FlexIt Pioneers Virtual Personal Fitness Training

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Max Rakhlenko:
This is the visionary podcast series about visionary ideas and people.
Hi, my name is Max Rakhlenko, and I'm Cowen's fitness and retail analyst. In this episode, we'll delve into a topic of the evolving fitness landscape, and the growth, and the hybrid model.
We are pleased to be joined by FlexIt's founder and CEO. Austin Cohen. FlexIt is a leading in virtual fitness solutions with a mission to empower customers to experience fitness in a flexible manner that is in accordance with their lifestyles and goals by connecting members to certified personal trainers and wellness experts, wherever, whenever.
Thank you, Austin, for joining us. And I look forward to our conversation.
Austin Cohen:
Thanks, Max. And likewise, really grateful for your partnership and Oliver Chen's partnership, and the broader Cowen team's partnership. It's really meaningful and important to both myself and to FlexIt.
Again, I'm Austin Cohen and I'm the founder and CEO of FlexIt. I'm really excited to be here.
So what is FlexIt? As Max alluded to, we are the leaders in a new category that we created that is predicated on providing access to the most personalized way to work out, and we call that Virtual Personal Training. This is a category that did not exist 18 months ago that, again, we created. With Virtual Personal Training, we are offering unparalleled live two-way access that connects trainers and consumers wherever they are. This is an unparalleled experience that's delivered through proprietary technology that we built, that's optimized, so that two people who aren't physically in the same space can interact and have a wellness experience as if they were. We're seeking to democratize a traditionally price-prohibitive industry and to help people to access personal training without any equipment required, to get healthy, to get fit, and to start or keep moving.
We're also the only company that's able to bring together consumers, trainers, gyms, studios, and equipment providers through a virtual experience, which positions us at the epicenter of a general wellness experience and enables us to collaborate with all sorts of other groups across the ecosystem.
Max Rakhlenko:
That's great, Austin. It's a very interesting model that you and team have created.
I guess, with this in mind, where do you believe FlexIt fits in an increasingly hybrid fitness environment?
Austin Cohen:
I love talking about this subject. One of the things that I felt that's been most interesting of the last 24 months is that so many people have asserted at different points in time throughout that period that either brick and mortar fitness is dead or that virtual has passed the peak of its hype cycle. Much like most things, we don't really fall at the end of the spectrums. But instead, the future for fitness and wellness, as you alluded to, is hybrid. And things fall somewhere in between the two ends.
Let's look at other verticals for a second. I really like looking at general consumer across various industries and drawing parallels. Let's talk about workplace environments, work is not purely virtual, but it's also not exclusively in-person in the way that it may have been before COVID for the majority of companies. Instead, we've seen companies increasingly adopt hybrid work structures and hybrid workplace cultures. So companies have become more flexible with regards to work environments. Some companies are enabling employees to split days. There are designated days that are in-office days and designated days that are not office days. Other companies have optional in-office policies.
At FlexIt, we have days that are designated office and days that are not. And we have some employees that are purely remote while others are actually going into the office on those designated days, depending upon the market that they're in.
Let's go back to fitness, because as I mentioned before, I really believe that we can draw parallels across so many things in business. People who previously worked out at gyms or studio seven days a week, or five, or six days a week before the pandemic, started to adapt and adopt new ways of working out over the last 24 months through virtual experiences. People who previously, prior to the pandemic, used virtual experiences, started to use new virtual tools over the course of the pandemic. And many of them have started to leave the home and embrace physical fitness center experiences over the last 12 months as we've started to come out of the higher points of the pandemic.
What this means is, as we look towards the future of fitness, virtual options, digital tools are going to fit together with physical fitness experiences. There's really a misunderstanding, I believe, out there with regards to what virtual or digital fitness means. It can oftentimes come off as too much of an at-home experience, but virtual and at-home are not synonymous, in my opinion and from the FlexIt point of view. Instead, I really hope that more people can embrace the fact that virtual fitness means connectivity.
For example, physical fitness centers and studios can actually tap into a digital experience to enhance that experience at the center. Well, what does that look like? Many folks use our virtual personal training platform to have a trainer in their palm or in their pocket with them while they're working out at a gym. This supports them in a level of personalization and guidance that they previously may not have had because they did not want to train with a human, in-person, at that center. Or, they may have, but they weren't able to do so on multiple days and they want to supplement that with our tools.
Again, we're focused here on the concept of virtual as meaning connected, and not just in the living room, through multiple differentiated offerings across all modalities, including physical fitness and mental health, from physical therapy to diet, meditation, yoga, stretching, recovery, and so much more. The future of fitness and of FlexIt is unequivocally hybrid.
Max Rakhlenko:
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And we started this conversation sort of speaking about the past. What about if we look forward, how do you think COVID will influence your business in 2022 and beyond as well?
Austin Cohen:
I love this question, again, Max. And we really spent a lot of time in FlexIt on the subject that it's important to draw inspiration and learn from the past, but it's more important to look towards the future. Fitness is about setting goals, about getting better, helping people to get fit and healthier. And as a business, that's what we're constantly trying to do. COVID unequivocally influenced our business. We created the new category of Virtual Personal Training in light of COVID. When COVID hit, we actually accelerated the launch of our virtual platform. We were not expecting to release it as soon as we did.
The first initiative that we launched on that virtual platform was Virtual Personal Training, which we saw as unequivocal white space in the market when the pandemic hit in Q1 of 2020. Our current products are subsequently a direct response to COVID and all that it brought including, but not limited to, social constraint, a lack of prioritization of feedback, form correction, accountability, motivation, all for people who are not physically able to be in the same space as a coach or trainer. Of course, we'd all love to see COVID disappear, but the long term effects of COVID are real. And our business is adapting to it in a direct response to everything that we've seen come to life over the last year and a half to two years.
So going forward, let's talk about the future, if people feel uncomfortable to leave their homes, for example given the recent surges that COVID's brought, then they can use virtual personal training to get that unparalleled level of personalization in their workout experience from home. We've also seen, as I mentioned a few moments ago, that people have been increasingly excited to take what they've learned that they can do in the home over the last few years out to physical fitness centers, to have their trainer in their palm or in their pocket. We've also seen people use FlexIt Virtual Personal Training and our other virtual solutions anywhere that they're able to capture a WiFi or cellular signal. So you can use our services on the beach. We've seen people use them at airports. We've seen people use them on the side of the road because they were traveling and didn't want to miss their session. You can have your trainer with you wherever you are, whenever, whether you have equipment or not. And that's what a very flexible, personalized fitness experience is all about.
So 2022, in the future, we were excited to continue to give people access to something that they previously didn't have during a time that continues to carry out levels of social constraint pressure, and that takes a psychological toll on people so that they can continue to live better, healthier lives.
Max Rakhlenko:
That's great. And I'm not sure if I'd ever want to have a personal trainer at the airport, but I think doing yoga on a beach could certainly be fun.
I think you actually sort of set up my next question for us, but traditionally January is viewed as the most important month for the fitness industry. What do you do for this year to take market share?
Austin Cohen:
You're exactly correct, Max, January is the Super Bowl and Q1 is the Super Bowl for fitness. This year in 2022, in the first six days of January, we've done more revenue than we did in all of December, 2020, so just over 12 months ago. What's so interesting is that many gyms and studios do the majority of their business in the first quarter or first half of the year. But last year, for the first time ever going into New Year's, the gym industry and wellness industry as a whole was pretty unclear on how COVID would affect the New Year's rush. So we learned a lot last year, and what that set us up to do in light of how wellness has changed over the last two years, is to have what we're expecting to be an absolutely enormous January for fitness and wellness.
Max Rakhlenko:
Yeah. No, I think that makes a lot of sense. The industry is certainly poised for a really strong month, even despite some of the COVID headwinds that we're all seeing now.
So, Austin, maybe switching gears a little bit back to the business, but FlexIt has a number of different product offerings, which ones have been the most popular and why? And which ones are you most excited about?
Austin Cohen:
So Virtual Personal Training is our engine. As you said, we have a number of product offerings, those include flexible gym access where consumers can go to any gym in the country without a membership, and there's no tour required, and they don't sign any paperwork. So it's an unparalleled level of access, totally unfettered to gyms. That was our first product that we ever launched back in 2019.
We also have a premium tier of access, which is called FlexIt PRO, which provides access to celebrity and athlete trainers. We've got Connected Training, which is our low-end entry point that provides [inaudible 00:12:05] access. And we have Flex It Nutrition, which helps consumers to get access to nutritionists and dieticians and their food that they need to continue to see the results they're looking to get.
A virtual personal training, a live one-on-one experience with a trainer that specializes in HIIT, strength training, yoga, meditation, stretching, recovery diet, physical therapy is our bread and butter. Through our proprietary video platform that we built from scratch, that's optimized for two people who aren't physically in the same space to experience a workout or wellness experience as if they were, is the focus of our business. And it's something that's never been done before. For us, it's all about hitting that wherever, whenever mentality. So do it at the gym, do it at the beach, maybe not at the gas station, Max, or do it at home. And whether you have equipment or not, you're still going to get a great workout.
Max Rakhlenko:
That's great to hear, Austin.
So one constant aspect of the fitness industry is churn, what are you doing to raise member engagement, decreased churn, and simultaneously increase stickiness.
Austin Cohen:
Something we really spent a lot of time here at Flex... And I've spent a lot of time on in my prior life. So there's three main things that we're doing with regards to churn, engagement and stickiness. The first starts with our product, what we deliver through virtual personal training and our other services is what we call results-based training. In fitness, results means looking or feeling better. So when someone looks or feels better, impact and progress on their life has been made. And that's when a fitness experience becomes sticky because that person becomes hooked on their routine, whether it's a trainer that they're with, the type of workout that they're doing, what they're seeing and feeling, they're going to want more of all of that. So for us, results-based training is one of the tricks and keys to minimizing churn, increasing engagement, and subsequently increasing stickiness. To get results, you have to prioritize accountability, motivation, feedback, and form correction. And that goes for whether you are someone who's an elite athlete, or if you've never worked out before.
The second thing is that it's absolutely essential to provide incredible service. I come from a background where we started a private jet company and we were delivering flights 24 hours a day. We had a saying that lived on the shoulder of every sweatshirt that we ever produced, or the hats that we distributed, which said 8760 on it. 8760 is 24/7/365. We were there for our members every hour of every day of the year. And we've adopted that mentality here at FlexIt. We're delivering virtual personal training sessions across the world at all hours of the day. We call that time zone efficiencies. It doesn't matter where the customer is, there's a trainer who's going to be able to deliver the experience that that customer wants and to help that customer meet his or her needs 24 hours a day. And we're really proud of that. We have trainers and clients on six different continents right now. Given that, our customer service has to be there around the clock.
And we prioritize as close to real time responsiveness and feedback as we can because we're delivering a very high-end product here. The white glove element is essential and helps us to separate our experience from anything else that's out there. We've all had experiences with various consumer tools where we may have wanted to get in contact with a company to get feedback and support, and we weren't able to as quickly as we wanted to. Our results-based training through our product and our unparalleled customer service together help us to decrease churn, increase engagement, and increase stickiness.
But there's a third element, as I mentioned a few moments ago, that's key, that's tied in with both of the aforementioned, which is making sure that we're pairing the right consumers with the right trainers to get to where we need to be on churn, engagement and stickiness, much like a dating experience. Not everyone's going to be a match for one another. And so we work really hard, both live and through digital algorithms, to pair the right people with the right trainers based on goals. Because again, back to the first point, people start to look and feel better when they're seeing results, and then they stick and they stay around longer. So the service reinforces the product that we're delivering, which includes pairing people with the right trainers and helps us to produce a high engagement, very sticky, low churn model.
Max Rakhlenko:
That's really interesting and compelling way to think about it.
Austin, for those in New York, we can see your ads around the city. So with this in mind, can you discuss your marketing priorities and how do you think about LTV to CAC? And just with all of this, what do you see as the top opportunities to increase the lifetime value of your customers?
Austin Cohen:
Max, I had a feeling you were going to bring that up. And I hope you know, I don't think I've told you this before, that we put that poster up in the West Village just for you. But-
Max Rakhlenko:
Yeah, he did that.
Austin Cohen:
But happy to dig in a bit to LTV to CAC, which is obviously essential to a business like ours and for many other consumer businesses. What we're doing here, for context again, is bringing down the barriers of entry to personal training. So let's talk about personal training historically, it's been delivered at gyms where an individual needs to be a member to the gym. And a training session is typically price-prohibitive, even at more cost effective gyms, such as the HVLPs, or you can have someone come to your home, which most people can't do. Or, you can personal train outside on say a patch of grass, which most people don't do. So we brought the price point down. We've enabled people to do it from wherever they are, and they don't need anything, such as equipment, to do it. It's also more comfortable and less intimidating when no one's around you, because you can do it from the confines wherever feels most comfortable. Personal training at a gym may be uncomfortable for many since there's others there that may be looking at them, or there's the perception that people may be looking at them while training.
In bringing the price point down of prioritizing results, we've made ourselves very focused on LTV. We just spoke about stickiness a few moments ago. So, if we can create high engagement on a high AOV product at a really good price point and acquire customers efficiently, then we can get to a really good LTV to CAC, which we've done. So for us, in terms of marketing priorities, back to your first point about our New York City blitz, we're very focused on two primary buckets, exposure... You saw the poster that we put up near your apartment... and acquisition. This is an 18-month new product in a category, again, that didn't exist before we created it. So to the former exposure, there's definitely a lot of education that we've been doing and that we're going to continue to do to educate people on the fact that this category exists. And it's something that people need that they may not have realized that they need, and that they can now access in ways that access was not previously provided.
So we're constantly trying to raise the bar across exposure and acquisition. We're focused on customer service, we're focused on educating consumers and articulating everything that we're doing it here in a live one-on-one experience as being more accessible than prerecorded or livestream content. We're trying to teach people that if you previously felt uncomfortable to personal train, you can now do this in a comfortable way. We're encouraging word of mouth, and we're creating programs that reinforce the stickiness that we just ran through, such as rewards programming. In doing all this, we're creating a fully integrated ecosystem, more on the [inaudible 00:20:31], but including nutrition and equipment. And in bringing all these things together and pushing forward on exposure and acquisition, we can get to a healthy place and get a good LTV to CAC ratio as we prioritize the elements to our business that are important.
Max Rakhlenko:
Got it.
And Austin, you recently launched Flex It Nutrition. Can you tell us a little bit more about it and what was the catalyst for the launch of this feature? And then what are some of the other wellness features that you offer? And just more broadly, does launching nutrition open the door to potentially further broaden your wellness offering?
Austin Cohen:
Absolutely does. We're here not just targeting traditional strength training, which may typically proceed with personal training. We're targeting broader wellness, we're targeting mental health. Again, we cover the categories of diet, meditation, physical therapy. There's so many disciplines modalities that we're covering. I love getting into nutrition. So I'm really glad you're raising this point. The adage goes, it's not just what you do in the gym, it's also what you do in the kitchen, and it's spot on. So to your first question, where did nutrition come from? We were getting constant feedback from our consumers and our trainers that they were looking for nutrition services, help with meal planning, what to eat. They wanted nutritionist, dieticians. They wanted the guidance that pair with their training. So maybe they're training two or three times a week and they wanted one or two diet sessions to go with that. And then they needed a place to get access to what they should be doing in the kitchen.
We want to bring that all into our ecosystem. Again, our whole business and reason for being here is to help customers get to where they want to go. So fitness and nutrition are not mutually exclusive. We're enabling our customers to get to where they need to go. One of the ways of doing so is helping them to have access to all the things that they need in one place.
I mentioned a few moments ago that I like to draw parallels from other consumer verticals and spaces. We talked about workplace culture and the concept of the partially remote workforce. Let's talk a bit about content for a second, people are absolutely inundated with content right now. They go from phone calls to text, to emails, to direct messages, to Slacks you name it. There are so many other forms of content that's flying in front of people. There are so many things in so many places that makes it difficult for people to go back and forth and manage all of this content. People really need ease of consumption, they need centralization. And that goes for fitness as well. There's so much optionality and fitness, but what we want to do at FlexIt is not require the consumer to have to individually go around between their phones, and their emails, and different services they're using and going to Amazon for nutrition and another store for equipment. We want that all to live in one place, and we've done that.
So we've brought equipment into our ecosystem. And with Flex It Nutrition, we're now giving access to our consumers to top tier nutritionist and dieticians, as well as providing them with access to the products that they need to stay on track to meet their goals. What does that mean? Well, we talked about it being what you do when you work out and what you do in the kitchen. So now our customers, through Flex It Nutrition, can get both the advice they need from the nutritionist and dieticians after their training sessions, as well as grab their Whey Protein, their power bars, and all the other things that they need to eat right, to get to the results that they're trying to achieve.
Again, the impetus comes from our trainers and our customers. We took their feedback. We're helping them, through that feedback, to live healthier and happier lives.
Max Rakhlenko:
And Austin, another really interesting product that you have is FlexIt PRO, it seems very differentiated from anything that's out there in the market. Just curious how you're able to get all the trainers on board and how long is the wait list to work out with some of the most in demand trainers? The product just appears to be really cool.
Austin Cohen:
Yeah. We've got a pretty long wait list right now. We're working to get people off the wait list as quickly as we can. We're super excited about PRO. We launched PRO this past summer. Ebenezer Samuel was the executive director of Men's Health. He's also our Head of Training Innovation, really helped us to craft this program. The fundamental theme behind Flex It PRO is making the inaccessible accessible. And for the first time ever, much like everything else we're doing, we're bringing down the barriers to entry and we're democratizing access so people can get things that they previously couldn't. FlexIt PRO is a delivery mechanism to access celebrity and athlete trainers. So the likes of Jennifer Lopez's trainer, Heidi Klum's trainer, 50 Cent's trainer, these trainers are all on our platform and they're delivering amazing experiences to our consumers who are looking for this very elite premium opportunity.
FlexIT PRO is not for everyone. It's designed for very serious enthusiasts with specific goals. And it fits in nicely with our entry point offering remote coaching tool, Connected Training and our core product, Virtual Personal Training. FlexIT PRO is very expensive, and it's built out of an understanding that certain customers have needs that may be different from the average customer. And we want to bring them the trainers that are going to help to get them there.
We're really excited, like I said, it's been such a great addition to our ecosystem over the last half a year. We've got lots of cool new things that are coming out on the PRO platform. Some of the things that we've been doing over the last few months have been running Virtual Personal Training on PRO as well as live activations, so live classes with pro trainers. We just popped up at Art Basel with the Arlo Group with Johanna Sapakie, one of our pro trainers, who's also Jennifer Lopez's trainer. And we're excited to do more with PRO throughout 2022.
We're also really proud that we have a lot of celebrities and athletes themselves who are training on PRO because with their busy lives, their busy schedules, they're on set, they're traveling, they never have to miss their workout with their PRO trainer, because we've got the platform that helps them to do that. Again, great addition to the ecosystem. Love talking about PRO, it's helping us to make everything that we're doing more well rounded.
Max Rakhlenko:
Maybe I should start using PRO, or one of your other offerings during earnings calls going forward. But Austin, as a business leader, how do you think about balancing revenue growth with profitability?
Austin Cohen:
Max, as long as we can record those sessions of you on PRO for the earnings calls, we got you covered. But on a more serious note, as a business leader, I'm always focused on building the healthiest business possible. So right now we're at a growth phase. We're focused on growing quickly and faster each month. We're trying to get to scale, so we're working on getting the word out about what we're doing, sharing our story, propagating our mission. We've got a massive international opportunity in front of us that we barely scratched the surface on given how asset light our businesses. We're constantly, as we go through this growth phase, working on building our revenues and simultaneously refining our underlying unit economics, which are incredibly tight. And we're really proud and excited about that because it puts us in position to be... It sets us up to be poised for scale.
At the same time, we're really focused on our path to profitability. You can't save your way to profitability. There comes a time when you have to, of course, keep a careful eye on the future of the business and how profitability trends. So it's part art, part science. I come from a structured background, I was in the world of venture. I'm a Columbia Business School graduate, so we're very focused on all of these concepts and we're simultaneously trying to balance them, given where we're at in our growth side.
Max Rakhlenko:
Got it, that's very interesting.
And just couple last quick questions, but what do you see as the future of the fitness industry and what attributes do you think that the winners will exhibit?
Austin Cohen:
So I've been a part of a lot of different industries, like I said. I have a background in venture capital, mostly a consumer, I've spent my time in tried and true sports, hospitality, consumer luxury, food and beverage. I've never enjoyed an industry as much as I enjoyed the fitness industry. I played sports in college, fitness is my personal passion before I've worked in fitness. It has been an incredible part of my journey to be a part of the fitness and wellness industry. I like to say it's a small world, it's a very small world in New York, and it's an even smaller world in the fitness industry. The fitness and wellness community is incredibly tight, but everyone in it is so wonderful. And there's this shared commonality in that everyone is working to help improve people's lives, to help people to live healthier better lives through various experiences.
We're very active in the fitness and wellness community. We regularly participate in the events that IHRSA and Club Industry put on, among others. And so it's been really enjoyable building out our business with the mission of helping people. And the stories that we get back from consumers, where we hear about the impact that we've made on their lives is really a huge part of why we're doing what we are.
The acceleration of incredible stuff in the fitness industry over the last two years has been amazing. I haven't seen this in many other industries, and the way that it's transpired in our industry over the last two years. So to answer your question, Max, about the future of the fitness industry, unequivocally bullish on wellness. More people are focused on their wellbeing and fitness in light of the events that have taken place over the past two years than have ever been before. The pandemic has changed people's lives so meaningfully, and more and more folks are prioritizing their health and their wellbeing. So the new import that fitness and wellness have taken on in the eyes of individuals, sets us up for massive innovation and impact in the industry over a broader audience, going forward.
So let's talk about where fitness is going. I believe that it's going to come down to two things to win as we look towards the future in the next few years. The first is personalization, and the second is the integration of the digital and physical fitness worlds. Virtual helps to elevate and take things to new heights of personalization, so they're intimately intertwined. Why? Everybody, pun intended, everybody, but every body is different. So everyone's goals are different, and the way that they get to results subsequently can differ. Tools, whether it's data, live instructions, feedback mechanisms are all going to play into levels of personalization vis-a-vis the digital products that are helping people to get there, whether they're being used solely through a device, or if they're being integrated at a physical fitness center.
So integrating virtual, the digital world with the physical world is going to help to achieve unparalleled heights and personalization. And that's where the winners are going to stand out as we look at trends towards the future of the fitness industry.
Max Rakhlenko:
And Austin, just as a last question, being the founder and just being an entrepreneur overall, what are you most excited about at FlexIt? What do you see happening next? And then just any closing remarks.
Austin Cohen:
I'm really proud out of our team. The things that we've done, the nimbleness that they've demonstrated over the last few years is incredible, to deliver amazing best-in-class, white glove services to consumers all over the world. So let's close in here on FlexIt to answer your question more directly, as an entrepreneur, I'm passionate about innovation, about creating new experiences. What I'm most excited about starting in 2022 for FlexIt, and going forward in the next few years, is what we're calling heightened immersion.
Let's think about what we've done, we've brought down the barriers to entry for two people who are not physically in the same space to feel as if they are. So we've essentially made things that were typically not regarded as accessible, actually accessible. For us, we want to heighten that, think about a trainer who's not in the room with you physically, starting to actually feel much more so like he is. So a larger format experience and experience that feels more real. The person feels more physical, even though they're still digital. Think about experiences where people really feel like someone, through new delivery mechanisms, is with you in your space. That's what's next for FlexIt, and that's what we're most excited about. And we're calling that, again, heightened immersion.
So to wrap up and in closing, I want to reiterate, Max, how much I appreciate your partnership, Oliver's partnership, the broader Cowen team's partnership. We're looking forward to doing more awesome stuff with all of you to delivering more awesome experiences for consumers, whether you've worked out before, or you've never worked out before and you're going to start in 2022. It's a small world, it's a smaller world in New York, and it's an even smaller fitness industry that we share. And I'm excited to continue to help more people get fit with healthier lives.
Max Rakhlenko:
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. I really enjoyed speaking with you and learning more about FlexIt. It's been really fun and hope you found it fun as well.
Austin Cohen:
I did. Thank you, Max.
Announcer:
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