Digital Social Hour - Owning a $500M Business & Future of Burn Boot Camp | Devan & Morgan Kline DSH #352

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Devan & Morgan Kline come on the show to discuss the success of their company Burn Boot Camp. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Hubspot Podcast Network: https://link.chtbl.com/jcfShDpb LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We have just constantly been able to reinvest what we're making back into the company. And a lot of that is just because we've always been very careful with our money because we didn't come from a lot. Owning 100% of the company, doing it ourselves, not taking any outside investment, loving on people like she was saying. And, you know, those early years are what really shaped the ability to, you know. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm.

It helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting and here's the episode. All right, guys, all the way from Charlotte, Devin and Morgan Klein,

founders of Burn Bootcamp. How's it going? Really good, Sean. Nice to be here. Yeah, we were just chatting before, and it's super impressive what you guys have done, starting with $600 in a parking lot, which we got to hear more about,

and turning this into a half a billion dollar empire. Congrats. Yeah, trust me, no one's more surprised than we are. We wanted to be Charlotte's Fit Community of Moms. That was our very first tagline. We were young. I was a minor league baseball player i just got released from the giants organization morgan uh i'll let her tell her story a little

bit but she was with kellogg's in climbing the corporate ladder brought us brought us to charlotte well neither one of us come from we can get into backgrounds and stuff but neither one of us come from a lot of money and so nobody would lease to us we didn't have a history baseball players despite what people think don't make a lot of money unless you get to the big leagues. And yeah, Morgan was sugar mama. Paying for my cell phone bill back in those days in the parking lot days. That's a real one. We go way back.

Meeting at 12, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we both come from Battle Creek, Michigan. Yeah. We met in sixth grade. So I think he knew right away that he wanted to marry me. I made him work for it a little bit. Oh, so you didn't date right away. We didn't. We were friends. And

finally dated and dated in high school. And then we went to separate colleges. And like Devin said, he kind of went off to play baseball. I went to do corporate life. And so I graduated from college, got a job. And thankfully, we stayed together through all of that. And, you know, one thing led to another. And, yeah, we were in a parking lot saying, okay, we're building this amazing community. And I quit my job about eight to ten months after we started just because it was building so much traction. And within, you know, a couple years we became a franchise. And now we're in 41 states.

Wow. About 400 gyms opened. So this is how real this story is when we meet. Okay. So Morgan pulls up on the bus. I got a broken arm from football. And I look at her and I'm like, that's wifey right there. I didn't say it like that when I was 12 because it's probably like puppy love.

And so I'm like, Morgan, will you go out with me? And she's like, no, I'm dating somebody else I'm like okay you're you know we're dating I guess in sixth grade okay so two years later I'm still chasing her she's still saying no but I write a letter to her friend Aaron and I say in the letter we still have it today it's like I love Morgan and this is the woman I'm gonna marry wow so I did know it and you know I tend to get the things that I go after. Yeah. You got to hang that in the house, man. Yeah, I know. That is legendary. And the fact that you made that long distance relationship work in college, that is insane. I'd love to hear some advice to people

dealing with that right now. Yeah. So I'll let you, I'll let you start on that one, I think. Yeah. You know, I think it's tough, especially when he was a baseball player. So, you know, he's constantly on the road and he can't, he could never really commit to coming to see me. It was always it was pretty one sided. But I think that deep down, if you're both committed, then you got to make it work. And now nowadays it's much, much easier. You know, technology is much easier. FaceTime, things like that.

I even think about how I can sometimes parent with my kids being a business owner and traveling. You just got to really lean into the quality time together. And then when you're not together, just communication is key. You guys are the only ones I know that have done it, to be honest. I think sometimes you're just meant to be with somebody. And we got to realize that really young. And so she would drive up to Mount Pleasant, Michigan through snow storms. Like I remember one time she literally drove two and a half hours to come see

me because we missed each other. Right. And so she's like scared. It's there's a snow storm out and I'm like, you got to come, you got to come. I probably shouldn't have said that, but you know, you know, you know, right. Like you got to come. So, so she ends up like spun out off a highway because the snow was so bad and the ice was so bad not once but twice like on the way there and so i think like it's a good that's a good story because it shows you like if you do if you if you are somebody that you have someone else your life you know you want that person it's like you you're gonna go to great lengths to make the relationship work and And I think that's it, right? If the other person isn't making time for you, isn't answering your text messages, you know, maybe trying to play those games. We just never, and we still don't

play those games. Um, we're two like real people that just always had a genuine connection. Shout out to the hustle daily show guys, part guys. Part of the HubSpot Network, which is the audio destination for business builders. The Hustle Daily Show is your daily dose of business, tech, and news. And they got original stories, which keeps you in the loop on what's trending in the business world. It's very important to stay up to date on what's trending, guys. Right now, obviously, crypto's hot. There's tons of opportunities there. They have over 3 million young readers on their daily email, and that keeps you in the loop on what's going on, like I said earlier.

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which I thought was super interesting. Search for the Hustle Daily Show in your favorite podcast app, guys, like the one you're using right now. Now here's the show. Anyone connection. Love it. And so, yeah, that'd be my advice.

I'm probably the worst person to give advice to college kids on their love life though, because like we basically were married the whole time. Let's go back to burn bootcamp in that parking lot. $600. What is going on there? Yeah.

It's crazy. Like I said, no one's more surprised than we are. So nobody, nobody will give us a lease. We were broke. She's paying for my cell phone bill at the time, but we moved to Charlotte and I'm like,

you know, I'm, I'm starting my own business. I grew up in a chaotic environment on food stamps. My dad, bless his heart, love him to death. But, you know, he was in and out of prison and jail. My mom, you know, took me from my hometown when we were five. We traveled all over the country, you know, lived in five states, 15 different houses, a bunch of schools. Yeah. And it was just, I think that's why I'm so extroverted today is because I always had to like make friends and stuff. So, you know, there's this, you've heard you grow a business or you do anything out of inspiration or desperation.

You've heard that before. So for me, it was full on desperation, right? Like, to give you an example, by the time I was 18 years old, we had 50 plus criminal charges filed between my mom, his women, you know. Yeah, 50 plus, yeah, even more. That's just what we can find. And, you know, it was just real, like, I mean, chaotic.

It was chaotic. Like, you know, I tried to, very physically abusive, and I tried to stop him and my mother from going at it like they often would. And I was like 12 years old, and I kind of stepped up. At the time I'm going through puberty, I'm starting to get a little bigger. You get a little cocky. You get a little more confidence. And I tried to step in and save my mom, and that was not a good idea. I ended up on the floor unconscious and only to know that, you know,

when I woke up, there was police there. And, you know, it's sad to say, cause I do love my dad and I respect him and for all the things that he did for me and that he made me the man I am today. But that's the day I lost my hero.

Wow. You know what I mean? Cause like you see somebody that you're looking up to your whole life, you know, going handcuffs for abusing you and it's like man so you never saw him again stuff no no i saw him he was just in and out after that and could never get it together and yeah but you know i love him for he made me who i am and and yeah that child abuse charge was wild and that was around the time when uh really met Morgan, really. I wouldn't say I started really leaning on you for a few years after that.

Did she know you were dealing with this at the time? Yeah, definitely. I mean, Devin was actually known as the kid you don't hang out with at school. Damn. Unfortunately, I think where we grew up, even a little bit of my own family was just like, hey, be careful because he doesn't come from the same family that we do. And, you know, I think that's always out of love. But then you look back and you're like, dang, that was, that stinks.

You know, that's, I would never want my kids to be in that situation. Right. Or a kid that my kids love. And so, you know, Devin talked about really, his motivation is really running away from that fear and like not staying in it. And I think where we grew up in a small town, staying in that same place,

you're going to kind of recreate the same patterns that the people that you surrounded yourself with. So I think for both of us, we were so ready to get out of hometown. Him a little bit earlier than me because I came from a great family, but I was ready to like spread my wings and see what else was out there. And so I always had my path and he always had his path and we were very thankful that it got to cross together. And again, when he got released, it was, um, I was working a job for 65,000.

So yeah, he called, call me a sugar mama, but it's not like we had all this money to go around. And so, um, $600 is pretty much what he had to purchase equipment, you know, without investing too much money into the business that we didn't really know what was going to happen with it. And so I was paying all the bills at home and just kind of supporting that side of it. And we have just constantly been able to reinvest what we're making back into the company. And so that's that $600 just grew and grew and grew. We've never taken outside investment. We don't have a lot of debt in our company. Only debt we have is the buildings we own, our mortgages. And a lot of

that is just because we've always been very careful with our money because we didn't come from a lot of it. So we know that every dollar that we earn, we need to go spend it wisely and reinvest it back into the brand. And so, you know, that's, I think, again, going back to the original story is we're very grateful for what we grew up with. I grew up with a family that was just very hard workers. And, you know, I think he did too. His dad was actually a really hard worker. He just, unfortunately, you know, once he got a drink in his hand or something else, you know, it went downhill from there. But I think we grew

up with the right formula to be successful. You know, the foundational stuff is be a good human being, you know, like connect with people and build this environment around you that you want to have around you. And then just chase a dream and work really, really hard to do it. And don't expect anything to be handed to you. I would say are some foundational lessons we learned in each of our backgrounds. And it was, like I said, desperation for me. And so I didn't even know what the word like entrepreneur was, but I'm 12 years old contracting my buddies to go shovel driveways as I would knock on doors and sell. And we have two neighborhoods that we do it in. So essentially I had my first franchise at 12 years old. I just didn't know.

I started off with shoveling. Yeah, dude, that's right, dude. And do you, did you do grass in the summer? I didn't.

I slacked in the summer, but the winter. You can't slack in the summer. I know. I could have made a couple thousand. Yeah. Yeah. And that was a lot as a kid too.

For sure. And you know, my dad was an electrician. My uncles were all roofers. So I'd work on the roof. I'd work my off. Right.'d work my ass off, right? And so by the time I was 16, a car symbolized freedom for me. 50-plus criminal charges.

That's pretty much every weekend as a teenager. Was it on your name or your parents? The car? No, the criminal charges. Oh, it was on their names, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the end of the day, my was, I'm going to be the one that gets myself off food stamps, right?

Like I I've lived more years on food stamps in my life than I have not. Yeah. Cause through, even through college, right. Cause I got a scholarship, it was like 65%. You got to go baseball. They don't do a hundred percent scholarships. And so here I am this like entrepreneur without really even knowing it, I think out of desperation, just out of wanting to escape the situation that I'm in. You know, I use baseball as a, as an antidote to that chaos and as well as Morgan and, you know, hanging out with her and her family.

So it's that, that's it, right? It's the, it's, it's the DNA, the foundation is there. And it's, this is all a long winded way to say, that's why we start, could start in's the DNA. The foundation is there. And this is all a long-winded way to say, that's why we could start in a parking lot, right? And grow to 400 locations, owning 100% of the company, doing it ourselves, not taking any outside investment,

loving on people like she was saying. And those early years are what really shaped the ability to get resources. Incredible. Guerrilla marketing, get real marketing. Yeah. So that first gym was in a parking lot. That's so all the equipment was just outside.

Yes. It was like a hybrid. So, you know, Devin mentioned nobody would lease our own space to us, but we did go to these places where our demographic would typically be. So a gymnastic studio was the first one. So we would lease it like for a couple hundred bucks a month and just the morning slots. So we'd be able to store our equipment in this gymnastic studio. And then in the afternoon when they were running gymnastic classes, we only had the parking lot as a place to go. So it was hybrid for sure. But again, like we were meeting these women that, and these moms that were dropping their kids off and then they're seeing this bootcamp in the parking lot. And so

that's what really helped us. So we did that once, and then we did that four more times. So we had a total of five locations where it was this hybrid of like a parking lot and a dance studio, a rec center, an older building that was like abandoned, which is like really weird to think about now that people came there. And then once we got – You're talking about the one that was on America's Most Haunted Places? Yeah, I think so.

You had a gym there? Yeah we knew it too I believe in that stuff too. Yeah I mean listen we were like hey whatever works whoever's willing to give us some space any ghost encounters from the guests? No I didn't have any I was the one that actually trained there I got a quick story about it

really quickly so we know that this place this gym that we're subleasing is on America's most haunted places. It's on some, one of my members tells me it's on like AMC or something. And so one of our friends, Brett, who's also like the only person that we knew at the time in Charlotte, we hired him to train and they'd have to go up in that dark kind of cement hallway, the film rooms where you'd have to go in and turn on the projector. So I made him turn on a burn bootcamp projector to project it on the wall to make it like some type of atmosphere.

And he'd always come back and just say like, this place is freaky up there, man. And I knew it was haunted the whole time. But I'm like, if I tell him he's going to leave, you know, he's not going to go back. So that's funny. Brett? Yeah, Brett Baltatat, my homeboy. He's a real one, man. Can you tell him after

at least? Yeah, he knows now. He knows now. That is funny. You were saying, Mork? Yeah. So, you know, they flipped into brick and mortar. And then, again, in 2015, so that was three years after we started in a parking lot, we became a franchise. And we awarded almost 200 territories in the first two years. Wow.

All of it was really organic. It was people that had had some sort of transformation in those first five gyms or they knew somebody. And that's kind of how we continue to grow is, you know, within our system. Brilliant. I think going after moms early was so smart because moms love to talk. So all your marketing was just word of mouth. Word of mouth is like our biggest marketing effort for sure. Yeah. Because when you don't have money to spend on marketing, you need word of mouth. So I think that's why you guys were able to crush it. Yeah. Yeah. And when I was playing baseball, I would travel and stay with host families. And I realized that their problems weren't like mine growing up, you know, Morgan's father passed when she was five years old and

she dealt with like a lot of issues and trauma and familial things from that. And, and I traveling in the world, I realized that most people's, most people's problem is lack of energy, right? Lethargy. That if you could move your body and you could start to get up and do something every day, well, then your mind starts to turn on and it's, you don't have to worry about the mind body connection. It's linked. It's already there.

It's just a part of our human physiology. And so I just noticed my host family's, you know, not being happy in a sense. Offered up what I the only thing I knew was health and fitness and always been a very personable guy and realized that it really helped them. And so it wasn't like an aha moment for me that moms were gonna be the niche and the target but looking back on it knowing that we wanted to have a family. That was kind of how all the pieces came together. And Child Watch is the differentiator in our brand.

Child Watch? Child Watch, yeah. What's up? So we have, Morgan can explain it. Why don't you explain what Child Watch is? Yeah, so it's a part of the gym, usually about 500 to 800 square feet, where they can drop their kids off.

So it's included in the membership. Other gyms definitely have it, like big box gyms, but in the space of boutique fitness, we're one of the only boutique fitness concepts that also allow you to bring your kids to it. So again, when you think about the demographic and the target market of moms and women, whether you're getting them when they haven't had a family,

you eventually are going to start to have kids, right? And so you want to continue to meet them where they're at and be that place where they can come and get 45 minutes to themselves. And a big barrier of that is their kids. They feel guilty that they would have to find a babysitter or they feel guilty that they would, you know, be away from their kids. So a lot of times moms, once they've had kids, they stop taking care of themselves. They don't have that space where they feel comfortable and their kids are great. And so Child Watch is definitely one of

the things that set us apart. And now what's really unique about it is we're influencing the next generation, right? They get to come somewhere and see their mom take care of themselves. And that translates into, you know, how their family environment looks like. And I know for me, growing up as, you know, a woman and being surrounded with the pressures of looking a certain way, it's important to me, you know, as one of the co-founders, I have a daughter as well, that we're setting the right example for them. And we're talking about being strong and healthy, not skinny and, you know, skinny and lean and things like that. Right.

Because it can create a lot of really negative behaviors from a kid that's just growing up and being surrounded with it in society. And so how can Byrne continue to create community and create spaces where we're teaching not just the moms, but also their children the right way to think about fitness and health and longevity? I love that. Yeah, educating children at an early age is super important. It's not really talked about with many families, so that's huge.

Well, because the system's not supportive of it, right? I mean, if you think about what we're feeding our kids in lunches and a lot of fitness places, or I'm sorry, a lot of fitness programs are getting cut from schools, right? So if you think about that, it's harder and harder for us to be able to teach those kids what the important lessons are. Yeah, well, gym class, let's be honest, is a joke in school. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but mine was just you just stand for 30 minutes. Yeah. Well, this generational fitness concept is something that was born because, you know, we are a family. We partner with families to provide a service for families in our communities.

And so we have kids camps inside of our gyms, right? That are like the feeder program into, you know, once you're 13, you can come to any burn boot camp and be a member. And we like a Mercedes Benz almost, or, you know, a lot of the car companies do this. They'll show in their marketing, they'll show that children, you know, being, you know, in the driver's seat and playing around in the driveway or something like just to, just to like, make sure that that brand awareness penetrates the family very deep. And we're just doing that in the same way. Only what's on the line here is your longevity, your health. You know, like we have a sick care system in the

United States. It's not a healthcare system. And we really believe that, you know. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below. And here's the episode guys. Our philosophy of personal training in a group setting, uh, isn't only for adults, right? It shouldn't only be on the front lines. It should be from the moment a child can observe fitness and health and be around an environment that talks about nutrition is the moment that

they start having a positive affinity with that. Right. And so that's what we're doing is we're helping people get off the couch. Right. It's not like we're trying to compete against other companies. We want to help people in the blue ocean, you know, get off the couch and then come into our brand. And most of our members say, you know, I've never been to a fitness place in my life before. I've never, ever stuck to something like this. This is incredible. I don't know why, but I love it here and I'm not going anywhere. So, yeah, I think it's because you guys have done excellent at integrating family with the health, right? So it's added motivation to all do this together and make it a comfortable

environment. Yeah. Yeah. Now all three of our kids, they're always talking about, you know, when they take over as CEO and, you know, our daughter emulates Morgan. Oh, it's incredibly cute to see. She was, tell the story of when we have this thing called athlete games. So athlete games is where our trainers compete against each other to like, they get ultimate athlete, like two divisions, male and female, kind of like CrossFit games in a sense but we've burnified it and uh morgan hosted it last year i would love if you'd share the story yeah no i was the mc and um i had this big binder of like the run a show and like all the athletes and things to say about the athletes and so cameron of course was there

watching us uh we try to bring our kids to as many events as we can because we want them to see, obviously, what we're out doing and why. And so later, after the athlete games had wrapped, we're back home, and she goes into my office. She takes the binder, and she's writing down. She's looking at everybody's names, and she takes my phone. She sets it up, and she pretends to be the emcee. She's, like, calling off everybody's names. And it just was a cool moment for me because as a mom, you know, you're constantly juggling this mom guilt and you're constantly wondering, am I doing enough for my kids? I'm, you know, focused on my career. My career is important to me, but obviously so is being a mom and being there for my children. And so it's good to have

that reinforcement that, you know, they are watching what we're doing and we're making an influence on them, even if sometimes we can't be there with them all the time and we have to sacrifice, you know, being at work, you know, versus being at home with them. And from the dad perspective, too, like what I want, what I want guys to know that are like hungry to grow their business or hungry to be successful, whatever that means to them, like provide for their family. What I want them to know is that you don't need to have this societal pressure of like, of doing one or the other, this ultimatum that you probably see in a lot of guys, especially.

It's like, well, I need to go work. I need to go bust ass in my career for 20 years before I can like think about having a family. Right. And it's like, I got to go be successful. And if I take any ounce of, if I take my eye off the ball on my career path, then, you know, and kids cause me to take my eye off that ball, well, then that's not going to be good for anything, right? It's going to be a lose-lose.

And it's like, no, it's like what actually happens when you, when we had a family, when we had our daughter, she was born, we had already started our business. So we had been running it for a few years. As soon as she was born, I held her in my hands. I'm like, oh, it's on now. Like my, my aggression and my inspiration, my urgency, even patience, like it went to the next level because now I got to care for somebody for such a long period of time. And so it's just something that I've seen that I've observed, not really trying to observe it. It just, it's pretty obvious. I hear that from a lot of new parents, actually. It's that added level of motivation,

right? Because it's not just about me anymore. It's about the future of my family. For sure, man. Yeah. That's super cool. Family of five.

Any more plans for more? No. You're good with five? We're going to keep adoption open at some point because I want to have a big family, but Morgan's, uh,

we're going to get another puppy. A puppy. Yeah. We love German Shepherds. I'm not opposed to that. Yeah. I love dogs. We have a German Shepherd. We'll probably get another one. We like, I're going to get another puppy, a puppy. Yeah. We love German. I'm not opposed to that. Yeah. I love dogs. We have a German shepherd.

We'll probably get another one. We like, I got two. If I could, I would have 10. Honestly, I love dogs. My dream someday is to have a huge compound with two fences that are about,

you know, maybe 10 yards apart. It's all turfed on the North, the South, uh, the East and the West. There's all dog houses and video cameras. And I want like, I want 50 German Shepherds patrolling my property.

No one's going to mess with you. No one, dude. No one. Those dogs don't mess around. No, I think German Shepherds and that breed of dog, pretty sure statistically is better protection than even a gun is. Yeah, I think they bite more people than pit bulls. I saw an article about it.

Yeah. I was surprised. I remember seeing something on Texas News a long time ago. I can't even remember if this is like correct or not so please fact check me. But it was like an actual study where they were comparing dogs to guns or rifles or something in the home and like

dogs won. Wow. They hurt more people than rifles? Yeah, well I don't know. You know, I just read something a long time ago and it always made me believe that. So I'm like screw it. Instead of like getting composts and like security, I'll just have dogs. Well, if people are going to break into your home, they know you have a dog because the dog's barking. Yeah. They don't know if you have a rifle.

True. They actually did studies that if they hear the dog barking, it deters a lot of people too. Okay. Yeah. I totally believe that because when I hear my dog bark, I'm like, I'm scared. I'm scared. She's a beast. Her name's Hazel.

Yeah. I saw you guys say on another podcast, you don't care what your competition's doing. Yeah. Which is interesting. Yeah, I don't look at it. I've never been to the competitors' gyms because at the end of the day, all that really matters is what we're doing. Don't you think you could go there and learn some stuff and then implement it? I think that you definitely can learn some stuff from other people, but we also have so many of

our own ideas, right? That putting theirs in our queue has only given us more things to do. Got it. Right? I mean, we want to ultimately look around and be so differentiated that it's not like, oh, you know, Byrne looks a lot like Orange Theory or something like that. I've heard about Orange Theory. Yeah. No, Orange Theory is a great company and there's no disrespect. I'm sure their workout is great. It's just that I want to spend time

on the vision of our workout, right? It has nothing to do with their workout. What I care about and what Morgan has in her boardroom, she's the CEO and I'm the visionary. In her boardroom, we've got two people, that's two empty chairs that sit there. This is a Howard Schultz nod, one of my heroes. So that's a franchise partner or a franchisee and a member.

And those are the people that we listen to. We're not listening to what our competitors said. Or else you end up, Kentucky Derby, right? Horses have the blinders on. You've heard this before. They have the blinders on because if they look left or they look right, they're going to lose a step. It's such a highly competitive race that if you look left and you lose a step, you're done.

I didn't know they wore blinders. You see the little blinders on them. They'll get spooked if they see a horse coming up on them. They're close to each other. That jockey wants them focused on the finish line. I think when Devin talks about there's a member seat, it's like, we, that's why

it's important for us to travel. Like we were out here in Vegas. We just saw four of our gyms. We talked to the members, we listened to their stories. We just listened to them. They, they give us enough feedback to continue to evolve and innovate. Wow. So you're going up to just random members and talking to them? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We have a member summit where we bring members in. We have a lot of opportunities for not just Devin and I,

but our leadership team to be out in the field and actually doing a workout at the gym and then sticking around and listening. So, yeah, there's a lot of gyms doing cool things. I think the only time we're really looking at what's happening in the future is when we think about technology and AI and how are we going to incorporate that into our brand. But if we're just going to rip someone off and like do what they're doing, first of all, we're like five to 10 steps behind them. True. And then it's not authentic to us. Authenticity is one of our core values. And that's something we've been really like proud of is just staying true to who we are.

Like, always going back to those parking lot days and really being like, why did we do this? And who are we serving? And it's evolved over time. But it's just for us personally, when we're doing something that doesn't feel right in our heart and our head, then it will never land. So it will end up just being something somebody else does, and we probably don't do it as well as them. Well, ultimately our competitive advantage as well. Us, our competitive advantage is being able to have 100% of the company with ourselves and our team. We own it with our team.

And be able to go up against those suits in an ivory tower, right? Then there's no disrespect. Like I'm a respectful guy. Like I want to compete with you. But if you're going to run a fitness company and you're going to sit up in an ivory tower somewhere, you know, and call the shots and worry about usage and swipes and, you know, these KPIs that are super important. Don't get me wrong. I love numbers, but it's not more important than being humble enough to live on what we call the edge of our brand, right? Be down with the members.

It's not like we're forcing it. We want to, we want, these are our people, you know, like these are our friends and our family members. My brother owns a burn bootcamp in Portage, Michigan. Right. So we've, we've been my best, my best friends are our two VPs from college and high school. And so we've always, we've always just, we've never changed up. We've made a ton of money and built a big company.

But what's gotten us to that point is not looking at what other people are doing, listening to our members, listening to our franchise partners, serving their needs. And that's the game. And so we're going to keep going and we're going to keep holding a hundred percent and we're going to keep growing faster than other companies because, you know, we're able to make decisions, stay nimble, stay agile. And the decisions that we're making are coming literally directly, not indirectly. Like we are talking to all of our members. Ooh, that'd be great. This,

this thing. Okay. Yeah. It's a good idea. I'll check on that. We'll bring that back to the office. So you guys value community. We'll bring that back to the office. You guys value community, it sounds like, whereas other gyms are just you sign up and you're a number on a paper, right? Absolutely. Yeah. The fitness industry today is becoming the fit tech industry, right? And it's not that that's a bad thing. We just believe that community is at the heart and soul of human beings and that every human being has a universal need to belong and to connect to something that's bigger than them. And so we're able to, I think Morgan, maybe you could say this

in a different way, but we're able to really connect to their heart, allow people to feel like they really belong. And that's something that, you know, we want to hold on to that. We can't let a private equity company come in and entaint, you know, um, or, you know, sell any equity to a, to a partner because of turbulent times or anything like that. Like we're patient and our company sound and it's not that private equity isn't, isn't great, but you see what's happening today. I mean, if you sell even a minority percentage of your company, that's the decision to sell it in the long run. And we're not ready to necessarily make that call today. So that being said, are you firm on just owning 100% forever? Or say someone like Alex Ramosi comes in,

wants to invest? Is that possible? So I will never say absolute or never, or there's zero chance. There's always a chance. I think nothing in the world is absolute. to invest as possible? So I will never say absolute or never, or there's zero chance. There's always a chance. I think nothing in the world is absolute. But the answer to your question is likely that's the case, that we'll just hold on to it forever. And, you know, maybe Hormozy,

we can have a partnership down the line or something. You might be watching this. Yeah, yeah. Maybe. That's the thing. It's all about partnerships for us. It's not about partnerships for us. It always, it's not about just the money. It's about

how does this help both people? And is it a good match? There's a lot of times that you'll go into money and it's just not a good match. And they don't understand your brand. They don't understand you as founders. And they're just looking at the business opportunity. And that's never how we've approached our growth.

Even with our franchisees, it's not just about the business opportunity. It's also about, you know, what's your core values, what's your mission in life and like, how do you want to impact people? And, um, if it's just a numbers game, then, you know, on the longterm, I think there'd be a lot of conflict. So it's all about finding the right partner. You know, we'll never say never because we also understand what growth capital can do for the company and how it can propel it to the next level. But again, it's just being really disciplined in particular about who that person is. Yeah, that makes sense. Speaking of impact, you guys are big philanthropists donating over $2.6 million. What caused you to become so passionate there? I think our passion for philanthropy really came out of,

I would say originally out of Morgan's desire to stand for something bigger than just fitness and just health. And, and if we're going to say that, you know, we are the staple of the community in whatever community we, that's our motto. That's what we do when we go open a new gym.

Hey, we're the Mecca of community in any gym that we're in. And in order to do that, right. You know, there's that you have to actually be a part of the community. So that's the business case. Right. But it's, I mean, our hearts are so big, you know, I'm one of the most compassionate, empathetic people you'll probably meet. I've had to really corral that to be a great entrepreneur. But what is this for if it's not to give back? What is it for? We don't need more money. What's it for?

And so we try to partner with organizations that are important to our members. We have big plans for philanthropy in the future. But it's been the MDA, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the LLS, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, for the majority of our donations there. And we do it system-wide, so it's something that our franchise partners have been able to partake in as well. And if anybody's searching for a company to partner with out there, a lot of people, especially after the pandemic, are looking into franchising and franchising, you know, the units awarded are going up month over month over month in the industry. Look at the founders, like look at the founders and then look at what we call

the FDD, the franchise disclosure document, and make sure the economics of the brand are good and that the leaders are people that you would want to be like in some way, shape or form. What do you think? I just think it's, it goes back to us being connected to our members. And so we got into both of those organizations because a member came to us and shared their story and their impact that their son had muscular dystrophy disease or they lost their husband to lymphoma, a blood disease. So a lot of it has come from, again, like us just being so connected to the community that we're serving and saying, we've been given this platform, you know, like we have to do something about it. And so

we're just the platform and we're the facilitators we believe. And it's all about, you know, finding those organizations that are near and dear to somebody in our system's heart, because we all know someone that one out of four people are impacted by blood disease, you know. So out of our 125,000 members, it's like there's a lot of people that are impacted by this. And so it's important that we continue to find ways to give back to our communities. And what's really neat is like that those are just two organizations that we mentioned because we focus on a national level. But our franchisees go deep into their communities and are constantly giving back in small ways that, again, are near and dear to their members' hearts. Yeah. And sometimes those are more powerful than donating money. Absolutely. Just showing up.

I mean, like the stories I've heard about, you know, someone's husband died and it's like their burn community just showed up for them, right? Like they pick up the pieces heard about, you know, someone's husband died and it's like their burn community just showed up for them, right? Like they pick up the pieces. They, you know, they've got meal trains. They've got, they're taking care of their kids. They're donating, you know, whatever they need to do. It's just about, again, building a community that says, hey, if something, if you need something, you can find somebody here that's going to help you.

That's super inspiring. And you guys are at the heart of that. So that must feel amazing. I'm super inspired, guys. That was a great episode. Anything you want to close off with or promote? You know, I would say we just launched Burn On Demand October 2nd of last year, and it's our digital subscription platform. So you can take a camp Monday through Friday and you can do it live with our head trainer, Matt Morris, and our whole team of trainers back at our studio in Charlotte, North Carolina. We have 250 plus kind of ever-evolving modalities

that are on there. And so, you know, you don't need to be inside of a burn bootcamp anymore to experience that. And what we're trying to do, going back to community, just extend our community, extend our reach, bring people into the fold. And, you know, and so that's really exciting because this is our

stance on technology to enable healthy behaviors, right? Using technology rather than to put it on the walls. So Burn On Demand is officially here. Love it. We'll link it below. Anything else, Morgan? No. Yeah. I think that's great. Just download our app. You can find out, you know, where our locations are or if there's not a location near you, like Devin mentioned, there's an entire program for you. And we're trying to build on the West Coast. That's why we're out here, partly LA, Vegas, Seattle. So we're concentrated in the Southeast.

So looking for business partners that love what we have to say and really want to go out and build an empire. Nice. Stay tuned, guys. I'll take a burn class. I'll record it and let you know what it is. All right. It's camp, though. Oh, burn camp. There we go.

All right, burn camp. Thanks for watching, guys. As always and let you know what it is. Alright, it's camp though. Oh, burn camp. There we go. Alright, burn camp. Thanks for watching guys. As always, see you tomorrow. Thank you.