Episode #567: The Shift to Turnkey Fitness Tech: Spren's Evolution in a Demanding Market with Jason Moore

0:00 I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal partnership with the Prospect Wizard. And when I say wizard, I mean wizard. Obviously you have a website. This allows you to convert your website traffic visitors directly into leads. It's not just another chatbot and it's not AI but it allows a visitor to call, text or leave a voicemail immediately. Goes to you, your sales team or anyone else in the club instantly. MIT shows a study that if you contact the lead within 10 minutes, chance of them converting goes up nine times. That of the average. We got the Atlanta clubs on it. Vita Fitness, Gold's Gym, Mountainside City Fitness, Philly, College Park. Become one of the next Halo companies to deploy the Wizard.

0:48 It's easy to use. Go to the prospectwizard.com get a free 30 day trial. Talk to my boy Dave Gallen. He will get you all set up and let the leads flow based on the Wizard. Go get him. This is People on Halo Talks NYC have the pleasure of bringing CEO and founder of Spren Elite hrv who is a returning guest to our Halo Talks audience platform here. As background he's NASM instructor as well as several other accolades and certifications. Have about 3,000 coaches that he's trained in data and biomarkers. Over a million members have been exposed to his technology. He's going to talk today about some of his progress since we last had him on the show, primarily with Fitness on Demand which is going to launch here sequentially with our podcast launch. And Jason, welcome back. Hey, thanks Pete. Yeah, good to be here.

1:49 Yeah, been, been a while. Lots going on. Yeah. So we like to have people back on to tell us that their business is still alive and thriving and that, you know, so the audience knows it takes a while to create value and you gotta stay in it to win it. So, so you are a case study for a, a high grit CEO going through Covid and coming out the other side. Oh yeah, amen to that. The past few years have been easy for almost nobody and we're still going. Yeah, yeah, so, so give people a little bit of a, you know, refresh here on, on where you guys are and how the evolution of software has happened since our, our last podcast. And Dave, we'll have in the show notes here the, the original podcast which is in the three hundreds and now up to the high five hundreds as a, as a check in on where you guys are. It's awesome. Yeah, totally. So people may recall if they'd heard the first one that our specialty is in developing these high tech Solutions that make it easier and cheaper to monitor the results of the body using just your phone.

2:56 Camera, for example, we can do body composition analysis using just the phone. Highly accurate and comparable to a DEXA scan, which is the gold standard. That two years ago, I think when we talked, glass was more of a prototype, and now it's been in full production. We've had thousands and thousands of people using it and very happy with it. And we've partnered with a number of fitness operators and gyms and supplement companies and other things to really kind of help people move the needle on improving those numbers. And now we've most recently launched a platform that kind of makes it easier to roll it out to large memberships, basically. So that's been exciting. So over the last two years, if you can kind of hearken back, like, what have you learned from the market and how have you incorporated that into versions of the software as it's evolved?

3:52 Yeah, yeah. This will be the first time I share some of these learnings, actually, is that we were really focused a couple years ago on building an SDK and an API where technical team who are building other types of software and tech could integrate our technology into those products and services. What we just found is that there's a lot of excitement around that, but the people's budgets and their priorities and things like that led to kind of long implementation timelines. And also, to be honest, this is not a judgment on any of our partners that we went live with, but we just do it a little bit better. We, we, we build a better user experience around our technology. And, you know, so basically we've shifted to saying, okay, if we can provide a turnkey solution that requires no dev, no development, no IT budget, etc. How will the market receive that? And that's going really well right now. And talk about, like, finish on demand as an example, what were some of the frustrations that they were trying to achieve?

5:04 How did your software kind of dovetail into meeting those solutions? And how are you now kind of excited about that launch and what the potential opportunity is? Yeah, well, they've been great partners. Again, this is something we haven't really communicated publicly because we've been working together with them for a while on figuring this out. They're actually, I would say, almost ironically, a bit of a counter point to my previous statement in the sense that they have a strong tech team and they're building a lot of great software with fitness on demand. But also we're providing a few things, obviously the camera technology. So increasingly Their partners in the gyms that they serve are looking to measure body composition and show real, measurable results that they're giving their clients. And this is just part of the overall zeitgeist right now is that people want more personalized guidance that doesn't mean just what your music selection is. They want to know that it's working for their body. Right. And fitness on demand and their partner gyms that we're rolling out to, over a thousand gyms with are excited about the opportunity to do that with the phone. And so, you know, there's a lot of hardware options and their, their pros and cons to the hardware based solutions, but a lot of operators seem to be excited about the phone based solution that we offer. And from an education

6:36 standpoint, either your fitness demand has a lot of counterparties that, that use their software inside of the clubs, whether that's for their, their video and on demand, or for inside the club and actually being able to put content up in the group exercise rooms while people are not, while there's not live classes going on. So when you think of them as a partner, what kind of gives them the authority to now do this from the club operator standpoint versus you going direct to the club operator? Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, they, they're an established player that has relationships with some pretty not operators. And so we're kind of going in together to make that a more seamless experience. But we also go direct to operators as well. So that's, that's part of the platform that we just launched, which is allowing operators both small and large to be able to roll out overnight to your whole membership. Accurate body composition analyses, personalized nutrition plans, and some more automated coaching features that engage members outside of the gy. And so that's been exciting to see because again, no real IT budget associated with it. And remind everyone here on the podcast the derivation of the name Spren.

8:09 Yeah, sure. So it kind of harkens back to my and our team's nerdy roots within sci fi and fantasy. And to us it means essentially the embodiment of the human experience. But it's also short, easy to spell word. So you can find us@sprend.com and all of our socials are at Spren Labs. Gotcha. So, you know, obviously you went through Covid. Did you see a pop then when people, you know, were at home and actually trying to educate themselves, you know, when they had time or was Covid, you know, like a down period for you guys?

8:51 I would say it was net neutral for us. Basically we had a long history of serving people who work out in gyms and in real facilities. And so obviously those people took a hit to their overall routine. But then we had a huge surge in digital kind of self led home wellbeing kind of interest. And then we've seen the same thing that everyone else has seen, which is a lot of people returning to the gym and going all in on in person again. And to be clear about exactly what you're providing. So I've got data, I've got biomarkers, explain to us exactly what that means and how it's being done through the phone and not through any kind of in person or any kind of blood testing or what have you.

9:45 Yeah, yeah. So we do integrate with some blood lab providers as well. I think what you can think of us as is kind of a holistic view of what's going on with the member's body and their progress. But let's just use a typical example. So the, the biggest goal by far is still fat loss. When people are getting into fitness and wellness and fat loss is, you know, working out is an important component of it. But really it's also very dependent upon nutrition and diet. I'll just put a thumb tack in that and just remember that for a second. So typically when a member comes in, the first thing they want to do is understand their starting point. What is their body composition, what's their body fat percentage, how much muscle do they have, where is it on their body? And that's a great opportunity to put them in the right program, recommend the right, you know, services, products, supplements, etc. To them. And providers already see a huge percentage increase in member lifetime value by getting that body composition done, done up front. And then from there it's about guidance and accountability and progress tracking. And we offer tools that make that more automated and efficient for fitness providers so that it's kind of end to end life cycle of the member powering it all up.

11:12 This is Pete Moore. I want to 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 want to 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 questions, you are going to get those answers, you're going to be able to target those members and you're going to 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.

12:09 Promotion vaults your answer. Trust me, this is real. Every software company we talked to says they own the data. Right? And I, I kind of realize that, you know, maybe you do, maybe you don't. Also, there's a lot of groups that are trying to, you know, say, like, I'm the central depository of everything, and the user interface is one I control or don't control. So where do you kind of see things leveling off or like, you know, is the, is the iPhone and, and Apple, like with your health app, is that like, is that the, is that the winner of like, aggregating data or is it going to be kind of splintered in different places? And how do you think about the business when you, you're like, pushing the data into something else versus being like the primary collector of that. I'm sure what I just said has, is not exact, but just like, give me like a framework. Yeah, well, I mean, we kind of. So I mean, ultimately the member owns their data is how we think of it. Like you, you know, you, Pete, or whoever's listening, you own your own data, you can delete it all or take it with you. There's a big trend towards data portability. So if somebody wants to leave and go do something somewhere else, they can kind of take their data with them, et cetera. That's also seen in the healthcare side of all this story as well.

13:37 But I think ultimately, with the rise of AI and all this other stuff going on, is it kind of comes back to the fundamentals of, are you reaching people where they are? Are you delivering a great experience for the member so that they are engaged and getting the level of personalization that they need? And that's actually where the value from the data comes from their perspective. But then if they so choose to participate in bigger R and D efforts and things like that, the data does help unlock new innovation. And so that's kind of.

14:18 Not all data is created equal. But we're very meticulous, let's say, about working with our partners and our members to, you know, have them if they want, opt in for research and help us improve our technologies. And just one example of where that's leading is on the camera. We started out with heart rate, then we developed respiration rate, then we developed heart rate variability analysis, then we developed full on body composition analysis. And all of that has been in collaboration and partnership with the community. And on the roadmap are things like blood pressure, VO2 max, and other things that we can get just from the phone. Gotcha. When you take a look at, I'm sure you do this in some capacity. You see you got a million data points, right. Over time, a million people that we've engaged with on the platform, and we've actually processed now over 5 billion biomarkers on the platform. Huge. So from a standpoint of looking at this, if I was like New York Times or something, let's say, and I'm doing an article on, you know, the, the, the, the health of, of, you know, the average consumer, let's say, and you're able to, I was able to give you like an age range, you know, would you be able to put together and say, look, you know, in each one of those, each one of those categories, you know, heart rate variability, like it's gotten better or it's gotten worse. You

15:48 know, biomarkers, you know, the starting point for somebody entering a health club right now that's deconditioned has gone from, you know, X to Y. You know, like it's like a, Are you able, are there, are there like takeaways that you have? Not necessarily like how good your software is or how, how much information is provided, but like, are we getting healthier? Are we getting less healthier? Are we getting more obese? We getting like, what are some of the things that you could say? Like, I'm the only one that could kind of tell you this because I've got enough of a sample size that I could give you like a KPI over the last 10 years of what you guys have seen, which might be a leading indicator or a past indicator of what's really going on. Yeah.

16:33 When we look back at the data, there's a lot of interesting data in there. I mean, one is you've seen also wearables doing this where you can start to detect illness before the person has any symptoms and things like that. So we've got leading indicators with HRV recovery, some really cool evidence about overtraining and recovery prediction in the algorithms there. But one I think that's really relatable to everybody is that the whole population is getting sicker and less fit and less healthy. But there's actually started to become a reversal in that trend and that has been largely driven by a small segment of the population and that is people who actually consistently go to the gym and consistently and, or consistently work with a coach, a qualified coach. And so across the whole spectrum, people who do one of those two things or both of those things tend to get far better results than everyone else. And within that there's one more drill down that's interesting to people. I think the people who focus on muscle, either building muscle and strength or preserving muscle through nutrition and the right diet and exercise plan tend to get far better results than people who focus on fat loss over the long term. And they actually end up losing more fat than the fat loss group

18:06 and, and maintaining that muscle and energy and longevity and all of that stuff too. So those are just a couple of quick facts that are very interesting and we kind of build those into the guidance of the system as well. I would also think that, that those takeaways and maybe you know, further refined, you know, just verbal here, but actually on paper, if someone was building a new health club as an example, and I was on the phone with a guy yesterday, yesterday on Friday who sent me his, his floor plan and he sent me his, his equipment purchases and I said to him, I kind of think you might be over, over cardioizing this place and you should probably put in more Olympic squat racks instead of like these four treadmills. Are you seeing the clubs that you work with or the groups that you work with kind of using your data, whether they know it or not, that, that this is kind of a takeaway that they're now absorbing to basically like modify their business model. Yes, yes. Yeah. So I mean ultimately you can kind of think about there being a few buckets of somebody who's trying to go on this like the members perspective. Right. You could go to what we kind of have called a gym historically where you go in and you kind of do your own thing. Right. Like you one stat that's interesting there is that around 80% of

19:36 people who go to a gym and do trained on their own are following a program that they either found online or they're watching on YouTube or something like that. Right. So the numbers are staggeringly high of people getting these third party guidance and club operators are starting to see the opportunity to say they can be a part of that. They don't have to be a passive player in that. And so anyways, to get more Directly to your question is basically self guided training, personal training, then there's group classes and group, you know, instruction and then kind of some flavors of those small group, etc.

20:19 But then this final option is becoming more and more popular of people kind of following these programs that actually walk you through the gym in real time and provide workouts that flow in that facility. And so that's something that, you know, we've been a part of helping in some places and something that we're interested in doing more of or helping with. But in order to structure the, you know, the layout and the facilities around that takes a bit of intentionality. And so it's, I would say it's an early trend. This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

21:02 We are partnered up with a company called Higherdose. Higherdose.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 got to 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 bucks 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, 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.

22:03 Just as good as the workout. And would you say from a standpoint of where you are today versus where you were five years ago, is there a willingness to pay for your service? Is there an understanding now? Because the health club and and halo sector at large has not really been a high user of technology from a standpoint of actually like optimizing it as well as, you know, willingness to pay because they view as an expense mostly unfortunately, and not necessarily get investment in their revenue or in their relationships. Have you seen any kind of tidal wave shift or at least like a modification where someone's like, hey, I know what this does. I know it's going to keep my members longer. I know it's going to make my trainers, you know, smarter. I know that those two things are extremely important for me to run a successful business. And I'm willing to pay you what you ask me to pay or. And not necessarily whatever you say. I'm going to try and negotiate it down 50%, which is. I used to run a software company, so I know how that sales cycle is. I know when someone's going to pull a trigger and also know that they get nosebleeds at levels that are ridiculous. Like if I say I need 300 bucks a month or 500amonth, and they're like, oh, it's way too much. You know, it's like, well, stop

23:34 thinking about what it costs and start thinking about what it. What it achieves. Yeah, no, exactly. Well, so I think incentives are everything. Right. And I think basically the title shift has been that members are willing to pay for it. So that makes it a lot easier for operators because we have kind of two models. Either the member can pay us directly and there's actually no cost to the provider and we collaborate with them on that front, or they can roll it into premium or upsell tier in their offering and then they would pay us directly. So we find that it just kind of takes all the friction out of it because members are demanding it. They can roll it out overnight to their whole community. And the cost is basically. Usually it pays for itself within the first 30 days when we roll out. Nice.

24:29 Nice. So, well, thanks for the update here. I'm glad things are going well and look forward to launching his podcast with the. With the announcement Fitness on Demand, as well as the other large franchisor that you. That you referenced earlier, which we'll keep as a breaking news for the, for the show notes, any quotes or any, you know, learnings or, you know, you said you grinded it out just like everybody else that, you know, kind of keeps you. Keeps you moving here and motivated. I mean, I, I'm a little biased because I was a coach, I was an operator. I helped open gyms and run gyms. And gym is, I think, a naughty word these days in some circ circles, but I think studios and clubs. But anyways, what keeps me motivated is actually being there and seeing the members. They're grinding it out every day to try to improve their health and fitness. And so if we could just make that a little bit easier and engage them a little bit more and help them at home, too. That's a big piece that we didn't touch on too much.

25:33 But we can help people at home because there's only. If you go to the, let's say the club or the studio, five hours a week, that means there's 163 hours that you're not there per week, and it's really hard to undo the damage of all that other time in those few hours you have. So we have tools for that that I'm really passionate about. So, anyways. Awesome. Yeah. All right, well, you heard it from Jason Moore at Spren. Get your act together and get on the bio markers and intelligence that you need to keep your members fit and help get results. Thanks for coming on. Awesome, Pete. Yeah, appreciate you.