mapping out the territory and he's like, okay, we need someone to manage retail. We need somebody to manage accessories. We need someone to manage Indonesia. And I had done some research on the region and I saw that Indonesia had tons of existing demand for BlackBerry, which by the way, is very similar to how I noticed that there was demand for starting strength, same deal. Just looking at the analytics, a BlackBerry connected to the BlackBerry network. And so you could see anywhere in the world where it lit up and we could see that people were illegally importing. blackberry into indonesia by the thousands and paying double the retail price for it so those are demand signals so i was like yeah i want indonesia um so i took indonesia it's the fourth biggest country in the world population wise it's 17 000 islands it's the biggest muslim country in the world it's a it's a bizarre place it's awesome it's amazing it's like so exotic and foreign and. crazy and cool like you know i met my customer on day one and he's driving me through downtown jakarta which is just the craziest chaotic metropolis and he's pointed all the buildings he owns and stuff and um you know and then the my advisor for indonesia was in the actual terrorist attack on the marriott buildings a couple years prior this guy andy cobham you can look up marriott jakarta terror or whatever and you can see how when he would meet with his fellow multinational company heads every monday the terrorists found out figured out that pattern a guy in a suit in. a suitcase rolls into his meeting and he's like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die, i'm gonna die i'm gonna die, Damn. So Andy lost a friend in that meeting and he lost his hearing in one year and had shrapnel on his face and stuff. Jesus, man. So crazy. Yeah. And mind you, I'm 24, right? Right. So man, we turned that business from like, I don't know, let's just say 40, 50 or 60 million into a billion in 18 months. Amazing. And it became the biggest country in the world for BlackBerry. Bigger than the US, bigger than the UK, growth, profitability, handset sales, everything. Yep. All the metrics. Yep. So- Yeah, there's a lot. I think you and I, I mean, we definitely have talked about that before, but a lot of interesting things in terms of how you did that and ideas and stuff. Yeah. We don't have time for it today, but anyway. Right. Yeah, it's really cool stuff. Well, I'll tell you one little just piece of it, because I think it's interesting. And this is not something I figured out, but it's something I leveraged. The insight was the cell phone networks in Indonesia suck. You can hardly make a call. And text messaging is how people communicate. Yeah. But it's expensive. You've got to pay per text. BlackBerry Messenger was the first iMessage, where it's messaging over the Internet. So it was unlimited. So we partnered with the carriers to make it so that an unlimited BBM plan, BlackBerry Messenger plan, was cheap. And then that was not only the status symbol to have a BlackBerry, but the best possible way to communicate. And Bahasa Indonesia has Roman character letters for their language. So just a normal QWERTY keyboard works great. Right. So they became absolute BlackBerry addicts. That's cool. And then I just opened up the floodgates. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, and it's not just you because Ben's kind of been along for the ride too. And the reason I bring up Ben, among other things, is wasn't he working on basically like Apple Pay for BlackBerry? Oh, yeah. Something like that? Yeah, we came up with a lot of interesting stuff. So we came up with BBM Money is what it was called. So we partnered with a local bank. And this is like 2015? 2013, right? Yeah. This is way before any of this stuff was mainstream or even thought about. Definitely the first in the world. So Ben built Apple Pay for BlackBerry over BBM way back when. And then we even did financing programs for BlackBerry. Oh, right. I believe those were the first in the world for smartphones. Very cool. My boss was a brilliant guy, and he and I just would come up with awesome ideas. We had an unlimited budget, so we just did whatever the hell we wanted and just dreamed stuff up and made it happen. It was so much fun. It's amazing that BlackBerry screwed up so bad, huh? It's the ultimate case of hubris. Yeah. It's a stark reminder that all that matters, your brand doesn't matter. Your brand just means it's your product good or not. So you can rest on your laurels of what you did in the past, but if you're in technology, you better be at the fucking bleeding edge. And if you ever think like, oh, touch screen's a fad, and you don't need a full internet browser on your phone, it's like… Oh, is that what they thought? Oh, yeah. It was like, you are kidding yourselves. So by the time they figured it out, it was too late. They tried to launch a competitive product. It was a disaster. disaster, and this was 2012, and I decided this is not for me, even though a lot of people. would kill for the job that I had, because I then did Philippines, $100 million business in like nine months that we built over there with a different strategy, which was fun, just to prove that like, oh yeah, we can do this in multiple places, and they sent me down to Australia, I'm the youngest guy in the office except for my receptionist, and I'm managing Australia, New Zealand, like Oceania, the region, and it was just a crazy experience, I was too young for that big of a job, but I tried to figure it out, but we had no products to sell, we had no, their flagship product kept getting delayed, and it was crap, and then there was a hiring freeze, so I couldn't replace anybody if they didn't. perform, so I ended up being a figurehead for a multinational company at like age 26 or something, and I was like, this is not how I want to spend my time, I don't care how much you pay me, you know, so I just left and took like a nine month hiatus, and then lifted weights and got stronger. Okay, okay, alright, and that was, what time frame was that? It was 2012. Okay. All right. Cool. Cool. Yeah. And again, um, the reason it's, it's, uh, it's really relevant is, I mean, from my, from my perspective, I would assume, right. I mean, you've, you've, uh, you've started companies since then you operated a very high level in, on the corporate side of things. Um, and you know, all the way from, from like, I guess, I don't know how the best, better way to say this, but just like the starting bottom end retail, like just selling in a, in a, in a store, right. All the way up to vice president level. Yep. Um, of a multinational corporation. And, uh, and then you go off and start doing, uh, kind of your own thing, building businesses, building tech companies, and then you come to starting strength. So, uh, outside of like the, the, uh, let's, let's set aside like the startup stuff to start and maybe just kind of, kind of zoom in on the last, maybe even last year, last year, last couple of years. Yeah. Um, what's, what's been. I mean, you obviously have this phenomenal background. You have a way of, like, stepping outside of your circumstances, so to speak, and, like, think about things and also think about people. Like, that's a huge part and probably the most important thing, right? And I've learned a lot from you in that regard. So, anyway, in terms of starting strength, because, like, when you compare your prior experience, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal. But would you say that you've learned a lot? How much have you brought from your past into this? Yeah, you're laughing, so let's go ahead. Such a good question. Because it's fucking weird, right? I mean, assumptions that we made at the beginning, just completely ass wrong. You know, the – anyway, you go ahead. Yeah, start talking. Well, where I was headed with what I was thinking about when you were asking that question, let me know if you're on the same track as me, is – This is so refreshing. Yeah. This is so refreshing. I really value the truth and honesty. Yep. And the whole world's full of shit. Right. Completely full of shit. Yep. Corporate land's full of shit. You can get a seat. Like, I had several executive peers that had very little strategic value. Right. That were just politicians. Yep. Just paycheck collectors making very large paychecks. And I didn't really understand how full of shit that whole situation was in corporate. until I went into tech. Because in tech, nobody cares about how smoothly you can explain something or whatever. Like, either your product solves a real problem for a group of people and makes money or it doesn't. But tech is still San Francisco, California based. So it's still full of shit. Right. And I'm not saying I was like, you know, separate or better. Like, I was roped into the stream of bullshit. That was just, you know, the culture I grew up in, right? You were a vegan for God's sake. sakes. I was vegetarian. But that's, that's how I got so emaciated looking between just working. too many hours, not sleeping and a lot of stress and a vegetarian diet. Right. Um, so, uh, when I met Ripito, I mean, the guy is so refreshingly honest. Like he does not, in fact, if he, if he bothers you with his honesty, it, I think it, I think he enjoys that. Yeah. Um, which just like, and it says more about the person than about him, right? Sure. Yeah. Um, and he tested me. He said lots of stuff they won't say on the podcast and he tested me in the early days, you. know, and I'd ask you about it. He was like, no, he's just testing. It was like, okay. Um, but, uh, to, to meet a group of people that really don't care about the polish or the image and, uh, don't care about, you know, all the stuff that people I've been around cared about, like the type of shit. car you drove, and the type of watch you had, and how many countries you'd been to, and whatever. It was just so cool. And half my family's from the Midwest, so it just kind of felt good to be around just. down-to-earth people. And then Ripito is one of the most influential people in my entire life, just in terms of the way he's helped me challenge my preconceived notions about many, many things in life, not just strength training, in terms of how he's helped me physically and psychologically through his program and through his mentorship. And now in terms of how I have truly decided, like, this is the thing for me. Because I took a bit of a hiatus. I had to take kind of a year and a half off. But now that I'm back, I'm just like, man, this is it. This ticks all the boxes. The only box left to tick is money. Everybody's making money but me, which is like, that's the way it's got to be if it's self-funded. But I know that with your leadership, you're going to grow this thing. And in the meanwhile, I'm going to not. worry about that because the franchise company can't have growth goals based on my personal financial needs. Instead, I'm just going to go be the best franchisee I can be. And with the two gyms in Austin demonstrate to the whole community, how amazing of a business and a culture and. environment that we can build with these gyms. So I'm just going to go set the standard for the whole company. Yep. Good. Good. Yeah. We'll learn a lot of lessons from that for sure. We already have, man. I mean, even the last, how long has it been now? Three months. Three months. Yeah. Yeah. March. Yeah. I think it started in March. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's different being on the franchisor side and being a step or two removed from the day-to-day operations. And now that you're in the middle of it, it feels like things are accelerating very, very rapidly. Right. And a lot of assumptions that myself and the team have had have been validated, but also we've had. to change our minds on a couple of things. And then also just the pace that we can move with you there at the gym. You know, you and the team testing things out is awesome. It's very much appreciated, right? I like going fast, man. Yeah, for sure. I'm sure you stress everybody the fuck out. But it's good. It's good. I think I called you a chaos agent the other day. But that's necessary. No, it's good. It's good. Yeah, it's not a bad thing. It's not a negative. So, yeah, man. So this may be kind of like maybe a little bit of a rosy view or whatever, maybe like retrospective, just a retrospective take on things. But it seems like you and Ripito and then your siblings and then myself, we worked really hard to launch this thing under a lot of assumptions, maybe thinking that things were somehow different in terms of how this was going to be presented to the world. And while that's true, it still comes back to some solid business fundamentals that we're almost like having to relearn and reteach to people. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I think so. I mean, even just like things like… kpis and you know you've been you've been harping on kpis and weekly habits which i don't know if. you dreamt that up yourself but it's obvious right i think i did but with my memory i'm not going to take credit for it but let's just say that i did yeah yeah so um you know one of the things you started saying as you were coming back and and i think maybe your your experience during your hiatus and the things you were doing maybe maybe like accelerated some of your thinking re-energize me for sure re-energize yeah yeah and and reminding me what it's like to be a consultant because since 2012 i've had to do consulting gigs on the side to help companies solve their problems grow whatever they're trying to do just to you know keep the lights on right so now. i got to do this to my own company yeah and my favorite thing to do for a company that brings me in to um look at their operation is just to dispassionately and objectively audit it and my line is like no sacred cow so um you know it doesn't matter if it hurts somebody's feelings or somebody doesn't like it i need to discover what the, actual reality is because if you are not honest with yourself in entrepreneurship, it can be potentially fatal. And so with that view and then the experience I had when I was on my hiatus, yeah, I came back just like ready to go. and pulling everything apart and like, what do we need to level up? Because another thing is when we launched, anytime you launch a product, it's version one. And if you try to make version one everything to everyone or you add too many widgets to the stack or however you want to say it, you're not going to do anything well. So these gyms are super simple. They had to be that way. The model had to be super simple. And then, for example, like we just talked about over the weekend, we never put together a way to like sell products in the gyms. No inventory management software. There's just some stuff that needs to be added. And is it the difference between a great business or not? No, but do we need to have it? Yes. So there's just stuff like that. And then one thing I took for granted is I've been working with executives for so long that I kind of forgot what it's like to be new at business. Sure. And so. This is one reason why I'm really grateful that you're running the company now because you're a fantastic coach, and that includes business coaching. You have a much better understanding of what it's like to be brand new to this stuff and to not even know what a KPI is, for example. It's just a better fit. This dynamic since we started is just so comforting and satisfying for me. It seems to me, and I haven't been involved at your level with things, but I've observed and I can see how things work. But no matter if it's Verizon or T-Mobile or BlackBerry, and no matter if it's at the retail level or at the executive level, or it's an entrepreneur or it's a franchisor supporting a franchisee, the fundamentals seem to be the same across the board. 100%. The parallel I want to draw here is to training. Because it's like, It's the same thing, dude. Same thing. It's training and coaching. It's all the same thing. Yes. It's just what are you, what's your objective, and how are you measuring it, and what's the process to get you there, right? Yes. So, yeah, I think we've, and you knew that, I knew that, but when you get in the middle of stuff, it's easy to just get pulled in a bunch of different directions. I think we've been lucky that we've had this method and this brand that is so just, like, solid and deep that it keeps you focused, right, and it keeps you on track. Yep. But all this to say that I don't know that anybody could have done this, not even better, but just correctly. Like, all the pieces with you and your brothers, your brother and your sister, and then, you know, bringing in the right people, which is one of your very, very high-level skills. Yeah. Thank you. And then just putting it all together, and then working at this, like, fucking blistering pace. Yeah. this insane pace. So all those, all those things kind of come together to, to, to make this what it is today. And yeah, so if you don't mind, like, and this is, this is maybe tough because it's all like woven in here, right? What are, what are the fundamentals across the board? What are things that, whether you're a new entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur, or you're running an organization now, you're managing people, or you're somebody who's being managed and you want. to evaluate your, your situation, right? So what are the, what are the fundamentals? And that's a huge question, but what are your thoughts? Yeah, it's a really good question. Depends on the stage, but let's just say in general, to answer for all stages, the most important thing is the product and a product could be a service. Okay. You know, you could set, you could put some good packaging on a shitty product or a service, and you might be able to make some money for a certain amount of time. But if you want to build a sustainable business with, good growth prospects, you need to solve a very important problem for a group of people. And that sounds really stupid and obvious, but if we started a whatever, a 24-hour fitness competitor, what problem are we solving? Yeah. And that's the thing, right? So when you say product, it equals a problem that's solved, right? A product needs to solve a problem for a group of people. And you need to be able, this isn't Elon Musk thing, you need to be able to deliver it to. the market for less money in a way that's profitable, obviously, right? So whatever it costs you to bring it to market, your income has to exceed that. Right. Duh. But like, that's pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah. So companies that focus on product have the brightest prospects. And if you notice that, like GM and Tesla is a great example. Tesla doesn't have a marketing budget. GM has a massive marketing budget. Right. Tesla makes better products. Model Y is the best, vehicle in the world. So I think that's the perfect example of that concept. So any time you're in doubt as an entrepreneur, whether you're starting something or rebuilding something or whatever, product, product, who are our customers is what we're building to actually solve a problem for them, and it's a constant back and forth process. So finding the market and then listening to the market, adjusting the product as necessary and just continually refining until it's as perfect as possible. If you can find that product market fit, then you can scale. And that's like standard tech startup entrepreneurship, one-on-one stuff. The next most important thing that you've alluded to already is people. So this sounds obvious too, but I think I've made this mistake, I think a lot of people make this mistake. You kind of assume that something's easy or like, oh, this person has done this thing over here, so they can do this thing over there. The best entrepreneurs in the world, in my opinion, are those that can very objectively look at their own skills. at the skills of others and have a map in their mind of all the things they need to, all the skills they need in order to accomplish what they're trying to accomplish, and then know how to effectively plug the right people in. And then the really tricky part is that since people aren't robots, these aren't, this isn't like Ben spinning up as AI agents at night and building software. Right. Since these are actual humans, there's the operating system that has to match. Yep. So, you know, just to be unnecessarily controversial, I actually don't want diversity. Right. I want homogeneity. Yep. Not of skin color or immutable characteristics, but of thought. Yeah. Of, and not like creativity, but of like values. Guiding principles. If someone doesn't value being strong, that's an obvious one. That's not going to work. So culture, values, how honest is the person, what's their work ethic like, all that. Like, I want 10 out of 10 on all those key traits. Yep. And then I also, if that person is 10 out of 10, but it's kind of a jackass. can't work with other people, well, then they can't work on a team and so we can't hire them. So, um, so, you know, being able to work well with others. So people, product people, um, well, and the product and the people have to, and especially. if it's, obviously if it's a service, right, the, the people are delivering the product and there's this like, uh, they're, they're, and I don't know, it seems to me like, like it's easy to, to not have that connection. Um, but especially for us, it's critical that the product and the people, um, match in terms of, in terms of, uh, who, so, so one of the things that, that that, uh, that's really important and probably to talk about is, is the, uh, you know, there's a difference between technical expertise, like being an expert at starting strength. The, the starting strength forums is full of people who are technical experts. Um, and, and, uh, some of them can coach actually like, because there's an additional skill set, right? So there's a technical expertise, like understanding the method, being able to talk about it all day. We've always had those people. Yep. Um, there are people who can, who can coach to some degree. There are people who can coach really well, but that doesn't automatically mean. That you are a good, that you're going to be able to deliver the product effectively. Sometimes quite the contrary. In fact, right? Sometimes the more technically proficient you are, the less able you are to do it. So there's this additional complication where, and this is, I think, one of the assumptions going into this, that like people just crave this stuff. And they do. And people crave the experiencing the technical expertise and the coaching, which they do. But if you can't even get past the, if you can't get them in the door, if you can't make a connection, it doesn't really matter how good you are. It doesn't matter at all. And this is a thing that I've experienced many times, multiple times in my life. But every time you start a new iteration of something, you forget. And then you have to relearn it. You know, so it's like, yeah, I've had multiple. And I think everybody's probably experienced this, where you are more competent than somebody else. But you lack either the – sometimes it's not even just you're the wrong person. It's just you don't even have the – you just don't have the confidence to sell yourself. Sure. Right? Or the awareness. Or you're not willing to eat shit or you're not willing to kiss ass or something like that. You've got ego, all that stuff. Yeah, and then you get passed up or somebody is way more successful than you, right? Yeah. So – and I think we experience that quite a bit where we're watching in the fitness industry all of these – everything from – and I'm not ready to say that everybody is a liar and everybody is out to just steal money from people. Because that's not true. Sure. I think people that get into the fitness industry genuinely enjoy what they're doing and they truly believe that they're doing the best possible thing. Yep, yep. And I think that's a thing that starting strength – at least us at the gyms need to get over. And I think the starting strength community at large should probably start getting over as well. I agree. People are not fundamentally shitty and they're not fundamentally out to be dishonest and just take your money, right? They really think they're doing the right thing. Yep. So, yeah, with that said, if we live in this sort of bubble of like we are the best, we know everything, which in a lot of ways is true. Yeah. But if you're unable to communicate that, if you exclude discussion, if you exclude critical thinking, if you exclude the possibility that you can help anyone, you are that's that's not compatible. Right. With a business that is going out to the general public in a retail space where you're going to have people walking in front of the door who don't have any idea what this is. But they are curious enough that they'll open the door and they'll peek their head and be like, hey, what do you guys do here? You know, you're totally right. We put a lot of energy and money into making this thing accessible to anybody. So if you send your great aunt to Starting Strength Birmingham, when she when she drives up, it's going to feel friendly and welcoming. And when she goes in, it's going to feel the same way based on the design. And then the final missing step. is what's the actual human experience like and it doesn't matter how good of a technical expert you are Ripito, if you're Mark Ripito and you want to be prickly towards people because it's fun and it's part of the character and people love you anyways Rip can get away with that but the truth is he's not actually that way not at all, he's just making sure, he's filtering, but we don't want to filter, we want everybody so we want to work with people. I think the fundamental guiding principle is how motivated are you by helping others succeed and if that is really important to you if that gets you out of bed then the gyms are a good place to be and then we have the tool to make that happen with starting strength and with barbell training no matter what anybody wants so the old lady, the old guy who's beat up, I don't think anybody will dispute, that's obvious but there's this whole other category of guys walking in who want to do, marathons, want to do ultra marathons they want to. be swimmers, Or they think they are, even if they're not, right? They think they are. They think they are basketball stars when all they do is play pickup basketball. And yeah, all those people benefit from what we do. And yeah, I mean, full disclosure, one of the things that we need to get better at is just being able to tell people, not dismiss them and say, yeah, this is for you and this is why. And then over time, you change people's minds. You can't do it through a phone call. You can't do it through a text. And you can't do it from a five-minute interaction when they walk in the door. When I'm talking to people, I don't care if they believe that the carnivore diet is the best thing on earth. I don't care that they believe that being a vegetarian is a good idea. I don't care that they think that running 10 miles a week is the best thing they can be doing for their health. Yeah. I think they're wrong in all those instances. But, you know, it's a human nature that the minute you start challenging somebody, especially on the first meeting, they're going to be defensive and they're going to. to lock down into their beliefs. It's an insane way to behave. Yeah, but it's the truth. That's how people do, right? Don't fight against someone's religion. Like, hi, nice to meet you. Oh, I don't believe in Jesus, you know? Because that's exactly what it is. People's beliefs are, I mean, they're religion, right? Whatever you believe. And if you strongly believe something, even if you don't strongly believe, but if you think you're doing the best thing for yourself, and it's brought you positive benefits, right? It's brought you benefits in some way, even if they're made up, right? Even if you think it's helped you. Even if it's magical thinking, as you like to say. Even if it's magical thinking. Favorite Nick phrase, yeah. Even if it's magical thinking, the minute you challenge that, you're going to have problems, and you're not going to be successful as a coach. Even as a coach, not even as a business person, right? Yeah. So. You'll unnecessarily limit who you can help, which sucks. So a perfect example is we had a guy who had a family member train in Indianapolis. Guy had amazing results. Came down to the Austin gym. He's like 6'4", and maybe 165. Yeah. And he's. an ultra marathon trail runner type. He runs hundreds of miles and puts on dozens of miles a week on the road and I could not be more stoked to talk to. this guy and to help him. Those are the most exciting people to help actually. Yeah, because I can, I'm really going to blow his mind so I sat there and mapped out a two day a week program for him for strength and then we dialed down his volume on his running a bit and just mapped out the process. He was nodding the whole time and I haven't checked in with him but I just, you know, he's got tons of potential but to your point that easily could have been like, what are you doing all that running for? And just kind of like shitting on what he loves and it's like, that's the dude's hobby that's his flow state. Or not even that, it's just like, look if you do this program, yeah, it's going to be really hard. Yeah. You're not going to be able to run all that, like. Yeah, or stop running for three months. Yeah, what's he going to squat the first week? Right. You know, is it a hundred pounds? Is that going to interfere with his running this week? Exactly. No, and we can have the conversation two weeks later after I've shown him how great of a fucking coach I am. Uh-huh. Like how good I make him feel. under the bar, then as we start building trust, I can be like, look, man, this is getting heavy, dude. You might want to start easing back your running. Let's see what happens. Give it a couple weeks. Just ease it back a little bit. And at least you'll have the relationship and the trust. to where you can start discussing trade-offs objectively. Exactly. And then he has some experience as well, right? Exactly. So he trusts you. Exactly. Yeah. And again, this isn't even like, this is just good consulting and it's good coaching. Yes. So yeah, getting back to the kind of the business discussion, it's like, I view it, and I think this has been helpful for me, I view it as the same thing as any coaching relationship. You have an objective that you're trying to achieve, which fundamentally is going to be to make more money, right? And then there's. other sub-objectives, right, that will lead to making more money. So define those objectives. What's your goal? What's your goal? What's the process? What's the programming to get you to that outcome? Right. And, it always has to start from what's the NLP of that process, right? What's the most basic version that we can do right now and implement and make changes along the way? And then you make adjustments as needed, right? And then the concept that you've helped me with quite a bit is like. this idea of weekly habits and levers, which again, is just your training, right? It's your day-to-day training. Absolutely. Weekly habits and levers, like what are you going to do today? So you have, what are you going to do today? How does that accumulate over the week? And then is that moving the needle on your outcomes? It's beautiful and it's so simple and it kind of, applies across the board, right? To everything that's important in your life. Right. What are you trying to achieve? What are the weekly habits that are going to get you there? Yep. You know, and there's, if you're honest with yourself and you have measurements, there's no, there's no line about it. Right. That's business, that's training, that's everything. Yeah. You look at. the training log and you haven't missed a workout. What's the outcome of that? You've made improvement, right? Provided the programming is correct. Of course. Right. But if you, if you, if you are wondering, two months later, Or like, why is my squat still, or why does my knee still hurt? Or why do I feel like shit? And then you look at your training log, and it's like, okay, my weekly habits are off. I haven't been eating well. I haven't been sleeping well. I've been missing training, right? Yep, it's very clarifying. But so you outlined some really important parts about getting into the nitty-gritty of operating. But there's a step before that. So we talked about product. We talked about people. The next step, which is actually fun to talk about because it's very relevant to our situation, is vision. And vision can kind of sound nebulous. But I had a vision for starting strength on a storefront and making it beautiful and premium retail and having set class times and having no term contracts and having a premium price and having exceptional coaching. Everyone gets results, and everyone's tracking it in a digital logbook, and we can see how much progress people are making over time, and we do video case studies. That was my vision. And then what's cool about you taking on the role is you have a vision for where you want this to go next. And I would articulate that as you want to help us graduate. I would articulate from technical expertise. experts to concierge-level service professionals. So if we can do both at the highest level, and by the way, I think it's a perfect direction to take the company, then that's great. Once you've got the vision, then you need a strategy. Strategy is just a very comprehensive, complete look at what are all of the problems, even if they're uncomfortable to talk about, and what are the opportunities. Then grade them, rank them, like we do in our business planning sessions, to figure out which one deserves priority now, because one of the biggest mistakes you can make in business or as an entrepreneur is just to start with the tactics. Any idea sounds like a good idea when it first comes up, but it's like, hold on a sec, what's the vision, what's the strategy, and does this tactic fit into that? So once you have a vision, once you have a strategy, it's very easy to define objectives and measurements, KPIs and things, and then the weekly habits to accomplish the strategy. Right. That's kind of it, man. Those are the broad categories, and I think if someone is able to think at that level and to keep all that connected and to always be looking back and thinking about what the big picture is and what we're trying to do and where we're headed, and then also be really good at one of your strengths, like you're one of the best operators I've ever met, just like, this is what we're doing, I'm going to simplify the hell out of it, these are the next steps, let's get it done right now. If you get all that right, I mean, it's just assuming people like what you're selling, life is good. Yeah, and that part's, I think, covered. It's pretty easy. And not only that, the community of owners, the people on the franchise company, the franchisor, all the members in the gyms, all the coaches, I can confidently say it's the best group of people. I've ever worked with. 100% yeah 100% and and it's going back and I wanted to talk about this earlier because it applies to you, too. It applies to almost everybody we're dealing with. Yeah in this organization, I really believe it's the it's the element of hard physical effort. Yeah. Oh, yeah It's it's a it's a tempering mechanism for people's bullshit. Yes, right So they they and you know, you've experienced this with fighting stuff with Muay Thai and BJJ is definitely I have as well You don't have many people and it applies to barbell training to who are serious about barbell training people do who do Hard physical things are higher quality people. I agree and some of them tend to be assholes, but there's not a lot of them. Sure, there's not a lot of them out there. Yeah, because yeah, there's just something about crushing ego Mm-hmm that makes you more pleasant to deal with and not that people we deal we deal with aren't a pain in the ass sometimes But it's always well intentioned. Yeah, you know, we have these owner meetings and they're sometimes contentious But like no nobody gets upset because everybody knows we're under that we're following we're headed towards the same objective and, And there's very little ego involved. And we all have good intentions. Yeah. But nobody's just trying to stroke their ego. Exactly. Like they really give a shit about what we're doing. Sure. Yeah. So hard physical effort, man. If you have all of these pieces and you can surround yourself, and we're super lucky to be able to do this, right? Again, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else primarily for that reason. Agreed. Because any other situation you insert yourself into, you're going to be dealing with people's fucked up egos. And it's just another variable you have to manage. And it's the worst one for me to deal with. It's the worst one. It's hard. I really hate it. Because you could have an amazing business with amazing prospects and just the wrong. egos involved. And it's just stressful. And you think about it before you go to bed. And you're not excited to go to work with your peers. And that's why we just built this thing and defined a culture. And people that love what we do are attracted to it. And that has worked very, very, very well. So that actually... That's probably the most... The thing that I love the most about all this is that I like work because I like being around the people that we've selected to be a part of this. That's right. Yeah, when you walk into any gym in the country, you're surrounded by people doing a fun thing, and they're working hard, and they're all positive, and they're grateful, right? Yes, and the members, I've had so many situations where I walk into a gym, and a member will just take me aside and say, thank you. And I'm like, I wish Ripito could be here for this because he's the one that deserves the thanks. That's right. But to see the impact this has on people's lives, like people get emotional telling me how important this is to them. Right. So, yeah, I mean, we've been saying this all along, but if we can create a situation where everybody that comes to the door is so happy with the results that they're staying because they want to be here, not because of a contract. And then the coach delivering the service has the best job in the industry. They're making a good wage. And then the franchise owner who is taking the risk doesn't have to deal with the corporate boss and, you know, all the nonsense with. With all that stuff, they can just be themselves. and wear what they want to work and be happy and relaxed and just do their thing. And then the franchise team can enjoy working with all these great people that we've hand selected and the franchise team is super cohesive and then that ties in perfectly with what Rip and Steph have built and you making sure the brand is being represented and fulfilled properly. I mean, it's kind of the holy grail. And again, all we need to do is just make it more successful so I can earn some money someday. But in the meanwhile, it's great. Yeah, so we can sell more franchises too, right? Yeah. Yeah, because we could have gone a different direction with this and done the traditional franchise because it's a great idea, right? It's on even just without having any gems. It's like, here's the model. Look how profitable it could be and you could start selling franchises and try to fix, try to make everything else fall in line. And maybe it would have worked, but it would have been, we would have put ourselves back in the same situation as we've been in. every corporate situation we've ever been in, right? It'd just be headaches all day, every day. Yeah, yeah. And then it's a relationship of animosity, us versus them. Exactly. Incentives don't align. And I mentioned this, we just had a, just for the audience, we just had a meeting for the, we did our annual business planning session. Right. And we invited our franchise owners to help us figure out what the business plan is for starting Strange Gems. And the reason I mentioned that is because. franchising has a bad rap, and it's because a lot of these franchise companies just have the wrong incentives because they're backed by private equity or they're public companies. And so it's all about the next quarterly earnings report. And so the franchisee becomes the customer of the franchisor. And our perspective, which I think is a massively important philosophical distinction, is that the member is our joint customer. Yeah. And the franchisee is our mechanism for fulfilling the best possible service and experience to that member. And so we do that in a business partnership, not in like a, hey, you do this or else, or by the way, there's this latest thing, you need to. buy it from us. It doesn't really help you, but we want more money. It's a totally different approach. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's built into the culture from the beginning. I mean, that was the intent from the beginning is delivering starting strength to the world. Yep. Yep. And I got to be honest, man, one of the most stressful parts about me starting this company and running the company before you took it over was trying to stay true to the ultimate delivery because I got the certification and I did my best, but I'm not you, right? So the fact. that you're running this thing means that not only can you take your operational excellence to the team and your vision to the team, but there is literally nobody better on earth to take Ripito's vision and to express it in a positive, constructive way in the gyms that can scale. Right. So like it really is the perfect formula as far as I'm concerned. Nice. Yeah. Good. Yeah. It's good to hear. Yeah, man. I haven't regretted it yet. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. I took that from you. You always like to say yet just to leave the rumor disappointment. Yeah. hitting the face so hard, right? It's like, oh, dude, yeah, I knew this was coming. Speaking of getting hit in the face so hard, when you were talking about doing hard things, it just kind of reminded me, like, you know, I've got a big ego, man. I think I'm pretty good at some things. I've got my insecurities. I'm human, whatever. But, man, it's been amazing to be humbled by martial arts, lifting weights, and entrepreneurship. And so my thing is, like, no matter how bad it hurts, if there's something I need to be aware of and improve about myself, I really want to know. That's genuine. What that is. Yeah, yeah. And that's why our friendship's great, because you're willing to actually give me the feedback. Yeah, I mean, the beginning was contentious for a lot of reasons, and there's been some contentious things throughout where, like, everything's in a really good spot right now, but, you know, just different personalities and egos, right, and stuff like that. But I think anybody else would have just said, no, this isn't worth it. It came at significant personal cost, both. psychological health physical health. and financial health for sure but it's just it's just that it sounds so freaking cheesy and cliche but like that is the ultimate maximum in life if you, if you really are committed to getting to the level that you think is possible the chances of that being an easy road are very slim that's true so just fucking bite down and move forward that's exactly right yeah man, man I think this was great I don't know if we're just like, if anybody else will find it useful but oh well I mean I felt good about it so whether or not anyone watches it or not I enjoyed talking to you right right right no there's some good stuff. in here I think that we may take for granted that people may be thinking about but you know especially business owners, especially people who are, looking at their own personal situation maybe looking to start a business and stuff but it's, it's just like training it's not easy but it is simple yeah it's very simple and the longer I do this the more simplified it becomes in my in my head and it's all it's not all obviously like you gotta have some you gotta have some fundamental understanding of what's going on, But it's it's just it's just nose to the grindstone execution on some very simple things. Right. Yeah. So it's not complicated. Yeah, man. Let me let me let me end with this, if you don't mind. My perspective on on this whole deal. So like zoom all the way out, you know, how many years do you have on Earth? I don't know if you're lucky. Seventy, eighty, ninety five. How many of those years do you have enough experience, intelligence, awareness to be productive and your body is in good shape and you can, you know, maximize the quality of your existence? Yeah. A couple of decades, whatever. Right. So first of all, just as a quick aside, starting strength kind of extends that that time period. So you have more productive decades and years. But then secondly, you know, tying this into the business conversation, I just don't think there's any reason to be beholden to the status quo or what's expected of you or the establishment. And I think the more that you adhere to the way things are supposed to be, I need to go to high school. I need to get my degree. I need to do this. I need to do that. I need to go. my corporate job, my W-2. If that is exciting for you and that's fulfilling for you, that's cool. It never was for me. And I know there's lots of people out there that are just like me. And I guess if there's one message I could send, you know, obviously selfishly, like if you're hearing this and you want to become a franchisee, like let's talk. But even separately from that, if you have the risk appetite to start something new and to take a chance at escaping other people controlling your life so you can have actual freedom, both in how you spend your time and then later on, hopefully financially. I just, I don't think there's any greater adventure in life other than maybe marriage. and kids, you know? So, and do that too, by the way. And if you do both, I mean, I'm now reaching a point in my life at 40 where it's like, yeah, I just, I just feel so incredibly grateful to have, to have gone through all the crap that I've been through to be in a spot where I can just sit here with my friend, Nick, who's running, starting strange gyms with me and for me and talk about things I enjoy. And then later I'm going to go watch Ben Rip talk on the podcast. We're going to go home to Idaho and then see. families, and Ben and Jen and I, my siblings and I all work together, and it's fucking cool, man. Yeah, man, it is. It's great. Absolutely. Yeah, so I just wanted to say that. Absolutely, man. All right. Well, thanks, man. Thanks for joining. Hell yeah. It was awesome. Yeah, we'll do it again. We'll talk about other stuff, I'm sure. Sounds good. All right. All right, folks. Thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or topic ideas, send them to podcast, at ssgyms.com, and thanks again for watching. See you soon.