Episode #539: Andrew Menter Discusses Physmodo's Impact on Youth Athletes and Orthopedic Medicine

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1:03 This is Pete Moore NYC Halo Talks. We are going to revisit guest from episode one three five. One three five. You heard it here first. We are now gonna be up to the 500 with my friend, Andy Mentor, and we were gonna talk about Fizzmodo, and we were gonna talk about wearing cool glasses, moving, getting the information you need, and maybe not doing that through an enterprise, maybe doing that through consumer direct. So, Andrew, welcome back to your Halo talks. Hey, Pete. It's great to be back. Thank you. Awesome. So look. We've, we've we've talked every year for the last probably seven or eight years about, like, where this company, you you know, is and where it's heading.

1:45 You had some really good traction at one point in, some of the health clubs and studios on the measurement side and entry into personal training. So give us a an update on where you've evolved the company and where this consumer app may be an interesting layer. It's given people wanna do their own thing and track themselves. Yeah. So I think that, as you know, I think a lot of people may know that have heard about us and have seen us at Ursa. We had a partnership with TRX for a number of years and got a lot of traction in in the fitness space, and and we're still doing well there. But our solution of, you know, doing a thirty second movement screen where we can get a lot of you know, you can self assess, get high throughput. We can be we can be in a lot of other markets, and I think since we chatted, that's, that's something to really highlight. So one example is we're with sports orthopedic medicine group out of Atlanta, and they work with 25,000 youth athletes.

2:44 And so think about that. If you wanna screen twenty five thousand people and do it, you know, on a fairly regular basis, you're gonna need something where you can get, you know, such high throughput. And so What what are we screening for? What what what do what given that population of orthopedic, either surgeons or doctors or or, you know, preventative, whatever it is, they got 25,000 as their as their youth pop in Greater Atlanta. What do they wanna screen and how often should they be doing it, and how do you do that for them? So you you mentioned about the consumer app. So you if you if you wanna screen people when they're in school, that's not real practical because you're not gonna have 24. It's not one school. It's multiple schools. But you're just not gonna have even if it's a school of 400 people, athletes, you're not gonna have them go to the training room and and and screen, you know, too often. So you gotta have these kids being able to screen, screen remotely on on the cons on the consumer app. So, yeah, what are they trying to screen for? So, you know, for those that don't know, it's three overhead squats. We're measuring mobility, stability, posture, and symmetry. And, you know, the one one I like to bring up is so we're getting a lot of ACL tears in women's soccer.

4:07 Yep. Girls' basketball. My niece, is is playing this year as freshman in, in d two in basketball. She's torn ACL. She's at Roosevelt in, in Chicago. It's with, what's that conference with? Like, Ferris State and Grand Valley. It's pretty top d two school. So, yeah. But I mean, she had teammates, you know, basketball, men's or women's, especially on the women's side with with ACL. So one thing we're looking for are, you know, do you have a valgus fault? So we're looking at that and, again, just trying to see if there's poor movement patterns and have some intervention protocols. Is your software as a consumer I do the squats. Does it critique it right away? Does it give me a score? Does it tell me what I'm at risk of? How how does it work exactly?

4:56 Yeah. We're we're real careful not to do anything close to diagnostic. We're just trying to give you information. But, yeah, it'll give you a score, an overall score based primarily based on your mobility and your and your stability. Point out where you may have some some issues, some inefficiencies, and then we have a a personalized protocol about what you can do. Here's a set of three to five things, Pete, that you can do to help yourself. Now, if if if you track the data, not not I'm I'm a, I'm all for, like, science, and and I know you guys have been testing this. But if I have a low score and then, like, a week or two later, I I bust my ACL. Okay. That's actually, like, linear, you know, hey. We told you you had some issues here. You should have gone and checked out or figured out, you know, how to how to, you know, recover from this or whatever it was before you got your ACL.

5:48 Or is there not enough data to say, hey. People with great scores, they also bust their ACL like it happens. You know? They do a different type of turn or something happened in the game or, you know, what have you. So how do you kinda either support that claim or combat that if I was a naysayer, which I'm not, by the way, and I like your glasses as well. Okay? And I'm all about Fizzmodo, okay, for for quite some time now. So does the score indicate an actual injury? And is that a trend analysis that you could show someone and be like, hey. Look. Let me tell you what this is gonna do for you and for your team because this is what happens when someone gets a little score and they don't do anything about it. They get injured. That's That that's I I like that because so there is research out there, which has gotten some scrutiny looking at the at the FMS.

6:42 And I I think the number is maybe 14.3. So their max score is 21 on their screen. And some research saying if you get below a 14.3, you have a greater propensity to get injured. Again, there there has been some scrutiny. So a couple things. Right now, since we are now finally going out with this new version we have where people can do the screen, we also have the soreness map front and back, where you can put in your soreness front and back, injuries, and then we can have the the tracking. So we today, no. We we we don't have that FMS 14.3 equivalent, but, yes, that's what we're driving towards.

7:24 To say, you have certain number and we can go into not just, hey. You have mobility issues. You're going to likely have an injury or more predisposed to an injury. But, specifically, your shoulder is 43. Below below which of 43, you're you're more likely to get a shoulder injury. Now the one thing I will add to that is, here's the issue. Because I and I won't name the name, but talking to, a college, I said, I don't I don't want that information. Oh, interesting. Because if I have somebody that I know, if they're below a 43 and they have a greater chance to get a shoulder injury and they get a 42 and then I put them out there and they injure their shoulder, I I have some liability issues here. Wow. Okay. So I think so it's kinda interesting because, yeah, you gotta you know, it's it's, you know, every you know, people are looking for, you know, waste waste to sue people because that's that's, you know, like, a big thing. This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards from retailers that allow you to incentivize your members without having to do zero down and one month free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going to answer

8:56 questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is real. I wanna pivot towards something completely different. You just mentioned something that I don't talk about on any podcast to date. You said we got a new software version coming out. When you started this company, did you have any idea how many new software versions you were gonna have to come out with? I didn't know how many software versions, and I didn't know that I have to do about 1,400 decks. But yeah. Right. It's 02/2025 almost now. I I I think when we started in 2016, we were gonna be out by twenty twenty twenty one, something like that. Four years later, we've just kind of rebooted after COVID. So Right.

10:03 That year's surge my When I started my software company back in Arizona, I thought we were gonna, like, update and modify, but I never really fully contemplated what, like, new versions were. You know? It's like launching a completely new product. Well, I don't know about you, but when I launched this software, I didn't really know anything about software. So that was a that was a challenge. I under I I loved what we're doing. Like, hey, I've had a left Achilles tear. I have a torn left meniscus. I have a ruptured, bicep tendon, left side. Slap tear, left side. It's all left. It's all asymmetric. So I'm interested in okay. There there's this asymmetry issue I have going on, and I I have a a passion for what we we do. I love the people we work with. I like the different markets.

10:53 I just don't know. I just didn't know the first thing about software. So, but but now I now I do know. So that that's helpful. Here's my point. Yeah. One one of the things I take away here is that if if there's an entrepreneur that's listening and they are an entrepreneur and they're doing something in the bricks and mortar space, let's just say, or they're they're a personal trainer, and you wanna become a software company or you wanna build a software, just realize that the software is always wet. It's never done. Okay? It's a continuous, you know, shell of of different codes that's coming in and out of it, and it's not something that launches on its own. And I don't think people fully appreciate what needs to go into building and maintaining and then upgrading and and a new version release of of any kind of software. Yeah. And and so that was eight years ago. Just let's think about 2036 and yeah. Because the software always iterates. One thing I'm really, really excited about now is are have you have you, are you familiar with the guys at Rook or worked with them? Rogue? Or know them? Rook, r o o k. No.

11:58 Okay. So if you have an app and whatever app it is and you want all the information from any of your wearables, your Ora, your Whoop, your Garmin, your you name it. If you want that integrated into your app, you work with Rook. They have an SDK that that allows that to happen. So if you ask me in 2016, hey, do you think you'll be in a place where you're capturing everyone's movement, but you're also bringing in all of their, you know, HRV data and sleep and ox you know, resting heart rate and all this. So, what I mean, what are your thoughts? I'm like, I don't even know what the hell whooper or anything was eight years ago. I don't see I mean, it's just it wasn't popular. So Do you do you feel like you're in the position as, like, you're gonna be the interface and everyone's gonna link into your you you as, like, the as the the central app? And the reason why I asked that, I guess it's a two two part question. One, do you think that people are gonna do that? Two, there's not a software company or database company or AI company or a company that doesn't tell me, oh, I own I own the data. You know?

13:09 I'm like the central depository. I'm like the the brain or the brain storage system. Those are my two questions. Second one's kind of a question. I don't know what the question mark where I put it, but you know what I'm saying. There are two questions in there? Yeah. Don't No. We don't layered it on. I don't think any of us own any of our data. No. Technically, I mean, what we're trying to do is in terms of data, yeah, the customer always owns the data and anytime, you know, obviously, in the policy, if they want our their deleted data to be deleted from our database, you know, let us know, and we we we delete it. But we are excited about being able to aggregate, you know, deidentify, aggregate, all that stuff, and come up with some pretty pretty cool insights. What what I do what I really like about, on on the wearable side is, look, I'm getting I'm getting a recovery score from my Whoop, and that's based on how I, you know, primarily how I slept and my stress level and all that stuff. Right? And then I get a big message from WHOOP saying, dude, you should just go peak day to day, go crush it, or you shouldn't even get out of bed.

14:16 It's a you're a disaster. Something along those lines. Well, I've gotten awesome this awesome sleep scores, HRV, all that stuff, great recovery, and it says you're you're ready to go. Well, the the story I like to give is when I did this long hike and I got a 97 on my week because I slept well and I was relaxed and all that stuff. And Yep. It wasn't yeah. But yeah. But I have a torn meniscus, so I couldn't walk. So I was getting a I was getting a 34 on ours from a biomechanic, but my biometric kind of physiological data was good. So what is my true readiness? And so, I don't know because you need to look at both. You need to look at how you're moving that day and all the others. And so that's what we're aiming to do is we wanna be the biomechanical piece. Let's integrate some of the others and not tell you what your true recovery is. I don't know if that answered your question at all. I just got to like, when you like to if I'm if I'm on your system on the b to c side, I'm logged in and and all of my other apps, you you are gonna be linked up into my Fizzmodo app?

15:22 If you any wearable that you would have, and I don't know when you you're going to to post this. This is probably gonna be It'll be a couple of months from now. So feel free to Okay. Tell what you what it looks like. Yeah. Yeah. So, for onboarding, you you'll have the option, if you'd like, to integrate any of your wearable data from your Garmin or Aura or Whoop. You don't have to. But if you do, we're gonna be able to say, okay. That's the score you have there, but now we're also gonna look at the movement score you have from Fizzmodo. And then let's try and work to see what where's your true readiness today. Got it. And how often would I need to or would I want to or should I update my Fizzmodo score on my human movement? Yeah.

16:08 So but we think you we we'd like for you to measure as as often as possible. And so but certainly, at least, I'd say once a week. The problem, I think, there there's a lot of really good movement stuff out there. I mean, movement technology is is is awesome. It just takes too long in many cases. And people, you know, don't you don't have even five minutes to do a to a do a movement assessment, you know, more than every two, three, four weeks. So thirty seconds, we want you to do it quickly because there's too many variables into affecting how you move. Have you been driving all damn day? Have you, had a huge workout the day before? Imagine if you actually just got your HR V once a month or once every few months. It's not really valuable information. How often how much does it cost for me to as a consumer to go on the app? It's, $8.99 a month or 89 for the year. And but we're we're having when people come on the app, we're not going we're not saying, hey, Pete. Before you can do anything, I want your first name, last name, date of birth, name of your first born, all that stuff. We're just having people come on the app and then do do the screen. And if you like it, then you can give us some information. And if you don't wanna give us any information, that's okay. Just give me your first name. But, you know, give me what sport you play, what's your date of birth so we can give you scores not compared globally to everybody, but compared to your age group, compared to your demographic,

17:41 compared to other baseball players. So, hopefully, a lot of decent rich information. And we just want people to to to try it out and, you know, try to scream as much as you want. If you don't if you don't wanna move forward, then that's okay. Then we've done something wrong. If you're the orthopedic group and they got 24,000 kids, and they're trying to, like, actively monitor those kids, on in that case, you would you would charge them an enterprise license fee? Yes. Correct. If you're if you're kind of their if you're, like, their, you know, remote monitoring halo, you know, enabler, what else could you be testing down the road through your technology?

18:25 Or what else would what else would people wanna test? Is there anything Yeah. You could do? It's it's it's well, it's it's related to, I think, the question we get a lot, you know, can can you, you know, you know, do other movements? Well, the answer is yes, but we're we're not going to. So so two things. Number one, there are movement assessments that do multiple screens. And so some may say we've heard before, I'd love to get shoulder rotation. Well, we don't do shoulder rotation. But I think that some of these companies that maybe can be perceived as competitors, and then maybe they are, I guess, but we could be working together with a lot of these companies. So for instance, if you are getting a great score on Fizmodo every single time, you know, good for you. You're probably doing just fine. If you get a really bad Fizmodo score, maybe you do wanna do something a little more comprehensively.

19:14 So let me introduce you to this company that does five or six assessments. You gotta spend a little more time, but we see us as, okay, we're now seeing your score is either low or your score is low compared to your baseline. Let's investigate further. So, no, I don't plan to do other movements, but where we are going to be helpful is just from our own movement is there are a lot of insights. So one example, people like to get a better score, so they squat deeper. Well, what happens then is they lean further forward in order to get that deeper depth. So that cancels each other out. Now why does that happen? A lot of times, it's because their dorsiflexion sucks. So I use that as an example because we're getting all these insights about why it's happening, just from one movement.

20:03 This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast. We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose, higher dose dot com. They are the leader in workout recovery products, infrared technology, LED light masks, neck enhancers, and other products such as PEMF mats and sauna blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train yet, your time and your stop is now. You gotta get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas end up saturating your market, having your members walk out of the club and going into one of their locations for $200 per month, where they're paying 39 to you, let's become an expert in workout recovery if we are already an authority in workouts.

20:53 Higher dose, check it out, is a wholesale code, and we look forward to helping you augment your products and services to meet the demands of your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy, and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout. This is a random question. Is there any, any assessment or any job requirement that you would be required to or asked to do this study and then send in your results as like a like, you have to get a certain amount of, points maybe on your ACT. We might have to have a certain grade point average to get into a college or what have you, let's just say. If I'm gonna go and and sign up and try to become a firefighter, right, if my Fizmodo scores below x, like, I'm probably not gonna gonna make it. Is there, is it guys that do, you know, any kind of, like if I worked at the post office, you know, and I wanted to be, like, a, you know, mail delivery. You know, I'm I'm doing a lot of walking or I I don't know. I'm just trying to think.

22:06 Is there any, like, job application or job screening that has to do with this as, like, a mandatory part of, like, the evaluation amount or, like, something you have to do before you apply? I'm just asking. So no. I it's I I love that. I I love that question because there's two things. So we've we've worked, with special ops, and these are people that are already, in in the military. But, yes, at a recruiting station, absolutely, we should be there because people are doing other tests to see if they're qualified. Well, if someone is fast, strong, powerful, smart, you name it, a lot of good things, but they can't move, probably not qualified. And you can hide injuries, you know, pretty easily, but you if you move poorly, it's tough to hide.

22:56 That said, it's it's a it's a challenging market, one not really. I'm gonna spend a lot of time and time and money going after. But on the workers' comp side, and we're starting to dabble in this a little bit with partners because there's no way in hell I go try and do this myself. But, yeah, I don't think like, if you wanna go be a warehouse worker at at Amazon, then you have to yeah. I mean, theoretically, you should be able to squad at least 75 degrees to be able to to do that. Whether they could make you do that assessment and you have to do that without which they wouldn't give you a job, there's probably some legal issues there. However I don't know. Maybe. I think there's a there's a lot of scenarios where you're saying, alright. So, Pete, you average an 82. Alright. So then you end up getting Hold on a second. Is that good? Because I don't like being used as, like, a guinea pig unless I get a Oh, you know what? That's actually really good. No one gets an 82. $50. I don't know why I went don't edit this. K. You're an 82. You're you you are the specimen. We we know you are. Well, I'm just saying. So let's just say you go and hurt yourself, you know, in in the warehouse. Unlikely because, you know Well, I think we got me too, bro. I didn't respond to that. I don't know. That's just I I I screwed this up. Can we can we just let's just start the whole podcast over. I think we should use someone else who's not in this is elite physical condition as a as a medical That's a good point. It's unlikely it's unlikely that we're gonna find anyone that would meet the bill here.

24:26 So let's just keep talking about me. Let's whatever your score may be, let's say by some freak chain of events, you hurt something. Right? Yeah. And you go get myself. Yourself. Yourself. Yeah. You wouldn't know. You're you're a nonviolent human. Alright. So then you go get your surgery or you rehab or whatever it may be. So we know how you move. We know you're an 82 at baseline. You come out of surgery, you're gonna be a lot lower. So now we're like, okay, Pete. We're gonna bring you back to the job, not in three weeks or three months or six months. We need to get you back to where you're moving like you were prior. We need to get you back to that 82. That's where I see a ton of value with this. Now, there's what we no one's no one's come up to me and said, man, you are a freaking genius. Doing a movement assessment, that's I never heard of that. Well, yeah. There's a lot of I think I think there's a lot of realization that a lot of people get injured and there's a lot we can do about it. It's just how do you scale it? So, yeah, what you're suggesting would be great if if if you could do it on a scalable way. And we could do health companies that we're working with right now that may be interesting to do assessments with. I'll I'll follow-up with you on that separately. I think that that yeah. This is this is we're getting some inquiries in there. And like I said, I I partners like

25:58 you or whomever else, great. It's just not our it's not it's a very, very valuable market that, as you know, costs a lot, and we have other, you know, markets that are large and easier to get to and, you know Yep. But but this is this is exciting. Great. Alright. Well, thanks for coming back on, giving us an update. I think the the important part here, takeaways for investors and for entrepreneurs that, you know, you you honed in on, hey. This is a great way to be a part of the, the assessment and the personal training evaluation inside of a club. Now the question is, who else has pressure points and pains that I can be a solution for? So if I've got 24,000 youth sports kids that I wanna connect to, who has that who has that frustration? And let me modify my software to be the nexus between that information and people that could do the great change, maybe avoid people from playing, optimize them before they play, or at least monitor people along the way. So congrats on that. And, you'll get us all the information so we can put up the links and, you know, figure out where the b to b to c, I think, is to play if you ask my humble opinion. But you didn't, but it's free because my show, so I'm giving it to you. I think the b to b to c of these, like, orthopedic organizations or big networks that are covering populations or, like, pickleball, associations coupled with, like, the doctors that are gonna inevitably,

27:32 you know, repair those injuries. Like, those are those are the opportunities. So thanks for coming on. Good to see you. Go halo bro. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Pete. Thanks.