Habits and Hustle - Episode 176: Carl Daikeler – CEO & Co-Founder at Beachbody

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

Pre-order Jen’s New Book: Bigger, Better, Bolder today: https://amzn.to/3hvtqYp Carl Daikeler is the CEO & Co-Founder at Beachbody. If you somehow don’t know, he and his team have been responsible for practically every major exercise craze you’ve heard of for the last couple of decades, P90X, Insanity, etc. Even dietary trends with their Shakeology products. Carl opens us into his world of never really being drawn to fitness or nutrition himself but having a calling as a “problem solver” which led him to try to tackle obesity and improve people’s health. From the start, through the infomercials, paving the way for so much in the fitness space, all the way to the pandemic, and now, Carl is firm in his belief that Beachbody is just getting started. If you’re interested in hearing from a health and fitness juggernaut or are curious about how and where this giant of a brand started, then this is the episode for you! Youtube Link to This Episode Beachbody’s Website – https://www.beachbody.com/ Carl Daikeler’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/carldaikeler ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thanks for listening to the habits and hustle podcast made possible by our friends at true niogen So I've been a huge fan of shrew niogen for years And that's why I am so excited to be partnering with them because I literally don't miss a day taking it And think if you're gonna be using any one supplement, this is the one and here is why with of course an added science lesson for you from me Our bodies produce a molecule called NAD Which supports energy production that starts in ourselves But the levels sadly decline by up to 50% between the ages of 40 and 60.

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scientific studies and is researched by the world's top scientific institutions. So go check it out at TruNiagen.com. That's TRU NIAGEN and we have a special offer for new customers to receive 20% off all orders $100 or more using the code Hustle20 until August 30th, 2022. So definitely run, don't walk and scoop some up now. Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins, you're listening to Habits in Hustle. Fresh it. Well, today's going to be, it's a treat for me, you guys. I'm not going to lie. We have today on the podcast, Carl Dykler. And Carl is the CEO and founder chairman of Beachbody. And Beachbody has been a jeer nut in the fitness business for over 20 years. It is the company behind Tony Horton's P90X,

Sean Tees and Sanity, Hip Hop abs. There's also a really popular one, I'm sure you may know, called 21 Day Fix with Autumn Calibri's. Well, he's the man behind all of this and created this huge jeogrenut, like I said. So this has been on my bucket list. He is a genius, in my opinion, created this huge juggernaut, like I said. So this has been on my bucket list. He is a genius, in my opinion, and just a beast

when it comes to building a brand, a business, especially in the health and fitness business. His work ethic is bar none from everything I've been told and what I've known. And so it was really, really interesting for me and just a pleasure, really, to pick his brain, to talk to him about where he thinks that the business of fitness and health is going

with all the different competition that's come up in the last little while with Peloton and well, you know, every tonal, just to get kind of his idea of where it's going, they recently bought a spinning company as well, which we talk about. It was just a really fascinating conversation. He's a real entrepreneur, but like I said,

he does the work and he puts the effort in and he's built a multi-billion dollar brand. So I really can't wait to share this interview with you guys. Here he is, Carl Dyijkler, Beachbody. I'm just going to say who we have, which is you, Carl Dijkler, who is the CEO, founder, co-founder, chairman of the board now of Beachbody. And like I said, it's an honor to have you. I know so much about your company.

I'm extremely familiar. I'm sure everybody else as well is who've ever done one of your fitness programs. So thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. For your eighth and I hope I passed the audition. Yeah, you did with flying colors actually. Well, we're just gonna start.

And we're just getting started exactly. It's still early. But can we, I just, because like I was, say, I mean, most people of course, I think in my space know what beach body is, right? It's, it's literally like bohemus in health, wellness, you guys have not just fitness programs that have been part of the most, in my opinion, like some of the best I've ever seen, but you have accessories, you have the shakeology, you have supplements, you have all these beach body, like 400,000 beach

body coaches. Am I correct on that? Well, it's a combination of coaches and preferred customers. So it's a mix because people sometimes come go from preferred customer to become a coach or a coach or preferred customer. So that's in general the total number. So how do you describe it? In a quick sound bite, what would you say beach body is? It's a...

Beach body is an all-in health and wellness resource for people to get the help, a prescriptive help to achieve the goals that they've got for loving their own body and still coexisting with the love of their own being at the same time that they're looking to improve it, to feel better, to feel better in their own skin. And what we try to do is innovate in a way that will help somebody overcome obstacles that perhaps diet culture or self-esteem issues or just struggles with stop and starts may have impacted their confidence that they can actually achieve their goals.

So we try to break it down into something that's quite prescriptive. And so that's probably a longer description than you were looking for. But ultimately it's really a resource to help people achieve their goals, to lead a healthy life. Their health and fitness wellness goals, basically.

Life goals. So, can you just talk a little bit about your background? Like, were you, because you guys started, you know, well, you guys are like a direct marketing, direct response, you guys start with infomercials. What was your background? Were you like a fitness fanatic? Were you a direct marketing genius?

Like, what did you come with before you even like thought of making or creating Beachbody? Yeah, honestly, I was a television person. That's what I would say. I had a theater background. So, I thought I was going to pursue a TV career or maybe a sports television career. And then I realized pretty quickly that entertainment, entertaining was not fulfilling to me. What I like to do is solve problems. And then stumbled into the info-mercial world, which might sound like an odd choice

for somebody who likes to solve problems with media and communication, but it actually, if you've got a product that deserves a story to be told, an infomercial was a great medium because it was really the only medium of its kind where you could tell this full story. And so I really took to it. But I found that the most reliable product to tell a story in an infomercial was around somebody's well-being, and their fitness, and helping them understand what it takes to get real results. And so I'm not a, I don't like working out. I'm not a fitness person. I don't like eating healthy.

And because of that, I can completely relate with the audience. And so I'm always trying to help solve our mutual problem. And how can we, how can we try to be consistent with this? And that's what I've been doing for 23 years here. Hold on a second. So you're not like, I would think that's what I've been doing for 23 years here. Hold on a second. So you're not like, I would think that, because I was under the impression

just from like rumblings around that you were very involved in product development in the fitness programs and creation of everything. Is that not true? That is absolutely true. But I come from the perspective of the people who just don't want to do it. That's what's been powerful about it is because I can't relate to people who love it,

which means that the products that we're creating aren't from the perspective of somebody who loves it. They're from the perspective of somebody who can't stand it, which is what makes it so marketable, because all we're trying to do is constantly reinvent it in a way that is appealing from a different perspective. I'll give you an example. We have a program coming out in the end of May called Fire and Flow, which is a first of its kind that I'm aware of. And that is where I was doing a program last summer. I was doing one of our programs called 645, 6 days of 845 days, 45 minutes a day. And on Wednesday was this functional recovery day. And for me, because I don't like fitness, I thought, oh, this is the blowoff day. Recovery, I don't care.

That's not helping me. So I'm just going to blow that off. But I wouldn't. I wanted to do the program as it was designed. And it turned out that I absolutely loved this recovery workout on Wednesdays. And I thought, God, I wish there was more of that in the program. So we created this hybrid program called Fire and Flow, where three days a week, you're

doing this intense fitness cross training with this trainer and Jericho McMathuse. But then, so that's Monday, then Tuesday, you do this recovery, strength building, functional fitness program that really reduces stress. And then you get, you know, psyched up to do Wednesday, which is another fire program, fire, and flow. Six days a week, but it's got this, this, this effect of your burning the calories that you want to burn. You're getting stronger the way you want to get stronger, but you're reducing stress, taking the pressure

off of this six-day-week program and improving the functionality of the joints that are that you're generally, if you're a type A, you're sort of always pushing to their limit. So that's just one example of putting something together from the perspective of many people like me who just don't take to it naturally and need to have a different approach if they're going to find any consistency. So then let me just because we're on this topic now, I was going to ask you that later on, but since we're ready talking about it. So are you somebody that exercises daily? Do you do all the programs that you have?

Is there a favorite of yours that you know? Yeah, I don't. I come in and out of it. And I don't do all the programs. I don't think that's my job. I will all collaborate in the development of all of them. So I'll try them and just see, you know, how's this working, is the queuing working for, like, because people take for granted, like, even though you're producing a workout

video, people aren't staring at the screen like it's a TV show, your eyes are all over the plane, so it's you, it has to be up to a certain level. So I checked that. But otherwise, I sort of bounce around the catalog in a way that suits me. And so, for instance, I'm doing what I think that we call a body block, starting May 2nd, where we have this live tier of content, a premium subscription called Bod Interactive. Bod is a lucky acronym for Beachbody on the Man. So Bod Interactive is Bod, B-O-D-I. And we do about around 8 live workouts a day. So for 3 weeks, I'm going to do five workouts a week on our interactive tier and I'll take the fourth week off. So that's a block.

And so that'll sort of tune me up for summer and be able to do the things that I prefer to do from a leisure perspective. I like to surf every once in a while, I like to ride my bike and horse around. But probably we'll do four or five programs where I really dial it in and get the nutritional on point, get everything on point, alcohol for a period of time that kind of thing Okay, so let's okay, so that's that's interesting I I assume that you were like this crazy fitness fanatic that like works out three hours a day wakes up at three o'clock in the morning Drink shake ology, you know twice a day

Dada-dada-dada-dada like has your nutrition like totally dialed in so I guess I was wrong Let me let me add one thing to it. And I totally appreciate that. The one thing, you know, at 58 years old, the one thing that I literally have finally gotten control of is my food. Because like I thought pizza was a food group. Like that was just my thing.

And, you know, we have this program program portion fixed, which is just these little containers and it helps you understand getting the right balance of macros and what is the right, how much of those macros or food groups, if you will, are appropriate for your activity level. So I can now manage, so I'm managing my food intake pretty well. I don't have a big sweet tooth, so that's pretty easy for me. And I do drink shagology every single day with that fail at 10 a.m. every day. And it's the healthiest thing that I do every day.

So that part, I have found to be quite a quite natural part of my routine. It's the fitness that I'm less consistent with and less on dial and do a program. Right. Wow. Blazing deals, boundless options. It's Hot Grill summer at Whole Foods Market from June 14 through July 4. Fire up the grill with quality cuts at the best prices. We're talking animal welfare certified meat. Check out the sales on Bonin Ribbye, beef kabobs, and New York strip steak. Round out your barbecue with plant-based proteins, slice cheese, soft buns, and all the condiments. Plus, sales on fresh strawberries, peaches, and more.

Don't forget to pie, either. Get grilling at Whole Foods Market Terms Apply. So you're winding down with the podcast. Sounds like you have no plans to leave the couch tonight. Nope, you just want to unzip your jeans, slip on a pair of fuzzy slippers, and rip open a bag of skinny pop popcorn. Because the only place you're going tonight is the bottom of this bag of popcorn. It's a whole bag kind of night. It's a whole bag kind of night. I do love the Shakeology, the Chop It's Delicious, but I digress. But so let's get back to the beginning then, because I'm very curious and interested

about, you know, even about the fact that like when, since you started 23 years ago, I feel like you've dominated the market, but as time have gone, but like I feel in the last few years, especially with COVID, everything else, there's so much more competition, but you've still been able to kind of innovate and be relevant. And I want to kind of talk all the way, the evolution of this. So let's start with like even your partner, you have a partner, a co-founder, right? Name John, okay. Will you guys friends before you started? How did you start that?

I wanna understand like how this became such a juggernaut with really no background in the trial and error. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. It's funny. Just so you know, I don't experience it that way at all. Like from my perspective beach body is a startup and like it hasn't even touched a tent of what it should be. Like that's how it feels to me. I don't sit here like I don't feel like a Success story sitting here talking to you very much a work in progress

We still have to get it right we haven't reached enough people so How many people do you have as as members? I mean you are on a computer public now Yeah, you know two and a half million subscriptions, I think, to 20 million subscriptions. So that's decent. But there's 150 million people over waiter obese in the United States alone. And they haven't, and probably most of them had yet to find that thing that speaks to them.

And that's our job is to reach them. I'm missing You know, I'm at best 10% of where I should be and so Anyway, stay answer your question. John and I were working together At a company called Gutty rinker where we were marketing You know, we had little projects that we were doing for them. They're sort of entrepreneurs and residents. And, uh, Gutty Ranker was going through a period of focus where they were going to just be in the beauty business. And so, um, I said to John, hey, I'm going to start up this, uh, another direct marketing

company. We offered Gutty Ranker to partner with us because as they were narrowing, I said, hey, we're going to do this other thing. I've got this list of ideas in the fitness category because I had already created this program eight minutes apps with another company that I'd started and then I sold that off. So I had experience creating content with this little video and sold like 20 million copies of or not 20 million, it's too many copies, sorry, 2 million copies of it for $20. So I think that was a huge little success. Huge, I didn't know that.

Would you sell it to? What was it with? It was a direct marketing. But I sold my interest back to the company that I had co-founded that company so I sold them back my interest and then so I said to John hey I want to I think the idea that led to Aiman and Ab's I have other ideas like that and would you like to come along and he said yes and so we found that together in really 1998 had our first products on the air by 1999, which were also little short, little work

out videos. And then the real breakout was in 2001, where we launched this program Power 90, which was a 90 day fitness program with Tony Horton, which was basically the prequel to P90X. And that was a great little hit for us. We did $30 million of sales of these six workout videos that we produced. And it's been variations on that theme for 23 years. So then I was going to say, because it was, I mean, today, I'm sure it's very different because now there's more people aware of you and all that. But is P90X like your best selling

program of all time? Or was maybe the shanty insanity? Like what has been the best selling program or the most popular of all time? It's really tough to put that in perspective. I would say the one, the most recognizable, the one that sort of broke through the zeitgeist P90X and there's some crazy stories about that taking off. And then that led to insanity, which was a blockbuster.

And then this program, 21 Day Fix, I would probably say that 21 Day Fix is the biggest overall program, but it sort of spanned DVDs into digital. So, the scorekeeping is a little funky because we moved into digital. But yeah, I would say that those are sort of the three mega hits that are the most well known. So, like the P90 or the insanity like what comes first at chicken or the egg like do you come up with the concept and the idea and then you find talent to attach it or to someone come to you and say I had this idea called P90 X or insanity or In general, you know, probably 90% of the time we come up with the ideas at the company and then pick what we call the Beachbody Super Trainer who's right for it.

Or if we don't have the right person for it, we'll find the right person. In some cases, we'll find somebody who's got a program that is really appealing. We think could be expressed well through video and in-home video. The first one, I kept driving by this place called Yoga Booty Ballet Studio in West Hollywood. We did an infomercial around that, and that was quite successful. And then Shaline Johnson had this series of formats that she was training in clubs called Turbo Kick and Pio. So then we licensed the right with her to develop those for TV. But in general, either at this point, we either come up with the idea or we'll get the sort of

the seed of an idea from one of the trainers like so for instance we just launched this program four-week gut protocol which autumn calibraries came up with this idea because she was suffering from her own gut issues. And she wanted to combine this approach to nutrition with a not-no-impact fitness program that we call for weeks for everybody. So we put these two things together and then put the sort of the beach body look and feel to it.

And that was just a mega hit in mid-March. Well, I think because you know, things are also super, they go like things Evan flow and they become popular. Like anything got health right now, I find is like a really big touch point, right? I mean, anything you say got health even on this pot as people are so fascinated or intrigued or they think that's gonna, is a new panacea.

So yeah, so you taking ideas that are you finding things that are kind of like trending or really kind of in the zeitgeist, right? And then you kind of create something around it. Does that? But I would, you know, I don't know that it's that derivative. But we are paying attention to what people want and we're paying attention to what the latest learnings are.

So let's take Shakeology, right? For instance, I would watch Isabelle, my wife, formulate her own shake at the kitchen counter every morning, like put all these little droppers and powders and I'm like, what's happening? What are you doing? And she's like, well, based on how I feel, I put this thing together. She would like, like literally the whole countertop was filled with little scoops of things and droppers and flower essence and all these things.

And so we needed, I wanted a product that was, there's plenty of protein shakes out there, right? I don't have a protein problem. I have an overall nutrition and vegetable problem. So I said, hey, look. Most people do, by the way, too. Right. So can you, I asked her, can you formulate something that will help me with my nutrition

problem? And she said no, I won't do it, because she had done it for another company. And what happened was like she did it, she put everything she knew into this thing, and then the bean counters, the suits got involved and tinkered with it so that it would be cheaper. Yes. It gives them the right margins. And so she didn't want to go through that again.

And I said, look, what if I promise you that I won't do that? Like what I want is something that'll be good for you to drink and for me to drink. And she said, well, I would love to. I have a list of superfoods that everybody started to talk about. Like it's just starting to be a thing. And and Ashwagandha and Chag and all these things. And she's like, I would like to put that in formulated so that they are synergistic. You don't even have to put tons of it in there. But the fact that there's synergy between these superfoods will make the shake very unique.

But I'm gonna need some help. And that's when she met Darren O'Lean and the two of them compared notes and had the same list and created the shake. That is that I don't think has a appear. It's really in a category all its own because it does combine these superfoods, phytonutrients, proteins, fiber, digestive enzymes, probiotics, and check all these boxes

that most of us don't check every day. So that, what that did, and that's what we do. The reason I'm going to that story is we don't just go into a category and try to do better. We try to invent the category that's needed, that nobody's had guts or team to be able to satisfy that need. And that's what we try to do, whether it's a supplement or a nutrition plan or a fitness program. So when you were growing, right?

So like you said, P90X was like the big, that was the one that kind of put you on the map, which I did, right? So did you kind of take that program and the money you made and leverage it to the next program? Like did you raise money? Did you ever have to raise money? Like had it, because in the direct marketing,

like you have to spend a lot, I would imagine, to then take that, you know, you buy ads and buy time, right? How did that process work? Yeah, well, we started the business with a half a million dollars that we raised from angel investors. And then we were successful enough in the first three years to buy them out.

And then it was when it was in like 2012 that we needed to make some technology enhancements that were so we were basically reinvesting into the business from 2003 through 2012. Once we bought those partners out. And then in 2012 we wanted to bring on a little bit of capital, get it more sophisticated with how the board was run. And so we raised some money, I think, around $100 million at that time. And then started the process of looking at the digital transformation, which we successfully implemented in 2016. And then in 2018, so these things with private equity groups, they call them. They sort of hit a horizon, a maturity.

And it was time for those guys, they were ready to wrap it up. So we had another we wanted to bring in girls equity because we wanted to grow the business and so we basically just sort of traded and so the new private equity came in bought those other guys out this new group called the rain group and and they're the ones that work with us to then take the company public through us back last year. Right, has it been successful? Well, it depends on any defined success.

I mean, I would say that our timing was terrible. And you can't count on these things. The, you never know what a post pandemic environment is gonna look like. So, you know, we use the device to go public called the SPAC, which stands for a special purpose acquisition company. And it basically means there's a company that does nothing that's already public.

And so you're gonna merge into that company, which was a very efficient way to go public. So we started that process in, you know, whatever, in 2019, 2020, and the pandemic hit, and it was like everything was going crazy, and but at the same time, pandemic hit and there was like everything was going crazy. And but at the same time,

then once we got into 2021, sort of the bloom fell off the rose in terms of what this spec type of transaction. And so the market's funny, it'll sort of group everybody together rather than judging a company on its merits. Anything that went public via SPAC was painted with this brush of not being a good company. And so, you know, here we are, a company doing a little over $800 million dollars a year and uh...

uh... getting evaluation that's been just crushed and look now that's that's the current game like so we should say is it has been successful it's nowhere near what i expect it to be right and achieve nearly the goals that we want but on the majority shareholder controlling shareholder and uh... um... i'm playing the long game.

I'm in this for another 10 years and fully expect this thing to realize the goals that we've got, which are to be the dominant health and fitness ecosystem in the world. That's just a matter of being inventive and patient and making sure we've got the right resources. So, so you know, we're just in the middle of the process and I don't I don't judge the process in the middle of the process, I just keep working my way through it. Right, that's a great answer actually. I understand that. Keep coming back, you got plenty of space! Oof, not how you would have done that. You like working with people you can rely on,

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Vitamin water, zero sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass O. Do you feel like, well, first of all, I would imagine through COVID, you guys just crushed. I mean, everybody, I feel like everybody did, you know? But at the same time, have you found it to be more difficult, even pre-pandemic, post-pandemic with now so much more competition? You have tonal, mirror, obviously peloton,

I mean, all those, and then you have every Tom dick and hairy doing their fitness programs and their own zooms and their own classes and How do you kind of like stay relevant in that space and compete and compete honestly? In 2020 everybody got into the business. And in 2021, everybody got out of the business or had these headwinds. And honestly, I just don't think we're anything like Peloton, and Tonal, and Mirror. Like none of them offer a total solution. None of them offer the depths of catalog that we have.

And none of them offer the kind of content that we have, and none of them offer the kind of content that we have, which is, like I said, prescriptive and walks you through sort of step by step every day. So much content. So much content, right? And so, you know, while the pelotons and the connected fitness companies that rely on equipment, they've innovated and done amazing things But the very premise of our company was always that in the both flex days back in the

early 90s or late 90s Our premise was gravity is free if you just show somebody how to use gravity to get a good workout, they don't need to spend $1,500. Now, I'm in the equipment business. We bought a bike company, but I think spinning as a genre or indoor cycling as a genre has been popular since Johnny G. And so it makes sense that that would be enduring, but I don't need to invent smart dumbbells. Like you just need to list them. You what you need is good content in front of you

that's engaging and retaining with great talent that makes you wanna come back the next day. And that's been our premise since we started the business. Well, that's true. So I was going to say, how important is the talent? Because the truth is, after a while, all content blends together, every class blends together, like every program.

I mean, there's only so many ways you can do a lung, just squat, a glute bridge. It comes down to who you kind of resonate with or like as a personality, right? Yeah. I mean, uh, I've done, you know, I actually like who on your program that I've done recently, just because I wanted to see and try a bunch of stuff before I, I saw you. Uh, that lift for was very good. It was short and very effective.

Yeah. that lift four was very good. It was short and very effective. Yeah, well, and you know, it was an interesting idea to reduce the footprint of fitness to four days a week, give people a cheat day as part of the nutrition plan and combine hit interval training with lifting. So it's like super efficient now. Yes, he's likeable. The guy is very nice and likable. Well, they're actually in development right now. We're coming out with a program called List More. Yeah. Over really? Okay. Good.

Yes. It's can why? Where we added the day an extra day of listing. And so the program is a little bit longer because they're listing more, but that premise is enduring. It's one of our top four programs on the digital platform. How did that other one do? It was a guy, it was an Israeli guy, Seguit, and he was doing like... Body beast. Body beast. How did that go?

It was a big hit. I mean, that was still in the infomercial days. And it was interesting about that. You never know about this business. Like since we started the company, I thought that the industry, the fitness industry, wasn't really talking to men enough. So I wanted to do a program that was just like, hey, this is for the guys.

And so we did this program body beast with this incredible body builder cover model and funny guy. And it did okay. Until we started them, open it up and we started to get success stories in from women, which are add the female success stories and transformations to the marketing and then it absolutely took off because women were resonating with lifting. So that program has been a great hit. It led to another one called Master's Hammer and Chisel that he produced with Autumn Calibriis, who

was also a competitor, and the two of them sort of put this male and female lifting program. I think it's a 90 day program together, and yeah, it just continues on. So it's fun. It's a fun thing to constantly reinvent or to look at, like what's missing here still? I remember when we came up with this program, T25, with Sean T. I remember that too, yes.

And it was a monster hit, T stood for time, or Sean T, but the time was 25 minutes minutes and it was such a hit that was like, Oh God, what's going to happen? We have to do 24 minutes, 23 minutes, 22 minutes. But then we did a follow-up to insanity called insanity max 30, which was a really interesting concept because a lot of people couldn't do insanity. It was 45 minutes long. We said, a lot of people can't do that. So what if we, what if we cop to that and we said, look, just do the best you can for 30 minutes because in San Lee's a sprint. So in San Lee Max 30, the goal of this program is see how long you can keep going to your

Max before you need to take a break. And then you write down, I made it to 12 minutes today, I made it to five minutes. And then by the end of six weeks or eight weeks, can you go all 30 minutes? And that has actually been more enduring program than insanity itself. So it's like just these different ways of looking at it to appeal to somebody's sense of aspiration or their goals That that just make it a little bit of a sport a little bit of a reason to go do it Yeah, it's funny. I would imagine it's hard to know who's gonna hit and who's not right because look at the Tony Horton like P90X Everyone liked it guys liked it girls liked it. He's very likable on camera. He's very funny, all these other things. And then you do P90X and then 50 other iterations. And the other iterations didn't do as well as the first one, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I did. And the next three did pretty well. Oh, did it? Okay. Yeah. In fact, so P90X three, look, things transition, the marketing of these chains, the infomercial died. Now it's an infomercial product. Was really at the peak of the infomercial business. So, I got the benefit of this timing.

It was, Tony was this incredible, likable, like we just said, it was, you know, Tony was this incredible, likable, you know, like we just said, just go be you. And don't try to be Mr. on camera, just be you, man, cause you're fascinating and fun. And it was so likable. And so now P90X2 got super functional and complicated. So then we, P90X3, we dialed it down to got super functional and complicated. So then we, P90X3, we dialed it down and made those 30 minutes.

So we sort of shortened abbreviated P90X proper, but also made it a little bit more functional with some compound movements. And that's still quite popular on the Beachbody on the Man platform. So, you know, you take these things out as long as they go and then you come up something new. Yeah. Do you have a lot of people like incoming, like people applying for these,

do you have auditions for people for new talent all the time? We really don't. I mean, we get a lot of emails, Instagram messages, and everybody's submitting. Instagram messages and you know everybody's submitting and in fact I like I won't take a direct Submission because I don't want anybody to say you're stealing my idea because we have so much in development all the time So I send that to legal and they'll look at it, but But you know in general, you know, we've got a lot of people in the ecosystem That we're always working with and then every once a while You'll see somebody with a little special spark and you go, hey, you know what we might

Create a program around you or we'll see somebody like I said a Shaline Johnson or an autumn calibrates like autumn had developed her own portioned program and It wasn't quite the way we do it, but we're like hey, there's something really there Let's develop that with you. So you just spot these people. And like you said, at the beginning, Kathy Smith, I mean, she was, you know, she had done more than anybody in fitness video. And we just wanted to sort of replicate our model with a prescriptive program with somebody

who's a well-known fitness star. And so we developed this program project, You, with her. And so that was a success for us time. So it's like, just constantly, that's why I say, I feel like we're a startup because I don't know the right way to do it, except constantly trying to figure out how to trick myself into being more consistent. And once I succeed with that, I guess my job is done. No, I think you're doing a great job.

I mean, so then after the whole infomercial and direct TV stuff, what was the next iteration? Are you then doing digital marketing? How are you constantly growing? Are you using the team? What is this team, the beach body coaches? Is that how you're going to get more customers? Like what's your plan?

So, I mean, we do digital marketing on social media and so on. But there was a time in about 2006 that you could see that the infomercial was going to hit a ceiling. But we were getting so many referrals from customers who were just raving about their results and shocked that they could achieve something on their own because they failed at everything else right and then all sudden P90X or turbo jam or whatever. Hypocrite. Oh yeah. Hypocrite.

Yeah and and and something works for them and then you know they lose 50 pounds and when they walk into a party and haven't seen everybody they are the center of attention and I watched this play on, I'm thinking, it's interesting because team beach body is a multi-level marketing mod, right? So, and there's a lot of criticism on multi-level marketing, and which is frankly quite valid in many cases. When if you expect like people to load up on inventory or if you just expecting the distributors to be the customers. But in our case, I thought it's really not fair that somebody loses 50 pounds with insanity or P90X, then walk into a party and Ten people decide they're gonna buy it and that person that did that hard work and had the discipline that changed their lifestyle

gets nothing for it. So we said what if we gave them a share of whatever referrals they generated for us, but on top of that If they help those people succeed and those people become walking billboards for the business, that person deserves a piece of that too and so on and so on, multi-level marketing. So all we did was put this model in place so that with the advent of social media, it'd be possible to put a dent in this trend of obesity by letting people with the problem monetize that problem for themselves, hopefully improve their own consistency because now they've got a

prospect of income from it and an incentive to motivate other people to do it. It's like the perfect business model to solve a problem that is not getting solved by the gym industry and the equipment industry in and of itself. And so that has been now the driver of our growth because it works. If it didn't work, it wouldn't expand. But when people, like again, I'll use the four we've got protocol. The four we've got protocols, you said, the gut microbiome, everybody's talking about it, right? And it's true. When you start to deal with what your food triggers are, the gas, the bloating, the

inflammation, like skin issues, you might see some changes from that based on changing how you're feeding yourselves. And it blows people's minds when they see their skin clear up or the inflammation goes away or they're, again, I want to use medical terms. And that echo, that has an echo into their social media space and they deserve a commission when their enthusiasm generates another sale. So that's the new infomercial, frankly, is real live testimonials sharing their experience with our complete products. And so that, and also exactly, and it also gives people, and that it's in a way to acquire

customers. How else do you acquire them now without the commercials? Like you have digital marketing. What are other ways that you're, like you can stay kind of, you know, relevant and keep on acquiring and growing and getting more and more subscribers. Well, again, it comes from, this is the perfect, this is the perfect way to keep the company on its rails of innovation and effectiveness. And that is because of the coach network

and these, what we call preferred customers, if we're not helping them get results, they're not going to acquire other customers. But when we not helping them get results, they're not going to acquire other customers. But when we do help them get results, they can't help but acquire more customers. So that just like a whole effect, that's what brings in the customers. Now, we do have direct marketing that helps support that, you know, search engine optimization and all that. But our job really has gotten much simpler because we don't have to be so clever about marketing.

What we need to be clever about is how simple we make it for people to get real results. That's what beach body has to be about. If we're getting people results with fitness, with nutrition and supplementation that can help them hack, biohack the process a little bit, then we succeed, then we attract more customers.

What has been your biggest success in Beachbody? Has it been a program? Has it been a shake? Has it been a supplement? Like what has been kind of the biggest revenue? I would say certainly Shakeology has been a game changer for us. But I can't really say the biggest success is the discipline that we started with very

early that said, we were never going to act like you didn't need to watch what you eat at the same time that you're working out. And we don't promote that you can just eat a specific way and have a healthy existence. So we promote this holistic approach that frankly is more complicated to promote than this unnarrow thing. Hey, just get on this bike or just take this pill or just eat this way. That's a very, it's a much easier thing to market than what we call the total solution. But by maintaining our discipline to the total solution, people have come to count on Beachbody that when they are ready to go all in and really get results when they're done pretending. I'm going to try a little bit of this and a little bit of

that. When they're done pretending, I think they know they can come to Beachbody and that's when they're going to get real results that are sustainable. That's a great one more question than I can let you go. This body thing you mentioned at the beginning about the fact that you now have this bike. Is it like you acquired this company? And like what is that? I didn't, I saw some stuff about that, but I wasn't really familiar. Is it kind of like you're doing what like Peloton did basically

and you're gonna have a bunch of programs and instructors? Is it a separate entity from Beach Body? No, it's, it's same instructors, different instructors. Well, we looked at, I've been looking at stationary cycling and again, what spinning did that was so genius, people were like losing such crazy weight, doing these programs, doing this workout, and I was like, gosh, how does that translate?

And we've been literally since 2001, had been looking at when is indoor cycling gonna make it into the house. And, you know, because really it's about replicating this experience that you have in the gym. But music is complicated and all that stuff. And then, and then obviously you pay attention to what Soul Cycle was doing, then what Flywheel was doing, and then Palatine articulated it into that home with the touchscreen, and I was like, oh,

that's really interesting. And I wasn't immediately attracted to go into it until we found this company mix that does it very, that was doing it very differently than Peloton because they were doing it not based on leaderboard, not based on the sort of competition that I felt would be unsustainable because it would sort of drive people crazy, like the bike would become the enemy, it's not like in your go get a mode. But instead, mix was doing it around heart rate training. So as long as you're hitting your zone and we do this thing where we calibrate the bike to your heart rate and so that you're being zone one, zone two, zone three. So the trainers

on the screen are trying to get you in the right zone so that you know that that work out was effective for you. So it's not about competing, it's about knowing that you got a great workout in 20 to 45 minutes, depending on which one you choose. That is this, that happens in this bod interactive layer that we charge a separate subscription C4, but it's a part of the Beachbody On The Man ecosystem. So it's great bike. It's basically the Star Trek bike which was sold into gyms for a decade and then mix out of the screen to it. So it's a commercial great bike and people have a great experience with the content. We've got this huge LED wall. That's immersive and we do something very different. This is the fun thing about it.

D. Wall. That's immersive and we do something very different. This is the fun thing about it. It's kind of like this zoom call where we call them the bot cast where the first hundred people or so will actually, if they raise their hands and say I want to be in the cast, will actually project them up on the screen behind the trainer. And so it's not just the trainer that you're watching, but you're actually seeing subscribers working out. They do it not just on the bike, but they do it in yoga class, Pilates, and so on. And it's this feeling of being a part of real group exercise without having to be at the gym. It's super unique. and we've got I think you know in addition to what our Super Trainers do I think we've got another 12 or so trainers that teach every day. That's a great idea

I've never seen that before where you can actually see the people that you're working out with versus just that one instructor Yeah, it's really cool. You know what's what's so powerful about it visually. It's very interesting Yeah, but because you get to pick somebody who's like, oh, she's modifying it like I am. So I don't feel so bad. Exactly. Not who is the trainer. But what's really good and I think important. And this is why people when they do comparisons and stuff, I'm like, yeah, you can't, I'm sorry, but you can't compare to our company. Because we know, like we're honest with ourselves. We know that a person who's just queuing in a video that the way that gets heard at home is very different than maybe it was intended.

So but you have to just hope that they get it and they do it right. And we know in many cases they don't. Well now on body the trainer trainer has this entire wall of people, just like in Group X, where they're looking and they see when a queue was broken. And they're like, no, no, no, guys, I meant Ben, you're right, me or whatever it was, they can make a change on the fly and fix a queue that nobody else does because they don't have eyes on their group of in-home subscribers. But body has that. So even if you're not part of that group, when you hear that refined cue, you're like,

oh, I was bending my back too. Or my knee was going out too far over my toes or whatever. Like it's an immersive kind of training that I don't think has ever been achieved before in an in-home digital training and I'm super proud of it. That is actually very unique. I've never heard of that before. And so that's a separate subscription to then beach body on demand. So let's say if I wanted to do three days a week of, I don't know, T25 or whatever it is,

Saguito, I'm just making it up. And then three other days I wanna do body, I wanted to do the bike. I had to buy two different subscriptions though. Yeah, well what happens is you buy the base beach body on demand subscription, that's $99 a year. And then you do the live content with the bike, it's 1995 a month on top of that. So still, so it's all in, that's $99 a year. And then you're going to do the live content with the bike.

It's 1995 a month on top of that. So still, so it's all in. It's less than $30 a month, which is still less than some of the competitors. But you get all this huge library of content that you treat in plans, the support of the community, and now this live content.

And then you buy the bike, I guess. You have the bike. That's right. And the bike. How much is the bike? Yeah, and there's always specials running. I think it's about $1,500 right now. So it's still cheaper than a Peloton bike, actually.

Yeah, maybe I don't know what they've done. The prices sort of all around. So it's about the same. And then if I wanted to buy that body thing, right? I'm just, I'm sorry, this is just I'm curious, because I'm sure a lot of people also do Peloton. If, because now what Peloton does is you pay and you get like all these other workouts, right?

You get like, I think for 12, 95, I don't remember the price, right? And you get all these other workouts. Do you guys have other workouts in the body membership besides the workout for the body? You have a boot camp in the body interactive, right? Yes, that's right. So there's daily boot camp classes, yoga class,

Pilates classes, strength training, abs, booty, core, like all of it. Like it's really the world's greatest gym live every day. We do also in occasionally Spanish and French and to be served French Canadians and in France and we also provide themed or branded workouts. So let's say I said the 21-day fix was a big hit for us right? Autumn Calibre's will do a live 21-day fix workout. So it's sort of like, you know, you love the Pearl Jam album, now go see them live. So

this is, you like 21-day fix, now you get to do it live and be part of the cast and that whole thing. So it's really fun. It's it's only been, we've only had it going since last November or so. So we're really still inventing, but it's a it's a fantastic canvas that we're coming up with new ways to paint on it every day. That's amazing. And so what's next? And that's my last question for you. What's the next iteration or next evolution for you guys? Is there something else you're working on that you want to innovate? You know what? I don't want to be a tease, but there's a couple of things coming that are as exciting as anything that we've contemplated as a company and daunting and just outrageous.

But again, my goal is I want beach fighting to be a utility. That just like every house has running water and electricity and I want the houses that don't have beach body on demand to be the outliers like what do you mean you don't have beach body on demand how where you're getting your fitness and nutrition programs from and so it's our job to make it accessible to everyone and that's that's what I think some of these new innovations are gonna do. That's great., I have to ask you because it is an entrepreneurial podcast. What do you say? I just didn't even ask you any of these. What do you think? What keeps you so constantly so motivated and so like it isn't your energy like you seem to never have a dip in your iterations and your ability to kind of

your drive, I should say. I think drive is a real worry. Have you always been very driven? Is that like just like a fundamental quality or is that something? I think so. You know, I like, I'm not a big like, you know, people who are like life balance, I don't even know what that is. I can't even identify. I just like to create so much to me that there can be a Circumstance of a problem or an opportunity like helping the population Get more active and just be more conscious of itself and of its nutrition and And to have that complete white space this blue ocean of opportunity that I get to be

at the front of trying to solve that problem, which is a $100 billion problem to try to solve. Like I can barely sleep. Like I'm so scared to death that I'm going to miss it, that I'm just driven every day, that like, what are we missing? How can we make it easier for people? How can we appeal to more people? Why wouldn't they want to feel this good?

And so that's what drives me. And I guess someday I'll kill over. I know. No, you're not. I think you're doing it. I love what you've done. And hopefully you come back. I went over.

I think you have to give another meeting to go to. But hopefully you come back on the podcast and, I think you have to give another meeting to go to, but hopefully you come back on the podcast and you can tell me about the other two things that you're teasing me about or what's coming down the pipeline. But until then, thank you for being on the podcast. You're a great guest. I found this very, for me anyway,

you're a very interesting person and I love what you've created and did. So. Thank you so much. It was really fun. And, you know, yeah, we could talk in August. Thank you so much. It was really fun. And, you know, yeah, we could talk in August. I think I'll have more things to say.

Perfect. I'm going to come get you an August then. Okay. Well, thanks for having me on. Thank you. How do we find you? Beachbody.com. How do people who are listening? For us at this point.

Beachbody.com. Beachbody on demand.com. And... Follow you. You're on Instagram, right? Yeah. I'm no Instagram influencer. The thing that follows that beach body, that's where action is. Ah, beach body, God. Okay. Thank you very grind, don't stop, keep it going. Habits and hustle from nothing in the sun, all out, a host of biogen, a fuck going. Visionaries, tune in, you can get to know.

Be inspired, this is your moment. Excuses, we in heaven at the Habits and hustle podcasts, power by habit nest. Hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I want to tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your confidence to its highest level ever and taking your business right there with you. Don't believe me, I'm gonna go ahead

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