Fitt Insider

This week, we’re excited to bring you another edition of Startup Spotlight – a recurring series where we speak with early-stage founders working on fitness and wellness startups.   We usually focus on established companies, operators, and inventors — and we’ll continue bringing you those conversations most weeks. But, from time to time, we’re highlight companies at the beginning of their journey.   Today I’m joined by Lola Priego.    Lola is the founder of Base — where they’re using at-home blood testing to improve diet, stress, sleep, and brain fog.    In this episode, we talk about putting health in the consumer’s hands, targeting potential customers beyond the realm of biohackers, and how Lola was able to raise $3.5M with a team of only five employees as a first-time founder.    Let’s get into it.    More from Lola    Lola is the Founder and CEO of Base, the first health tracker that uses a data science app paired with at-home testing to help people feel better. Prior to founding Base, Lola was a software engineer at Amazon, Facebook and Instagram where she was focused on improving network performance. She later went on to be the Head of Engineering at a Khosla-backed startup within the lab industry space. Through her own personal health journey, Lola realized that a major discrepancy in the healthcare system is the lack of access to data around one’s health. She founded Base as a way to help people understand why they are feeling off with a data-driven approach. Base helps those users that can’t sleep, are fatigued, brain fogged or are looking for the optimal personalized diet.   Originally from Spain, Lola studied medicine for a year before transferring to engineering at the Technical University of Madrid. She then came to the United States to study at the Illinois Institute of Technology and received her Master’s Degree in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. In her free time, Lola started a project through the organization More than Me where she goes to Liberia and teaches girls to code with tablets that she uniquely designed to work offline.    Social: https://www.instagram.com/get_base/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lolitapriego Webpage: https://get-base.com/fitt for a 20% off discount    More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.     Website:  http://insider.fitt.co   ### A quick reminder before we get into today’s show — every Tuesday, we send a weekly newsletter filled with insights and analysts on the business of fitness and wellness. Join other decision-makers and industry operators, by subscribing at http://insider.fitt.co

Today I’m joined by Brynn Putnam.    Brynn is the founder and CEO of Mirror — a connected fitness company that combines an interactive screen with on-demand workout content.    In July, lululemon acquired Mirror for $500M.    In this episode, we talk about Brynn’s motivation for starting Mirror and the genesis of the idea. What differentiates the company from the growing number of look-a-like products. How Brynn defines community in a digital world. And what factors led lululemon to ultimately acquire the company.    More from Brynn   Brynn Putnam is the founder and CEO of MIRROR, the nearly invisible, interactive home gym that streams live and on-demand fitness classes in a variety of genres.   For more than a decade, Brynn has been regarded as a pioneer of the fitness industry. First as a ballet dancer for the New York City Ballet, then as the founder and CEO of Refine Method, the acclaimed fitness studio in New York dubbed “Best New Workout” by New York magazine. Now, Brynn is applying her deep expertise in fitness, both as an accomplished entrepreneur and athlete, to transform the fitness industry again. Brynn graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Russian Literature and Culture and is based in New York City.    More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.   Website:  http://insider.fitt.co

Today I’m joined by Byron Ling of Canaan Partners.    In this episode, we discuss Byron’s investments in companies like Mirror, Ro, Papa, and Uniform Teeth. His insights on building a consumer brand in the healthcare space. And what we should look out for as fitness, wellness, and healthcare converge.    About Byron    Byron is a Partner at Canaan focusing on consumer and digital health investing. His investments include Papa, Ro, Uniform Teeth, Kin Euphorics, and Bravo Sierra. He was previously an investor at Primary Venture Partners, leading investments in companies such as Mirror and K Health. Prior to venture capital, he was an early employee at Gilt Groupe, helping scale the flash sale e-commerce company from product-market fit through the growth stage. Byron holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Economics from Case Western Reserve University.   More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.   Website:  http://insider.fitt.co

Today I’m joined by Nate Raabe, the Managing Partner at Rx3 Growth Partners.    In this episode, Nate tells us about partnering with Aaron Rogers to start Rx3. How the firm uses influencer investors to add value. And we learn about their investments in companies like Hydrow, Hims, Super Coffee, and CorePower Yoga.    About Nate    Nate is currently the managing partner at Rx3 Growth Partners, a consumer-focused influencer fund based in Orange County. Rx3 invests in both growing and established brands across the consumer space. Prior to Rx3, he was managing director of ROTH’s private capital group, where he was responsible for deal sourcing, valuation analysis, and distribution for private companies. Nate also acts as CIO for his family investments and is the managing partner for A&N Ventures. Prior to ROTH, Nate was a founding member of Sapheon where he spearheaded the private companies fundraising prior to its acquisition. He is on the Board of Directors for the San Diego Sports Innovators. Nate graduated from Santa Clara University with a BA in Finance.   More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.   Website:  http://insider.fitt.co

This week, we’re excited to bring you another edition of Startup Spotlight – a recurring series where we speak with early-stage founders working on fitness and wellness startups. We usually focus on established companies, operators, and inventors — and we’ll continue bringing you those conversations most weeks. But, from time to time, we’re highlight companies at the beginning of their journey. Today I’m joined by Zaw Thet, CEO of Exer.    Exer uses AI and computer vision to power its motion coaching platform.    In this episode, we talk about Exer Studio, the company’s Mac app that creates a leaderboard and captures workout stats for any virtual workout, without additional hardware. A partnership with Zoom that lets trainers easily layer Exer on top of their classes. And the company’s B2B2C model aimed at helping trainers better engage with their clients in a remote training environment.    More from Zaw   Zaw Thet is a veteran entrepreneur/investor who has been at the forefront of new technology and starting companies since the age of 19. He is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Exer, on a mission to help millions of people move, train, and play better using the power of AI. Previously, Zaw was a Founding Partner at Signia Venture Partners focused on early-stage tech investing and on creating a new model of venture capital. He helped start Signia in 2012 and led investments across 3 funds.   Zaw was the founder and CEO of 4INFO, one of the first and largest mobile advertising platforms in the world. Business Week recognized him as one the "Mobile Barons" helping to shape the mobile ad industry since 2004. In 2011, Zaw was selected as one of ten entrepreneurs to serve on the United Nations Foundation's inaugural Global Entrepreneurs Council, where he is now an Emeritus Member of the board.   Zaw studied Political and Computer Science at Stanford, where he was a President's Scholar. He received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Soros Fellow.   Exer: http://www.exerstudio.com & http://www.exer.ai/  @movewithexer  @zawthet  More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.   Website:  http://insider.fitt.co

Today, I’m joined by Deepen Parikh, a partner at Courtside Ventures.    Courtside is an early-stage venture firm focused on fitness and wellness, sports and media, and gaming.    In this episode, Deepen tells us about Courtside’s new $75M fund, the firm’s thesis as it related to fitness: including the reinvented gym, human performance, community, and personalized data. And we get into how he thinks about the team, business model, and market when evaluating an investment opportunity.    A quick announcement that we touch on this in the episode: Anthony & I are excited to be partnering with Courtside — where we’ll be working as advisors to the firm. So if you’re building a company in health, fitness, wellness, or sports categories, we’d love to hear from you. Send us an email: insider@fitt.co   More from Deepen Deepen Parikh is a Partner at Courtside Ventures, a leading VC fund focused on early-stage companies across sports/digital media, fitness/wellness and gaming. Since launching Courtside Ventures in 2016, they've invested in 45+ companies, including Freeletics, Future.fit, Gainful, Silofit, Paceline, The Athletic, StockX, The Drone Racing League, Religion of Sports, Beam (acq by Microsoft), 100 Thieves, RecoverX, among several others.   He leads the funds investment focus across fitness, and wellness along with select investment in sports and digital media.    Sitting at the intersection of the rapidly growing entrepreneurial ecosystem and the broader sports technology industry, he was recognized as a 2018 Sports Business Journal Forty Under 40 recipient.   Previously, Deepen was a Partner at Interplay Ventures, an early-stage technology incubator and investor, where he was part of launching/building 15+ companies and investing in another 6 companies.   Deepen started his career as an Associate at UBS Financial Services and earned his BA in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He currently resides in New York City with his wife, Rakhi (who works at Major League Soccer) and his daughter Prem.   More on Courtside    Courtside Ventures is a leading early-stage VC fund, backed by several professional sports team owners, public media companies, global family offices and strategic individuals and athletes. They focus on investing across sports/digital media, fitness/wellness and gaming.    Across Fund I and Fund II (which they are in the process of closing), they've invested in 45+ companies, including The Athletic, StockX, The Drone Racing League, Religion of Sports, Beam (acq by Microsoft), Rebel (acq by Salesforce), Freeletics, 100 Thieves, Players Lounge, RecoverX, Future.fit, Gainful, Silofit, Paceline, among several others.    More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.   Website:  http://insider.fitt.co

Today I’m joined by Nick Green, CEO of Thrive Market.    In this episode, we discuss:    Thrive’s business model that’s been described as Costco meets Whole Foods.  The importance of increasing access to healthy, high-quality foods.  How Nick was able to raise $250M after getting turned down by countless investors.  Why he says the company is just getting started.    About Nick   Nick Green is the co-founder and CEO of Thrive Market, an online market on a mission to make healthy living easy and accessible for every budget, lifestyle, and geography. For $60/year, Thrive Market members save 25% or more on a curated catalog of the world’s highest quality healthy and sustainable food, home, and beauty products. Each paid membership also sponsors a free one for a family in need and enables Thrive Market to ship every member order using carbon-neutral shipping from its zero-waste fulfillment centers. Since its inception in 2015, Thrive Market has grown to a community of over 800,000 paid members, each committed to the health and wellbeing of their families but also united around a vision for a healthier and more sustainable world.    More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.   Website:  http://insider.fitt.co

Today, I’m joined by L Catterton Managing Partners Michael Farello & Jon Owsley.   In addition to investments in consumer brands across almost every category, L Catterton has been heavily involved in the fitness space investing in Equinox, ClassPass, Peloton, Tonal, and many others.    In this episode, we take a deep dive into the future of fitness, including COVID’s impact on gyms and studios, the growth of connected fitness, and the potential for tech companies like Apple and Amazon to get involved.    More on today’s guests    Michael Farello    Michael is a Managing Partner of L Catterton’s growth fund, focusing on all aspects of the fund’s investment strategy and portfolio management.  Over the course of his career, he has served on the Boards of more than 30 companies, with a particular focus on health and wellness, technology and direct-to-consumer businesses.  In this capacity, he has focused on the companies’ growth strategies, acquisitions and marketing and has extensive experience on both compensation and audit committees.  He has served on the Boards of Vroom (NASDAQ: VRM), HomeChef (acquired by Kroger), Better.com, 98point6, ClassPass, Hydrow, Humann, and Pinarello among others.     Michael has worked in the consumer sector since the late-80s as a consultant, senior executive, and investor. Prior to joining Catterton, he held several executive positions at Dell where he led the company's consumer marketing and ecommerce business following a strategic role in the Office of the Chairman. Previously, Michael spent 12 years at McKinsey & Company, most recently as a Partner focusing on the consumer sector.   Mr. Farello earned an M.B.A. with distinction from the Harvard Business School and a B.S. with distinction in industrial engineering from Stanford University.   Jon Owsley    Jon is a Managing Partner of the L Catterton Growth Fund.  Prior to joining L Catterton, he was a consultant at The Parthenon Group, a strategy consulting firm based in Boston.  Prior to joining The Parthenon Group, Jon was a corporate attorney at Hale and Dorr (now Wilmer Hale) in Boston.  Prior to Hale and Dorr, he was the Assistant Brew Master at Otter Creek Brewing and was a college lacrosse coach.  Jon received a B.A, magna cum laude, from Middlebury College and a JD, with honors, from Cornell Law School.  Jon lives in Connecticut with his wife and three teenage daughters. More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.   Website:  http://insider.fitt.co

This week, we’re excited to bring you the first episode of Startup Spotlight – a recurring series where we speak with early-stage founders working on fitness and wellness startups.    We usually focus on established companies, operators, and inventors — and we’ll continue bringing you those conversations most weeks.    But, from time to time, we’re highlight companies at the beginning of their journey.    Today I’m joined by Cam Porter — the Founder and CEO of Core.    Core is making it easy for fitness instructors to create a branded digital experience across iOS, Android, and the web. The company’s content and client management tools help instructors launch and scale their business.    In this episode, we discuss the current state of digital fitness, the disconnect between fitness and health, empowering instructors to build an online business, and the challenges Core is working through to get a product to market.    A quick note on today’s episode, Anthony and I working with Cam and the Core team in an advisory role. We’re excited to play a small part in helping fitness instructors grow their businesses.    More from Cam   Cameron Porter is the founder and CEO of Core, the most recent incubation to come out of the NYC based venture studio, AlleyCorp, best known for its past incubations that include; MongoDB (MDB), BusinessInsider, Gilt Groupe, Zola, and many more. Prior to leading Core, Cameron worked as a Venture Architect at AlleyCorp where he helped to launch companies in spaces ranging from renewable energy food truck fleets to prescription digital therapeutics. His path the venture world was not a traditional one. Cameron dropped out Princeton when he was drafted into Major League Soccer. While playing professionally, Cameron also worked with the league’s front office as a software engineer. Through all of it, he has maintained a deep passion for how people relate to their bodies and hopes that his work can help people get a little closer to arete — fulfillment through the mind, body, and soul.   About Core: Core enables fitness instructors to launch, scale, and grow their business. To do this, Core provides a one-stop-shop for content and client management that powers the instructor’s own branded experience across iOS, Android, and web. You set the prices. You own the content. You own the customers. It’s your business powered by Core.   Learn more: https://www.core.fitness/   More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.   Website:  http://insider.fitt.co

Today I’m joined by Randy Hetrick — the Founder and CEO of TRX.    In today’s episode, we discuss Randy’s journey from Navy SEAL to inventing the TRX suspension trainer. The company’s “triple threat” of innovative products, professional education, and fitness content. And why Randy believes TRX represents a more accessible approach to exercise than more expensive connective fitness options.    About Randy    Randy Hetrick is the founder and CEO of TRX Training, one of the world’s leading fitness brands. After graduating from USC, Randy attended BUD/S and began a 14-year career as a Navy SEAL. He completed multiple deployments, and his operational career culminated as a Squadron Commander of the SEAL’s elite special missions unit where he was tasked with leading the nation’s most crucial special operations missions. While on one deployment in Southeast Asia, Randy created the Suspension Trainer®–perhaps the most prolific piece of exercise equipment in history and later the first TRX product.   In addition to his role at TRX, Randy is also an investor and advisor to early-stage businesses, a speaker to organizations around the world, and a regular lecturer on leadership and entrepreneurship at his alma maters (USC & Stanford).    More from Fitt Insider    Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the business of fitness and wellness.    From product launches and funding news to game-changing innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and analysis on this ever-evolving industry.    Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox, Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by subscribing.     Website:  http://insider.fitt.co