#103: From Janitor To Tech Leader: Wodify Founder and CEO Ameet Shah (Sandlot Jax & GORUCK Games 2023 Series)

The most successful businesses solve a need. The most successful entrepreneurs identify opportunities and display the courage to take action; even if just to prove they just might succeed. Ameet Shah started his professional career as a janitor at Mars Chocolate. Today, he is the Founder and CEO of Wodify; the fitness industry’s leading customer retention platform. 

In this opening conversation from Sandlot Jax & GORUCK Games 2023, Ameet climbed into the 1944 Dodge WC-51 for a conversation with Fran Racioppi on his vision to empower CrossFit athletes to better track their workouts while providing CrossFit box owners the ability to manage and organize their processes and clients. 

Ameet explains the mental hurdles tech visionaries must overcome to develop a product that requires mass adoption and Fran challenges him to explain why bootstrapping the company has been a top priority and a key ingredient to profitability.  Through its multiple services from customer retention to tracking to event planning, Wodify is breaking the mold in fitness software, showing everyone there is no such thing as “gymtimidation” and is now making its mark in Jiu-Jitsu. 

Learn more about Wodify on the web or at the 5000+ gyms that trust Wodify to run their business.  

Read the full episode transcription here and learn more on The Jedburgh Podcast Website. Subscribe to us and follow @jedburghpodcast on all social media. Watch the full video version on YouTube.

Highlights:

• 0:00 Welcome to Sandlot Jax 2023
• 2:33 What you learn from starting a career as a janitor at Mars
• 5:21 From engineering to software consulting
• 8:00 Overcoming excuses to build Wodify
• 11:02 How Wodify solves problems for owners and athletes
• 15:09 Solving the funding the challenges for software companies
• 18:43 How each Wodify product supports the athlete and owners
• 20:48 How Jiu-Jitsu dojo’s use Wodify
• 26:37 Three Daily Foundations to Success 

Quotes: 

• “I was, believe it or not, a competitive janitor. I would say ‘my toilets are cleaner than yours….and people noticed.’” (4:03)
• “You can learn something from anyone, anywhere, in any situation.” (5:16)
• “I literally had no business model in mind, I just wanted to see for personal satisfaction could I do it.” (10:03)
• “I wanted full control on being able to do what I thought was right.” (16:23) 
• “The sooner we can get it out there. The sooner we can get the feedback to find out that its a bad idea, the sooner we can stop and pivot.” (20:23)
• “Our ultimate vision is to have the best customer retention platform in well-tech.” (26:30)

Ameet’s Three Daily Foundations

• Invest in personal time
• Be responsible and accountable to those who count on you
• Remind yourself how lucky you are

This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike’s, Compass Workforce Solutions and GORUCK.