Episode 176: Carl Daikeler – CEO & Co-Founder at Beachbody
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until August 30th, 2022. So definitely run, don't walk and scoop some up now. Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Well, today's going to be, it's a treat for me, you guys. I'm not going to lie. We have today on the podcast, Carl Deichler. And Carl is the CEO and founder chairman of Beachbody. And

And Beachbody has been a juggernaut in the fitness business for over 20 years. It is the company behind Tony Horton's P90X, Sean T's Insanity, Hip Hop Abs. There's also a really popular one I'm sure you may know called 21 Day Fix with Autumn Calabrese. Well, he's the man behind all of this and created this company.

huge juggernaut, like I said. So this has been on my bucket list. He is a genius, in my opinion, and just a beast when it comes to building a brand, a business, especially in the health and fitness business. His work ethic is bar none from everything I've been told and what I've known. And so it was really, really interesting for me and just a pleasure, really, to pick his brain, to talk to him about where he thinks the business of fitness

fitness and health is going with all the different competition that's come up in the last little while with Peloton and well, you know, Evertonal just to get kind of his idea of where it's going. They recently bought a spinning company as well, which we talk about in

It was just a really fascinating conversation. He's a real entrepreneur, but like I said, he does the work and he puts the effort in. He's built a multi-billion dollar brand. So I really can't wait to share this interview with you guys. Here he is, Carl Deichler, Beachbody.

I'm just going to say who we have, which is you, Carl Deichler, who is the CEO, founder, co-founder, chairman of the board now of Beachbody. And like I said, it's an honor to have you. I know so much about your company. I'm extremely familiar, as I'm sure everybody else as well is, who've ever done one of your fitness programs. So thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Hope I passed the audition. Yeah, you did with flying colors, actually. We're just getting started. And we're just getting started. Exactly. It's still early. But can we, I just, because like I was saying, I mean, most people, of course, I think in my space know what Beachbody is, right? It's literally like a behemoth in health, wellness. You guys have not just

fitness programs that have been probably the most, in my opinion, like some of the best I've ever seen. But you have accessories, you have the Shakeology, you have supplements, you have all these beach body, like 400,000 beach body coaches. Am I correct on that? Well, it's a combination of coaches and preferred customers. So it's a mix because people sometimes come in

go from preferred customer to become a coach or a coach or preferred customer. So that's in general, the total number. So how do you describe like in like a quick soundbite, what would you say Beachbody is? It's a Beachbody is a, an all in health and wellness resource for people to get the, get the help, a prescriptive help to achieve the goals that they've got.

for loving their own body and still coexisting with the love of their own being at the same time that they're looking to improve it, to feel better, to feel better in their own skin. And what we try to do is innovate in a way that will

help somebody overcome obstacles that perhaps diet culture or self-esteem issues or just struggles with stop and starts may have impacted their confidence that they can actually achieve their goals. So we try to break it down into something that's quite prescriptive. And so that's probably a longer description than you were looking for, but

But ultimately, it's really a resource to help people achieve their goals. Their health and fitness wellness goals, basically. Life goals. So can you just talk a little bit about your background? Because you guys started in, well, you guys are, like a direct marketing, direct response. You guys start with infomercials.

What was your background? Were you like a fitness fanatic? Were you a direct marketing genius? Like what did you come with before you even like thought of making or creating Beachbody? Yeah. Honestly, I was a television person. That's what I would say. And I had a theater background. So I thought I was going to pursue a TV career or maybe a sports television career. And then I realized pretty quickly that

uh, entertainment, entertaining was not fulfilling to me. What I like to do is solve problems and, and, um, uh,

then stumbled into the infomercial world, which might sound like an odd choice for somebody who likes to solve problems with media and communication. But it actually, if you've got a product that deserves a story to be told, an infomercial was a great medium because it was really the only medium of its kind where you could tell this full story. And so

I really took to it. And, but I, but I found that the most reliable thing,

product to tell a story in an infomercial was around somebody's well-being or their fitness and helping them understand what it takes to get real results. I don't like working out. I'm not a fitness person. I don't like eating healthy. Because of that, I can completely relate with the audience. I'm always trying to help solve our mutual problem. How can we

How can we try to

be consistent with this. And that's what I've been doing for 23 years here. Hold on a second. So you're not like, I would think that, cause I was under the impression just from like rumblings around that you were very involved in product development and the fitness programs and creation of everything. Is that not true? That is absolutely true. Yeah. From the, I come from the perspective of the people who just don't want to do it. That's what, that's, what's been powerful about it is, um,

Because I can't relate to people who love it, which means that the products that we're creating aren't from the perspective of somebody who loves it. They're from the perspective of somebody who can't stand it, which is what makes it so marketable because all we're trying to do is constantly reinvent it.

in a way that is appealing from a different perspective. I'll give you an example. We have a program coming out in the end of May called Fire and Flow, which is a first of its kind that I'm aware of. And that is where I was doing a program last summer. I was doing one of our programs called 645, six days a week, 45 minutes a day. And on Wednesday,

was this functional recovery day. And for me, because I don't like fitness, I thought, oh, this is the blow off day recovery. I don't care. That's not helping me. So so I'm just going to blow that off. But I but I wouldn't. You know, I wanted to do the program as it was designed. And it turned out that like I absolutely loved this recovery workout on Wednesdays. And I thought, oh,

God, I wish there was more of that in the program. So we created this hybrid program called Fire and Flow where three days a week you're doing this intense fitness cross-training with this trainer Jericho McMatthews. So that's Monday. Then Tuesday you do this recovery, strength building, functional fitness program that really reduces stress.

And then you get psyched up to do Wednesday, which is another fire program, fire and flow, six days a week. But it's got this effect of you're burning the calories that you want to burn. You're getting stronger the way you want to get stronger. But you're reducing stress, taking the pressure off of this six-day-a-week program and improving the functionality of the joints that you're

Generally, if you're a type A, you're sort of always pushing to their limit. So that's just one example of putting something together from the perspective of many people like me who just don't take to it naturally and need to have a different approach if they're going to find any consistency.

So then let me just, cause we're on this topic now, I was going to ask you that later on, but since we're already talking about it, so are you, are you somebody that exercises daily? Are you, do you do all the programs that you have? Is there a favorite of yours that you know? Yeah. Um, I don't, I come in and out of it. Uh, and I don't do all the programs. Like, I don't think that's my job. Um,

I will all collaborate in the development of all of them. So I'll try them and just see, you know, how's this working? Is the queuing working for like, because people take for granted, like, even though you're producing a workout video, people aren't staring at the screen, like it's a TV show, your eyes are all over the place. So the queuing has to be up to a certain level. So I checked that. But otherwise, I'd sort of bounce around the catalog in a way that

Suits me. And so, for instance, I'm doing a thing that we call a body block starting May 2nd, where we have this live tier of content, a premium subscription called BOD Interactive. BOD is the lucky acronym for Beachbody On Demand. So BOD Interactive is BODY, B-O-D-Y. And we do about around eight live workouts a day.

So for three weeks, I'm going to do five workouts a week on our interactive tier and I'll take the fourth week off. So that's a block. And so that'll sort of tune me up for summer and be able to do the things that I prefer to do from a leisure perspective. I like to surf every once in a while. I like to ride my bike and surf.

And horse around. But but but but, you know, I probably will do, you know, four or five programs where I really dial it in and get the nutrition all on point, get everything on point. No alcohol for a period of time, that kind of thing.

Okay. So let's, okay. So that's, that's interesting. I, I assume that you were like this crazy fitness fanatic that like works out three hours a day, wakes up at three o'clock in the morning, drinks Shakeology, you know, twice a day, like has your nutrition like totally dialed in. So I guess I was wrong. Let me, let me add one thing to it. And I totally appreciate that. It's the one thing that,

You know, at 58 years old, the one thing that I literally have finally gotten control of is my food. Because, like, I thought pizza was a food group. Like, that was just my thing. And, you know, we have this program, Portion Fix, which is just these little containers, and it helps you understand everything.

Getting the right balance of macros and what is the right, how much of those macros or food groups, if you will, are appropriate for your activity level. So I can now manage. So I'm managing my food intake pretty well. I don't have a big sweet tooth, so that's pretty easy for me. And I do drink Shakeology regularly.

every single day without fail at 10 a.m. every day. And it's the healthiest thing that I do every day. So that part,

I have found to be quite a quite natural part of my routine. It's the fitness that I'm less consistent with unless I'm dialed into a program. Right. Wow. I do love the Shakeology. The chocolate's delicious, but I digress. But so so let's start from the beginning. Let's get back to the beginning then, because I'm very curious and interested about it.

Even about the fact that since you started 23 years ago, I feel like you've dominated the market. But as time has gone by, I feel in the last few years, especially with COVID and everything else, there's so much more competition. But you've still been able to innovate and be relevant and grow.

I want to kind of talk all the way, the evolution of this. So let's start with like, even your partner, you have a partner, a co-founder, right? Named John. Were you guys friends before you started? How did you start that? I want to understand like how this became such a juggernaut with really no background in the trial and error. Like, yeah, I appreciate you saying that. It's funny. Um,

Just so you know, I don't experience it that way at all. From my perspective, Beachbody is a startup. It hasn't even touched a tenth of what it should be. That's how it feels to me. I don't sit here. I don't feel like a success story sitting here talking to you. Very much a work in progress experience.

we still have to get it right. We haven't reached enough people. So how many people do you have as, as members? I mean, you are like you're public now. Yeah. Like, you know, two and a half million subscriptions, I think two, 20 million subscriptions. So, you know, that's decent, but there's a, you know, there's 150 million people overweight or obese in the United States alone. And, and they haven't, and, you know, probably most of them, uh,

have yet to find that thing that speaks to them. And that's our job is to reach them. I'm missing, you know, I'm, I'm at best 10% of where I should be. And so, um,

Anyway, to answer your question, John and I were working together at a company called Guthrie Rinker, where we were marketing. We had little projects that we were doing for them. They're sort of entrepreneurs in residence. And Guthrie Rinker was going through a period of focus where they were going to just be in the beauty business. And so...

I said to John, hey, I'm going to start up another direct marketing company. We offered Guthrie Renker to partner with us because as they were narrowing, I said, hey, we're going to do this other thing. I've got this list of ideas in the fitness category because I had already created this program, 8-Minute Abs, with another company that I had started, and then I sold that off. So I had experience creating content.

with this little video and sold like 20 million copies of her, not 20 million, 2 million copies, sorry, 2 million copies of it for $20. So yeah, like that was a huge little success. Huge. I didn't know.

I didn't know that. Who did you sell it to? Like, what was it with? Who was it with? It was direct marketing. We sold it, you know, but I sold my interest back to the company that I had co-founded that company. So I sold them back my interest. And then, so I said to John, hey, I want to, I think the idea that

led to 8-Minute Abs. I have other ideas like that. And would you like to come along? And he said, yes. And so we founded it together in really 1998, had our first products on the air by 1999, which were also little short little workout videos. And then the real breakout was in 2001, where we launched this program, Power 90.

which was a 90-day fitness program with Tony Horton, which was basically the prequel to P90X. And that was a great little hit for us. We did $30 million of sales of these six workout videos that we produced. And it's been variations on that theme for 23 years.

So then I was going to say, because it was, I mean, to date, I'm sure it's very different because now there's more people aware of you and all that. But is P90X like your best-selling program of all time? Or was it maybe the Shanti Insanity? Like what has been the best-selling program or the most popular of all time? It's really tough to put that in perspective. I would say the one, the most recognizable program

The one that sort of broke through the zeitgeist was P90X. And there's some crazy stories about that taking off. And then that led to Insanity, which was a blockbuster. And then this program, 21 Day Fix. I would probably say that 21 Day Fix is the biggest overall program, but it sort of spanned DVDs,

Into digital. So so, you know, the scorekeeping is a little funky because we moved into digital. But but yeah, I would say that that those are sort of the three mega hits that that are the most well-known.

So like the P90 or the Insanity, like what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Like, do you come up with the concept and the idea and then you find talent to attach it? Or does someone come to you and say, I have this idea called P90X or Insanity or... In general, you know, probably...

90% of the time, we come up with the ideas at the company and then pick what we call the Beachbody super trainer who's right for it. Or if we don't have the right person for it, we'll find the right person. In some cases, we'll find somebody who's got a program that

that is really appealing and we think could be expressed well through video and in-home video. I kept driving by this place called Yoga Booty Ballet, a studio in West Hollywood. We did an infomercial around that and that was quite successful. Then Chalene Johnson

had this series of formats that she was training in clubs called Turbo Kick and Pio. So then we licensed the right with her to develop those for TV. But in general, either at this point, we either come up with the idea or we'll

get the sort of the seed of an idea from one of the trainers. Like, so for instance, we just launched this program, four week gut protocol, which Autumn Calabrese came up with this idea, because she was suffering from her own gut issues. And she wanted to combine this approach to nutrition with

with a no impact fitness program that we call Four Weeks for Everybody. So we put these two things together and then put the sort of the Beachbody look and feel to it. And, you know, that was just a mega hit in mid-March. Wow.

Well, I think because, you know, things are also super, like things ebb and flow and they become popular. Like anything gut health right now I find is like a really big touch point, right? I mean, anything you say gut health, even on this podcast, people are so fascinated or intrigued or they think that's going to is the new panacea.

So, yeah. So you taking ideas that are you finding things that are kind of like trending or really kind of in the zeitgeist, right? And then you kind of create something around it. Is that? You know, I don't know that it's that derivative, but we are paying attention to what people want. Right.

And we're paying attention to what the latest learnings are. So let's take Shakeology, right? For instance, I would watch Isabel, my wife, formulate her own Shake technique.

at the kitchen counter every morning, like put all these little droppers and powders. And I'm like, what's happening? We're like, what are you doing? And she's like, well, I, based on how I feel, I put this thing together and she would like, like literally the whole countertop was filled with little scoops of things and droppers and flower essence and all these things. And I'm

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

And she said, no, I won't do it because she had done it for another company. And what happened was like, she did it. She put everything she knew into this thing. And then what the, you know, the bean counters, the suits got involved and tinkered with it so that it would be cheaper. Yeah. Give them the right margins. And so she, she didn't want to go through that again. And I said, look, what if I promise you that, uh,

I won't do that. Like what I want is something that'll be good for you to drink and for me to drink. And she said, well, I would love to, I have a list of super foods that everybody's starting to talk about. Like it's just starting to be a thing. And, uh, and ashwagandha and chaga and all these things. And she's like,

I would like to put that and formulate it so that they are synergistic. You don't even have to put tons of it in there, but the fact that there's synergy between these superfoods will make this shake very unique. But I'm going to need some help. And that's when she met Darren O'Lean, and the two of them compared notes and had the same list and created this shake that I don't think has a

appear. It's really in a category all its own because it does combine these superfoods, phytonutrients, proteins, fiber, digestive enzymes, probiotics, and check all these boxes that most of us don't check every day. What that did, and that's what we do. The reason I'm going to that story is

We don't just go into a category and try to do better. We try to invent the category that's needed, that nobody's had the guts or team to be able to satisfy that need. And that's what we try to do, whether it's a supplement or a nutrition plan or a fitness program.

So when you were growing, right? So like you said, P90X was like the big, that was the one that kind of put you on the map, which I, yeah. Right. So did you kind of take that program and the money you made and leverage it to the next program? Like, did you raise money? Did you ever have to raise money? Like how did, because in the direct marketing, like you have to spend a lot, I would imagine to then take that, like, you

You know, you got to buy ads and buy time, right? How did that process work? Yeah, well, we started the business with a half a million dollars that we raised from angel investors. And then we were successful enough in the first three years to buy them out. And then it was when it was in like 2005.

that we needed to make some technology enhancements that were... So we were basically reinvesting into the business from 2003 through 2012 once we bought those partners out. And then in 2012, we wanted to bring on a little bit of capital, get more sophisticated with how the board was run. And so we raised some money, I think...

around $100 million at that time, and then started the process of looking at the digital transformation, which we successfully implemented in 2016.

And then in 2018, so these things with private equity groups, they call them, they sort of hit a horizon, a maturity. And it was time for those guys. They were ready to wrap it up. So we had another. We wanted to bring in growth equity because we wanted to grow the business. And so we basically just started.

sort of traded. And so the new private equity came in, bought those other guys out, this new group called the Rain Group. And they're the ones that worked with us to then take the company public through a SPAC last year. Right. Has it been successful? Well, it depends on how you define success. I mean, I would say that our timing was terrible. And

And, you know, you can't count on these things. You never know what a post-pandemic environment is going to look like. So, you know, we use a device to go public called the SPAC, which stands for a special purpose acquisition company. And it basically means there's a company that does nothing that's already public.

And so you're going to merge into that company, which was a very efficient way to go public. So we started that process in, you know, whatever, 2000, I guess, 2019, 2020, and the pandemic hit and it was like, everything was going crazy, you know, and, and, but at the same time,

Then once we got into 2021, sort of the bloom fell off the rose in terms of what this SPAC type of transaction. And so, you know, the market's funny. It'll sort of group everybody together rather than judging a company on its merits. Anything that went public via SPAC.

was painted with this brush of not being a good company. And so, you know, here we are a company, uh, doing a little over $800 million a year and, um, getting a valuation that's been just crushed. And, uh,

Look, now that's the current game. So if you say, has it been successful? It's nowhere near what I expect it to be. Right. We haven't achieved nearly the goals that we want, but I'm the majority shareholder and controlling shareholder, and I'm playing the long game. I'm in this for another 10 years and fully expect this thing to realize the goals that we've got, which are

to be the dominant health and fitness ecosystem in the world. And that's just a matter of being inventive and patient and making sure we've got the right resources. So, um, uh,

And so, you know, we're just in the middle of the process and I don't, I don't judge the process in the middle of the process. I just keep working my way through it. Right. That's a great answer. Actually. I understand that. Do you feel like, well, first of all, I would imagine through COVID you guys just crushed. I mean, everybody, I feel like everybody did, you know, um, like, but at the same time, have you found it to be, um,

more difficult pre even pre pandemic at post pandemic with now so much more competition. You have tonal mirror, obviously Peloton. I mean all those, and then you have every Tom, Dick and Harry doing their fitness programs and their own zooms and their own classes. And how do you kind of like stay relevant in that space and compete and compete? Honestly, uh,

In 2020, everybody got into the business. And in 2021, everybody got out of the business or had these headwinds. And honestly, like...

I just don't think we're anything like Peloton and Tonal and Mirror. Like none of them offer a total solution. None of them offer the depth of catalog that we have. And none of them offer the kind of content that we have, which is, like I said, prescriptive and walks you through sort of step by step every day. So much content. I mean, so much content. And so, you know,

While the Pelotons and the connected fitness companies that rely on equipment, they've innovated and done amazing things. But the very premise of our company was always that in the Bowflex days back in the early 90s or late 90s,

Our premise was gravity is free. If you just show somebody how to use gravity to get a good workout, they don't need to spend $1,500. Now I'm in the equipment business. We bought a bike company. So, so,

But I think spinning as a genre or indoor cycling as a genre has been popular since Johnny G. Yeah. So, you know, it makes sense that that would be enduring, but I don't need to invent something.

smart dumbbells. Like you just need to list them. You, what you need is good content in front of you. That's engaging, entertaining with a, with great talent that makes you want to come back the next day. And that's been our premise since we started the business. Well, that's true. Like, so I was going to say, how important is, is the talent? Because the truth is if you, every, every,

After a while, all content kind of blends together. Every class blends together, like every program. I mean, there's only so many ways you can do a lunge, a squat, a glute bridge, right? Sure. It comes down to who you kind of resonate with or like as a personality, right? Yeah.

I mean, I've done, you know, I actually like who on your program that I've done recently, just because I wanted to see and try a bunch of stuff before I saw you. That lift four was very good. It was short and very effective. Yeah. Well, and, you know, it was an interesting idea to...

reduce the footprint of fitness to four days a week, give people a cheat day as part of the nutrition plan and combine hit interval training with lifting. So it's like super efficient now. Yes. And he's likable. The guy is very nice and likable. Yeah.

Well, they're actually in development right now. We're coming out with a program called List More. Oh, really? Okay, good. Yes, it's July where we added an extra day of listing. And so the program is just a little bit longer because they're lifting more. But that premise is enduring. It's one of our top four programs on the digital platform. How did that other one do? It was a guy, I think.

It was an Israeli guy, Sagit, and he was doing like- Oh yeah, Body Beast. Body Beast. How did that go? It was a big hit. I mean, that was still in the infomercial days. And what's interesting about that, you never know about this business. Like since we started the company-

I thought that the industry, the fitness industry wasn't really talking to men enough. So I wanted to do a program that was just like, hey, this is for the guys. And so we did this program, Body Beast, with this incredible bodybuilder cover model and funny guy. And it did okay.

until we started to open it up and we started to get success stories in from women. We started to add the female success stories and transformations to the marketing and then it absolutely took off because women were resonating with lifting. That program has been a great hit. It led to

a, uh, another one called a master's hammer and chisel that he produced with autumn Calabrese, who was also a competitor. And the two of them sort of put this male and female lifting program. I think it's a 90 day program together and, uh, yeah, just continues on. So it's, it's fun. It's, it's a, it's a fun thing to constantly reinvent or to look at, you know, like what's missing here still. I remember when we came up with, um,

this program T25 with Sean T. I remember that too. Yes. And, you know, it was a monster hit, you know, T stood for time or Sean T, but it was, the time was 25 minutes and it was such a hit that it was like, well, God, what's going to happen when we have to do 24 minutes, 23 minutes, 22 minutes. Like, but then the followup, we did a followup to Insanity,

called Insanity Max 30, which was a really interesting concept because a lot of people couldn't do Insanity. It was 45 minutes long. We said, okay, a lot of people can't do that. So what if we cop to that? And we said, look,

Just do the best you can for 30 minutes because Insanity is a sprint. So Insanity Max 30, the goal of this program is see how long you can keep going to your max before you need to take a break. And then you write down, I made it to 12 minutes today. I made it to five minutes. And then by the end of six weeks or eight weeks,

Can you go all 30 minutes? And that has actually been a more enduring program than insanity itself. So it's like just these different ways of looking at it to appeal to somebody's sense of aspiration or their goals that just make it a little bit of a sport, a little bit of a reason to go do it.

Yeah, it's funny. I would imagine it's hard to know who's going to hit and who's not, right? Because look at the Tony Horton, like P90X, everyone liked it. Guys liked it. Girls liked it. He's very likable on camera. He's very funny, all these other things. And then you do P90X and then 50 other iterations. And the other iterations didn't do as well as the first one, right? Yeah, yeah.

Um, well, three did pretty well. Oh, did it? Okay. Yeah. In fact, so P90 X three, look, things transition. The, the, the marketing of these change, the infomercial died. Yeah. So that was an infomercial product was really at the peak of the infomercial business. So it got the benefit of this timing. It was, uh, you know, Tony was this incredible, uh,

likeable, you know, like we just said, just go be you and don't try to be Mr. On Camera. Just be you, man, because you're fascinating and fun. And it was so likeable.

And so now P90X2 got super functional and, and complicated. So then we, P90X3, we dialed it down and made those 30 minutes. So we sort of shortened abbreviated P90X proper, but, but also made it a little bit more functional and with some compound movements. And that's, that's still quite popular on the Beachbody On Demand platform. So, you know,

You take these things out as long as they go and then you come up with something new. Yeah. Do you have a lot of people like incoming, like people applying for these? Do you have auditions for people for new talent all the time? We really don't. I mean, we get a lot of emails, Instagram messages and, you know, everybody's submitting. And in fact, I like I won't take a direct audition.

because I don't want anybody to say, "Hey, you're stealing my idea," because we have so much in development all the time. So I send that to legal and they'll look at it. But in general, we've got a lot of people in the ecosystem that we're always working with. And then every once in a while, you'll see somebody with a little special spark and you go, "Hey, you know what?

create a program around you or we'll see somebody like I said a Chalene Johnson or an autumn Calabrese like autumn had developed her own Portion program and it wasn't quite the way we do it, but we're like hey, there's something really there Let's develop that with you. So you spot these people and like you said at the beginning

Kathy Smith. She had done more than anybody in fitness video. We just wanted to replicate our model of prescriptive programs with somebody who's a well-known fitness star. We developed this program, Project You, with her. That was a success for its time. That's why I say I feel like we're a startup because

I don't know the right way to do it, except...

I'm constantly trying to figure out how to trick myself into being more consistent. And, you know, once I succeed with that, I guess my job is done. No, I think you're doing a great job. I mean, so then after the whole infomercial and direct, you know, TV stuff, what was the next iteration? Are you then doing digital marketing? How are you constantly growing? Are you using the team? Like, what is this team, the Beachbody coaches? Is that how you're going to get more customers? Like, what's your plan? Yeah.

So, I mean, we do digital marketing on social media and so on. But there was a time in about 2006 that you could see that the infomercial was going to hit a ceiling. And

But we were getting so many referrals from customers who were just raving about their results and shocked that they could achieve something on their own because they'd failed at everything else, right? And then all of a sudden, P90X or Turbo Jam or whatever, Hip Hop X. Insanity. Oh, yeah, Hip Hop X. Yeah, and something worked for them. And then, you know, they lose 50 pounds and…

And when they walk into a party and haven't seen everybody, they are the center of attention. And I watched this play out. I'm thinking something. It's interesting because Team Beachbody is a multilevel marketing model. Right. So there's a lot of criticism on multilevel marketing and which is interesting.

frankly quite valid in many cases when if you expect like people to load up on inventory or if you're just expecting the distributors to be the customers but in our case I thought it's really not fair

that somebody loses 50 pounds with Insanity or P90X, then walks into a party and 10 people decide they're going to buy it. And that person that did that hard work and had the discipline to change their lifestyle gets nothing for it. So we said, what if we gave them a share of whatever referrals they generated for us? But on top of that,

If they help those people succeed and those people become walking billboards for the business, that person deserves a piece of that too, and so on and so on, multi-level marketing. And so all we did was put this model in place so that with the advent of social media,

It'd be possible to put a dent in this trend of obesity by letting people with the problem monetize that problem for themselves, hopefully improve their own consistency because now they've got a prospect of income from it and an incentive to

to motivate other people to do it. It's like the perfect business model to solve a problem that is not getting solved by the gym industry or the equipment industry in and of itself. And so that has been now the driver of our growth because it works. If it didn't work, it wouldn't expand. But when people like, again, I'll use the four week protocol.

The four-week gut protocol, as you said, the gut microbiome, everybody's talking about it, right? And it's true. When you start to deal with what your food triggers are, the gas, the bloating, the inflammation, like skin issues, you might see some changes from that based on changing how you're feeding yourself.

And it blows people's minds when they see their skin clear up or the inflammation goes away or, again, I don't want to use medical terms. And that –

That echo, that has an echo into their social media space, and they deserve a commission when their enthusiasm generates another sale. And so that's the new infomercial, frankly, is real live testimonials sharing their experience with our complete products.

And so that, and also exactly. And it also gives people another, it's another way to acquire customers. How else do you acquire them now without the commercials? Like you have digital marketing. What are other ways that you're like, you can stay kind of, you know, relevant and keep on acquiring and growing and getting more and more subscribers. Well, again, it comes from this, this is the perfect, this is the perfect way to keep the company growing.

on its rails of innovation and effectiveness. And that is because of the coach network and these, what we call preferred customers, if we're not helping them get results, they're not going to acquire other customers. But when we do help them get results,

they can't help but acquire more customers. So that just like, that's what brings in the customers. Now we do have direct marketing that helps support that, you know, search engine optimization and all that. But our job really has gotten much simpler because we don't have to be so clever about marketing. What we need to be clever about is,

is how simple we make it for people to get real results. That's what Beachbody has to be about. If we're getting people results with fitness, with nutrition and supplementation that can help them hack, biohack the process a little bit, then we succeed, then we attract more customers. What has been your biggest success in Beachbody? Has it been a program? Has it been the shake? Has it been a supplement? Like what has been kind of the biggest revenue boost?

I would say certainly Shakeology has been a game changer for us. But I can't really say that the game, the biggest success is the discipline that we started with very early that said we were never going to act like you didn't need to watch what you eat at the same time that you're working out.

And we don't promote that you can just eat a specific way and have a healthy existence. So we promote this holistic approach that, frankly, is more complicated to promote than this narrow thing, hey, just get on this bike or just take this pill or just eat this way. That's a much easier thing to market than what we call the total solution approach.

But by maintaining our discipline to the total solution, people have come to count on Beachbody that when they are ready to go all in and really get results, when they're done pretending, I'm going to try a little bit of this and a little bit of that. When they're done pretending, I think they know they can come to Beachbody and that's when they're going to get real results that are sustainable.

That's great. One more question, then I can let you go. This body thing you mentioned at the beginning about the fact that you now have this bike and you, is it like you acquired this company? And like, what is that? I didn't, I saw some stuff about that, but I wasn't really familiar. Is it kind of like your experience?

doing what like Peloton did basically and you're going to have a bunch of programs and instructors is it a separate entity from Beachbody no it's same instructors different instructors well we looked at I've been looking at stationery

Cycling and, again, what spinning did that was so genius, people were losing such crazy weight doing these programs, doing this workout. I was like, gosh, how does that translate? We've been literally since 2001 had been looking at when is indoor cycling going to make it into the house? Really, it's about replicating this experience that you have in the gym.

but music is complicated and all that stuff. And then, and then obviously you pay attention to what soul cycle was doing, then what flywheel was doing. And then Peloton articulated into the home with the touchscreen. And I'm like, Oh, that's really interesting.

And I wasn't immediately attracted to go into it until we found this company, Mix, that was doing it very differently than Peloton because they were doing it not based on leaderboard, not based on this sort of

competition that I felt would be unsustainable because it would sort of drive people crazy. Like the bike would become the enemy if you're not like in your go get them mode. But instead Mix was doing it around heart rate training. So as long as you're hitting your zone,

And we do this thing where we calibrate the bike to your heart rate. And so that you're being zone one, zone two, zone three. So the trainers on the screen are trying to get you in the right zone so that you know that that workout was effective for you. So it's not about competing. It's about knowing that you got a great workout in 20 to 45 minutes, depending on which one you choose. That is this that happens in this cycle.

BOD interactive layer that we charge a separate subscription fee for, but it's a part of the Beachbody On Demand ecosystem. It's a great bike. It's basically the Star Trek bike, which was sold into gyms for a decade and then Mix added a screen to it. It's a commercial-grade bike, and people are having a great experience with the content. We've got this huge

LED wall that's immersive and we do something very different. This is the fun thing about it. It's kind of like this Zoom call where we call them the bodcast, where the first hundred people or so will actually, if they raise their hand, they say, I want to be in the cast, we'll actually project them up on the screen behind the trainer and

And so it's not just the trainer that you're watching, but you're actually seeing subscribers working out. And they do it not just on the bike, but they do it in yoga class, Pilates and so on. And it's this...

feeling of being a part of real group exercise without having to be at the gym. It's super unique. And we've got, I think, you know, in addition to what our super trainers do, I think we've got another 12 or so trainers that teach every day. That's a great idea. I've never seen that before, where you can actually see the people that you're working out with versus just that one instructor. Yeah, it's really cool. You

Visually, it's very interesting. Yeah. But because you get to pick somebody who's like, oh, she's modifying it like I am. So I don't feel so bad as the trainer. But what's really good and I think important, and this is why people when they do comparisons and stuff, I'm like, hey, you can't. I'm sorry, but you can't compare to our company because we know like we're honest with ourselves. We know that a person who's just queuing in a video, that the way that gets heard at home

is very different than maybe it was intended. So, but you have to just hope that they get it and they do it right. And we know in many cases they don't. Well, now on body, the trainer has this entire wall of people, just like in group X, where they're looking and they see when a cue was broken. And they're like, no, no, no, guys,

I meant bend your right knee or whatever it was. They can make a change on the fly and fix a cue that nobody else does because they don't have eyes on their group of in-home subscribers. But body has that. So even if you're not part of that group, when you hear that refined cueing,

You're like, oh, I was bending my back too, or my knee was going out too far over my toes or whatever. Like it's an immersive kind of training that I don't think has ever been achieved before in in-home digital training. And I'm super proud of it.

That is actually very unique. I've never heard of that before. And so it, so that's a separate subscription to then Beachbody on demand. So let's say if I wanted to do three days a week of, I don't know, T25 or whatever it is. I'm just making it up. And then three other days I want to do body. I want to do the bike. I have to buy two different subscriptions though. Yeah. Well, what happens is you buy the base, uh,

Beachbody on demand subscription. That's $99 a year. And then if you want to do the live content with the bike, it's $19.95 a month on top of that. So still, so it's all in, it's less than $30 a month, which is still less than some of the competitors, but you get all this, this huge library of content, the nutrition plans, the support of the community, and now this live content. And then you buy the bike, I guess you have to buy the bike and the bike. Is it by how much, how much is the bike?

Yeah, there's always specials running. I think it's about $1,500 right now. So it's still cheaper than a Peloton bike, actually. Yeah, maybe. I don't know what they've done. Their price is sort of all around. So it's about the same.

And then on, if I would, if I wanted to buy that body thing, right. I'm just, I'm sorry. This is just, I'm curious. Cause I'm sure a lot of people also do Peloton. Do you, cause now what Peloton does is you pay and you get like all these other workouts, right? You get like, I think for 1295, I don't remember the price. Right. And you get all these other workouts. Do you guys have other workouts in the body?

membership besides the workout for the boot camp um in the body interactive right yes that's right so so there's daily boot camp classes yoga class pilates classes strength training abs booty core like all of it like it's a like it's really the world's greatest gym

live every day in we do also in occasionally we do spanish and french and because we serve french canadians and in france and we also um provide themed or branded workouts so let's say i said the 21 day fix was a big hit for us right um

Autumn Calabrese will do a live 21-day fix workout. So it's sort of like, you know, you love the Pearl Jam album, now go see them live. So this is, you like 21-day fix, now you get to do it live and be part of the cast and that whole thing. So it's really fun. It's only been, we've only had it going since last year.

November or so. So we're really still inventing, but it's a fantastic canvas that we're coming up with new ways to paint on it every day. That's amazing. And so what's next? And that's my last question for you. What's the next iteration or next evolution for you guys? Is there something else you're working on that you want to innovate? You know what? I don't want to be a tease, but there's a couple of things coming that are

as exciting as anything that we've contemplated as a company and daunting and just outrageous. But, but again, my goal is I want Beachbody to be a utility that just like you, every house has running water and electricity and,

I want the houses that don't have Beachbody On Demand to be the outliers. What do you mean you don't have Beachbody On Demand? Where are you getting your fitness and nutrition programs from? And so it's our job to make it accessible to everyone. And that's what I think some of these new innovations are going to do.

That's great. Oh, I have to ask you because it is an entrepreneurial podcast. What do you say? I just didn't even ask you any of these. What do you think, what keeps you so constantly so motivated and so like, is this your energy? It's like you seem to never have a dip in your iterations and your ability to kind of

your drive, I should say. I think drive is a real word. Have you always been very driven? Is that like just like a fundamental quality or is that something? I think so. Uh, you know, I, I like, I'm not a big, like, you know, people who are like life balance. I don't even know what that is. I can't even identify. Um, I just, I just like to create so much. And, um, yeah,

And maybe maybe that makes things complicated. I don't know. But I just like it's mind blowing to me that there can be a circumstance, a problem or an opportunity like helping the population get more active and just be more conscious of itself and of its nutrition.

And to have that complete white space, this blue ocean of opportunity that I get to be at the front of trying to solve that problem, which is a hundred billion dollar problem to try to solve. Like,

I can barely sleep. Like I'm so scared to death that I'm going to miss it. That I'm just driven every day to like, what are we missing? How can we make it easier for people? How can we appeal to more people? Why wouldn't they want to feel this good?

And so that's what drives me. And I guess someday I'll keel over. I don't know. No, you're not. I think you're doing, I love what you've done. And hopefully you come back. I went over, I think you have to give another meeting to go to, but hopefully you come back on the podcast and you can tell me about the other two things that you won't, you're teasing me about or what's coming down the pipeline. But-

Um, until then, thank you for being on the podcast. You're a great guest. I was, I found this very, very, for me anyway, you're a very interesting person and I love what you've created and did. So thank you so much. It was really fun. And, uh, you know, yeah, we can talk in August. I think I'll have more things to say. Perfect. I'm going to come get you in August then.

Okay. Well, thanks for having me on. Thank you. How do we find you? Beachbody.com? How do people who are listening? Beachbody.com, beachbodyondemand.com. Or follow you. You're on Instagram, right? Yeah. I'm no Instagram influencer. The thing to follow is at Beachbody. That's where action is. At Beachbody. Got it. Okay. Thank you very much, Carl. All right. Thank you.

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