Episode #614: Building Sweathouz (SWTHZ)-Nico Varano on Scaling, Unit Economics, and Operational Excellence

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This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have

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the pleasure of having a franchisee turned franchisor

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from Boston to my old college town of Atlanta.

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Nico Verano, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on,

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Pete. Uh, I didn't know you went to college in Atlanta. Where'd you go? I

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was at Emory back in the day. Right. Just had a camp— a

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college reunion, uh, last weekend. in Jersey with the boys.

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But, uh, yeah, we were down in Atlanta pre-Olympics, so it was quite

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a— it was an awesome town. Uh, it was furthest away from my home,

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so I felt like I was actually, you know, had a new life and experience

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down in Atlanta after living in Long Island. Uh, but I am a

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lifelong Knick fan, so I apologize, or I pre-apologize,

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uh, for that. But I appreciate your, uh, understanding of

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such. Yeah, being from Boston, it's, it's, it's definitely tough. I would have

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worn my Celtic green, but I think we both have a common enemy in this

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season coming up with the 76ers. Yeah, we'll agree on that.

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Clearly. So, you know, we've been, um, yeah, I've been in the space since

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1999. Uh, back about 10 years ago, we had

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a thesis that workout recovery was kind of the next frontier.

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Uh, we invested in a company called HigherDOSE that were doing some

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location-based, uh, services where you go in

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and use an infrared sauna. We actually had a deal with a hotel group

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down in SoHo where we took some of the hotel rooms,

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repurposed them into 3-person infrared saunas,

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had a shower and a full bathroom in there. And it was

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very successful before COVID Then we pivoted to just e-commerce.

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But Sweat House kind of started out as a location business and

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appeared to have gotten the unit economics right, uh, where others did

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not. Um, not to name names, but there were definitely some groups in

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the workout recovery that I thought was going to be the category killer, and they

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did not become that. So, so give us some of the

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background here with, you know, you being a, being a

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member, I guess, then becoming a franchisee, and how everything

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transpired to the point where you're now the franchisor. Yeah, so my

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journey, uh, and thank you for all the kind words about SweatHouse, and it's awesome

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hearing your backstory as well. Um, you know, my journey was, was a little

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different. I came up sort of traditional finance, Spent a lot of time in

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spreadsheets and PowerPoints. And I was

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actually working at the group that now owns the majority

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of SweatHouse. And the founder, Jamie Weeks, was speaking at a

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conference. And I was in the crowd. At the time, I was training for a

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charity boxing match as well. And he started talking about SweatHouse. At

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this point, they had 9 studios. They had just opened one in my backyard in

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Somerville, Massachusetts. And I went to try it right after. I figured,

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you know, I was training for this charity boxing match, getting my head kicked in

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basically 3 nights a week. Uh, pretty good place for recovery would be SweatHouse.

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And I tried it, I loved it, I was hooked. I signed up for a

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membership that I think I still pay one of my studios today for.

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Um, and from the moment that happened in, uh, June

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of 2022, uh, I was focused on— I wanted to be the first

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franchisee. I wanted to be the first franchisee in the system. I told Jamie Weeks,

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Let's do it. I wanna buy all of Boston and Greater Boston. And from

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that point, we went from, you know, I acquired that one corporate studio from them.

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Over the next 2 years, I built 4 more studios. We're building

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4 more right now in the Boston market as well. And then in

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January, I got the opportunity to join the corporate team

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down here in Atlanta as CEO. I've been on the board for 2 years,

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and there was an opportunity to step in. and help

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continue to drive the next chapter of SweatHouse, which I'm

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really excited about, and our franchisees are pretty excited about it too.

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Awesome. So Jamie Weeks, I know him from his

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origination in the Orangetheory platform, you know,

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one of the early kind of large area developers,

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and I've got a lot of respect for what he's done there and

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did, you know, pre-COVID obviously. and then some of the other brands that

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he's incubated over time. So how did

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that— was there basically a job opening and you kind of applied

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for it? Is that, is that kind of what happened? Yeah. So being on the

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board, yeah, Jamie took this thing, his vision, and,

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you know, just kind of— he created SweatHouse, right? We went from having

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just sauna suites to having sauna suites and one plunge

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suite to having now fully contrast therapy suites. And I'm sure we'll get into

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that. You know, he remains, he remains a shareholder. He actually

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still stepped, uh, into his new business back in, uh,

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April of 2025, uh, and then again in, uh, late

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December I was on a call with some of the board members just talking about

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the future of SweatHouse, and, uh, there was an opportunity to sort of step in,

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uh, into the CEO role. Gotcha. And then did that prompt you to

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move to Atlanta, or how did that happen? Oh yeah, I'm in, I'm in Atlanta

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full-time. Um, it's definitely different than Boston. I still own and

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operate my studios in Boston, so I love to tell prospective

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franchisees, I don't know how many franchisors have a

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CEO that's also signing leases and personal guarantees for their own

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studios. I don't think any. I don't know any. And I've

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probably— if I ChatGPT that, I probably am right. So

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yeah, yeah, um, you know, it's pretty unique, right? I don't ask the

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franchisees to do anything I'm not comfortable doing myself. Same. And that's the

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same approach I take to my own studios in Boston. If I'm not willing to,

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you know, clean a suite after it's been used or work on a cold plunge,

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then how can I expect my team to do that? And I take the same

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approach now in the CEO role. I'm not going to ask a franchisee to do

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anything I wouldn't do. I will take that back. There's one guy actually, Eric

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Cassavary, who's the CEO of Serotonin Longevity

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Centers, who's also a franchisee. Besides that, I don't know no one.

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I may have to connect with him. Yeah, he's down in Orlando. Um, you

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know, from a standpoint of, you know, looking at the unit

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economics of this business, As we talked about, you know,

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before we, we started taping, you know, there are very few

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locations that have gone into the longevity space

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and they really kind of crushed the 4-wall unit economics,

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whether they had an experiment going and then

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decided to do a franchise before the experiment was basically

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completed. Yeah, I like to say franchising was set

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up because you figured out an operating playbook

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or like an offensive, you know, playbook if you want to use sports.

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And, um, and then somebody's going to pay you to basically use your playbook. And

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I think there's a lot of franchisors out there,

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unfortunately, that got enamored with the fact that somebody wanted

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to pay them $25,000 or $50,000 to use their brand that

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they thought came with a profitable operating system. And then they learned very

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hard, the hard way, uh, very quickly that,

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um, No, dude, like, we're still trying to figure this shit out,

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right? So, so how did that kind of,

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you know, starting point with buying the location from

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corporate and then saying like, wow, like, I'm making money with this. There's

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actually a system in place to getting conviction to say, okay, I'm going to become

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both the Uniqlo. Yeah. No, it's,

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it's— I'm going to answer that in parts, right? I think in longevity, what's

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been interesting in overall recovery is there's a lot of brands that are trying to

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do a lot of different things. Right? Right. A lot of people are offering, in

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my opinion, too many modalities, right? I'd rather SweatHouse—

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and this is, this is something that we used to talk about when SweatHouse, you

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know, only had 10 studios— was we want to be focused on being

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the best at one thing, right? Which is contrast therapy. When people think

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about sauna and plunge, SweatHouse should be the first thing that comes to their mind.

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And that is always staying in the back of our minds too. And I think

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that's what separates us. That's what helps build our competitive moat.

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Talking exclusively about, you know, when, when I acquired the

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Assembly Row location, the beautiful thing about Sweatos was there were

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9 corporate studios before there was 1 franchise studio. And those

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9 corporate studios were across, uh, Atlanta. There

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was 1 in Boston, South Carolina, Dallas, Lake

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Oswego in Oregon. So the model was, again, it was

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proven, but then we proved it out again when we opened our first

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V2 location, which had— V2 means Sauna plunges in

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the same suite in Burlington, Massachusetts, in February of

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2024. Gotcha. You bring up a good point about unit

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economics. Yeah, you know we got 101 studios open. We'll open up

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102 tomorrow. I think we have the secret sauce

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identified. But the thing that a lot of brands struggle

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with, and I think what we're doing a good job at Sweatos is, we're not

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stopping fixing our unit economics. Every day we're looking at

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the data, we're looking at analytics, and we're very data heavy now and data

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focused to make really informed decisions. Because if we can

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drive an additional dollar profit a day for our studios,

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what that means is our franchisees make more money, our

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corporate studios make more money, we can reinvest in the brand, but also our

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franchisees will want to build another studio that much faster.

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Right. And then that's how brands win in the long run. It's a simple

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formula. Find profit, make franchisees profitable,

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reduce build-out costs to a level where their payback is under 3 to 3.5

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years, and continue to drive the brand forward. You do those 3 things, you win.

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Yeah, no, we're definitely speaking the same language and feel the same way. When

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I see a franchise network that has 50

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individually owned studios, I know that there's something— that's a

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tell for me because it means that they don't want to open up a second

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one because the, the, the payback isn't there or the

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return's not there. Um, you know, like some of the things

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that originally were happening with F45 as an example.

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Yeah. You know, they were doing like $32,000 a month in

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revenue and it became a public company. And I'm like, look, I look at

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item 19 and I don't give a shit what else you look at in the

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franchise document. You look at that one page and it'll tell you everything you need

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to know about the franchise operation. So,

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you know, when you take a look at SweatHouse and you see

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some of the health club operators that are putting in an infrared sauna, Might be

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putting in a workout recovery area. Obviously, you guys have come up

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with a niche, kept it simple, say no

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to a lot of different things, which I love because I think people kind of

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turn something into, you know, turns into like a convenience store and

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then it has no brand identity. Do you see the health

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club operators as a real competitor or do you kind of

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see them as, hey, I wouldn't mind posting up a location in their

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shopping center? No, we love being close to gyms,

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whether it's, you know, big box like a Crunch Fitness or

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it's a Lifetime or an Equinox. Here's why. The

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people that go— what we provide at SweatHouse, I'll start with what we provide at

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SweatHouse. What we provide at SweatHouse is an escape. It's an escape from the

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noise. It's 1 hour, 4% of your day in a private suite.

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Where else can you go to escape this thing, right? The dings, the sounds, the

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Slack, the emails, right? That is, in my opinion, what's

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so great about SweatHouse is that everybody needs that break in their

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day, whether it's the mom that needs to escape her kids

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for an hour, whether it's the business exec that wants to

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take their lunch break at SweatHouse, or it's somebody who is training for HYROX,

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right? And they want to come recover at SweatHouse. That's why, in

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my opinion, SweatHouse is so special because I can go next to a Life Time.

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I can go next to an Equinox. I can go right next to a

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Barry's, a Solid Core, because we are complementary to what they're

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offering. But more importantly, the sweat house net is

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so wide. A portion of our clients have never seen

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the inside of a gym. They don't, they don't go to classes. They

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don't go to gyms. Their, their gym, their

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where they get their mental health fix, where they get their sweat on,

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where they plunge to recover or reduce inflammation. That's sweat house.

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So our net is just so much wider, which I think separates

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us from, you know, if Equinox puts these— if Equinox puts

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private suites in. That's great, but you still got to go through the doors of

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Equinox. SweatHouse, you're just coming in, you go in your private suite,

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it's your suite, nobody's bothering you. Uh, and again, we

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lower all gates.

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This is Pete Moore. I want to let you in on a little secret. There's

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this company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards

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from retailers that allow you to incentivize your

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members without having to do zero down and 1 month free,

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or giving away shakes or giving away t-shirts. What you want to do

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is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value,

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and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the deal.

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There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going to allow

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a member to set up their own profile. They are going to answer

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questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be able to target those

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members and you're gonna reward them Inside your club,

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inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the spa

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to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues,

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and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies

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are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer.

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Trust me, this is real.

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So we were an investor, we are still an investor in

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HigherDOSE, as I referenced. which had infrared saunas. And, 10 years

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ago, the majority of people did not know what an

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infrared sauna was nor did they know what red light therapy is. And, a cold

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plunge was something that they probably thought went on at the beach

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on a winter day. Yup, yup. So, the industry

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has come a long way from an educational and marketing standpoint.

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The one thing that we saw at HigherDOSE, we had rented out

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rooms at a 5-star hotel and turned it into almost like a speakeasy.

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Okay, I like that place where you took it over and you pay $65 and

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you get the room for an hour. Is people were going there with their friend

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to kind of catch up in an infrared sauna, you know, without the

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phones, without, you know, any kind of distractions, which, um,

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was definitely like a one-to-one, you know, uh,

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builder. We also saw that, uh, people would rent it out for like bachelorette

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parties. We see that all the time too. Yeah,

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um, birthday parties as well as, um, people would like go

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on a date there, you know. Yeah. I'm not— it was a hotel room, so

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I'm not asking any questions what happened there, but whatever the case was, you know,

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it was in and out of there in an hour and you got the, the

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3-person infrared sauna. And it was, it was a really, you know, a great

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spot and it was booked out all the time. How much are you kind of

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looking at this as like what you reference is like, hey, everybody needs

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that in a day? And how much have you seen this turn into like Hey,

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like these 2, 2 women came in, you know, 2 o'clock in the afternoon because

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they pick up their kids at 3:20. Um, they just want to, you know, catch

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up instead of going to, you know, a coffee shop. Or somebody going there on

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a date, or, you know, somebody going there with their cycling crew

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after they, you know, do 100 miles. Yeah, I, I love, I love where you're

247
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going with that because the big word nowadays is community, right? And there's a lot

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of great concepts in New York specifically that are doing this, like

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Mothership. Like, the experience is next level,

250
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right? Same thing with what, uh, Dr. Jonathan

251
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Leary is doing with, uh, Remedy Place, right? Right. They're creating these, these

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places where there is this sense of community. SweatHouse,

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you would think from the outset it's difficult for us to create community, but

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since, you know, since early in the year, we've had a focus on driving,

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uh, plus ones with each member, pack holder, or

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client, right? Right. At the beginning of the year, about 7% of our

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of our sessions included a plus one. That number today is 16%.

258
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16% of our sessions include a plus one. So what does that mean? It means

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that date night now happens at SweatHouse. It means that when,

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uh, you know, we have book clubs that meet at SweatHouse Studios.

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Nice. We have, um, you know, in our suites we have

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TVs in every suite. People coming in to watch their

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Netflix show and do a sauna and plunge. Because the big

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thing is this third or fourth, this

265
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third or fourth space that everybody's talking about, right? Sweat House is

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perfectly that, and it's all about disconnect, and it's all about privacy, but that doesn't

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mean you can't bring your community to Sweat House with you to share that

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experience. And what does a plus one cost versus

269
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me just becoming a member? Yeah, anywhere, if you're a member, a pack holder,

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you get the benefit of a plus one at a discount. It's anywhere from $20

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to $30 depending on where you're located. So if you're a member

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and you wanna bring your wife, your husband, your best friend,

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it's a pretty lucrative deal. Yeah, and then from

274
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what I see, how many in this next

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version or the current prototype,

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how many private rooms are there? So we

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are aiming towards 7 to 8 private suites moving forward and

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introducing maybe 1 red light bed suite per studio. What

279
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we've realized is, again, the beautiful thing about Svaros we're leveraging so much data.

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We went in 2025, we started saying, hey, let's have

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bigger spaces and let's do 10, 11 suites.

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However, because of the way our model works, people generally come in

283
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in the morning, the evening, maybe a couple in the afternoon, and then the weekend's

284
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really busy. But there was no correlation between AUV

285
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generated per studio and the number of suites you had per studio. So as

286
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you think about the questions we talked about with unit economics, In the future,

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we're aiming towards 1,600 to 1,800 square feet, 7 suites with

288
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maybe 1 red light suite. That is the perfect model for us because it

289
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lowers your build-out costs, lowers some of your operating costs like rent, uh, as well

290
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as labor. Um, and again, you asked about unit economics. That's

291
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exactly what we're really focused on. Yeah, I mean, it's

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interesting when you think about, you know, businesses that say,

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hey, I want to capture every potential

294
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session versus, hey, I kind of want some

295
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scarcity value and I kind of want— I kind of might want things

296
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waitlisted or sold out. Um, you know, one, for the

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franchisee to know that, you know, they're not operating

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at 50% capacity. You know, that, that's a number I think people stick

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in their minds about. If I'm at 85-90% capacity,

300
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then additional build-out probably would not help me

301
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because of one reason or the other. So, you know, the reason why I ask

302
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is, you know, sometimes I'll talk, just talk to a pickleball guy and he's

303
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got 16 pickleball courts and I say, you know, how did you arrive at 16?

304
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Yeah. Is that the right number? And he kind of said for what he was

305
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doing and for tournaments, that's the right number. You know, you look at

306
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some of these other concepts like groups in the massage

307
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industry as an example, you know, and they're like 50% capacity or

308
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40% capacity, and you're like, well, if you had half the space, you know, probably

309
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be a much more profitable operation. Yeah. Um,

310
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so just from— to make a long story short here, um, you know, what,

311
00:19:13,820 --> 00:19:16,809
what are the hours of operation that you guys recommend?

312
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And, you know, to bring up another name of somebody we know,

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Solidcore kind of flipped the boutique studio model on its head by

314
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saying, hey, we're gonna be open some, some locations like 4 or 5 AM.

315
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Till like midnight, you know, because there's demand. No, absolutely.

316
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We're actually located next to some Solid Core, so we're always gauging like, all right,

317
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what are their hours? Because when that person comes out of their, out of their

318
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Solid Core class, let's get them in Sweat House. Uh, so, and I'll

319
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speak first like how as an operator in Boston I decided what I wanted my

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hours to be, and then how we, you know, suggest to people based on your

321
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demographic, uh, what your hours should be. So in Boston we were open 7

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to 7 AM to 8 PM. And I said, man, I'd love to jam more

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people in, right? So now 7 days a week, we're open 6 AM to 9

324
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PM. Nice. And we see demand basically all the

325
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time. Again, it's— you're always a little bit slower middle of the day when people

326
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are at work, right? Uh, weekends slammed, mornings and evenings very busy.

327
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When we look at, uh, locations around the country, it's, it's that conversation with the

328
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operator of like, hey, this is what the closest studio to you is doing, here's

329
00:20:19,067 --> 00:20:22,774
where we think you should start. Because again, what we're balancing is Where, what

330
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hours can I generate demand and what hours can I have low labor so that

331
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my unit economics are growing? So most studios

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are open 7:00 AM to about 8:00 PM. We're

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always expanding or looking at expanding hours, especially

334
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based on our co-tenancy too. If you're near that Solidcore class, or if you're near

335
00:20:41,159 --> 00:20:44,900
that Barry's class, you should be opening up at 6:00 AM so that the people

336
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coming out of that 5:00 AM class are ready to rock and roll. Gotcha. And

337
00:20:48,768 --> 00:20:52,506
then from a standpoint of, you know, where

338
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do you— what are like— what are some of the things that like,

339
00:20:56,629 --> 00:21:00,382
oh, that's like a Nicoism, or like, you know, what do franchisees

340
00:21:00,495 --> 00:21:03,703
or, you know, people in the corporate office there— what are you kind of like

341
00:21:03,703 --> 00:21:07,537
pounding the drum on? Oh yeah, so I got a couple. The big one

342
00:21:07,537 --> 00:21:11,322
is own it, fix it, finish it, right? The reason I stand

343
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by those 3 is because, look, no franchise brand is perfect.

344
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SweatHouse is by some measures 7 years old, but it's really

345
00:21:18,851 --> 00:21:21,565
only 3 years old because we really only figured out our model in February of

346
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2024. So 3 and a half years, we went from 15 studios to

347
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102. If anybody tells you today that at

348
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102 studios they have the model figured out, everything's perfect, it's all

349
00:21:31,877 --> 00:21:35,619
rainbows and unicorns, they're lying to you. It doesn't work that way. Yeah. So

350
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own it, fix it, finish it. What it means to me is let's identify the

351
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problems in our business every single month. Let's fix those

352
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and come up with the fixes and then finish it means carry out those problems

353
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so they never rear their head again. And a lot of that is what we

354
00:21:48,886 --> 00:21:52,301
focus on in Q1 of this year, right? Looking at membership attrition,

355
00:21:52,894 --> 00:21:56,661
looking at the lifetime of our member, looking at our pack-to-member mix,

356
00:21:56,901 --> 00:22:00,572
right? You know, Anne from Solidcore, if you look

357
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at the way she built Solidcore, at first they were, they were, they were

358
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pack-focused because she needed to be very skilled as an operator to

359
00:22:08,123 --> 00:22:11,954
generate that pack to build new studios, right? Now, if you look at their business,

360
00:22:12,130 --> 00:22:15,675
they're still really pack-focused, focus, but for different reasons. And that's, you know,

361
00:22:15,691 --> 00:22:19,466
SweatHouse, it's all our studios look the same, but as we look across the

362
00:22:19,531 --> 00:22:22,988
country, we need to identify what trends are where so that we can sell

363
00:22:23,248 --> 00:22:26,747
whatever we need to sell in that specific studio. Got it. Awesome.

364
00:22:26,828 --> 00:22:29,334
Um, so yeah, own it, fix it, finish it is my big one.

365
00:22:32,654 --> 00:22:36,340
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

366
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We are partnered up with a company called Hire

367
00:22:39,897 --> 00:22:43,071
HigherDOSE.com. They are the leader in

368
00:22:43,504 --> 00:22:46,533
workout recovery products, infrared technology,

369
00:22:47,191 --> 00:22:50,701
LED light masks, neck enhancers, and

370
00:22:50,877 --> 00:22:54,340
other products such as PEMF mats and sauna

371
00:22:54,340 --> 00:22:57,594
blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout

372
00:22:57,626 --> 00:23:01,152
recovery train yet, your time and your stop

373
00:23:01,457 --> 00:23:05,208
is now. You gotta get these products in there before these workout recovery

374
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,830
and spas end up saturating your market, having your

375
00:23:08,830 --> 00:23:12,675
members walk out of the club and going into one of their locations for $200

376
00:23:13,477 --> 00:23:17,162
per month where they're paying $39 to you. Let's become an

377
00:23:17,162 --> 00:23:20,752
expert in workout recovery if we are already an authority in

378
00:23:20,848 --> 00:23:24,533
workouts. HigherDOSE, check it out. There's a

379
00:23:24,533 --> 00:23:28,331
wholesale code and we look forward to helping you

380
00:23:28,700 --> 00:23:32,289
augment your products and services to meet the demands of your members.

381
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And hey, let's get people happy, healthy, and sweating,

382
00:23:36,765 --> 00:23:39,239
and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.

383
00:23:43,664 --> 00:23:47,246
So from a standpoint of, you know, just kind of closing this out here,

384
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you know, what kind of profile of franchisee or area

385
00:23:51,571 --> 00:23:55,132
developer are you looking for? And is there, you know, a

386
00:23:55,261 --> 00:23:59,044
goal to try and find some private equity partners and kind of grow this the

387
00:23:59,044 --> 00:24:02,850
way Orange Theory did as an example. And then we'll, you know,

388
00:24:02,850 --> 00:24:06,270
we'll be in touch when I'm down in Atlanta next. Yeah, you got to come

389
00:24:06,270 --> 00:24:09,790
down to a studio. We're opening one in Tribeca. I'll be down next month, so

390
00:24:09,790 --> 00:24:13,030
I'll catch up with you. Oh, okay. So I'll be down in September in

391
00:24:13,030 --> 00:24:16,810
Atlanta. So yeah, fire away. You got it.

392
00:24:16,810 --> 00:24:20,150
Yeah. So fire away. Just to close out here on, you know,

393
00:24:20,150 --> 00:24:23,990
what the ideal franchisee, you know, next

394
00:24:23,990 --> 00:24:27,430
set of franchisees look like. Yeah. So I often say I got 2 caps. I

395
00:24:27,430 --> 00:24:29,550
got the CEO cap and the franchisee cap. Most people would probably answer this question

396
00:24:31,426 --> 00:24:35,134
the CEO cap, what are they looking for, uh, for a franchisee? I'm actually gonna

397
00:24:35,134 --> 00:24:38,505
put on my franchisee cap because the other franchisees in the group— we only have

398
00:24:38,505 --> 00:24:41,667
40 franchisees across 102 studios, right?

399
00:24:42,582 --> 00:24:46,306
The franchisee group that we have is made up of individuals that, you know,

400
00:24:46,354 --> 00:24:50,078
have been really strong operators in the F45 system. We have

401
00:24:50,078 --> 00:24:53,834
some operators that have been really skilled, uh, in prior careers. Uh,

402
00:24:53,898 --> 00:24:56,531
we have a CMO in the mix. We have somebody that was a president of

403
00:24:56,563 --> 00:25:00,173
an aerospace and defense company. I mentioned that because The

404
00:25:00,173 --> 00:25:03,923
Sweatos franchisee group, although lean and small, has a lot of smart people.

405
00:25:04,820 --> 00:25:08,410
But more importantly, what makes a franchisee successful, whether it's in Sweatos or any other

406
00:25:08,410 --> 00:25:11,807
system, is somebody that's willing to roll up the sleeves. If they got to, you

407
00:25:11,807 --> 00:25:14,820
know, if they have to work a shift because their staff called out, they're there.

408
00:25:15,332 --> 00:25:19,178
If they're going through the construction process, they're doing site visits. If they're going

409
00:25:19,178 --> 00:25:22,656
through their P&L, they're willing to call out what they're missing

410
00:25:23,008 --> 00:25:26,840
and where they're lagging, right? We'll give you all the data, we'll give you

411
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,466
all the playbooks, but we need operators in the system that are present.

412
00:25:30,786 --> 00:25:34,316
And that to me is what makes a great franchisee. I tell people all the

413
00:25:34,316 --> 00:25:36,722
time when they come in for Meet the Team days, if you and I can't

414
00:25:36,722 --> 00:25:40,492
go to dinner and talk about anything but SweatHouse, you're probably

415
00:25:40,492 --> 00:25:44,246
not going to be a great franchisee in our system because, you know, we don't

416
00:25:44,246 --> 00:25:47,518
jive. And I'm a pretty easy person to jive with.

417
00:25:47,951 --> 00:25:51,769
Definitely. And that's kind of how I think about franchising in general.

418
00:25:52,010 --> 00:25:55,110
That's great. All right, well, congrats on the success and

419
00:25:55,110 --> 00:25:58,890
for, uh, for wearing both hats. Um, well, thank you very much. To keep

420
00:25:58,890 --> 00:26:02,530
that going and, um, really to, um, you know, put

421
00:26:02,530 --> 00:26:06,110
a, uh, you know, kind of a poster child, if you will,

422
00:26:06,110 --> 00:26:09,670
on the fact that like workout recovery in the franchising

423
00:26:09,670 --> 00:26:13,130
space is successful. And I know it's always a work in process,

424
00:26:13,130 --> 00:26:16,750
right? You're always iterating. But, um, what we like

425
00:26:16,750 --> 00:26:20,230
to do, because our day job is mergers and acquisitions and private

426
00:26:20,230 --> 00:26:23,851
placements, it's a— it's, it's beneficial that you can do point to certain

427
00:26:23,883 --> 00:26:27,490
things and say, hey, this worked, this worked, this worked. And therefore, like, that kind

428
00:26:27,490 --> 00:26:31,257
of puts a good umbrella on the category. So congrats on

429
00:26:31,257 --> 00:26:34,159
that. Thank you. Yeah, no, and thank you guys again for having me. We're, you

430
00:26:34,159 --> 00:26:37,990
know, we're private equity backed today. Uh, so again, we, we

431
00:26:37,990 --> 00:26:41,838
know the next, the next inflection point is that next transaction. So what

432
00:26:41,838 --> 00:26:45,429
we're doing now is preparing that business for when that happens and the next investor

433
00:26:45,429 --> 00:26:48,811
comes in. We're a rocket ship ready for the next one. Yeah, awesome.

434
00:26:48,940 --> 00:26:52,620
All right, man, we'll keep doing great work. Go Halo! Yeah, thank you

435
00:26:52,620 --> 00:26:56,240
guys so much for having me. And, uh, when you're in Atlanta, please, please hit

436
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:58,440
me up. I'd love to grab you down there. I got family down there, so

437
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,280
I'll see you then. All right, and I'll say it just for this, go

438
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:05,130
Knicks! Yeah, okay, appreciate that. Make sure you get that on recording.

439
00:27:05,660 --> 00:27:08,540
Yeah, you can share. I probably won't be allowed back in Boston, but thank you

440
00:27:08,540 --> 00:27:10,010
guys. Later.

441
00:27:18,495 --> 00:27:22,199
This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks, your captain speaking. I am the

442
00:27:22,199 --> 00:27:25,952
founder and managing partner at Integrity Square. We've been around now

443
00:27:25,952 --> 00:27:29,464
for 15 and a half years. We have been helping

444
00:27:29,576 --> 00:27:32,928
people like yourselves get capital, do mergers and

445
00:27:32,928 --> 00:27:36,633
acquisitions, consulting, strategic advice in the health,

446
00:27:36,777 --> 00:27:40,289
active lifestyle, and outdoor halo sector, trying to

447
00:27:40,305 --> 00:27:43,623
help as many entrepreneurs as possible get to the next level,

448
00:27:44,352 --> 00:27:47,655
take that inflection point and be the force behind your growth.

449
00:27:48,450 --> 00:27:51,813
We are helping companies that have at least $3 million of

450
00:27:51,813 --> 00:27:55,403
EBITDA, around $10 million of revenue, and

451
00:27:55,581 --> 00:27:58,234
we are positioned to help you get institutional growth

452
00:27:58,347 --> 00:28:01,671
capital or to negotiate deals with

453
00:28:01,671 --> 00:28:03,957
strategic partners. If you go to integritysq.com/ISQ,

454
00:28:07,271 --> 00:28:11,008
you can see our capabilities deck. Happy to set up a consultation at any time.

455
00:28:11,381 --> 00:28:14,593
That is free of charge, and we look forward to helping

456
00:28:14,950 --> 00:28:18,780
solve obesity, loneliness, and diabetes. Go Halo!