Barbell Shrugged - Aaron Hinde: Cofounder of Fitaid - Real Chalk #110

Episode Date: January 14, 2020

In this episode we get a little background on how the company was started and some of the companies future goals going forward. We also get to dive into a little bit of the mindset that Aaron takes into each day to build such a successful company.    There should be a good amount of nuggets in here to get you fired up for the week. Enjoy! ---------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-ep110 ----------------------------------------------------------------   ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Tuesday and it's time for another episode of Real Chalk. This week we're sitting down with Mr. Aaron Hind, co-creator and president of FitAid. The reason I wanted to have him on the show, and I know he's been on the network with other people, is I really wanted to just hit his, I wanted to hit his story just a little bit, give you guys a little bit of motivation, a little bit of drive for the week, but I also wanted to ask him about his goals going forward and some of the things that he sees for FitAid in the future. Because when you have people like this who have these companies that are worth tens of millions of dollars, it's always nice to kind of see where their head's at and kind of,

you know, hear how they're thinking and see the way that they see the world. Because it's very interesting, right? Like they obviously are on a different level than other people. So I like to find out all the things about this person. And I really feel like this episode comes full circle onto, you know, the way he's thinking about things, where Fit8's headed, and all those types of, you know, things. So I really, really love this episode for getting you guys jacked and jazzed for the week. Now, before we get into this episode, I want you guys to know that I did come out with that new book that I've been trying to come out with forever. It was called Superset 100, and it is a series of German volume training supersets, so 10 sets of 10, and you're going to have two main movements that you're going to be doing your supersets with, and then there's going

to be an eccentric protocol, so how long you're going to be taking that weight down for, and then every 10 days, the eccentric time changes, the rest break changes between the movements, and then it eventually ends in the last from 30 to 40 days is called hell week. And it's basically all of those movements kind of for time, if you will. So before that, there was all rest breaks and tempos and all this stuff. And then the last week is like, all right, we're going to be doing all 100 reps. It's going to be relatively for time.

You know, get it done as the best you can, but with good form involved, not like CrossFit for time, but just get these things done. And it is one of the craziest programs I've ever made. It is a compilation of tons of different ideologies in the field. And it works really, really, really well. I've done it myself before I got injured with my bicep tendon. For those of you guys who know, I had surgery on that. And I have a lot of people right now who've been on the program since I debuted it like about 10 days ago, almost two weeks ago now.

And they've all been raving about it. So I'm really, really excited about it. So if you guys go to JimRyan.com, it's G-Y-M-R-Y-A-N.com. I'm just out here trying to create programs that no one's made before trying to, trying to create that fun vibe in the gym that we all used to love when we first started working out. So that's what these programs are all about. That's what all my stuff's all about. The high intensity interval, bodybuilding, mixing together everything I loved about CrossFit into the world of bodybuilding as well. So you get all

that breathing, but you also get that nice, slow, amazing pump. So these are all the things that I've been working on. Also chalk online is all over the place. Now there's thousands of people who follow that. And I've had that app now for like maybe like two or three years, but I've also had all of the workouts that are on the app or about six years worth. So you guys have had, you have every workout I've ever had since day one, the gym's been open plus all these other ones on top of that. So when you buy that app, you don't just get like the last year or two that it's been, or three that it's been on the market. You're getting the last six years of workouts I've ever made. So that thing's a tremendous, tremendous, uh, you know, piece of, uh, just craziness. I don't know what to call it. It's like the master

plan for every workout you'd ever want to do for the next six years. So it's an amazing piece of information to have in your hand. Anyway, without any further ado, let's get into this show with Mr. Aaron Hind. And when you guys love it, if you guys love it, make sure you guys tag me. Make sure you guys tag Mr. Aaron Hine. It's A-A-R-O-N-H-I-N-D-E on the gram, and your boy Ryan Fish is R-Y-A-N-F-I-S-C-H. If for any reason you do not follow me on Instagram and you listen to my podcast, that is weird, all right? I don't like it. It's like a mailman having my mail, and you don't know my address, right? It's not good. So, man, I really hope that you guys listened to that. That was pretty good. All right.

Without any further ado, let's get into the damn thing. Let's go. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we're still out here at the Strong event in New York. And we are sitting down with – actually, we're standing up with Mr. Aaron Bronson. Hi, Aaron Bronson. There you go. And he is the owner of FitAid.

If you guys have never heard of FitAid, you're probably, I don't know where you are. Under a rock. Is there anywhere in the world that FitAid is not? We're not in Africa. No, I take that back. We're in South Africa. So we are in the African continent. No, pretty much everywhere now.

Yeah. We're getting there. That is insane. So you guys are literally almost everywhere. Through, I mean, mainly through the CrossFit channel, you know, CrossFit's been a great partner for us from, from day one. And so our international business is almost exclusively through CrossFit. Domestically, you know, we're, we've got a lot more distribution points now. So I remember hearing you, where was I? I think I was in, I was in Guadalupalooza and I remember like just briefly hearing some of the story about how the whole thing started and it kind of started with like partying, right?

And like party aid. Yeah. Ray parade, which became party aid. Yeah. That was the very first concept. It was actually, we were, we were at a, a festival called vibrant. It's like a pre-compression, like pre-Burning Man party. Private party, 400 people.

You know, Ryan's a great DJ, my business partner. So I invited him out there, him and his wife, to check it out and get to know the people so he can start DJing there as well. And we were handing out, you know, 5-HTP, milk thistle, B vitamins. And because, you know, we're up dancing half the night for replenishment. And we basically, the next day, had this concept of like, hey, we should put all these into little packages. Instead of having people have to buy full bottles, they could buy these little packet, we'll call it party pills, and sell it at 7-Eleven and so on and so forth.

That kind of evolved into a beverage concept, which we were originally calling Ray-B-Ray, then toned it down to Party Aid. And then as we went down to register the domain name for Party Aid, we were like, dude, we met in a CrossFit gym. There's no drinks in CrossFit. What about Fit Aid? Put that in. We're like, we golf once a week.

What about Golf Ray? Put that in. We registered 80 domain names that night. We even got BonerAid.com for $12. BonerAid. Yeah, $12. BonerAid. Yeah, we still have it. Oh, my God. That is fucking classic.

If anyone wants to start a porn company out there, come see me. We'll sell it for the right price. I know some actors. One is standing right here. Hold on. BonerAid. I really want to head into this because a lot of people probably don't know about BonerAid. Yeah.

What's in BonerAid? Is it like Extreme Outs Arginine or anything like that there's nothing in it it doesn't exist we just have the domain oh okay but yeah we could put we could put some arginine and some yohimbe yohimbe um some uh some probably horny goat weed yep there you go yeah we we could come up with a formula for sure dude i really think that would probably do pretty well. Yeah. Or even a FitAid pre-workout. Yeah, it's not congruent with, you know, we're all about, you know, super clean, healthful. You know, the pre-workouts, at least the pre-workouts in their current format, which is like heavy, heavy caffeine hit, like overstimulus, in my opinion,

it's just not, you know, a road we want to go down. Even though, yeah, you're right, there's a great market's a great market well i think you could literally just take fit aid and just put arginine in it and it's pretty much a pretty damn good pre-workout yeah yeah if we were to do something it would be different than the current format of you know just 300 350 milligrams of caffeine type of thing but i don't know if you know if there's a market for that it seems like people that really are into pre-workouts want, you know, a heavy stimulus. A lot of stimulus. Yeah.

Well, I actually, 50% of the time I take non-STEM pre-workout and the other 50% I take STEM. It just depends like if I really want to drink coffee that day. Yeah. Cause I don't like drinking a cup or two of coffee and having a pre-workout in the same day. So I'll take a non-STEM. Your heart doesn't like it either.

I'll take a non-STEM workout. Oh, okay. Pre-workout. But yeah, I don't think that's, and non-STEMs are getting pretty popular because coffee is getting more and more popular. Right, right, right.

Well, we do have Focus Aid, you know, which is our nootropic blend. And I like taking that before I train. Like the cognitive health angle, I don't think it's hit on enough. Yeah, I think that the nootropics had a huge spike for a little while. And people were really, really getting into it. And that's when I first heard about all these different companies. What's the one from Texas? Alpha Brain? Yeah, but what's the brand?

Onnit. Onnit, yeah. It was the first time I ever heard of Onnit because of Alpha Brain, right? Yeah, yeah. I just think nootropics got so, so big. Yeah. And then obviously in college we all took Adderall at some point, and then we were like, nootropics got to be cool you know what i mean like if it's like anything like that right but

then obviously people go too far and then make the white lady out there exactly exactly so speaking of this party thing so this this party thing starts turning into fit aid it starts turning into all these different things when did it really start to get big enough to the point where you're like okay i'm gonna like not do anything else but this about a year and a half two years into it is when i um i sold my chiropractic practice yeah yeah we got to the thing and we probably sold too early like we didn't have enough traction at the time but we had signs of life after about a year like hey i think we you know we got something here. We were actually selling to more golf courses initially with Golf Raid than we were in fitness originally.

Yeah. That was all our year one, year two. Most of our year two revenue was in the golf market. But we were so distracted with three different products, three different communities, almost three different companies. They all had individual websites and social media handles that we were burning through all our cash and we only had limited bandwidth. And so we had to choose a single target market. We really focused on FitAid in the CrossFit community because the trajectory of our sell-in and our sell-through was greater, even though it was a very small piece of business at the time. And yeah, the rest is history. So what are some of the biggest challenges that you faced as the company started to grow? Oh, God, so many challenges.

I mean, we almost have gone out of business 12 times, 15 times. Holy shit, that's a lot. Financial challenges. I'd say the biggest thing is making sure you're thinking accurately. You know, inaccurate thinking. There has to be 100 things that align to really have a successful business and there's one of those things could put you out of business you know so thinking accurately about your marketing about your product itself about the trade dress about the the demand in the marketplace i learned

the hard way when i had my private label eye drop company for stoners called Iry Eyes Eye Drops that I got great distribution, got the product out in the market, sold in 2,000 head shops. Then I realized the hard way that stoners don't give a shit that their eyes are red. So I was inaccurately thinking about the marketplace, right? Wow. And so we didn't end up having the successor that we wanted to. So thinking accurately, bringing the right personnel on. You know, so many people hire out of desperation when they're in growth mode, and they hire quickly, and then they hire the wrong person,

and that person poisons the culture or, you know, they're just not the right fit. And then trying to unwind something like that can be really challenging at times. Have you read the Shoe dog book with Phil Knight? No. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. So it's like his memoir of how he built Nike. Right.

And he's always talking about borrowing money from the bank. And the bank was like, they don't want you to outgrow your equity. You can't have zero equity. So every year he would double his profit. So one year he'd make $100,000. The next year it'd be $200,000, the next year it'd be $400,000. And the bank hated him because he was never actually making any money. His equity was always zero. Right.

And they didn't want to give him any money. And it was the weirdest thing. So how did you raise most of your money? Well, initially, Ryan and I put it in $30,000 each. That's how we got started. And then literally friends and family to begin with. I mean, we've got 80 people on our cap table, and a lot of those early people was just like my friends from college, patients at my office, family members, his family members.

And that was round one. And then when we kind of graduated, I'd say to a quote-unquote real company is when the private equity firm that we partnered with, Carp Riley, came in and gave us an institutional raise and really gave us the capital to start expanding nationally and globally. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. I can't imagine what it would be like to go globally. So how many people did you have on staff before global became a thing? Global happened much sooner than I would ever recommend for anybody. And the reason is it happened through a specific channel, the CrossFit channel.

So we're not trying to go up and down the street and grocery and everything globally. It's just a way to spend ourselves out of existence. But staying specific in the CrossFit channel and following the gym marketing that we set up here in the U.S., it really only required one country manager. We have one person basically running all the EU. For each country? No, for the entire EU. Oh, wow. And then they have a few people on their staff.

We've got somebody running, a couple running Australia for us. We had an individual running Canada. Someone running Puerto Rico. So, you know, finding someone who's influential in the community. If they already own a gym or had some products they were distributing, that's a plus. And then kind of plugging it into there. And that was able to, it enabled us to expand internationally pretty damn quick. One thing I'm always trying to put together in my head is I go to

these big events and I see companies like FitAid or C4 or any of these other companies and they're out there giving away a lot of product. When you go to a big event this is pretty big but let's say you go to the games. Are you giving product away at the games?

How much product? Do we go through? How much does it cost? We usually give away like 24 pallets, which is 208 cases, which is like 2,400 cans. So we're giving away like, what, 40,000, 50,000 cans. Holy fuck. Yeah. It's a lot.

That is crazy. it's a lot. That is crazy. It's a lot. I mean, it's one of those things where I feel like if you give it and then people like it, what are the chances of them coming over and buying it? I mean, it's hot as fuck and people really want something cold to drink, but at the same time, when you're willing to give it away, I think when they see it again, they're like, oh, I really like that company. That was cool.

100%. Yeah, and it's our ability. It's our opportunity, I should say, to give back to the community. I mean, these are the same people that are buying us every day after their workout in the gym. So if we can give them a few free cans on the house for the games, 100% we'll do that. Well, I had Kill Cliff in my gym for a while. And then I had Bang in my gym for a while. And then I've had you guys now for, I don't know, a couple years now.

And I think the biggest thing for me as a gym owner is it makes me feel better about giving it to them. I know a lot of people just want the energy. They want this. They want that. But then when I give it to them, I'm like, hey, guys, there's actually some good shit in here. It's not just the energy or whatever. You guys are actually getting this and this and all these great things. So this is why I have it. Because everyone's like, why did you switch just to FitAid?

Why not have all these other companies anymore? I'm like, I just don't feel good about it. I appreciate you saying that because that's a talk that I have with a lot of gym owners. I'm like, look, you're doing half the equation in here by getting them to work out four or five times a week and go through these WODs. But the other half, and arguably the more important half, is what are we putting in our body? Because what we put in our body is a direct reflection of how we show up in the world. Yeah.

Not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually, like, you know, this fuel. You're a different person when you have coffee, right? Yeah. So you're definitely a different person if you have good supplements or you have— Go eat fucking McDonald's and see how you feel. Like, I so don't eat fast food that the one time a year if I'm out late or whatever, I'm like, I think it's a good idea. I will be physically ill after I eat that.

I'll eat a Big Mac and it tastes so good going down, and then an hour later I'm like, oh, my God, my body is revolting. It's like, what did you do to me? And so if we're trying to get – I just about took you out with this pole. I didn't realize it wasn't attached to me. Every time you keep messing with it, I'm like, oh, my God, something bad is going to happen. I only have one arm. My other arm is broken.

But if we're trying to get results for people and get them toward their health goals, then we need to be conscious of the diet. And liquid sugar specifically and overstimulants, artificial ingredients, artificial coloring, this shit is toxic. Sucralose destroys your gut biome. People go, oh, there's not enough. Go on to PubMed. Go on to PubMed that indexes all government studies. It's all peer-reviewed journals.

Peer-reviewed journals. You'll see 20 articles all concluding the same thing, that sucralose kills your gut biome. How many of us take probiotics or drink kombucha or everything to support our gut microbiome? It's like, you know, you can't have both. So what are you guys sweetened with right now? We use, on our low-cal formula, we use raw organic agave and stevia Rev-M. And then on our zero-s sugar line uh we use monk fruit so is there is there any studies about stevia or monk fruit doing anything negative no not not yet and i'm

not saying that there won't be but and then agave agave is processed though yeah well it's raw it's raw organic agave that okay yeah so the processing temperature never sees a greater temperature than what the plant would see in nature is what they consider. Oh, okay. That's really cool to know. Yeah, and it has fiber in it. It has inulin, which is a prebiotic fiber. That's why you'll see the carb count is slightly higher than the sugar count from the agave because the fiber count.

Yeah, I was going to say inulin has higher fiber for sure. Yeah. So, all right. When it comes to sucralose, though, is there different types of sucralose, or is it all the same? It's all the same as far as I've seen. Because I know with stevia, there's different types. There's different types of stevia, and the label just says stevia. Well, more companies are differentiating.

Like, we switched to a Reb M, which is a much cleaner tasting. The biggest criticism of stevia, and I have the same criticism, is it tastes artificial. Like, you know, you take it and you're like, something's not right there. And even though it's not artificial, the new Reb M is much cleaner. And then monk fruit's amazing. Like, I'm seeing monk fruit displays now in all kinds of the natural food stores because I think it's like the new hot zero-calorie sweetener. Just the flavor profile on it, it's really good relative to other zero-calorie natural sweeteners.

And is monk fruit altered in any way or is it just a natural? We have the actual fruit in the office. So, yeah, our supplier sent us the actual. But when it's put into a beverage or a supplement, is it heated? Does anything happen to it? I don't know how they process it. I don't know how they process it. Because on paper, it sounds like the best sweetener.

Yeah, and it passes, like, Whole Foods compliance and Sprouts compliance, and they're pretty rigorous on that kind of stuff. So I don't know how it processes. And I believe we're using an organic form, but I'd have to double-check on that. We try to use organic on every ingredient that we can. So when it comes to getting all these supplements put into your drinks, what are some of the biggest hurdles you see with that? Because I know you could definitely cheap out and probably get cheaper sources of it

but how do you know how good it actually is and how much you're actually getting? I'm sure you have to test everything. Yeah, so we have to test everything. Yeah. So we have a full quality control department. We test raw goods going in. We are always looking to up-level the different supplements we're actually using. If you'll notice, we use a methyl form of B12, which is more bioavailable. It's more expensive. We use individual BCAAs instead of grouping them

together because when you group them, you're using artificial binding ingredients. We use like the natural form of vitamin E instead of synthetic. So little tweaks like that, that don't mean much to 99% of the people out there, but people in the know, nutritionists, doctors, you know, chiros, PTs, they look at that can and they read that label and they're like, oh, shit. Oh, shit. You know. But it also comes down to the way you feel. Yeah.

And how you feel. Exactly. And the flavor's got to be there. So the biggest challenge is, you know, really nailing a flavor profile when you're putting an efficacious dose. I mean, we've got about three grams of supplements in each can depending on what SKU we're looking at. And that's not easy to mask sometimes. Some of those are pretty intense flavor profiles. Yeah, I bet.

If you're just sucking down the raw powder. I went to, I interviewed the CEO of Power Crunch Bar, Kevin Lawrence, and we ate the raw powder that goes into the bar before it's flavored. Oh, my God, it was awful. It was so gnarly. But I love hearing these, like, stories of how the companies were created and then how all these, like, little struggles and stuff. And, like, I mean, you guys are, I mean, you're probably getting up there

to, like, almost $100 million probably worth at this point. Yeah, you know, our valuation is north of that right now. So, yeah, we're getting there. I know Power Crunch Bar is up there, too. Yeah, we just got to keep, I mean, look, we're heads down focused on execution. Just keep grinding, creep grinding. Everyone's like, oh, well, what's the game plan? What's the exit plan? It's like, exit plan, we're focused on execution.

You know? I feel like every time I see you, you're still having a pretty damn good time. Yeah, I mean, look. I'm sure there's stressful moments, but you always have really great optimistic attitude. Yeah, I mean, we've got a great team, get to hang out with good people. You know, it's a grind. It's a lot of events.

It's a lot of travel. I've never seen a bad employee, just so you know. Yeah. And they're always super nice. They're always, like, very giving. They always have a smile. They're always pretty dope. It's a great company.

The company's cool. Well, our brand is not just FitAid or FocusAid. Our brand is, you know, the individuals behind the brand. And, you know, everybody takes that very seriously. If you're an asset, we're not going to hire you to begin with. Yeah, for sure. Like, we only hire good people. And then, hopefully, you know, I think our intent is to make them better people with giving them the tools

and teaching them about breathing and mindfulness and appreciation and all the things that we do culturally you know some of it sticks and it's not not everyone i tell everyone like this is not the you know dogmatic school from aaron hind or orion mellohan it's like i'm giving you tools that work for me and just i all i require is that you try them one time and if you feel benefit from that then you, you know, you can incorporate it. So some people started doing five-minute journal in the morning. Some people do Wim Hof now. Some people do cold plunges.

Some people do, you know, whatever. Some people started doing CrossFit because we built a CrossFit gym and we hired a coach who's actually one of our employees as well to come in and coach classes regularly. Now we've got new people doing that. And it's just find out what works for you and you know continually move forward it's like someone told me you know life is much like a salmon swimming upstream like if you stop putting in effort and growth you know the the the current's going to just take you right back out to the ocean you got it there is no stagnant you You've got to keep pushing, keep growing.

Phil Knight always says, if you're not growing, you're dying. Yeah, absolutely. So how old were you when you started FitAid? How old was I? Let's see, this was 2011, and I'm 44 now. So I don't know, 30-something. 33. Yeah, exactly.

Okay, so what do you think that you learned between zero and 33 that helped you prepare for owning a company like FitAid and helped you start a company like FitAid, give you that mindset, all that stuff? People love to hear stuff like that. Yeah. I think one thing I didn't mention in the talk today on the panel that resonates with me is that you are, we are, exactly where we need to be in life right at this moment. Not where we want to be, but where we need to be in life right at this moment. Not where we want to be, but where we need to be. So all of my past businesses and everything that happened for me, like Tony Robbins says, life is happening for you, not to you. You're not a victim.

It's actually... He's so good at Um, from being a shy introverted, you know, a skinny underdeveloped young kid and, and, and being handed the phone book at my first year out of, uh, uh, between my freshman, sophomore year of college at an internship at Dean Witter. And the guy goes, okay, start at the A's. Here's your script. Start dialing for dollars. Like getting pushed so far out of my comfort zone and go okay i know why i needed to do that shitty job right yeah to you know having various businesses and learning about you know supply chain and marketing and accurate thinking and timing and all of these tools it all builds up and it's like oh okay now i know why i

had to go through all those hurdles to be to give me the skill set and know how to know what i'm really good at what i excel at what am i shitty at and i'll never be good at finding the right business partner that that had a skill set that was unique from mine and uh and you know really working on keeping in alignment not letting the ego take over and uh treating people well because it's like we were the underdogs when we came to crossfit we we funded we're funded with $30,000 each. Kill Cliff, which launched the same year on the East Coast, had big money. Big money. All the team and all the athletes and everything.

It's like, okay, we can't compete with that dollar for dollars, but what we can compete with and beat them at because I saw how they were treating people is like how we treat people. I don't care whose team you're on or what. Like, we're going to, you're always welcome in our camp. You know, we're always going to give you a cold can and, you know, talk to you and, you know, not treat people poorly. Yeah. Don't be a dickhead.

So during the business, what are some of the things that you feel like you could work on for yourself? Because I know all of us have things that we're not very strong at, and we need to delegate those things. Yep. I know for myself, I try to take on way too much all the time. Yeah. What are some of the things that you feel like you'd like to delegate out because it's not your strong suit?

And what do you feel like you're really strong at? Yeah, definitely delegate all of the accounting, finance stuff. It's just not my strong suit. That being said... Delegate math. That being said, basic understanding of P&Ls and balance sheets and stuff is essential for any business owner. So even though that stuff is not in my wheelhouse at all, I really got out of my comfort zone and go, okay, you need to understand the basic structure of this and what this all means.

Because I'm sitting in a board of directors meeting. I have to speak accurately and intelligently about those numbers, and investors care about what is on those sheets. So that's definitely out of my wheelhouse and not in my strong suit. My strong suit's always been product development, sales, marketing, customer service. That's the stuff I feed on. I development, sales, marketing, customer service. Like that's the stuff I feed on. I still meet weekly with each of those teams. Those three team leaders report directly to me. I have different systems in place with each of those teams. Customer service,

you know, we're sitting down and going through OKRs. We all read a book together every quarter and talk about the book and how we can implement it into what we're doing. I love that, the book read. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every quarter we read a different one. We've read Seven Habits. We've read Cialdini's book, Influence.

We just read right here in New York, Setting the Table. What was your favorite one so far that you actually took some principles where you're like, this is bad? You know, I had read Seven seven habits when i was like 21 it was like uh for a job that i had and going back and revisiting covey is fucking brilliant so much of what you see today whether whether it's books on influence books books on human behavior, psychology, self-help. Should I write this down, Seven Habits? It's all coming back to that book. It's heavy.

It's fucking like there's a lot of meat in there, but you'll see so many themes like, oh, my gosh, so-and-so took that theme from Covey. But Dr. Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, great, great read. Also, Cialdini's book, if you haven't read that i mean that's like the bible of behavioral psychology you've got to read that one that's my favorite book to read how do you spell that cialdini yeah c-i-a-l-d-i-n-n-i yes uh influence the psychology of persuasion it is

life-changing and if you're not aware of of the the principles of influence then you're a victim to influence okay meaning you're just getting fucking smacked around you don't even know it you know as soon as i read that book i'm like and i read that book 20 years ago or whenever it came out probably 20 years ago fucking cut tv like oh no more tv in my house and and being aware and then how do i incorporate ethical influence into my business? Things like likability, authority figure. There's all these different principles. Reciprocity.

Talk about giving out cans. That's the power of reciprocity. I give you something. You are obligated to give me something in return, even if you don't like me. It's the trippiest principle. I do feel that way. When someone gives me something, even if I don't like them,

I'm like, well, that was so nice of them. But if they do like you, it's even that much more powerful. Because how often does someone give you something? You know what I mean? It's very rare. Everyone's very greedy nowadays, very selfish. It's so powerful to give even a handwritten note or a gift card or anything. But something, the more thoughtful, the more personalized, the better.

I know that's one of the successes for Andy Priscilla, who owns First Form. Okay, yeah. He has an entire department. All they do is write handwritten letters for every single order. Yeah, that's awesome. Every single order. Wow, every order. It's nuts.

I write one for every new account we bring on, but not every order that would be. Yeah. Actually, I have seen it when I get some stuff at my gym. You guys have handwritten letters sometimes. Yeah. I have seen that. That's really cool. Yeah.

Okay, so now that the business is rolling, do you ever see yourself thinking about other businesses to create? Are you like a serial entrepreneur at the moment? Yeah. Definitely. We already got our next couple ideas banked. Okay, okay. Yeah, Ryan and I have got a couple more ideas that could be as big as this company. But where I've seen, because doing what I'm doing, one of the biggest advantages is just the people that I get to meet and hang out with. And having met and hung out with several billionaires with a B now,

and seeing like how do you – I looked up, by the way, how many billionaires there are in the world. Do you know how many there are? Total? Ooh, there's a lot more in the last 10 years that have come online. It's crazy. I'm going to guess 10,000. It's 2,604

wow yeah yeah it's a good number yeah that was in 2018 though so there's probably a couple more now

but yeah it's crazy I mean when I was like I don't know when I was in high school I think there was two like Bill Gates and like one other person

but now it's crazy yeah I mean there's never been a better time to be alive and to own a business and you know it's so you're talking about being around these guys what are you picking up Yeah. I mean, there's never been a better time to be alive and to own a business. So you're talking about being around these guys. What are you picking up?

Oh, well, how do you leverage? How do you become uber, like generational wealthy? Because, look, I mean, being a quote-unquote millionaire is not like when I was a kid. Like when I was a kid, it's like, oh, my gosh, you're a millionaire. Now it's like you live in California. Your fucking house is going to cost you 1.5. I just bought a house that was over two. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it was like two and a half just for myself. And like that was something that like I couldn't even comprehend as a kid. Couldn't even comprehend it, right? No. And I'm like a very, in like my neighborhood, like average. Yeah. You know? So the money, what we used to think of as a million, now we've got to think of as 10.

And 10 maybe as 100. So we've got to up-level our mindset. So I'm thinking, how do you go from, say, $10 or $20 million or whatever it is to a billion? Because that's a massive jump. That's a massive jump. That's a huge jump. And I see a lot of them leveraging their history, their talent resources, financial resources, mixed with kind of know-how. So I'm really looking forward to being what I call, quote, unquote, a made man. And what I mean by a made man or a made woman is you've had a successful company and a successful exit a lot of times. So you have the know-how, you have the respect and you have some cash in your pocket. And that's when you can start looking at, for me

and CPG, consumer packaged goods, like I know what metrics have to align to see a successful company and being able to spot 10 of those in the real early stages and give them advice and be on their advisory board or board of directors and then leverage some of my own capital to invest in them at an early stage so I can get a piece of ownership and then contribute to that growth. I think that's how you create really true wealth after being an entrepreneur or solopreneur. That's really great stuff right there. Because I always think about that too. I'm like, man, a billion dollars. A thousand million.

Yeah. A thousand million. That's nuts to think about. Yeah. But it is crazy now that the way that I look at a million dollars is not very, I mean, it's so much different than what it used to be. Sure. So, I mean, I think California is just like such a different place in general

because it's easier to make a million there. Or it's not general because it's easier to make a million there. Or it's not easier. It's hard to make a million anywhere. But the value of a million is so much different. Because a million dollars still in a lot of the world is a shit ton of money. A ton. You can move to most Asian countries and live like a king for the rest of your life. Yeah, forever.

I know my buddy the other day is telling me, yeah, as soon as I get to $10 million, I'm done. And I'm like, Matt, you're full of shit. You want me to do the math for you? You're already at $10 million. I started adding everything up for him. I'm like, you're not even close to done. Yeah.

So he's like, oh. I'm like, if you sold your house right now, and I know you got this in the bank, and yeah, and we added everything up, he was like at $10.5. And I'm like, see? But taxes will take half of it so now you really got five that's the thing we gotta get a thing about taxes and it's not gonna get more um you know conservative from a tax perspective they're only going to continue to take more and more especially living in california so yeah you all you got whatever your number is double it

basically i thought about that the other day i was talking to somebody about selling something and they're like well if you that, you'd only have this. And then it was a guy who's probably got close to $100 million in my gym. And then I was like, fuck, he's right. You know what I mean? And he's like, dude, and as you get older, things are going to be more expensive. So, like, you got to think about how much you need on standby. Yeah.

But it is crazy to think about. What's your number? I'd like to make $100 million. $100? I think so. I'm building, like, a social media marketing agency right now that helps other people sell all of their stuff online. Okay. And I'd like to build that to like a big media company and then sell that. But I also love what I do.

And I have these huge challenges all over the world. And I actually make – I probably make the CrossFit programming for 20% of the gyms in the world. Yeah, I was going to say someone just told me last night they were following your programming. I mean, it's crazy. It's thousands of people that all follow it. That's great. And it's everywhere. And I really enjoy programming. I just, all of those things can make a lot of money, but I just don't know how to make those make $100 million.

You know what I mean? And I don't want the $100 million for anything other than once I have that much money, I'm still going to do all the same shit. But I just don't want to stress about money. If I want to work, I will. If I don't, I won't. I would argue you need a much lower number to not ever stress about it. Oh, for sure.

Probably like 20. Probably cool. My number is 30, and I tell you why. Because at 30, long-term capital gains is going to take like 25%. State taxes another 30%. So that whittles you down to like 22 or something. I need a million bucks or a million and a half to build my house.

I still live in a trailer, by the way. Not a trailer. I upgraded the trailer. I heard you have kind of a fantasy land now. You have a bunch of cool shit. Yeah, I got cool shit. I live off the grid. My point is we haven't built my house yet.

I still live in a prefabricated small home, 1,200 square feet. It's modest. It's great. I mean, we have acreage. But at $20 million, if you invest it, and what I'm talking about investing. I'd like to sell something for $100. So what I actually get out of it and all that, you know what I mean? I'd like to just have that impact where it's like, oh, he sold that for

$100,000,000. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. You know, if I don't get that, it's fine. It's a nice round number. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a round number. But at $20,000, you can make 5% on that money and have a million dollars a year coming in your pocket minus taxes. That's $500,000. So my point is, what could you

not do if you're totally debt-free and you had $500K? It's like, right? Yeah. Like lifestyle-wise. Yeah, you don't need a private jet. You don't need crazy, crazy shit. No, there's JetSuite now.

Yeah. JetSuite. Yeah. That is really, really cool. That is so awesome. I love this. I love this so much. But if you want a private jet, you better keep that $100 million mark because that's what you'd need to justify a private jet.

Is it $100 million? I think so. I've kind of done that math too. I think about the people who have them, yeah. And I think they're usually around that point. That's what Warren Buffett says. Did you hear Warren Buffett? He's like, really the only difference between me and you, talking about everybody else except

for Warren Buffett, is how we fly. He goes, I got my own jet. You don't. But other than that, like I live in the same house. Oh, and I have more expensive suits probably than you do. Yeah. He's like, that's about it. Yeah.

I could see that for sure. I think it's, yeah. There's a lot of similarities between, like, different check marks. But then there's just, like, the giant check mark where you're like, okay, you just live a totally different life now. Yeah. But even having a couple hundred thousand and a couple million is, I feel like, is pretty similar as long as you're not an idiot. Right.

There's idiot millionaires and then there's like the... Yeah, I've seen people burn through a lot of money really quick too. I've had a lot of people on the podcast. They made like a million bucks and they have a Lambo and their rent is $10,000 a month and they own nothing. Oh. The Lambo's leased, the house is rented, and then I'm like, what are you doing? And then when their shine is over, it's all over. Right.

And then I'm like, how did you think that was going to work out? I never understand it. I learned the hard way, folks. Be smart with your money. When you have money, it doesn't matter how much money you make. It's what you're doing with your money. There's the story of the guy who never made, he's like a janitor or something, retired with $20 million on an income of like 15 grand was the most he ever made.

But just being so disciplined and putting away the right money and investing it and being smart with it. I was a high-income earner as a chiro. I tell the story all the time. I never had one year under $350,000 as a solopreneur. I had years as high as $500,000. And I fucking ended up filing bankruptcy in 2009. And I spent all my money on stupid shit.

Not Lambos, but just $8,000 worth of insurance that I didn't need. And just all the shit, like shit, quote unquote shit, stuff that I would eventually just take to the dump a few years later. And then I got over leveraged in real estate. I'm like, okay, I'm going to go strong to the hole in 2007. Well, we all know what happened a year later 2009 i've got months where i've got fifty thousand dollars of income coming in and 70 going out you know it's like you can't live so the the bottom line is stay out of debt keep your fucking monthly nut low and and be smart with your money and have a plan like you know put it away invest it wisely the stock market's interesting you know i mean over the long term, it produces returns.

But coming back to creating real wealth, when you're able to add value to a company at an early stage and invest in like an angel round or something, that's more like you can get major multiples on your money, not 1% the bank's going to give you. An angel round? Yeah, angel investing. So basically, if you're not an institution, private equity or venture capital, and you're coming in to an early stage company, you can invest in an angel round prior to institutional investors coming in. So describe, I mean, I know you described it, but like define what an angel round is. So angel investors would just be high net worth individuals.

Typically, you have to at least sign your name on a piece of paper that you're worth, I think, over a million dollars in assets and or have an income over 200K a year. And as far as I've seen, there's never any verification on that. But you need to sign that the government requires that you're considered what's called a high net worth individual. And that's how they define it. Don't quote me on that, but it need to sign that the government requires that you're considered what's called a high net worth individual. And that's how they define it. Don't quote me on that, but it's something like that. And then a company, XYZ Company is where we start. When we're slinging FitAid and we're like, hey, we need to raise money, we started calling up our friends that we knew had cash, say, hey, here's the opportunity.

Is this like Shark Tank style, basically? Yeah, it's kind of like Shark Tank. Yeah. That's exactly what Shark Tank, they're angels. They're super angels, what we call them. Do angels get bigger pieces of ownership than you would normally get in another situation? No. No, but they get, well, I would say they get ownership at a lower valuation.

Okay. So if I give you a million dollars and the value of the company is at 4 million, that gives me 25% of the company. Over the next five years, that company might go to 100 million and I give them that same million, I only get 1% of the company. The nice thing is when I invest early, yes, my shares may get diluted as more institutional investors come in. So my ownership percentage can go down over time, but it's of a much bigger pie. Yeah. Much bigger pie.

Hmm. All right. So now that you have all of this now, let's say for the startup, there's people out there right now who are like, I really want to start a company like that or whatever. Yeah. What are some of the things you're looking for when choosing a partner? A financial partner or a business partner? A business partner.

Because a lot of people fuck this up. Yeah. I would say 90% of the time they fuck this up. It's the biggest thing that can sink you, you know, because you really have to completely check your ego. Like, you need to... Because you have a partner, right? Yeah. And then was he your best friend?

We met in 2009 in a CrossFit gym and started hanging out. And he's a DJ and, you know, our wives became friends. So you knew each other for two years? Two years, yeah, before we went into business together. We kind of talk about, you know, everything happens for a reason to get you to this point, right? It's like, I think he was introduced to my life not only as a good friend, but as an essential component. He was what was lacking in all my previous endeavors

to really experience a higher level of success. You know, he had a different background than me, a different upbringing, you know, knowledge of the accounting and finance side of things and working with investors and kind of the, I was more like full speed ahead, moon shot, go for it. And he was a little more conservative and like bring it back down to earth. And, you know, so it was like that yin yang and really good synergy and, uh, and a good thinker. So you, you gotta look for someone that brings a skill set that you

don't have i mean what's the point if you're two clones of each other you know yeah like how do you divide up the business that way because to scale a business you need to be focusing on your unique ability right and not working outside of your unique ability so his unique ability was unique um and you know we worked through just a lot of arguments and shout-out matches in the early days and ego just creeping in. And I mention ego a lot, but it's just you've got to be able to keep your ego in check, have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, who's going to be the ultimate authority on what what do we collaborate

on you know and just that communication is key the communication because it's just like a relationship with your wife or your significant other you know yeah you got to do all the little things you got to nurture the relationship you got to communicate you don't want to have what i call the talk you know yeah you don't want to be in bed at 10 o'clock at night right about to fall asleep, and then we need to talk, and you're like, oh, fuck, I know where this is going. And that's basically because you keep ignoring shit, and you think it's going to go away, and it doesn't because you don't talk about it, and then it's fucked.

Exactly. Little things. My father-in-law ran a commune in Santa Cruz for like 10 years back in the 60s, and I asked him one time, like, how come it collapsed? He said, the dishes. He said there were some people that were neat freaks and a few people fucking never did their dishes. And it literally, it was that little seed that broke up the community. Holy crap.

So it's like the little shit, man. You got to talk. It's like obvious on the big stuff. Oh, we're going to take this investment or do this or that or new product. But all the little things. So we communicate every day. But in our schedule, which is challenging because we both travel so much, is a Friday breakfast where him and I sit down, have coffee, eat breakfast together, block out a couple hours. Just like, hey know how are you

doing what's going on you know is there any shit between us that we need to work out and sometimes there is you know just like talk it through and then move on because he ultimately wants what's best for for you know our people in the company and that's what i want as well well and we both know that that's where we come from, and we come from that place very passionately. And it doesn't mean we always agree on shit. We can be very passionate. It's going to be impossible to be eye-to-eye on everything all the time.

Right, right. But as long as you're coming from a place of mutual respect, then you can work through issues. I remember our first board meeting, you know, our new investor sitting there, and he told us this in retrospect. He was like shit what's going on here because he would watch orion and i's interaction and and it almost looks like we're fighting but we're not fighting our way of like creating solutions on things is like you give me your best pitch and i'm going to give you mine and i'm going to tell you why you're wrong you told me why wrong and we work through it was like

okay there's always a conclusion you know it's like okay we're going to tell you why you're wrong. You tell me why wrong. And we work through it. It's like, okay, there's always a conclusion. You know, it's like, okay, we're going to align and go this direction because this was the best, you know, this case was the best case for what we should do next. Cool. So is there any, my last question would be, is there anything that you wish you would have done differently in the beginning? Or you feel like everything went kind of give or take? You got to be real careful and conscious

of who you're bringing on your team. Make sure you're bringing the right people on. We talked about that a little bit. I'd say don't chase every shiny object. I mean, if we were to do this thing all over again, and it's too late, I mean, we've already gone down a certain path, which I'm totally at peace with and good with, but fine with. But, you know, if we would have just stayed only in the CrossFit channel and direct-to-consumer

and maybe Amazon, like super high contribution margin channels with great communities and never took outside funding, I mean, we could be producing a cash machine where we could put a couple million dollars in our pocket every year. Now, that's not the big sexy exit that we were talking about earlier, right? But that is a real business that generates cash, and there's nothing wrong with a cash flow business. Yeah. Yeah, those are like the two big things, right?

You have your cash flow business, and then you have your exit, and you're hoping that the exit is always what you want it to be. Right. Because there's always a lot of struggles that come along the way. Yeah. Nothing wrong with running a business for 25 years, putting a million or two in your pocket every year. Yeah.

That's a great model as well. It's kind of the same thing, right? Because at the end. Right. Exactly. Let's say you made $20 million at the end of that. You really made like $40 or $50 or maybe even $100 if you had a lot of investors or whatever, right?

It's kind of the same. Yeah. But you're getting a little bit here and there. That's great. That's good stuff. Right. All right. Well, thank you so much for being on here and there. That's great. That's good stuff. Right. All right. Well, thank you so much for being on the show.

Is there anything else that you want to add before we leave here? Yeah, if you haven't checked us out, go check us out at lifeaidbevco.com, at FitAids, our most active Instagram handle. If you want to reach out to me, at Aaron Hind, A-A-Ron, H-I-N-D-E. A-A-Ron. And you guys also have great YouTube channels. Yeah, YouTube's got a bit fun for us. We've got some fun stuff with Hunter, our friend.

We've got some stuff with Jacob Hebner that's done well, Sarah Sigmund's daughter. Some of the Hunter ones, you guys, if you haven't listened to them, are fucking so funny. They're so funny. Yeah, and one of them actually was me and him were together doing a training session on one of them. Yeah, we've got a few with you in them. Yeah. His Road to the Games one, we got some with you. I think you were in.

Were you in any of those, like, shorts we did that were all funny? Yeah, yeah, I think so. Awesome. Good stuff. And then you also have a CBD product now that a lot of people probably don't know about. Yeah, just launched. It's a broad-spectrum hemp. It's totally THC-free.

We're using Ojai Energetics. Research them. Best company out there. They've got nano-encapsulation, petroleum-free products, fully organic. It's got CBD, CBD-V, CBG, CBN, some multiple cannabinoids with some adaptogens, rosemary and lemon balm. Flavor profile is great. Low-calorie. I just had it like an hour ago.

It was really, really good. Great product. Yeah. So for those of you looking for CBD, they have a CBD product now on top of it. They have Party Aid, Focus Aid, Golf Aid. Whatever you want to do, they can aid it. That's right. Boner Aid.

Boner Aid. Coming soon, for sure. I'm going to be the first person to test that. All right. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. And I will have another show for you guys coming up here soon. We are out here at the Strong Event in New York City. And thank you guys so much for listening.

See you. See you. See you. See you.