AI transcript
All right, everyone. Today’s episode is Anne Malume and started this company called Saladcore. Saladcore
is a Pilates studio where she bootstrapped it. In the first year, she did something like a million
and a half in revenue. It cost like $100,000 to start and she eventually sold this company in
year nine for something like $350 million. And she goes through this entire story. But if you’re
listening, I think the really amazing part is to copy some of her attributes because I get done
listening to her and I’m like, I need to step it up in terms of confidence or in terms of being
passionate about something. And in fact, there’s like, in minute 30, I honestly teared up hearing
some of her stories. So check it out. And by the way, if you are interested in Anne, I’m going to
give a plug for Money Wise, this podcast I did with her where she went deep on her finances. So how
much money she spends, how much money she made, everything. And because I liked her so much
on that podcast, I wanted her to come on here. So check it out. And I hope you guys enjoy this
episode and let me know in the comments. Let’s do a little background. So I think you had a normal
job, but then started a nonprofit called Back on My Feet. Is that right? Yeah. And what was the
original idea? I don’t know if you know much about how the homeless system works, but many of the
shelters in the major cities, you can go live there for 30 days and then you get kicked out.
They give you 30 days to get your crap together, which is not very much time for someone who isn’t
going through homelessness, to be honest, to sort of start over, go back in the city, get back in
the system. 95% of the folks we worked with were dealing with addiction on some level. So, you know,
Sam, I know a little bit of your background. And I think I mentioned on our last conversation,
my dad’s an addict. And when you ask my dad, Mark, what was your addiction? And he’ll kind of look
at you and say everything because my dad doesn’t understand moderation. You know, he had unfortunately
instances with drugs and alcohol. He went into inpatient program before it was five. So I don’t
really remember this, but that seemed to do the trick. He hasn’t had a drink or used drugs in 37,
eight years. Unfortunately gambling then surfaced for my dad when I was a teenager and he struggled
with that. And now my dad fishes, he fishes every day for hours a day. But you have to find some
place to put this thing. And I had felt like, if you can master the drugs and alcohol, you know,
and try to get away from the bad behaviors, having an addictive personality can actually be beneficial
because when you get into something, you know, you are in it and you kind of obsess over it.
So running was this great alternative because there is no end. You can always do more. It’s
there for you. You only need a pair of shoes. It was a really great substitute for a lot of these
guys who were still chasing the high. I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a correlation of
people who work out who actually tend to drink more because you’re chasing the dopamine. You’re
looking for these opportunities to get the elevated serotonin spikes. So that’s why, you know,
yeah, working out can be a great option for people who are struggling with addiction.
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Yeah, basically addictions. I mean, I don’t know shit. I just didn’t, I know my situation,
but addictions don’t go away. They just get transferred. You know what I mean?
And so our thought was, you know, we can really help to change the emotional identity and get them
to like themselves, believe in themselves, put them in a positive support network,
and turn them into somebody who is a runner and athlete, responsible, reliable,
and then we can go advocate for them at jobs that need employees who have those types of
characteristics. So Marriott became the largest employer of back on my feet, not because we were
a charity, Sam, but because we actually had good candidates for them who were so appreciative
to have a job in a respectable place where they got benefits, paid pretty well, and opportunity
for growth. By the way, what do you do like your first day? So you just quit your other job.
It’s a Monday. You just walked to the corner and like, Hey, everyone. Or I guess the night before,
like meet me here tomorrow at 530. Like I don’t know if you have running shoes or not, but like
make sure you know what I mean? Like what do you do like the first like five days?
Yeah. So I was a little more organized than, than that. I knew I needed the shelter to,
you know, work with me and give me permission. So I emailed the, I found the director of the
shelter online. I emailed him. He didn’t email me back. Took a little while for him to respond to
me, but I kept like badgering him. And, you know, he tries to think of the nicest way to tell me
that like, this isn’t going to work. These guys have bigger problems. They’re not like interested
in running. And I was very persuasive. I’m like, if you could please just meet me. Like I literally
have ran by this shelter for two years. I’m not a very religious person, even though the shelter
was religious, but like, I am being called to do this. Please meet with me and let me explain to
you why I feel so compelled. So he did. And Sam, the crazy thing was this shelter.
That’s such a great line. By the way, I’m being called to do this. That’s good.
Yeah, but it’s true. I mean, yeah, totally. But it’s also a good, like it’s like, that’s like a,
that’s like a great argument. Right. And so he met with me and this shelter, again,
I didn’t know anything about this shelter. It was called the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission.
But when people enter this shelter, they, the guys have rules and they are not supposed to
have any contact with women. Zero. They are there to, you know, no drugs, obviously, no alcohol,
they have a curfew, every rules, no women. And this guy, Mr. McMillan, like I owe a lot to him
because he trusted me, believed in me and was like, okay, I’m going to break our rules.
I’m going to allow this woman to come in here and build relationships with these guys. And he’s
like, I’m not going to tell them and that there’s some, you know, young woman who wants to come
run with them. I’m going to let them, the, the participant or the members of the shelter at the
time, ask them if they are interested in joining a running club. That’s it. And if they say yes,
I’ll let you do it. And, you know, I’m like waiting and waiting and a couple weeks go by and I finally
get a response that says, all right, here’s the names, nine guys. These guys want to run. And I’m
like, awesome. I need their shoe sizes. So I go to a local running store. I get the shoes donated.
Again, I can be very convincing. It’s one of my superpowers. I get them to give me all new shoes
because I don’t want that. I don’t want to show up there in my new shoes and then I give these guys,
you know, crappy old shoes because they’re homeless. I just felt like that’s going to say,
I’m better than you. And I didn’t want them to feel that way. So I got shoes, shirts, socks,
shorts. And I went up there and met them. I got to meet them in the chapel for the first time.
I introduced myself. And then I made them sign a contract. And it just said, if you’re going to
join the running club, you got to show up three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you
have to be on time. You need to come up with a positive attitude and you need to be willing to
respect and support your teammates. And everybody like sat up straighter in their chair. They were
waiting, at least what it felt like for me. They were waiting for someone to tell them they were
capable of excellence and expecting. I didn’t say to them, you know, just show up if you can. It must
be tough living in here. Just, you know, do your best. If you’re, please try not to be too late.
It was like, these are the expectations. And if you can’t agree to them, then don’t join the club.
And if you can’t agree to them once you do join, you know, you’re going to get kicked off the team.
We have to adhere to principles. So everybody showed up day one. And we all ran a mile, like
some of the guys cruised and got it done really quickly. And then there was George, who took a
while, like he was struggling. But we made a rule that day that nobody finished the run on their own.
So everybody went back to get George. And we all like brought him into the finish line together.
And that like first day, it was like, okay, like this is the group. And all the media was there
for day one. Like I wanted to get the word out. Everybody had to come and see this for themselves.
So the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily News, the local ABC, NBC, every, I mean,
it was all of a sudden like this thing was everywhere.
All right, guys. So listen up. We’re doing something a little bit different here.
So we had this guy named Mr. Bollin. Mr. Bollin is one of my favorite people on earth.
If you have been on YouTube or Tik Tok, you probably know who Mr. Bollin is.
So he has tens of millions of followers and he’s built this massive business on it.
He’s probably the best storyteller I’ve ever heard of my life, to be honest.
And he did this amazing podcast with us that we’re going to release soon.
We’re not releasing the episode right away, but we are going to give it to our true fans.
And if you are one of those true fans and you do want this interview, we have a link below.
So check it out. Click the link in the description below and you can listen to it right away.
Now back to the show. Did people cover you because you’re like a charismatic,
like you got, I don’t know if you had your hair like that,
but like you look like a celebrity when you have your hair like your short blonde hair
and you look dope and you’re charismatic. Were they covering you because you were
charismatic and awesome or because this idea was so novel? Like how do you,
how does someone who’s not as cool get all this type of press?
Well, I think I’ll give you this, this, this straight answer and cause this is,
you know, probably no bullshit podcast. The video and the media was like,
here’s this white lawn girl from North Dakota,
putting herself in the middle of these homeless shelters, like running with all of these men.
Like the camera, the story, everything about it was like, wait, what?
They just kind of had to know the background. And then you add in the fact that my
dad is an addict and I’m so drawn to these guys and I could never help my dad and
running helped me. So now I feel like I can help people who remind me of my dad,
you know, through this. And yeah, so I think it all just worked. And then once they got to,
I mean, the homelessness itself, right? People are like, wait, the people who are homeless are
actually running that alone made people make their brains be like, wait, what? And then add in,
you know, the young white girl from North Dakota, like, what’s the connection here?
So the media truly ate it up. And it was coming from such a peer place for me of like, I’m trying
to heal myself from 10 years of nothing coming good from my dad’s addictions and tearing apart
my family. And now I get to use all that pain as fuel to help people. And, you know, meeting some
of the guys in our program, I really think about those first nine guys, because the majority of
them were charismatic and lovely. And like, you just can’t help but root for them. So once the
media started to talk to Mike and to George and to James and learn their stories and the fact that
they’re out there working hard, I mean, it’s the ultimate underdog story. And volunteers started
showing up, this group started to grow. And it was like, I’m like, this is an opportunity,
you know, Tony Robbins talks a lot about these windows that open. And like, this is my window.
And I had just taken a job at Comcast, I was supposed to go work there in their government
affairs department, six figure job, like, everything that my college degree, graduate
degree was setting me up for this Comcast opportunity was it. And I remember going,
they asked me to go to a baseball game with a lot of like some senators and people on the
political sort of world were in town and Comcast was hosting them. And I went that night and I
was like, I am so bored out of my mind, there’s no way that I can go take this job. Like, all I
want to be doing is hanging out with the back of my beat members. All I thinking about is like,
this organization and how I grow it and vision. And so I called them the day I was supposed to
start. And I thanked them for the six weeks that they gave me from time off of my other
nonprofit job before I was supposed to start. And I was like, I can’t take this job. Like,
I have found what I’m supposed to do with my life. And I’m really sorry, I know it’s the day
before, but like, I got to follow my gut on this. How old are you? I was 26. 26. Yeah. I mean, again,
I’m asking all adults in my life, I’m thinking of doing this, like, what do you think and
everybody’s like, are you nuts? Like for your job, like, you’re going to run with people in
homeless shelters for your job. And I’m like trying to explain the vision, you know, and nobody
got it. You know, my mom thinks I’m like, irresponsible. She’s worse. You know, like,
what are you thinking? My dad’s concerned for my safety. All my mentor boss people are like,
and you don’t even have any savings. I had, I had no money. Nothing. What was the first year’s revenue?
Or how are you? I’m sure I raised a million bucks in the first year. I was no shit,
really. So you’re a machine. Oh, yeah. And I would ask, I mean, I would ask anybody and
everybody for money. And I knew who to ask Sam. I figured out that I had to find the executives
who were runners in companies that could give. And so I would only meet, like Larry Solomon
was my first, I had a huge article in runners world. It was awesome. But but I’ll also send you
that. Larry lived in Philly. He was the COO of one of Accenture’s vertical businesses. He mailed
me amazing article, you know, rooting for you. Well, I took one look at Larry’s title and I was
like, can we please have coffee? I love to tell you more. Right. Larry is still a very good friend
today. But he, we met and I was just like, I need your help. I want you to sit on the board. Larry,
I just become a runner. And I’m like, you know, I really want to build this thing. And I want to
make it big and blah, blah, blah. So he came on board and Larry, like Accenture, right? They had
massive, Marriott was a client, Vivo Bakeries, AT&T. They had so many tentacles. And I’m just like,
I just need you to introduce me. I will go in and close the deal, but I need you to introduce me
to the big players so that they can write the check. And I don’t waste weeks or months climbing the
meeting with the marketing coordinator. And then the marketing director, and they just keep passing
me up the chain. Like, I’ll never be able to raise money fast enough. So, yeah. And every meeting I
went to, I made a specific ask whether it was like, I need $20,450. And here’s why. And I need you to
pick me to three more people. And then I would also learn that I would, that like letting me come and
speak at your corporate event or something, I was like, Oh, that’s, I did that one time. And I’m
like, Oh, this is really powerful. Like now I get the whole company, you know, excited about back on
my feet because it was just so innovative. So what’s your pitch to me? Let’s say, let’s say I’m an
executive, you know, I probably spent a few hundred grand a year giving it away to causes. I care
about single moms, I care about animals, homeless guys, I mean, I guess that’s like kind of important,
but like, why should I like give a shit about you? Well, for one, Sam, I would ask if you, you know,
are you a runner? And hopefully you would say yes. I would say so you, so you understand that, right?
So if you’re an executive of this, perfect. So if you’re an executive of this company,
you understand how important culture is and how important culture is for performance and making
sure your people feel appreciated and valued here. A lot of our members grew up in households and
environments and neighbors where they didn’t have that before. And I can tell you being out there
firsthand with all of these guys, they are some of the hardest working individuals I have ever
met before, but no one’s given them a chance. And if you don’t have respect for people who are out
there at 530 in the morning trying to put their life on the right track and doing the work and the
effort, no one’s running their miles for them. They are doing it on their own. And it’s a pretty
compelling site to see. And I can guarantee you if you give us a check, not only will, you know,
the money go to helping these individuals in my life, but we’ll get your employees involved,
you know, talk about a cause where, you know, employees can get actually involved on the
ground floor running with us. We do a skill set training, right, where we teach these guys about
financial literacy, helping them train them for, you know, what their next opportunity could be.
But I can tell you from all the other companies we work with, we have higher employee engagement
with back on my feet than people have had in any other nonprofit that they’ve worked with.
You make me emotional, because like on this podcast and in my life, I care about making money,
you know, I care about businesses, and we’re going to talk about solid core and all the
traditional success that you’ve had. It just seems, you know, like, I remember being in the
hospital recently, because I had like a kidney stone and I felt like I was dying. And this like
Nigerian nurse was like taking care of me. And like in my head, I’m like,
you probably have seen five of me today. And like, you don’t even make that much money, whatever,
but like, you’re making my life so much better right now. Like you have, you’re calming me down.
And like, you are making this stay the best as opposed to the doctor who makes way more money,
but like he’s just in and out. And that’s sort of kind of like, how I feel when I talk about this
nonprofit stuff, which is making rich people richer is kind of insignificant compared to
giving someone a shot or like doing something that actually matters. And so
did you get equal fulfillment pursuing solid core for the sake of like wealth creation versus
what you were doing with back on my feet? I had a lot of fun building solid core. And I feel really
good about how I’ve made my wealth over the last 10 years. I mean, I get to make people’s lives
happier, healthier, and help people be more confident. And my team, you know, there are
thousands of people who work at solid core, who love their job, who, you know, we pay people really
well, I think we pay higher than any other fitness organization, our coaches on a per class basis,
like there are coaches who make over 300 bucks a class, because we’ve always done a revenue
share model. And I have just never believed Sam that it has to be a zero sum game. Like, yeah,
should I have made the most money? Sure, because I took all the risk, put all the money in. Like,
I have no problem saying that some people can disagree with me. That’s fine. But do I think
that my employees should have made zero? No, which is why I put a long term incentive plan in place
for them. A profit sharing plan when I sold the business and everybody got paid. Every full time
employee who had been with solid core for a year, got paid on that last transaction. And they’re
going to get paid on the next transaction as well. And I feel really good about that. So I would say
honestly, like a similar fulfilling, but like back in my feet made my life make sense. So when I
started to feel like it was time for my next thing, yes, I fought it. And I thought it out of a few
things. One, who am I, like my life is extraordinary. I get to help people all the time. Oh my God,
fear. Like what if I fail at my next thing, whatever that is, is all this going to be for nothing.
And people will just think I’m a one hit wonder that definitely was something I had to work through.
And I didn’t really know kind of how to top that thing, you know, all the attention that
it was receiving. I was receiving all the accolades. My ego was involved for sure. But I couldn’t
sit there and tell back on my feet members in our mission to push and challenge themselves,
you know, move, moving things forward one step at a time growing. If I wasn’t willing to do the
same. So I was like, listen, I have an incredible board of like 1314 C level people. There is an
amazing budget, the program, the systems, the processes, the team, everything had been set up.
Like I really felt like I did my job as the founder and the first CEO of the of the organization.
So it, it helped me to be able to move on to the next thing. And then you, you go on and you do
solid core, which if you don’t know for the listener, it’s a Pilates studio. That’s just
fucking badass. You scale that out and you get to sell it eventually for like 300 million dollars.
But you had this story and you could dive deep on the numbers and we went through a lot of the
numbers on money wise, but you can go through some of the numbers. But if I remember correctly,
your idea was basically like you were in LA, you, you went to a Pilates studio, you do the math and
you’re like, well, they have like eight reformers here, a reformer costs this much money. I think
I could do like a hundred grand a month if I make this in DC or New York or wherever you made the
first one. Is that, is that story right? Pretty close. I discovered it in LA and then I was back
in New York and found another Pilates studio that had the same machines as them. And I was,
then I started to do the math after, after I went for like 30 days and I was like,
I have never seen my body look like this and it’s only been 30 days and I feel so good and
I’m addicted to it. I was just bringing everybody I knew and then I did the math and I was like,
this is an incredible business and no one’s really doing it on a big scale yet.
What was the math? Well, so there’s 10 machines in there in this particular studio
and the per class was like $30 a class and you couldn’t buy membership. You had to buy every
time you went. And how many, how many people per class? 10, 10. Oh, sorry. Duh. And it was a full?
Yeah, 10 times. Well, yes, it’s 10. It was full every time you couldn’t get into these classes. So
there was 10 classes a day, right? Okay. So that’s $300 a session. Yeah. Times 10. So that’s
$3,000 a day and they’re full all the time or they were all the time, like impossible to get
into class. And you’re like $3,000 a day times 30. That’s $90,000. That would be cool. Yeah,
totally. And I was, and I also felt, you know, one of the things that I tell people a lot when I,
when I speak is like, play a game. You know, you can win. And so I knew after back on my feet,
I had to find another game I can win. I was the perfect person to start back on my feet because
of my story, my experience in nonprofits, my true authenticity for wanting to help these guys.
And I just had a knack for understanding systems, scalability and process. And so with solid core,
I knew I needed something that was authentically, authentically representative of who I was.
And I am the workout queen. I mean, out of all my friends, I’ve done so many marathons,
like fitness and wellness has always been a key, if not the key priority. And so when I discover
this, I’m like, nobody knows you can work out like this. We’re all out there jumping, pounding,
you know, getting injured because it’s a rite of passage to be fit. Like, this is so different.
And nobody knows about it. And, and I know, I know how to build community. I know how to scale.
I understand branding. And I understand how to give a really good experience.
Therefore, this is a game I think I can win. This is what I’m going to do next.
And how old were you for this one? 31, 30?
31, 32, 31, 32. Yeah.
And you had saved like, I think you said like 150 grand from five years, 175 from like five years
of running the nonprofit. And you put, didn’t you tell me you put all of it into a location and
reformers, like you like transferred the money, you like transferred it from like ants checking
account to solid cores, checking account, like all of it.
Yeah. And then that didn’t feel so scary because I was 100% owner in the business. So it was like,
the scary part was that that it wasn’t moving the money. It was that the money is going to leave
that account. Yeah. Yeah. Did it all leave? Oh, I mean, a high majority. But the great news was as
soon as I opened, we started making money. So, you know, I had, I mean, Sam, like I was, I still
am, but especially back then, not a necessity. I was like a killer negotiator. I had to get
you to root for me. You know, so I’m talking to my general contractor, you know, and it’s like,
listen, can we do net 60 terms? Like if I can pay you sooner, I will. This is who I am. I started
this nonprofit. This is what I’m doing now. You know, I have this money, you know, I can pay you,
but I’m trying to make sure I don’t like get in front of my skis. And so like I would negotiate,
you know, that side of things. And the first landlord made me give four months of security
deposit, which killed me. I was like 30 grand that I have to give to you that like just gets to sit
there. And after that, I refused to do security deposits and was very successful in making that
happen. But yeah. And so as soon as like we opened and I started selling packages, I’ll never forget
my first my first sale. It was this woman named Amy, who I still know she was pregnant. And she
was like, I want to buy, you know, private sessions. And she went online and she bought
$2,500 worth of private sessions. And I was like, I can’t believe this woman just gave me all that
money. She’s never even done the work out. She doesn’t know anything. And so I trained her every
day at five a.m. Before the the studio, like we started class at six a.m. And then, you know,
once we opened, I got press. I leaned on my media contacts from back on my feet. I got an article
on the post. Yeah, it was DC. Yeah. And so how much was the start of costs? It was, oh gosh,
maybe a math, but I know the bill that was like 150 grand, right? I had to buy them. I had to pay
a licensing fee of $25,000 just to open the studio. That was just a licensing fee. That’s
insane, right? That’s an insane deal. Why can’t I just buy a machine? It’s my machine. Let me do
what I want. That’s why I ended that relationship in a couple of years and went through a lawsuit.
But then I had to buy the machines, which I financed because I couldn’t afford to buy them out,
right? And have all the cash. I had to finance them. And I was paying a monthly fee to do that.
And then, so those machines were $6,000 at that time, I don’t know, $7,000 a piece. So that was
70 grand, but I didn’t have to pay it all upfront. And then the rent was nine, no, sorry, seven grand,
seven grand a month. Damn. And what was your first month of sales? Oh, I like, we literally did over
a hundred grand in the first month. That’s insane. It was nuts. I mean, but I was betting big. And,
you know, I think I told this story a lot, but it’s still going to have to tell it. I was petrified,
you know, those moments where you have that you’re like, all in and you’re like, oh my god,
what am I doing? Larry, here comes Larry again, from back on my feet. And he’s like, and listen,
I’ll give you 75 grand for 30% of the business. If you don’t want to use all your capital, like,
listen, you grew this nonprofit, I know you’re going to be successful. You know,
if you want to keep a little cash, I’ll do this deal. And back then 75 grand, when all I had was
175 was a lot of money. And I, you know, I was beginning to think it was a responsible thing
to do to take this money. Maybe I should do this deal. And then I remember thinking I have the
money. And if I take his money, all I’m going to say is this is a massive doubt in myself. I’m
doubting myself. And when things really get hard, I am then going to lean into that 75k and convince
myself like, well, at least I have that, you know, like, you know, I don’t need to, this is too hard,
at least I have my 75k. And so I was like, I can’t, I can’t take that money. It’s just going to,
it’s going to take my drive away. It’s going to take the hunger. I need to feel like I’m being
chased by a bear. I need to figure this out. And that’s the way this is going to be successful.
So I just, I mean, every, every hour of, I was passing out solid core pamphlets, flyers, like
anything I could do to get you to come take a class. And then fortunately, what happened
was the same thing that happened to me when I took it. Everybody started telling their friends.
And Sam, after your first class, right, you said you were so sore.
Guess what? Everybody was not in a bad way, by the way, but, but everybody wants to tell everybody
how, oh my God, I’m so sore. I did this workout called solid core. You’ve got to go. They all
want to tell each other how much they’re working out. So, so it just snowballed. Did you create the
routine? That was part of the license. So I got trained on what was called this method called
degree. So we had someone come in and train me. And then I trained my trainers on how to do that.
I’m not a personal trainer. Like that’s not my background. And so we started again, using
their training program for us. And then soon realized that like we actually want to make this
more athletic. These names that they’re using were kind of silly. It was, it was like nothing
intuitive. And then the machine started breaking. And so I was like, this relationship is doing
nothing for me. I don’t know why I have to be associated with LaGrie. I want to like make my
own machines. I need to be in charge of manufacturing. Like the workouts don’t make sense. I had hired
somebody else to do the training who had a big background in MMA. And, and, and, you know, she
was certified and everything else. And we started playing around with the workout. She wrote a
massive training program. And then we separated from LaGrie. And he sued me like immediately.
Which you won, I think, right? Or sorry, you’re not a lot of say.
Well, I mean, it’s far enough down. But for all intents purposes, he had to buy back his
machines for me. And we agreed to never, to never talk again, which we haven’t. So, and, and frankly,
after we did that, all these other people who were part of LaGrie then also started to make
their own machines realizing like, why are we paying a massive premium on machines? This isn’t a
franchise. So we’re not getting the benefit of a national grant here. Like it just didn’t make
any business for any of the sense. So yeah, and then making my own machines, like, that was a huge
gamble. I didn’t know how to do that, obviously. And like tooling, engineering, manufacturing,
prototypes, I probably spent lost a couple hundred grand just because I didn’t know what I was doing.
Maybe probably even more than that. But like, we got a machine. It wasn’t right. I already,
like, it like, it didn’t work properly. Like we had to redo it. It was a mess.
What was your first year’s revenue? The first year revenue, I think you asked me this last time.
And then I had, I think you said a million dollars, right? Well, the first, it was more than
that because that was the first studio’s revenue. And then in the first year, you know, I had five
of these open. So you had, I didn’t know you had five at the end of the first year. Yeah. That’s
insane, right? Yeah, but same thing. I’m like, momentum, momentum, momentum. Have you ever
heard the funny story about subway? And I don’t know if it’s true or not, but like I just love it.
So I keep telling it, but subway had one location and they were like off the beaten path and they
weren’t doing that great. So they thought, you know, we need to open a second one because people
will think if we have two that we’re killing it. And I like remember hearing that story. I’m like,
that’s so brilliant. And even though we were killing it, I was like, I need to maximize on this
and get two and three and four open so that people start being like, I’m seeing this thing everywhere.
I must be missing out. They must be doing so well. This thing must work. And that really
like served us really well. So we just kept reinvesting the profits into the next studio.
I kept negotiating, you know, as long, like longer terms to pay back if I needed to.
And I just stopped doing security deposits with landlords.
How old was the business when you sold each different chunk? Because you sold it a couple
times, right? Yeah. So I did a minority deal in 2017. So the business was four years old at that
point. And we had 27 locations on an annualized basis. Each one of those studios was doing about
700 grand. Okay. So 27 times 700. That’s roughly $19 million in revenue. Yeah. You sold the business
for what valuation or you sold a chunk for what valuation? I did a pretty big valuation back then.
So the valuation was like close to 60 million. Wow. Yeah. And people, people, the firms definitely
balked at that. And I just said, listen, it’s not so much about the number. It’s about the terms.
And I know how much money I need to get to 100 studios. And that’s $12 million because I’m going
to continue to use the profits. And I also want to take secondary off of the table. And
obviously no one like that, especially that early. And I was like, listen, these are those are the
terms. Like, don’t don’t get so freaked out about the terms. Tell me what you need in order to do
this deal. And so there was a healthy preff on the minority deal that I agreed to. And I had no
problem doing that. And I remember two people were like, you know, and well, how do we know you’re
not going to walk away for six million? And I’m like, I was like, I would just sell the whole
business if that was the case. Like, you think I’m in this for $6 million? Like,
which is such a good way to like approach it. You are good. I’m really bad at negotiating.
Like all my staff knows that like, don’t come to Sam about salary discussions because my default
is like, I just say, I just say, you got to talk to this for other person about that because I
just say yes to, I just say yes to everything. So I’ve like removed myself from negotiation
because I’m too nice. And like, how do you think I did on this podcast? I know. Well,
I don’t know. That would sound like a back-handed couple, but it’s not. But I’m just, I’m soft as
fuck. Like I just, I just, I’m like, yeah, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll do. But to approach
like a negotiation of like, well, don’t say no, just tell me what you need to win. And I’ll see
if I can actually make that happen for you. But then in order for you to win, it has to take
it to account. Here’s what I need. Exactly. And so I did that with landlords and, you know,
and private equity. It’s like, you know, landlord would always block that. We always
do security deposits. I’m like, that’s not really a response, right? Like, what are you
trying to protect against, right? You have a corporate guarantee, you have X, like help me
understand this and I can try to solve the problem a different way. So I, I solved the
private equity problem with the preferred return, you know, it’s like your downside is,
I’m not going to see another dime until you make, you know, the 2.5 X your money.
That’s just such a funny response. We always, well, why do I have to give a deposit? Because
we’ve always do deposit. That’s not a good reply. Give me a different reply. That’s the
best. That is the best. And it really, it really does work because you make them articulate what’s
important to them. And usually what’s important to landlords is, you know, the ledger, the balance
sheet of the total, you know, term of the deal. And I’m, you know, so that’s why we were able
to push rent a little bit further down the road and like increase the rent in year five or six.
And, you know, okay, you’re protected on the corporate guarantee, you know, front. So like,
you know, you have three years, I’m not going to do a security deposit. And let me tell you why
that’s important for me and why it benefits you because the more I get open, the bigger the brand
is, you know, it’s going to get more brand equity and, and, you know, this location will do better.
So yeah, I think people, all people can do a better job of, of negotiating. And it’s one of a
really amazing skill sets to, to learn. Chris Voss never split the difference. I love that book.
I read that book during COVID because I really had to get good at negotiation. And what’s the,
what’s like the, the, the summary of that? Well, he just goes through these different
strategies, right? About like mirroring. And he gives this, one of my favorite examples was he
gives this of a car, he goes in, he’s like, listen, I have, call it $10,300. You know, that’s the car
that I want. And just say it was like 15 grand or something. And then I comes back and like, okay,
great news. I add down to 14. He’s like, wow, thank you so much. I really appreciate you advocating
for me. But the number of the amount of money I have right now hasn’t, hasn’t changed. I still
have $10,300. If you can do the deal for that, you know, I’m here, goes back, comes down more,
gets to like, call it 11 three. And at that point, he knows, right? Cause he hasn’t moved.
He knows you’re not walking away. You are, you’re so close. The guy’s going to do the deal.
And I remember using that strategy a lot as well and negotiating. You get people to come,
come, come. And now they’re just too close that they’re not going to move away. So the whole
point is like not meeting in the middle. Wait. So as the point is, then do you go to 11,000 or do
you stick at 10, five? He stuck, he stuck because that guy is so close now. He’s not going to walk
away when it’s like, you know, used to be five grand away. Now you’re just 800 grand or sorry,
$800 away. So he like, ends up getting, you know, the deal done. And he just goes through
different strategies in there on how you can mirror, you know, this is what I hear you’re
saying. Yes. You know, and like, don’t walk away when you hear and know, like the note
doesn’t have to be a bad thing. So me and my lawyer, who I had on staff at that point,
who’s just a jack of all trades and unbelievable, you know, we read that book, Sam, because during
COVID we knew it’s like, what’s going to kill us? What’s going to kill this company is not that
we don’t have revenue coming in right now. It’s if these landlords sue us and make us pay rent.
And no one really understood who was right or wrong then, you know, it’s like, well, this is a
force was sure. It’s like, well, we don’t have any money coming in. How do you expect us to pay rent?
So we just said, we just have to get the landlords on our side. We have to figure out a way to
restructure the deal that doesn’t allow us to pay rent when we are closed. And we also can’t kick
the can down the road. You know, so we came up with strategies like, how about we lengthen the
term of the lease? We’ll add another year or two to the back end of the lease, you know, so that
you have a longer tenant. Like if you force us to pay rent, you’re not going to get another dime
from us, you know, because we’re going to go bankrupt. But if you work with us, or maybe we
increase the rent, you know, year eight, nine and 10 to make up some of the difference for this.
But we know that we couldn’t in a year from now have this like, okay, you owe rent for those three
months and give us a check for 90 K, but it’s 75 studios. Like there was just no way we were going
to recover from that. So anyway, those kinds of things, you know, people talk about how COVID
killed so many gyms. And a lot of that was not just because of COVID, it was because of these
operational and financial decisions that weren’t like made as smartly as maybe some other companies
could have made and not understanding what was going to be the demise of them.
When you when you completely got out was like, what, $300 million valuation?
Yeah, a little more than that. But yeah. And that was last April. I got I sold out my shares.
How old was the business then?
Nine and a half years.
That’s a great run. And when you look at like what made you guys great, was it operational
excellence? Was it because your brand was cool? Was it because the workout was better than anywhere
else? Like what’s like the honest assessment of like these were the one or two factors that set
us apart from berries boot camp or whoever else is you consider to be competition or all the
mom and pops out there?
Yeah, the workout is incredible. And I’m glad you’ve gone to it because you can understand
a little bit what I’m saying. It’s just like unlike anything that was ever out there. And now
there’s a lot more Pilates out there. But we had speed to market. We are the dominant player,
you know, in the space. And we have a pretty cool brand. So I think the aesthetics, we know what
our brand is, right? The whole tagline is create the strongest version of yourself. And I think
the company is still doing a really good job of leaning into that. One of my favorite campaigns
we did was it’s not for everyone. And we really went in and like this doesn’t this may not be
for you, but it’s for somebody, you know, it was almost like a Nike commercial. It’s like,
if you like to push yourself, those are great commercials. Yeah, yeah. And the night you’re
talking about the Nike Olympic ones. Yes, exactly. Yeah, those are great. Winning when I’m not for
everyone. So we did we did this campaign a few years ago. And it really like people people
watch that and it’s like, I want that to be for me. I’m tough. I’m strong. I like to push
myself. I want to grow. I can handle tough things. And so I think there is this aura of if you know
somebody who does solid core, you’re like, I know who you are. Like I know exactly the type of person
you are, you’re driven, you’re ambitious, you like to work hard, you’re not afraid of the work,
you’re not the work is actually the joy for you. You want to feel good at the end of the day knowing
you put your all and tried your best at like everything you did. So I think the brand ethos
is definitely a big part of our success. And don’t get me wrong. Again, operationally, I’m a
pretty good operator. Are you like pretty good where you’re like, you’re actually the best,
like your top or are you like, that’s like, I’m pretty good at it, but it’s maybe not the best
the thing that I’m best at. Yeah, I’m great at putting systems, processes in place. But like,
I’m not the right person to run solid core today. If that makes sense, like it’s too big, it’s too
monolithic. It’s like, I just I move quickly. And that’s not actually what you need. You need
somebody like Brian, who’s much more methodical, analytical, patient. I think that for most
entrepreneurs who are like new, I think that branding and some of these exercises aren’t
terribly important. But I think that if you have a proven track record, where you’re like,
this person executes well, and they execute when you have that tracker track record, which I think
I do. Like for all my businesses now, I spent a lot of time on branding, where I’m like, what is
this? How does this make someone feel like the colors, the name, things like that. And that,
like I said, that’s I don’t think that’s important for most people when they’re just starting out,
because it’s like, you just got to get started and get some traction with you guys. You
kind of it seems like you came out the gate with good branding. And you’re kind of in that
that boat, by the way, where like, this is your second company. And you like, it’s like, no,
you execute it. So it’s okay to like kind of sweat the stuff or think this stuff through.
Who inspired you for your branding? And where what was the exercise that you went through?
Yeah, we’re similar there. I love the branding and marketing as as well. So I I did that for
back of my feet and and and solid core in the beginning. You know, like, with back on my feet,
it just that the name itself, I remember someone telling me like, oh, we should call this thing
the homeless runners Association of America. And I was like, that alone will make the thing fail,
because it doesn’t sound cool. It doesn’t you know what I mean, it sounds like one of these every
other organization that just like, you know, and I wanted us to be cool. And coming up with the name
for solid core, it was just like reiterating a bunch of names. I’m like, Oh, that just has it,
that just makes you sound badass. Like, you know, people like, Oh, that’s solid. Like, obviously,
like the core piece has, you know, lots of double meanings and whatever. And then the brackets,
I thought could indicate like your obliques and the tightness and community and together. And so
I was like, this is it, it just, it just kind of looks cool. And they, you know, we haven’t done
a redo of the logo or anything, like it just kind of stuck around and the brackets. I mean,
I have, I don’t know if you can see, but I have like a bracket. Now I lifted up my shirt for you
too. I have a bracket tattoo. Again, I just, I just always feel like things need to be cool
for people to want to want to be a part of them. And so I didn’t want to spend a ton of like stupid
money on branding and marketing for another idea that probably would have worked also. But
one of my mantras is that there’s more than one right answer. And this was like a right enough
answer to move. So here’s the deal. I made most of my money from a newsletter business. It was
called the hustle. And it was a daily newsletter at scale to millions of subscribers. And it was
the greatest business on earth. The problem with it was that I had close to 40 employees and only
three of them were actually doing any writing. The other employees were growing the newsletter,
building out the tech for the platform and selling ads. And honestly, it was a huge pain in the butt.
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I want to ask you about some ideas, but you kind of caught the Pilates thing at the right.
You timed that one well. What fitness-related businesses excite you right now? When you were
talking about something, and I started thinking of Hydrax. It’s called Hydrax. Have you seen Hydrax?
H-Y-D-R-O-X. Hydrox, I think it’s called. Hydrox? Yeah. Is it Hydrox? Sorry, am I saying it wrong?
Like the competition? Yes, the competition in New York. I went and saw it.
It’s awesome. It is awesome. I saw that and I’m like, “Oh, this is going to be a thing.
Maybe it’s already a thing.” But this is really going to be a thing. Are there any things that you
see where you’re like, “This is going to pop?” Well, I will talk about what you finished in a
second, but one of the things that my husband and I went to Friends just did is 29029. Have you
heard of this event? Yes. The founder’s in Hampton. Did you talk to him, Mark? Yeah, I did talk to Mark.
Yes. They’re releasing the schedule soon. I’m going to one of them.
You got to go. We just did it. 29029 is the elevation of Everest. They created this event
where they partner with ski mountains for the most part around the country. You have to climb
whatever the number of times up that mountain, that’s the equivalent of Everest. We were in
Mount Tremblant, which is in Canada. Our mountain was about 2,200 elevation. We had to climb this
thing 15 times, 1.7 mile, and it was steep. I’m like a marathoner. I’ve done these things. I really
was like, “I’m just walking up a hill. I’ll be fine.” Completely different than anything I’ve
ever done before for the pure duration. If you think it takes you 60 to 90 minutes to get up
these things, you’re out there for 15 to 20 hours. Some people longer. Some people literally had to
be on their feet for 30 hours to get the 15 hikes in for the time that you’re allotted because you
have 36 hours. It is unbelievably inspiring the people that are there because most people are
there because they’re going through a divorce. They’re fighting some health battle. They’ve lost
100 pounds. They’ve got something bigger going on in their life and they need to show themselves
that they can climb the Effen Mountain physically so that they can go back and do it emotionally,
mentally, spiritually, whatever. It’s just awesome. It’s awesome.
Yeah. His business is wild. Basically, I think they sell out most of their events now. I think
it’s like $5,000 to go and they provide the accommodations. You’re not slumming it. It’s
like really nice stuff. You think that’s going to take off?
I think things like that. I think there’s going to be high rocks. I love it. Innovation.
There was a crop this across the games. I think you’re going to start to see more events. Remember
when Ragnar and some of the Ragnar relay? No. What’s that? Oh my gosh. Ragnar used to have
it. How do you spell it? R-A-G-N-A-R. It might still be going on. I just don’t know anybody who
does it anymore, but it was these relays where you had two vans and you had 24 hours to run
hundreds of miles. You’re literally driving through the night. Your vans are moving on.
There’s stations. It was just, again, so cool. I don’t really know if it’s still going on.
It is. It is. The company that owns it, I think they own a bunch of different events now.
Yeah. I really think that there’s this continued movement. I know you don’t drink. I really don’t
drink. A lot of my friends don’t want to be partying. Everybody is looking, at least in my group, for
physical fun activities to be doing with their time. I think these endurance challenge events
of all sorts are going to continue to grow and pop up all over the place because that’s how
I think a lot of people want to spend their times. I’ll tell you, I didn’t have my phone with me
for the entire time I hiked. I refuse to bring it with. I’m craving being out in nature,
challenging myself physically. I think a lot of other people are too. You’re going to see more
of that, I think a lot. Then from the critique- By the way, Mark told me, I was like, “What makes
you guys special?” He was like, “Well, you have a big breakdown,” but he was like, “One of the
things is that we make it so most of the people are going to fail. We want it to be hard enough
to where if you get done with it, it’s a big deal to you, and you’re going to want to talk about it.”
He’s like, “Most events, they actually make it where too many people succeed.”
And so he was talking about how the mindset behind making that event.
But you know what they do really well? They list different mountains, so you actually don’t feel
like you’re failing. So even though you may have not made it to Everest, if you climbed 10 of those,
you made it to Kilimanjaro. So they give you a medal, a Kilimanjaro medal, instead of-
Did you get all to all of it? Did you almost quit at all, or were you like, “No, I’m getting this
no matter what?” Well, Mark will tell you. So I didn’t get any sleep the night before, and I
actually had a mini meltdown. I’m like, “I don’t do well with sleep deprivation. I’m not going to be
able to do this.” And so I was on three hours of sleep, and my strategy was, I’m just going to do as
many as I can as fast as I can before I hit a wall. So I was on pace to probably finish
within the top five. And my 11th lap, it just, you know, like if you’ve ever done an endurance
event and like the wall, it just happens, and it happened. And I made it up the mountain halfway
in the time that it was taking me to reach the whole thing. I had to sit in the med tent for 45
minutes. I’m asking them, I’m like, “I can’t keep going. I need to go down to the mountain.
There’s my half of lap count so I can come back tomorrow.” And they’re like, “No.” And I was like,
I’m like, “What?” And now I really can’t go down. And I just couldn’t get myself together. And along
comes Mark, and he gives me Coke, not that kind of Coke. He gives me Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola, yeah.
And he was like, “Yeah, he’s like, “You’re going to do this. I’m going to walk up the second half
of the mountain with you. You’re not going to go back down. I can see it in your eyes. You’re not
somebody who needs to go back down.” So like, yeah, I took that shot of Coca-Cola and like
got up and we made it up the second half of the mountain. And then I went down and went to bed
and finished my next four in the morning. But yeah, Mark came along and saved me.
You put in the notes. You said, “The number one reason we had to let people go was because they
lacked proper judgment and critical thinking skills.” You said, “What I discovered was that the
best critical thinkers are great at taboo because you have to think on your feet and be strategic
when you describe the word you want to get people to say. What’s taboo? I don’t even know what that
is.” Yeah. So taboo is a game where you have teams and you get a card. And at the top of the
card says a word. Let’s say it says, “Book.” And you have to get your team to say that word. But
underneath that word book is five words that you can’t say to get them to say it. So I say like
“page” or “reading” or things like that. So you have to think creatively. And I have to know who’s
on my team. So how would I get Sam to say this word? And there are people who fresh that game.
And from my experience, whenever we’ve played on a retreat or something, the people who get stuck
or flustered or can’t think on their feet, whatever, usually don’t work there very much longer. And
I’m like, there has to be a correlation between this game, the ability to figure it out of like,
who’s on your team? How do you make this happen? Thinking on their feet. And some of the smartest
people that I think are my friend group are also excellent at that game. So there’s something there.
You also said something like, well, AI is taking over fitness. And you can personalize data,
supplements, exercise, food based on individuals. So for example, if you’re a 44-year-old woman who
wants to gain 10 pounds of muscle, we know your blood work. We know this about you. We know that
about you. Here’s the program that you’re going to be using or you should be using. Is there anyone
in the space who you like who’s taking advantage of that insight? Yeah. So I’m an advisor and an
investor. So I will disclose that to a company called Oxfit. And they are an ad home. It’s sort
of like tonal, but I think it’s much more comprehensive and better. And their AI game is
really progressing to do just that. It knows when you’re tired, it knows certain things,
how you’re lifting the weight, you’re in balance, whatever. And they are really investing in the
AI so that they can partner and you can add your blood work in and you can add every sort of data
point that you have about yourself and then what your goals are. And it will design, again, exactly
what you need to be doing. And I think that’s going to start to take off in a lot of different
areas. But listen, there’s a lot of people who are still just checking the box. And I think that’s
why they get frustrated because they’re not doing the right things for the results that they want.
And it’s a little bit of a guessing game, not knowing your metabolism, not knowing your deficiencies,
not knowing, again, your age or hormones and how all these things are affecting the workouts that
you do. So I think that’s just going to continue to, within five years, I think it’ll be kind of
foolish to just be like guessing on what you should be doing to work out. I’ve had a handful
of friends get diagnosed with cancer recently. And one of my friends detected it because he did
one of these pre-novo or something like that, one of those scans that you just pay money for.
And in 50 years or some amount of decades, we’re going to look back and we’re going to think,
it’s insane that you had cancer growing inside of your body and it could have been okay had you
just been told that it was there. And it’s like you’ve got this foreign thing in your body that
you don’t know about it. And we accept that that’s normal now, but I think that in some time in the
future, we’re not going to be unwilling to accept that. And so I’m personally really interested
in that. I am also personally quite interested in like figuring out exactly the fitness or diet
that works for me. I can’t, based off of blood work, I don’t think I’ve seen a product out there
that’s doing it that’s nailing that though yet. I think a lot of it’s like pseudoscience. I just,
I think it’s none of it’s like awesome at the moment. You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. And
I think it will get there because if people can figure that out, and again, imagine if you’ve
been so frustrated your entire life to not see the results when you’re willing to do the work,
when you’re willing to put in the effort, and like it’s still not happening. I just think it’s
only a matter of time with where we are with the AI stuff and the demand for it, frankly.
Are you going to start another company?
No, sir. Not right now. Not right now. I know too much. I know too much. Like the beauty of
starting companies is I think a lot of times is naivety. And I’ll also be truly honest that like
some, the financial motivation is a little bit gone, of course. You know, I really felt with
back in my feet in solid core that I’m like doing a certain, one, I was very into them both, but two,
it was like, I’m going to make people’s lives better. I felt like I’m the perfect person to do
that. So I haven’t had, I’m also not looking for it right now. But if I have that experience again,
where I come across something or I moved or I’m like, I have to do this. Like that is when I will,
that is when I will do it. But for now, I just feel like I’m giving myself some freedom, some time
to feel this new chapter. Are you like seeking anything? Or you’re just like, like, because
that’s like an interesting mindset that I’ve been in before. And I don’t know if I approached it the
best way, but it’s like the mindset, I’m just going to go out and live and I’m going to be, my
ears are open if I get called. Yes, I’m just going to live right now. And yeah, I think even if I got
called right now, Sam, I wouldn’t, I don’t know if I could, if I could do it. Like because you’re
tired or you’re happy. Exactly. It’s not tired. I’m actually very energized. But you’ve read the
book die was zero. Yeah, I think we talked about that. Right. So I’m just, you know, I want to be
playing like I’m trying to stay in my feminine, because I’ve been in my masculine a lot in my life.
And like I want to have room and prioritizing playing. And for me, that is beach volleyball,
it’s any kind of sports, it’s connecting with friends and family, and being able to be a little
bit carefree. And I don’t want to put so much rigid structure back in my schedule. And I just
feel like I need a breather from that. And I, and I’m not willing, I’m not willing to do it.
All right. So we are about to wrap up. And Anne was like, you got to talk about this idea. All
right. What’s this idea? I read it, but I need you to explain it better. So you got this idea.
Tell me about jump seat. Yeah. So I, so you’ve all been at the airport, right? And like your flight
gets canceled or delayed and you’re desperate to get home. And you, of course, like you go up to
the airlines and they can’t do anything because they’re not going to kick anybody else off of
the flight. They don’t care about your status and whatever. And so the idea for jump seat is
very much like ticket master or something else where there’s a platform where let’s just say
Sam, again, if I got canceled and you’re like, dammit, I have to get home, you go on jump seat
and you offer a thousand dollars for any seat on any flight going back to where do you live?
Let’s say I’m going back to New York. Okay. So you’re going back to New York and like
you put the offer out there and all someone has to do is accept your offer. You trade seats,
they now are on your flight whenever that flight gets rescheduled, but they don’t have the same
timeline that you do to get home. So it’s like no problem. And it can work in reverse where if I’m
at the airport and I’m like, you know, I have a flight back to Miami, but like I’m in no rush,
I’m going to put my seat up for sale. And if someone else wants to get home sooner, they can buy my
seat. Well, it’s like seat geek for play tickets where it’s like, someone owns them. But if you
own it, you can auction off your auction off. But think about, think about how much happier
customers would be in the airlines where you could build in the airline to take a little bit of the
cut. So now I’m a happier Delta customer because I solved my own problem, even though Delta couldn’t
solve it, but they’re allowing this platform and you can even do it for seats. So let’s just say
I’m on a flight and I’m sitting in 32 a and I’m like, I really want to buy first class.
This person has first class. They don’t really care. They put up their seat for like 500 bucks and
they’ll come back and take my economy seat. And now I get to sit in first class. Would you ever pursue
this? No, because I don’t think this is a game I can win. I’m not like a tech person or something.
That’s why I want like, I want this product so I can use it. So that’s why I want somebody who’s
like, Oh my God, this makes so much sense. And you fell in love with the name jump seat. That’s a good
name. Yeah. It’s a great name. And I have a logo and everything like someone. Do you really?
It’s so good. I’ll send it to Ari. You can see it. How could someone, wait, would you actually
work with someone if they wanted to, if someone wanted to, how would you want to give away? How
could someone contact you? Like at least DM you on Instagram? Yeah. Yeah. If you can figure out
how to find me, you’re not the right person to totally. So yeah. How much do you think? Well,
whoever owns jump seat.com, they’re just sitting there. They’re not using it. You own jump seat.com?
Yeah. Of course they own it. How much did you pay for this? Like $5 or something? Not much.
Jump seat.com was $5. I bought it years ago. I’ve literally had, I’ve had this idea for such a
long time and I’m like, just make the logo. You know, like I had my friend make the logo and
it’s, it’s really good. It’s, it’s, the name is so perfect. It’s like what I can just trade seats
and people are like, Oh my God, airlines are never going to allow that. And like they already
allow aggregates like Expedia and, you know, they’re already in their back end system and this
solves a problem for them. And they can make more money by just taking $5 off of every time
someone switched sheets. Why would, you know, why would they care? This is so funny. I thought this
was a half big thing. So you’re, you’re in. I mean, I would love for someone to do it. I’ll give
you the, I won’t give it for you. You can, you can give me a little bit of equity in the company
and you can, you can run with it, but you’re going to have to convince me why you’re the right
person to do it. What would they have to say to convince you? Well, I’d have to know again,
why it’s a game they can win. What’s their background? Do they have the tech? Do they have
any, you know, connections in the airline industry? Have they ever built anything like this before?
You know, why would this be interesting to them? Do they know how to scale and, and build something?
Like, do they have the tech experience, which I don’t have at all. That’s so funny. I like went
to jumpseat.com and I’m like, Oh, hey, it’s registered, but no one’s using it. I did not
realize you’re this, you’re this far down. All right. So they’re going to, well, here’s what I
want to know. You’re going to have to message me and I’ll have to do a, I’ll do a shout out, like,
if there ever are any results, but you have to let me know how many people message you. And if
anyone’s actually promising. Okay, I will. I said it last time, it felt like I was like,
like being not genuine because I was so happy, but you’re, you inspire the sh*t out of me. And
you’re one of my favorite people on earth. I have found myself since we last talked, like,
approaching a situation. I mean, like, what would Anne think about this? And so I just want to thank
you for being part of my life and doing these podcasts. You’re the best. You mean a lot to me.
That’s really sweet. We’ll get you a t-shirt, Sam, that says what would you do? Just kidding.
That would be great. That would be great as long as it’s a crop top. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, as long
as it’s a crop top, then it’s good. And it must be at least two sizes too small. Yeah. I appreciate
you. Thank you very much. That’s the pod.
you
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is a Pilates studio where she bootstrapped it. In the first year, she did something like a million
and a half in revenue. It cost like $100,000 to start and she eventually sold this company in
year nine for something like $350 million. And she goes through this entire story. But if you’re
listening, I think the really amazing part is to copy some of her attributes because I get done
listening to her and I’m like, I need to step it up in terms of confidence or in terms of being
passionate about something. And in fact, there’s like, in minute 30, I honestly teared up hearing
some of her stories. So check it out. And by the way, if you are interested in Anne, I’m going to
give a plug for Money Wise, this podcast I did with her where she went deep on her finances. So how
much money she spends, how much money she made, everything. And because I liked her so much
on that podcast, I wanted her to come on here. So check it out. And I hope you guys enjoy this
episode and let me know in the comments. Let’s do a little background. So I think you had a normal
job, but then started a nonprofit called Back on My Feet. Is that right? Yeah. And what was the
original idea? I don’t know if you know much about how the homeless system works, but many of the
shelters in the major cities, you can go live there for 30 days and then you get kicked out.
They give you 30 days to get your crap together, which is not very much time for someone who isn’t
going through homelessness, to be honest, to sort of start over, go back in the city, get back in
the system. 95% of the folks we worked with were dealing with addiction on some level. So, you know,
Sam, I know a little bit of your background. And I think I mentioned on our last conversation,
my dad’s an addict. And when you ask my dad, Mark, what was your addiction? And he’ll kind of look
at you and say everything because my dad doesn’t understand moderation. You know, he had unfortunately
instances with drugs and alcohol. He went into inpatient program before it was five. So I don’t
really remember this, but that seemed to do the trick. He hasn’t had a drink or used drugs in 37,
eight years. Unfortunately gambling then surfaced for my dad when I was a teenager and he struggled
with that. And now my dad fishes, he fishes every day for hours a day. But you have to find some
place to put this thing. And I had felt like, if you can master the drugs and alcohol, you know,
and try to get away from the bad behaviors, having an addictive personality can actually be beneficial
because when you get into something, you know, you are in it and you kind of obsess over it.
So running was this great alternative because there is no end. You can always do more. It’s
there for you. You only need a pair of shoes. It was a really great substitute for a lot of these
guys who were still chasing the high. I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a correlation of
people who work out who actually tend to drink more because you’re chasing the dopamine. You’re
looking for these opportunities to get the elevated serotonin spikes. So that’s why, you know,
yeah, working out can be a great option for people who are struggling with addiction.
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Yeah, basically addictions. I mean, I don’t know shit. I just didn’t, I know my situation,
but addictions don’t go away. They just get transferred. You know what I mean?
And so our thought was, you know, we can really help to change the emotional identity and get them
to like themselves, believe in themselves, put them in a positive support network,
and turn them into somebody who is a runner and athlete, responsible, reliable,
and then we can go advocate for them at jobs that need employees who have those types of
characteristics. So Marriott became the largest employer of back on my feet, not because we were
a charity, Sam, but because we actually had good candidates for them who were so appreciative
to have a job in a respectable place where they got benefits, paid pretty well, and opportunity
for growth. By the way, what do you do like your first day? So you just quit your other job.
It’s a Monday. You just walked to the corner and like, Hey, everyone. Or I guess the night before,
like meet me here tomorrow at 530. Like I don’t know if you have running shoes or not, but like
make sure you know what I mean? Like what do you do like the first like five days?
Yeah. So I was a little more organized than, than that. I knew I needed the shelter to,
you know, work with me and give me permission. So I emailed the, I found the director of the
shelter online. I emailed him. He didn’t email me back. Took a little while for him to respond to
me, but I kept like badgering him. And, you know, he tries to think of the nicest way to tell me
that like, this isn’t going to work. These guys have bigger problems. They’re not like interested
in running. And I was very persuasive. I’m like, if you could please just meet me. Like I literally
have ran by this shelter for two years. I’m not a very religious person, even though the shelter
was religious, but like, I am being called to do this. Please meet with me and let me explain to
you why I feel so compelled. So he did. And Sam, the crazy thing was this shelter.
That’s such a great line. By the way, I’m being called to do this. That’s good.
Yeah, but it’s true. I mean, yeah, totally. But it’s also a good, like it’s like, that’s like a,
that’s like a great argument. Right. And so he met with me and this shelter, again,
I didn’t know anything about this shelter. It was called the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission.
But when people enter this shelter, they, the guys have rules and they are not supposed to
have any contact with women. Zero. They are there to, you know, no drugs, obviously, no alcohol,
they have a curfew, every rules, no women. And this guy, Mr. McMillan, like I owe a lot to him
because he trusted me, believed in me and was like, okay, I’m going to break our rules.
I’m going to allow this woman to come in here and build relationships with these guys. And he’s
like, I’m not going to tell them and that there’s some, you know, young woman who wants to come
run with them. I’m going to let them, the, the participant or the members of the shelter at the
time, ask them if they are interested in joining a running club. That’s it. And if they say yes,
I’ll let you do it. And, you know, I’m like waiting and waiting and a couple weeks go by and I finally
get a response that says, all right, here’s the names, nine guys. These guys want to run. And I’m
like, awesome. I need their shoe sizes. So I go to a local running store. I get the shoes donated.
Again, I can be very convincing. It’s one of my superpowers. I get them to give me all new shoes
because I don’t want that. I don’t want to show up there in my new shoes and then I give these guys,
you know, crappy old shoes because they’re homeless. I just felt like that’s going to say,
I’m better than you. And I didn’t want them to feel that way. So I got shoes, shirts, socks,
shorts. And I went up there and met them. I got to meet them in the chapel for the first time.
I introduced myself. And then I made them sign a contract. And it just said, if you’re going to
join the running club, you got to show up three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you
have to be on time. You need to come up with a positive attitude and you need to be willing to
respect and support your teammates. And everybody like sat up straighter in their chair. They were
waiting, at least what it felt like for me. They were waiting for someone to tell them they were
capable of excellence and expecting. I didn’t say to them, you know, just show up if you can. It must
be tough living in here. Just, you know, do your best. If you’re, please try not to be too late.
It was like, these are the expectations. And if you can’t agree to them, then don’t join the club.
And if you can’t agree to them once you do join, you know, you’re going to get kicked off the team.
We have to adhere to principles. So everybody showed up day one. And we all ran a mile, like
some of the guys cruised and got it done really quickly. And then there was George, who took a
while, like he was struggling. But we made a rule that day that nobody finished the run on their own.
So everybody went back to get George. And we all like brought him into the finish line together.
And that like first day, it was like, okay, like this is the group. And all the media was there
for day one. Like I wanted to get the word out. Everybody had to come and see this for themselves.
So the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily News, the local ABC, NBC, every, I mean,
it was all of a sudden like this thing was everywhere.
All right, guys. So listen up. We’re doing something a little bit different here.
So we had this guy named Mr. Bollin. Mr. Bollin is one of my favorite people on earth.
If you have been on YouTube or Tik Tok, you probably know who Mr. Bollin is.
So he has tens of millions of followers and he’s built this massive business on it.
He’s probably the best storyteller I’ve ever heard of my life, to be honest.
And he did this amazing podcast with us that we’re going to release soon.
We’re not releasing the episode right away, but we are going to give it to our true fans.
And if you are one of those true fans and you do want this interview, we have a link below.
So check it out. Click the link in the description below and you can listen to it right away.
Now back to the show. Did people cover you because you’re like a charismatic,
like you got, I don’t know if you had your hair like that,
but like you look like a celebrity when you have your hair like your short blonde hair
and you look dope and you’re charismatic. Were they covering you because you were
charismatic and awesome or because this idea was so novel? Like how do you,
how does someone who’s not as cool get all this type of press?
Well, I think I’ll give you this, this, this straight answer and cause this is,
you know, probably no bullshit podcast. The video and the media was like,
here’s this white lawn girl from North Dakota,
putting herself in the middle of these homeless shelters, like running with all of these men.
Like the camera, the story, everything about it was like, wait, what?
They just kind of had to know the background. And then you add in the fact that my
dad is an addict and I’m so drawn to these guys and I could never help my dad and
running helped me. So now I feel like I can help people who remind me of my dad,
you know, through this. And yeah, so I think it all just worked. And then once they got to,
I mean, the homelessness itself, right? People are like, wait, the people who are homeless are
actually running that alone made people make their brains be like, wait, what? And then add in,
you know, the young white girl from North Dakota, like, what’s the connection here?
So the media truly ate it up. And it was coming from such a peer place for me of like, I’m trying
to heal myself from 10 years of nothing coming good from my dad’s addictions and tearing apart
my family. And now I get to use all that pain as fuel to help people. And, you know, meeting some
of the guys in our program, I really think about those first nine guys, because the majority of
them were charismatic and lovely. And like, you just can’t help but root for them. So once the
media started to talk to Mike and to George and to James and learn their stories and the fact that
they’re out there working hard, I mean, it’s the ultimate underdog story. And volunteers started
showing up, this group started to grow. And it was like, I’m like, this is an opportunity,
you know, Tony Robbins talks a lot about these windows that open. And like, this is my window.
And I had just taken a job at Comcast, I was supposed to go work there in their government
affairs department, six figure job, like, everything that my college degree, graduate
degree was setting me up for this Comcast opportunity was it. And I remember going,
they asked me to go to a baseball game with a lot of like some senators and people on the
political sort of world were in town and Comcast was hosting them. And I went that night and I
was like, I am so bored out of my mind, there’s no way that I can go take this job. Like, all I
want to be doing is hanging out with the back of my beat members. All I thinking about is like,
this organization and how I grow it and vision. And so I called them the day I was supposed to
start. And I thanked them for the six weeks that they gave me from time off of my other
nonprofit job before I was supposed to start. And I was like, I can’t take this job. Like,
I have found what I’m supposed to do with my life. And I’m really sorry, I know it’s the day
before, but like, I got to follow my gut on this. How old are you? I was 26. 26. Yeah. I mean, again,
I’m asking all adults in my life, I’m thinking of doing this, like, what do you think and
everybody’s like, are you nuts? Like for your job, like, you’re going to run with people in
homeless shelters for your job. And I’m like trying to explain the vision, you know, and nobody
got it. You know, my mom thinks I’m like, irresponsible. She’s worse. You know, like,
what are you thinking? My dad’s concerned for my safety. All my mentor boss people are like,
and you don’t even have any savings. I had, I had no money. Nothing. What was the first year’s revenue?
Or how are you? I’m sure I raised a million bucks in the first year. I was no shit,
really. So you’re a machine. Oh, yeah. And I would ask, I mean, I would ask anybody and
everybody for money. And I knew who to ask Sam. I figured out that I had to find the executives
who were runners in companies that could give. And so I would only meet, like Larry Solomon
was my first, I had a huge article in runners world. It was awesome. But but I’ll also send you
that. Larry lived in Philly. He was the COO of one of Accenture’s vertical businesses. He mailed
me amazing article, you know, rooting for you. Well, I took one look at Larry’s title and I was
like, can we please have coffee? I love to tell you more. Right. Larry is still a very good friend
today. But he, we met and I was just like, I need your help. I want you to sit on the board. Larry,
I just become a runner. And I’m like, you know, I really want to build this thing. And I want to
make it big and blah, blah, blah. So he came on board and Larry, like Accenture, right? They had
massive, Marriott was a client, Vivo Bakeries, AT&T. They had so many tentacles. And I’m just like,
I just need you to introduce me. I will go in and close the deal, but I need you to introduce me
to the big players so that they can write the check. And I don’t waste weeks or months climbing the
meeting with the marketing coordinator. And then the marketing director, and they just keep passing
me up the chain. Like, I’ll never be able to raise money fast enough. So, yeah. And every meeting I
went to, I made a specific ask whether it was like, I need $20,450. And here’s why. And I need you to
pick me to three more people. And then I would also learn that I would, that like letting me come and
speak at your corporate event or something, I was like, Oh, that’s, I did that one time. And I’m
like, Oh, this is really powerful. Like now I get the whole company, you know, excited about back on
my feet because it was just so innovative. So what’s your pitch to me? Let’s say, let’s say I’m an
executive, you know, I probably spent a few hundred grand a year giving it away to causes. I care
about single moms, I care about animals, homeless guys, I mean, I guess that’s like kind of important,
but like, why should I like give a shit about you? Well, for one, Sam, I would ask if you, you know,
are you a runner? And hopefully you would say yes. I would say so you, so you understand that, right?
So if you’re an executive of this, perfect. So if you’re an executive of this company,
you understand how important culture is and how important culture is for performance and making
sure your people feel appreciated and valued here. A lot of our members grew up in households and
environments and neighbors where they didn’t have that before. And I can tell you being out there
firsthand with all of these guys, they are some of the hardest working individuals I have ever
met before, but no one’s given them a chance. And if you don’t have respect for people who are out
there at 530 in the morning trying to put their life on the right track and doing the work and the
effort, no one’s running their miles for them. They are doing it on their own. And it’s a pretty
compelling site to see. And I can guarantee you if you give us a check, not only will, you know,
the money go to helping these individuals in my life, but we’ll get your employees involved,
you know, talk about a cause where, you know, employees can get actually involved on the
ground floor running with us. We do a skill set training, right, where we teach these guys about
financial literacy, helping them train them for, you know, what their next opportunity could be.
But I can tell you from all the other companies we work with, we have higher employee engagement
with back on my feet than people have had in any other nonprofit that they’ve worked with.
You make me emotional, because like on this podcast and in my life, I care about making money,
you know, I care about businesses, and we’re going to talk about solid core and all the
traditional success that you’ve had. It just seems, you know, like, I remember being in the
hospital recently, because I had like a kidney stone and I felt like I was dying. And this like
Nigerian nurse was like taking care of me. And like in my head, I’m like,
you probably have seen five of me today. And like, you don’t even make that much money, whatever,
but like, you’re making my life so much better right now. Like you have, you’re calming me down.
And like, you are making this stay the best as opposed to the doctor who makes way more money,
but like he’s just in and out. And that’s sort of kind of like, how I feel when I talk about this
nonprofit stuff, which is making rich people richer is kind of insignificant compared to
giving someone a shot or like doing something that actually matters. And so
did you get equal fulfillment pursuing solid core for the sake of like wealth creation versus
what you were doing with back on my feet? I had a lot of fun building solid core. And I feel really
good about how I’ve made my wealth over the last 10 years. I mean, I get to make people’s lives
happier, healthier, and help people be more confident. And my team, you know, there are
thousands of people who work at solid core, who love their job, who, you know, we pay people really
well, I think we pay higher than any other fitness organization, our coaches on a per class basis,
like there are coaches who make over 300 bucks a class, because we’ve always done a revenue
share model. And I have just never believed Sam that it has to be a zero sum game. Like, yeah,
should I have made the most money? Sure, because I took all the risk, put all the money in. Like,
I have no problem saying that some people can disagree with me. That’s fine. But do I think
that my employees should have made zero? No, which is why I put a long term incentive plan in place
for them. A profit sharing plan when I sold the business and everybody got paid. Every full time
employee who had been with solid core for a year, got paid on that last transaction. And they’re
going to get paid on the next transaction as well. And I feel really good about that. So I would say
honestly, like a similar fulfilling, but like back in my feet made my life make sense. So when I
started to feel like it was time for my next thing, yes, I fought it. And I thought it out of a few
things. One, who am I, like my life is extraordinary. I get to help people all the time. Oh my God,
fear. Like what if I fail at my next thing, whatever that is, is all this going to be for nothing.
And people will just think I’m a one hit wonder that definitely was something I had to work through.
And I didn’t really know kind of how to top that thing, you know, all the attention that
it was receiving. I was receiving all the accolades. My ego was involved for sure. But I couldn’t
sit there and tell back on my feet members in our mission to push and challenge themselves,
you know, move, moving things forward one step at a time growing. If I wasn’t willing to do the
same. So I was like, listen, I have an incredible board of like 1314 C level people. There is an
amazing budget, the program, the systems, the processes, the team, everything had been set up.
Like I really felt like I did my job as the founder and the first CEO of the of the organization.
So it, it helped me to be able to move on to the next thing. And then you, you go on and you do
solid core, which if you don’t know for the listener, it’s a Pilates studio. That’s just
fucking badass. You scale that out and you get to sell it eventually for like 300 million dollars.
But you had this story and you could dive deep on the numbers and we went through a lot of the
numbers on money wise, but you can go through some of the numbers. But if I remember correctly,
your idea was basically like you were in LA, you, you went to a Pilates studio, you do the math and
you’re like, well, they have like eight reformers here, a reformer costs this much money. I think
I could do like a hundred grand a month if I make this in DC or New York or wherever you made the
first one. Is that, is that story right? Pretty close. I discovered it in LA and then I was back
in New York and found another Pilates studio that had the same machines as them. And I was,
then I started to do the math after, after I went for like 30 days and I was like,
I have never seen my body look like this and it’s only been 30 days and I feel so good and
I’m addicted to it. I was just bringing everybody I knew and then I did the math and I was like,
this is an incredible business and no one’s really doing it on a big scale yet.
What was the math? Well, so there’s 10 machines in there in this particular studio
and the per class was like $30 a class and you couldn’t buy membership. You had to buy every
time you went. And how many, how many people per class? 10, 10. Oh, sorry. Duh. And it was a full?
Yeah, 10 times. Well, yes, it’s 10. It was full every time you couldn’t get into these classes. So
there was 10 classes a day, right? Okay. So that’s $300 a session. Yeah. Times 10. So that’s
$3,000 a day and they’re full all the time or they were all the time, like impossible to get
into class. And you’re like $3,000 a day times 30. That’s $90,000. That would be cool. Yeah,
totally. And I was, and I also felt, you know, one of the things that I tell people a lot when I,
when I speak is like, play a game. You know, you can win. And so I knew after back on my feet,
I had to find another game I can win. I was the perfect person to start back on my feet because
of my story, my experience in nonprofits, my true authenticity for wanting to help these guys.
And I just had a knack for understanding systems, scalability and process. And so with solid core,
I knew I needed something that was authentically, authentically representative of who I was.
And I am the workout queen. I mean, out of all my friends, I’ve done so many marathons,
like fitness and wellness has always been a key, if not the key priority. And so when I discover
this, I’m like, nobody knows you can work out like this. We’re all out there jumping, pounding,
you know, getting injured because it’s a rite of passage to be fit. Like, this is so different.
And nobody knows about it. And, and I know, I know how to build community. I know how to scale.
I understand branding. And I understand how to give a really good experience.
Therefore, this is a game I think I can win. This is what I’m going to do next.
And how old were you for this one? 31, 30?
31, 32, 31, 32. Yeah.
And you had saved like, I think you said like 150 grand from five years, 175 from like five years
of running the nonprofit. And you put, didn’t you tell me you put all of it into a location and
reformers, like you like transferred the money, you like transferred it from like ants checking
account to solid cores, checking account, like all of it.
Yeah. And then that didn’t feel so scary because I was 100% owner in the business. So it was like,
the scary part was that that it wasn’t moving the money. It was that the money is going to leave
that account. Yeah. Yeah. Did it all leave? Oh, I mean, a high majority. But the great news was as
soon as I opened, we started making money. So, you know, I had, I mean, Sam, like I was, I still
am, but especially back then, not a necessity. I was like a killer negotiator. I had to get
you to root for me. You know, so I’m talking to my general contractor, you know, and it’s like,
listen, can we do net 60 terms? Like if I can pay you sooner, I will. This is who I am. I started
this nonprofit. This is what I’m doing now. You know, I have this money, you know, I can pay you,
but I’m trying to make sure I don’t like get in front of my skis. And so like I would negotiate,
you know, that side of things. And the first landlord made me give four months of security
deposit, which killed me. I was like 30 grand that I have to give to you that like just gets to sit
there. And after that, I refused to do security deposits and was very successful in making that
happen. But yeah. And so as soon as like we opened and I started selling packages, I’ll never forget
my first my first sale. It was this woman named Amy, who I still know she was pregnant. And she
was like, I want to buy, you know, private sessions. And she went online and she bought
$2,500 worth of private sessions. And I was like, I can’t believe this woman just gave me all that
money. She’s never even done the work out. She doesn’t know anything. And so I trained her every
day at five a.m. Before the the studio, like we started class at six a.m. And then, you know,
once we opened, I got press. I leaned on my media contacts from back on my feet. I got an article
on the post. Yeah, it was DC. Yeah. And so how much was the start of costs? It was, oh gosh,
maybe a math, but I know the bill that was like 150 grand, right? I had to buy them. I had to pay
a licensing fee of $25,000 just to open the studio. That was just a licensing fee. That’s
insane, right? That’s an insane deal. Why can’t I just buy a machine? It’s my machine. Let me do
what I want. That’s why I ended that relationship in a couple of years and went through a lawsuit.
But then I had to buy the machines, which I financed because I couldn’t afford to buy them out,
right? And have all the cash. I had to finance them. And I was paying a monthly fee to do that.
And then, so those machines were $6,000 at that time, I don’t know, $7,000 a piece. So that was
70 grand, but I didn’t have to pay it all upfront. And then the rent was nine, no, sorry, seven grand,
seven grand a month. Damn. And what was your first month of sales? Oh, I like, we literally did over
a hundred grand in the first month. That’s insane. It was nuts. I mean, but I was betting big. And,
you know, I think I told this story a lot, but it’s still going to have to tell it. I was petrified,
you know, those moments where you have that you’re like, all in and you’re like, oh my god,
what am I doing? Larry, here comes Larry again, from back on my feet. And he’s like, and listen,
I’ll give you 75 grand for 30% of the business. If you don’t want to use all your capital, like,
listen, you grew this nonprofit, I know you’re going to be successful. You know,
if you want to keep a little cash, I’ll do this deal. And back then 75 grand, when all I had was
175 was a lot of money. And I, you know, I was beginning to think it was a responsible thing
to do to take this money. Maybe I should do this deal. And then I remember thinking I have the
money. And if I take his money, all I’m going to say is this is a massive doubt in myself. I’m
doubting myself. And when things really get hard, I am then going to lean into that 75k and convince
myself like, well, at least I have that, you know, like, you know, I don’t need to, this is too hard,
at least I have my 75k. And so I was like, I can’t, I can’t take that money. It’s just going to,
it’s going to take my drive away. It’s going to take the hunger. I need to feel like I’m being
chased by a bear. I need to figure this out. And that’s the way this is going to be successful.
So I just, I mean, every, every hour of, I was passing out solid core pamphlets, flyers, like
anything I could do to get you to come take a class. And then fortunately, what happened
was the same thing that happened to me when I took it. Everybody started telling their friends.
And Sam, after your first class, right, you said you were so sore.
Guess what? Everybody was not in a bad way, by the way, but, but everybody wants to tell everybody
how, oh my God, I’m so sore. I did this workout called solid core. You’ve got to go. They all
want to tell each other how much they’re working out. So, so it just snowballed. Did you create the
routine? That was part of the license. So I got trained on what was called this method called
degree. So we had someone come in and train me. And then I trained my trainers on how to do that.
I’m not a personal trainer. Like that’s not my background. And so we started again, using
their training program for us. And then soon realized that like we actually want to make this
more athletic. These names that they’re using were kind of silly. It was, it was like nothing
intuitive. And then the machine started breaking. And so I was like, this relationship is doing
nothing for me. I don’t know why I have to be associated with LaGrie. I want to like make my
own machines. I need to be in charge of manufacturing. Like the workouts don’t make sense. I had hired
somebody else to do the training who had a big background in MMA. And, and, and, you know, she
was certified and everything else. And we started playing around with the workout. She wrote a
massive training program. And then we separated from LaGrie. And he sued me like immediately.
Which you won, I think, right? Or sorry, you’re not a lot of say.
Well, I mean, it’s far enough down. But for all intents purposes, he had to buy back his
machines for me. And we agreed to never, to never talk again, which we haven’t. So, and, and frankly,
after we did that, all these other people who were part of LaGrie then also started to make
their own machines realizing like, why are we paying a massive premium on machines? This isn’t a
franchise. So we’re not getting the benefit of a national grant here. Like it just didn’t make
any business for any of the sense. So yeah, and then making my own machines, like, that was a huge
gamble. I didn’t know how to do that, obviously. And like tooling, engineering, manufacturing,
prototypes, I probably spent lost a couple hundred grand just because I didn’t know what I was doing.
Maybe probably even more than that. But like, we got a machine. It wasn’t right. I already,
like, it like, it didn’t work properly. Like we had to redo it. It was a mess.
What was your first year’s revenue? The first year revenue, I think you asked me this last time.
And then I had, I think you said a million dollars, right? Well, the first, it was more than
that because that was the first studio’s revenue. And then in the first year, you know, I had five
of these open. So you had, I didn’t know you had five at the end of the first year. Yeah. That’s
insane, right? Yeah, but same thing. I’m like, momentum, momentum, momentum. Have you ever
heard the funny story about subway? And I don’t know if it’s true or not, but like I just love it.
So I keep telling it, but subway had one location and they were like off the beaten path and they
weren’t doing that great. So they thought, you know, we need to open a second one because people
will think if we have two that we’re killing it. And I like remember hearing that story. I’m like,
that’s so brilliant. And even though we were killing it, I was like, I need to maximize on this
and get two and three and four open so that people start being like, I’m seeing this thing everywhere.
I must be missing out. They must be doing so well. This thing must work. And that really
like served us really well. So we just kept reinvesting the profits into the next studio.
I kept negotiating, you know, as long, like longer terms to pay back if I needed to.
And I just stopped doing security deposits with landlords.
How old was the business when you sold each different chunk? Because you sold it a couple
times, right? Yeah. So I did a minority deal in 2017. So the business was four years old at that
point. And we had 27 locations on an annualized basis. Each one of those studios was doing about
700 grand. Okay. So 27 times 700. That’s roughly $19 million in revenue. Yeah. You sold the business
for what valuation or you sold a chunk for what valuation? I did a pretty big valuation back then.
So the valuation was like close to 60 million. Wow. Yeah. And people, people, the firms definitely
balked at that. And I just said, listen, it’s not so much about the number. It’s about the terms.
And I know how much money I need to get to 100 studios. And that’s $12 million because I’m going
to continue to use the profits. And I also want to take secondary off of the table. And
obviously no one like that, especially that early. And I was like, listen, these are those are the
terms. Like, don’t don’t get so freaked out about the terms. Tell me what you need in order to do
this deal. And so there was a healthy preff on the minority deal that I agreed to. And I had no
problem doing that. And I remember two people were like, you know, and well, how do we know you’re
not going to walk away for six million? And I’m like, I was like, I would just sell the whole
business if that was the case. Like, you think I’m in this for $6 million? Like,
which is such a good way to like approach it. You are good. I’m really bad at negotiating.
Like all my staff knows that like, don’t come to Sam about salary discussions because my default
is like, I just say, I just say, you got to talk to this for other person about that because I
just say yes to, I just say yes to everything. So I’ve like removed myself from negotiation
because I’m too nice. And like, how do you think I did on this podcast? I know. Well,
I don’t know. That would sound like a back-handed couple, but it’s not. But I’m just, I’m soft as
fuck. Like I just, I just, I’m like, yeah, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll do. But to approach
like a negotiation of like, well, don’t say no, just tell me what you need to win. And I’ll see
if I can actually make that happen for you. But then in order for you to win, it has to take
it to account. Here’s what I need. Exactly. And so I did that with landlords and, you know,
and private equity. It’s like, you know, landlord would always block that. We always
do security deposits. I’m like, that’s not really a response, right? Like, what are you
trying to protect against, right? You have a corporate guarantee, you have X, like help me
understand this and I can try to solve the problem a different way. So I, I solved the
private equity problem with the preferred return, you know, it’s like your downside is,
I’m not going to see another dime until you make, you know, the 2.5 X your money.
That’s just such a funny response. We always, well, why do I have to give a deposit? Because
we’ve always do deposit. That’s not a good reply. Give me a different reply. That’s the
best. That is the best. And it really, it really does work because you make them articulate what’s
important to them. And usually what’s important to landlords is, you know, the ledger, the balance
sheet of the total, you know, term of the deal. And I’m, you know, so that’s why we were able
to push rent a little bit further down the road and like increase the rent in year five or six.
And, you know, okay, you’re protected on the corporate guarantee, you know, front. So like,
you know, you have three years, I’m not going to do a security deposit. And let me tell you why
that’s important for me and why it benefits you because the more I get open, the bigger the brand
is, you know, it’s going to get more brand equity and, and, you know, this location will do better.
So yeah, I think people, all people can do a better job of, of negotiating. And it’s one of a
really amazing skill sets to, to learn. Chris Voss never split the difference. I love that book.
I read that book during COVID because I really had to get good at negotiation. And what’s the,
what’s like the, the, the summary of that? Well, he just goes through these different
strategies, right? About like mirroring. And he gives this, one of my favorite examples was he
gives this of a car, he goes in, he’s like, listen, I have, call it $10,300. You know, that’s the car
that I want. And just say it was like 15 grand or something. And then I comes back and like, okay,
great news. I add down to 14. He’s like, wow, thank you so much. I really appreciate you advocating
for me. But the number of the amount of money I have right now hasn’t, hasn’t changed. I still
have $10,300. If you can do the deal for that, you know, I’m here, goes back, comes down more,
gets to like, call it 11 three. And at that point, he knows, right? Cause he hasn’t moved.
He knows you’re not walking away. You are, you’re so close. The guy’s going to do the deal.
And I remember using that strategy a lot as well and negotiating. You get people to come,
come, come. And now they’re just too close that they’re not going to move away. So the whole
point is like not meeting in the middle. Wait. So as the point is, then do you go to 11,000 or do
you stick at 10, five? He stuck, he stuck because that guy is so close now. He’s not going to walk
away when it’s like, you know, used to be five grand away. Now you’re just 800 grand or sorry,
$800 away. So he like, ends up getting, you know, the deal done. And he just goes through
different strategies in there on how you can mirror, you know, this is what I hear you’re
saying. Yes. You know, and like, don’t walk away when you hear and know, like the note
doesn’t have to be a bad thing. So me and my lawyer, who I had on staff at that point,
who’s just a jack of all trades and unbelievable, you know, we read that book, Sam, because during
COVID we knew it’s like, what’s going to kill us? What’s going to kill this company is not that
we don’t have revenue coming in right now. It’s if these landlords sue us and make us pay rent.
And no one really understood who was right or wrong then, you know, it’s like, well, this is a
force was sure. It’s like, well, we don’t have any money coming in. How do you expect us to pay rent?
So we just said, we just have to get the landlords on our side. We have to figure out a way to
restructure the deal that doesn’t allow us to pay rent when we are closed. And we also can’t kick
the can down the road. You know, so we came up with strategies like, how about we lengthen the
term of the lease? We’ll add another year or two to the back end of the lease, you know, so that
you have a longer tenant. Like if you force us to pay rent, you’re not going to get another dime
from us, you know, because we’re going to go bankrupt. But if you work with us, or maybe we
increase the rent, you know, year eight, nine and 10 to make up some of the difference for this.
But we know that we couldn’t in a year from now have this like, okay, you owe rent for those three
months and give us a check for 90 K, but it’s 75 studios. Like there was just no way we were going
to recover from that. So anyway, those kinds of things, you know, people talk about how COVID
killed so many gyms. And a lot of that was not just because of COVID, it was because of these
operational and financial decisions that weren’t like made as smartly as maybe some other companies
could have made and not understanding what was going to be the demise of them.
When you when you completely got out was like, what, $300 million valuation?
Yeah, a little more than that. But yeah. And that was last April. I got I sold out my shares.
How old was the business then?
Nine and a half years.
That’s a great run. And when you look at like what made you guys great, was it operational
excellence? Was it because your brand was cool? Was it because the workout was better than anywhere
else? Like what’s like the honest assessment of like these were the one or two factors that set
us apart from berries boot camp or whoever else is you consider to be competition or all the
mom and pops out there?
Yeah, the workout is incredible. And I’m glad you’ve gone to it because you can understand
a little bit what I’m saying. It’s just like unlike anything that was ever out there. And now
there’s a lot more Pilates out there. But we had speed to market. We are the dominant player,
you know, in the space. And we have a pretty cool brand. So I think the aesthetics, we know what
our brand is, right? The whole tagline is create the strongest version of yourself. And I think
the company is still doing a really good job of leaning into that. One of my favorite campaigns
we did was it’s not for everyone. And we really went in and like this doesn’t this may not be
for you, but it’s for somebody, you know, it was almost like a Nike commercial. It’s like,
if you like to push yourself, those are great commercials. Yeah, yeah. And the night you’re
talking about the Nike Olympic ones. Yes, exactly. Yeah, those are great. Winning when I’m not for
everyone. So we did we did this campaign a few years ago. And it really like people people
watch that and it’s like, I want that to be for me. I’m tough. I’m strong. I like to push
myself. I want to grow. I can handle tough things. And so I think there is this aura of if you know
somebody who does solid core, you’re like, I know who you are. Like I know exactly the type of person
you are, you’re driven, you’re ambitious, you like to work hard, you’re not afraid of the work,
you’re not the work is actually the joy for you. You want to feel good at the end of the day knowing
you put your all and tried your best at like everything you did. So I think the brand ethos
is definitely a big part of our success. And don’t get me wrong. Again, operationally, I’m a
pretty good operator. Are you like pretty good where you’re like, you’re actually the best,
like your top or are you like, that’s like, I’m pretty good at it, but it’s maybe not the best
the thing that I’m best at. Yeah, I’m great at putting systems, processes in place. But like,
I’m not the right person to run solid core today. If that makes sense, like it’s too big, it’s too
monolithic. It’s like, I just I move quickly. And that’s not actually what you need. You need
somebody like Brian, who’s much more methodical, analytical, patient. I think that for most
entrepreneurs who are like new, I think that branding and some of these exercises aren’t
terribly important. But I think that if you have a proven track record, where you’re like,
this person executes well, and they execute when you have that tracker track record, which I think
I do. Like for all my businesses now, I spent a lot of time on branding, where I’m like, what is
this? How does this make someone feel like the colors, the name, things like that. And that,
like I said, that’s I don’t think that’s important for most people when they’re just starting out,
because it’s like, you just got to get started and get some traction with you guys. You
kind of it seems like you came out the gate with good branding. And you’re kind of in that
that boat, by the way, where like, this is your second company. And you like, it’s like, no,
you execute it. So it’s okay to like kind of sweat the stuff or think this stuff through.
Who inspired you for your branding? And where what was the exercise that you went through?
Yeah, we’re similar there. I love the branding and marketing as as well. So I I did that for
back of my feet and and and solid core in the beginning. You know, like, with back on my feet,
it just that the name itself, I remember someone telling me like, oh, we should call this thing
the homeless runners Association of America. And I was like, that alone will make the thing fail,
because it doesn’t sound cool. It doesn’t you know what I mean, it sounds like one of these every
other organization that just like, you know, and I wanted us to be cool. And coming up with the name
for solid core, it was just like reiterating a bunch of names. I’m like, Oh, that just has it,
that just makes you sound badass. Like, you know, people like, Oh, that’s solid. Like, obviously,
like the core piece has, you know, lots of double meanings and whatever. And then the brackets,
I thought could indicate like your obliques and the tightness and community and together. And so
I was like, this is it, it just, it just kind of looks cool. And they, you know, we haven’t done
a redo of the logo or anything, like it just kind of stuck around and the brackets. I mean,
I have, I don’t know if you can see, but I have like a bracket. Now I lifted up my shirt for you
too. I have a bracket tattoo. Again, I just, I just always feel like things need to be cool
for people to want to want to be a part of them. And so I didn’t want to spend a ton of like stupid
money on branding and marketing for another idea that probably would have worked also. But
one of my mantras is that there’s more than one right answer. And this was like a right enough
answer to move. So here’s the deal. I made most of my money from a newsletter business. It was
called the hustle. And it was a daily newsletter at scale to millions of subscribers. And it was
the greatest business on earth. The problem with it was that I had close to 40 employees and only
three of them were actually doing any writing. The other employees were growing the newsletter,
building out the tech for the platform and selling ads. And honestly, it was a huge pain in the butt.
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I want to ask you about some ideas, but you kind of caught the Pilates thing at the right.
You timed that one well. What fitness-related businesses excite you right now? When you were
talking about something, and I started thinking of Hydrax. It’s called Hydrax. Have you seen Hydrax?
H-Y-D-R-O-X. Hydrox, I think it’s called. Hydrox? Yeah. Is it Hydrox? Sorry, am I saying it wrong?
Like the competition? Yes, the competition in New York. I went and saw it.
It’s awesome. It is awesome. I saw that and I’m like, “Oh, this is going to be a thing.
Maybe it’s already a thing.” But this is really going to be a thing. Are there any things that you
see where you’re like, “This is going to pop?” Well, I will talk about what you finished in a
second, but one of the things that my husband and I went to Friends just did is 29029. Have you
heard of this event? Yes. The founder’s in Hampton. Did you talk to him, Mark? Yeah, I did talk to Mark.
Yes. They’re releasing the schedule soon. I’m going to one of them.
You got to go. We just did it. 29029 is the elevation of Everest. They created this event
where they partner with ski mountains for the most part around the country. You have to climb
whatever the number of times up that mountain, that’s the equivalent of Everest. We were in
Mount Tremblant, which is in Canada. Our mountain was about 2,200 elevation. We had to climb this
thing 15 times, 1.7 mile, and it was steep. I’m like a marathoner. I’ve done these things. I really
was like, “I’m just walking up a hill. I’ll be fine.” Completely different than anything I’ve
ever done before for the pure duration. If you think it takes you 60 to 90 minutes to get up
these things, you’re out there for 15 to 20 hours. Some people longer. Some people literally had to
be on their feet for 30 hours to get the 15 hikes in for the time that you’re allotted because you
have 36 hours. It is unbelievably inspiring the people that are there because most people are
there because they’re going through a divorce. They’re fighting some health battle. They’ve lost
100 pounds. They’ve got something bigger going on in their life and they need to show themselves
that they can climb the Effen Mountain physically so that they can go back and do it emotionally,
mentally, spiritually, whatever. It’s just awesome. It’s awesome.
Yeah. His business is wild. Basically, I think they sell out most of their events now. I think
it’s like $5,000 to go and they provide the accommodations. You’re not slumming it. It’s
like really nice stuff. You think that’s going to take off?
I think things like that. I think there’s going to be high rocks. I love it. Innovation.
There was a crop this across the games. I think you’re going to start to see more events. Remember
when Ragnar and some of the Ragnar relay? No. What’s that? Oh my gosh. Ragnar used to have
it. How do you spell it? R-A-G-N-A-R. It might still be going on. I just don’t know anybody who
does it anymore, but it was these relays where you had two vans and you had 24 hours to run
hundreds of miles. You’re literally driving through the night. Your vans are moving on.
There’s stations. It was just, again, so cool. I don’t really know if it’s still going on.
It is. It is. The company that owns it, I think they own a bunch of different events now.
Yeah. I really think that there’s this continued movement. I know you don’t drink. I really don’t
drink. A lot of my friends don’t want to be partying. Everybody is looking, at least in my group, for
physical fun activities to be doing with their time. I think these endurance challenge events
of all sorts are going to continue to grow and pop up all over the place because that’s how
I think a lot of people want to spend their times. I’ll tell you, I didn’t have my phone with me
for the entire time I hiked. I refuse to bring it with. I’m craving being out in nature,
challenging myself physically. I think a lot of other people are too. You’re going to see more
of that, I think a lot. Then from the critique- By the way, Mark told me, I was like, “What makes
you guys special?” He was like, “Well, you have a big breakdown,” but he was like, “One of the
things is that we make it so most of the people are going to fail. We want it to be hard enough
to where if you get done with it, it’s a big deal to you, and you’re going to want to talk about it.”
He’s like, “Most events, they actually make it where too many people succeed.”
And so he was talking about how the mindset behind making that event.
But you know what they do really well? They list different mountains, so you actually don’t feel
like you’re failing. So even though you may have not made it to Everest, if you climbed 10 of those,
you made it to Kilimanjaro. So they give you a medal, a Kilimanjaro medal, instead of-
Did you get all to all of it? Did you almost quit at all, or were you like, “No, I’m getting this
no matter what?” Well, Mark will tell you. So I didn’t get any sleep the night before, and I
actually had a mini meltdown. I’m like, “I don’t do well with sleep deprivation. I’m not going to be
able to do this.” And so I was on three hours of sleep, and my strategy was, I’m just going to do as
many as I can as fast as I can before I hit a wall. So I was on pace to probably finish
within the top five. And my 11th lap, it just, you know, like if you’ve ever done an endurance
event and like the wall, it just happens, and it happened. And I made it up the mountain halfway
in the time that it was taking me to reach the whole thing. I had to sit in the med tent for 45
minutes. I’m asking them, I’m like, “I can’t keep going. I need to go down to the mountain.
There’s my half of lap count so I can come back tomorrow.” And they’re like, “No.” And I was like,
I’m like, “What?” And now I really can’t go down. And I just couldn’t get myself together. And along
comes Mark, and he gives me Coke, not that kind of Coke. He gives me Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola, yeah.
And he was like, “Yeah, he’s like, “You’re going to do this. I’m going to walk up the second half
of the mountain with you. You’re not going to go back down. I can see it in your eyes. You’re not
somebody who needs to go back down.” So like, yeah, I took that shot of Coca-Cola and like
got up and we made it up the second half of the mountain. And then I went down and went to bed
and finished my next four in the morning. But yeah, Mark came along and saved me.
You put in the notes. You said, “The number one reason we had to let people go was because they
lacked proper judgment and critical thinking skills.” You said, “What I discovered was that the
best critical thinkers are great at taboo because you have to think on your feet and be strategic
when you describe the word you want to get people to say. What’s taboo? I don’t even know what that
is.” Yeah. So taboo is a game where you have teams and you get a card. And at the top of the
card says a word. Let’s say it says, “Book.” And you have to get your team to say that word. But
underneath that word book is five words that you can’t say to get them to say it. So I say like
“page” or “reading” or things like that. So you have to think creatively. And I have to know who’s
on my team. So how would I get Sam to say this word? And there are people who fresh that game.
And from my experience, whenever we’ve played on a retreat or something, the people who get stuck
or flustered or can’t think on their feet, whatever, usually don’t work there very much longer. And
I’m like, there has to be a correlation between this game, the ability to figure it out of like,
who’s on your team? How do you make this happen? Thinking on their feet. And some of the smartest
people that I think are my friend group are also excellent at that game. So there’s something there.
You also said something like, well, AI is taking over fitness. And you can personalize data,
supplements, exercise, food based on individuals. So for example, if you’re a 44-year-old woman who
wants to gain 10 pounds of muscle, we know your blood work. We know this about you. We know that
about you. Here’s the program that you’re going to be using or you should be using. Is there anyone
in the space who you like who’s taking advantage of that insight? Yeah. So I’m an advisor and an
investor. So I will disclose that to a company called Oxfit. And they are an ad home. It’s sort
of like tonal, but I think it’s much more comprehensive and better. And their AI game is
really progressing to do just that. It knows when you’re tired, it knows certain things,
how you’re lifting the weight, you’re in balance, whatever. And they are really investing in the
AI so that they can partner and you can add your blood work in and you can add every sort of data
point that you have about yourself and then what your goals are. And it will design, again, exactly
what you need to be doing. And I think that’s going to start to take off in a lot of different
areas. But listen, there’s a lot of people who are still just checking the box. And I think that’s
why they get frustrated because they’re not doing the right things for the results that they want.
And it’s a little bit of a guessing game, not knowing your metabolism, not knowing your deficiencies,
not knowing, again, your age or hormones and how all these things are affecting the workouts that
you do. So I think that’s just going to continue to, within five years, I think it’ll be kind of
foolish to just be like guessing on what you should be doing to work out. I’ve had a handful
of friends get diagnosed with cancer recently. And one of my friends detected it because he did
one of these pre-novo or something like that, one of those scans that you just pay money for.
And in 50 years or some amount of decades, we’re going to look back and we’re going to think,
it’s insane that you had cancer growing inside of your body and it could have been okay had you
just been told that it was there. And it’s like you’ve got this foreign thing in your body that
you don’t know about it. And we accept that that’s normal now, but I think that in some time in the
future, we’re not going to be unwilling to accept that. And so I’m personally really interested
in that. I am also personally quite interested in like figuring out exactly the fitness or diet
that works for me. I can’t, based off of blood work, I don’t think I’ve seen a product out there
that’s doing it that’s nailing that though yet. I think a lot of it’s like pseudoscience. I just,
I think it’s none of it’s like awesome at the moment. You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. And
I think it will get there because if people can figure that out, and again, imagine if you’ve
been so frustrated your entire life to not see the results when you’re willing to do the work,
when you’re willing to put in the effort, and like it’s still not happening. I just think it’s
only a matter of time with where we are with the AI stuff and the demand for it, frankly.
Are you going to start another company?
No, sir. Not right now. Not right now. I know too much. I know too much. Like the beauty of
starting companies is I think a lot of times is naivety. And I’ll also be truly honest that like
some, the financial motivation is a little bit gone, of course. You know, I really felt with
back in my feet in solid core that I’m like doing a certain, one, I was very into them both, but two,
it was like, I’m going to make people’s lives better. I felt like I’m the perfect person to do
that. So I haven’t had, I’m also not looking for it right now. But if I have that experience again,
where I come across something or I moved or I’m like, I have to do this. Like that is when I will,
that is when I will do it. But for now, I just feel like I’m giving myself some freedom, some time
to feel this new chapter. Are you like seeking anything? Or you’re just like, like, because
that’s like an interesting mindset that I’ve been in before. And I don’t know if I approached it the
best way, but it’s like the mindset, I’m just going to go out and live and I’m going to be, my
ears are open if I get called. Yes, I’m just going to live right now. And yeah, I think even if I got
called right now, Sam, I wouldn’t, I don’t know if I could, if I could do it. Like because you’re
tired or you’re happy. Exactly. It’s not tired. I’m actually very energized. But you’ve read the
book die was zero. Yeah, I think we talked about that. Right. So I’m just, you know, I want to be
playing like I’m trying to stay in my feminine, because I’ve been in my masculine a lot in my life.
And like I want to have room and prioritizing playing. And for me, that is beach volleyball,
it’s any kind of sports, it’s connecting with friends and family, and being able to be a little
bit carefree. And I don’t want to put so much rigid structure back in my schedule. And I just
feel like I need a breather from that. And I, and I’m not willing, I’m not willing to do it.
All right. So we are about to wrap up. And Anne was like, you got to talk about this idea. All
right. What’s this idea? I read it, but I need you to explain it better. So you got this idea.
Tell me about jump seat. Yeah. So I, so you’ve all been at the airport, right? And like your flight
gets canceled or delayed and you’re desperate to get home. And you, of course, like you go up to
the airlines and they can’t do anything because they’re not going to kick anybody else off of
the flight. They don’t care about your status and whatever. And so the idea for jump seat is
very much like ticket master or something else where there’s a platform where let’s just say
Sam, again, if I got canceled and you’re like, dammit, I have to get home, you go on jump seat
and you offer a thousand dollars for any seat on any flight going back to where do you live?
Let’s say I’m going back to New York. Okay. So you’re going back to New York and like
you put the offer out there and all someone has to do is accept your offer. You trade seats,
they now are on your flight whenever that flight gets rescheduled, but they don’t have the same
timeline that you do to get home. So it’s like no problem. And it can work in reverse where if I’m
at the airport and I’m like, you know, I have a flight back to Miami, but like I’m in no rush,
I’m going to put my seat up for sale. And if someone else wants to get home sooner, they can buy my
seat. Well, it’s like seat geek for play tickets where it’s like, someone owns them. But if you
own it, you can auction off your auction off. But think about, think about how much happier
customers would be in the airlines where you could build in the airline to take a little bit of the
cut. So now I’m a happier Delta customer because I solved my own problem, even though Delta couldn’t
solve it, but they’re allowing this platform and you can even do it for seats. So let’s just say
I’m on a flight and I’m sitting in 32 a and I’m like, I really want to buy first class.
This person has first class. They don’t really care. They put up their seat for like 500 bucks and
they’ll come back and take my economy seat. And now I get to sit in first class. Would you ever pursue
this? No, because I don’t think this is a game I can win. I’m not like a tech person or something.
That’s why I want like, I want this product so I can use it. So that’s why I want somebody who’s
like, Oh my God, this makes so much sense. And you fell in love with the name jump seat. That’s a good
name. Yeah. It’s a great name. And I have a logo and everything like someone. Do you really?
It’s so good. I’ll send it to Ari. You can see it. How could someone, wait, would you actually
work with someone if they wanted to, if someone wanted to, how would you want to give away? How
could someone contact you? Like at least DM you on Instagram? Yeah. Yeah. If you can figure out
how to find me, you’re not the right person to totally. So yeah. How much do you think? Well,
whoever owns jump seat.com, they’re just sitting there. They’re not using it. You own jump seat.com?
Yeah. Of course they own it. How much did you pay for this? Like $5 or something? Not much.
Jump seat.com was $5. I bought it years ago. I’ve literally had, I’ve had this idea for such a
long time and I’m like, just make the logo. You know, like I had my friend make the logo and
it’s, it’s really good. It’s, it’s, the name is so perfect. It’s like what I can just trade seats
and people are like, Oh my God, airlines are never going to allow that. And like they already
allow aggregates like Expedia and, you know, they’re already in their back end system and this
solves a problem for them. And they can make more money by just taking $5 off of every time
someone switched sheets. Why would, you know, why would they care? This is so funny. I thought this
was a half big thing. So you’re, you’re in. I mean, I would love for someone to do it. I’ll give
you the, I won’t give it for you. You can, you can give me a little bit of equity in the company
and you can, you can run with it, but you’re going to have to convince me why you’re the right
person to do it. What would they have to say to convince you? Well, I’d have to know again,
why it’s a game they can win. What’s their background? Do they have the tech? Do they have
any, you know, connections in the airline industry? Have they ever built anything like this before?
You know, why would this be interesting to them? Do they know how to scale and, and build something?
Like, do they have the tech experience, which I don’t have at all. That’s so funny. I like went
to jumpseat.com and I’m like, Oh, hey, it’s registered, but no one’s using it. I did not
realize you’re this, you’re this far down. All right. So they’re going to, well, here’s what I
want to know. You’re going to have to message me and I’ll have to do a, I’ll do a shout out, like,
if there ever are any results, but you have to let me know how many people message you. And if
anyone’s actually promising. Okay, I will. I said it last time, it felt like I was like,
like being not genuine because I was so happy, but you’re, you inspire the sh*t out of me. And
you’re one of my favorite people on earth. I have found myself since we last talked, like,
approaching a situation. I mean, like, what would Anne think about this? And so I just want to thank
you for being part of my life and doing these podcasts. You’re the best. You mean a lot to me.
That’s really sweet. We’ll get you a t-shirt, Sam, that says what would you do? Just kidding.
That would be great. That would be great as long as it’s a crop top. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, as long
as it’s a crop top, then it’s good. And it must be at least two sizes too small. Yeah. I appreciate
you. Thank you very much. That’s the pod.
you
you
you
you
you
you
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Get next week’s episode early, watch it right now: https://clickhubspot.com/mbe
Episode 630: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) talks to Anne Mahlum ( https://www.instagram.com/annemahlum/ ) about starting an $8M/yr charity from scratch and betting her entire life savings ($175K) on a pilates studio.
—
Show Notes:
(0:00) Building a $8M/yr non-profit
(16:27) The economics of [solidcore]
(22:07) Play a game you can win
(24:16) How to be a killer negotiator
(27:00) Turning down $75k
(30:39) 0 – 27 locations in 4 years
(43:50) Idea: Endurance events
(50:21) Idea: Taboo for recruiters
(51:37) Idea: AI Personal trainer
(56:45) Idea: SeatGeek for airlines
—
Links:
• Back on My Feet – https://backonmyfeet.org/
• [solicore] – https://www.solidcore.co/
• 29029 – https://29029everesting.com/
• HYROX – https://hyrox.com/
• OxeFit – https://www.oxefit.com/
—
Check Out Shaan’s Stuff:
Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd
—
Check Out Sam’s Stuff:
• Hampton – https://www.joinhampton.com/
• Ideation Bootcamp – https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/
• Copy That – https://copythat.com
• Hampton Wealth Survey – https://joinhampton.com/wealth
• Sam’s List – http://samslist.co/
My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano
