Kelly:  

I realized after my mother joined me for a workout that she wasn't receiving that same joy and inspiration that I was from classes. Of course she wasn't. She was leaving, you know, cursing and call me a masochist because the class was too high intensity, she has a bum shoulder, she had to modify, she didn't feel like she was making any progress. So I took matters into my own hands and started training her and my grandmother over FaceTime. And that was really where the inspiration for Balanced came to be.

Will:  

Hey, I'm Will Brereton, founder of SH1FT Fitness and this is Group Fitness Real Talk, a show about how to survive and even thrive in group fitness in 2021 and beyond. Okay, so I've got a question for you listeners. Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of a 70- year old looking to stay active? Now if you have, you might realize that more and more older people looking to keep fit feel like there is no way that they truly belong. The gym is intimidating for people of all ages. But this is an age group that didn't grow up with the gym as an option. online fitness brands tend to be targeted towards young fit people who are already engaged in fitness. And most options that do cater to an older audience focus on the negatives of aging, and making an individual feel like they're one step away from the grave at any moment. Now I'm sure you've heard a lot about generation active with millennials and Gen Z is taking the lion's share of fitness focus. So is it worth spending time trying to reach this older audience? The answer is F Yes, for two reasons. One, this group is important, and they deserve to have great fitness options available to them. And number two, it's a really smart business decision as more and more of this age group wants to work out and they want to do it online in the safety and comfort of their own home. Now, if you've listened to this podcast for a while, you'll know that myself and my business SH1FT are all about breaking down fitness stereotypes, and creating Fitness for Life at any age with any body. Now that's why I'm so excited to chat to today's podcast guest, Kelly Froelich. Kelly and her co founder Katie have built an entire business around catering to the 65 plus age group called Balanced. And today she's going to share with you how they built it, why they built it, and the tactics they use to ensure that the business is a huge success onto the chat. Okay, so Kelly, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Kelly  

Doing well, great to be here, Will.

Will:  

I am really excited to have you on the podcast because you have just launched a business, well relaunched or done a full big launch of a business that I'm really excited for all of our listeners to hear a lot about because it is serving a community that I feel really strongly has been chronically underserviced. And the pandemic has provided an opportunity to really focus in on this group in a way that we could have before but didn't realize that he could I think and now we know we can. So I'm not gonna put words in your mouth. Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and then about your business.

Kelly  

My name is Kelly Froelich, as you mentioned, and I'm a NASM certified personal trainer and the co founder and CEO of balanced. Balanced is a digital platform for fitness for older adults. And so balance really kicked off, like you said, because of the pandemic when the pandemic hit gyms and studios across the world, as we all know very, very well shut down. So we had to turn to virtual solutions, myself included, now working out from my parents basement as I fled my tiny New York City apartment that got a little too small spending 24 hours a day there, and also training from there as well. And I realized after my mother joined me for a workout, that she wasn't receiving that same joy and inspiration that I was from classes of course she wasn't she was leaving, you know, cursing and calling me a masochist because the class was too high intensity, she has a bum shoulder, she had to modify, she didn't feel like she was making any progress. So took matters into my own hands and started training her and my grandmother over FaceTime. And that was really where the inspiration for Balanced came to be.

Will:  

So you were working so you were living in the same house as your mom at the time?

Kelly  

I did, I left I left my apartment in New York. My very tiny apartment that I loved and went back to my parents place for for about a month or so during the pandemic.

Will:  

Cool. But you were working with your did you say your grandmother over over the internet? So she is pretty savvy Right? Like that's already a pretty techy grandma to be willing to do a fitness class over the internet.

Kelly  

She was, we were doing over FaceTime. I mean, she venmos me. She is a very tech savvy and she really, I don't think she's the exception. I think she's the new norm, especially the pandemics forced people who weren't technically apt to become so because that was the only way to stay in contact with your loved ones.

Will:  

Now we're going to talk heaps and heaps about balanced and exactly what it is and the journey that you've come on. But at what point did you when you say you're training your mother, you're training your grandmother, at what point did you think this is the genesis of a business idea that I would like to pursue or that I have the capacity to pursue?

Kelly  

So it's funny I I was actually going to volunteer to also train my grandmother's friends who I also knew were just not receiving this exercise. And it wasn't just about the physical, but it was more about the mental well being. And it wasn't until I was catching up with Katie, who is now my co-founder, but we sat next to each other when we work together at Row, which is a telemedicine startup. And she had flown back out to California to be with her grandmother during the pandemic, her grandmother had just lost Katie's grandfather, so the love of her life, this whole new world was was occurring. And Katie was cooking with her reading with her but then Katie would go take you name it, core power, Obe, Pelaton, we had such a plethora of options, but our grandmother was left out and would go on a walk if it was nice out.

Will:  

Because the reality was that if you were in the cohort that you and I find ourselves in and we're X class passes as well. So your studio fitness will give anything a go you like or you like high intensity cardio and that sort of stuff as well. So we are fairly well catered for by every fitness market there is. Peloton caters to me, Les Mills on demand caters to me, Barry's boot camp caters to me, yoga caters to me, but there is a large group of people. And we've talked about this on the podcast before who are gym intimidated or not serviced by all of those really great brands. And all of those great brands also run by people of an age group that were okay pivot to pivot to virtual pivot to digital. So there was no lack of options, even though we were stuck at home that we could access through the internet, but it wasn't the same for every type of exercise.

Kelly  

Absolutely. And that's, that's because, right, it's like a, it's a one size fits all for that market. It's this high intensity, you know, high impact, go go go and which is great. And I like you and I both love that. That's what we do. But like I said, my mother was cursing at the end of doing this. And of course, you know, she needed some certain modifications, say when my grandmother she just needed you know, to take a, maybe she just needed to take a seat in a chair for a few reps. And that's we want that to be accessible. And that to be empowering and not to feel like you can't keep up. Yeah, it's pretty wild. We think older adults are this niche population. But there's 54 million of them in the US.

Will:  

Yeah, it's crazy when you think of it in terms of that volume. Right? Okay, so you sit down with Katie, who's your co founder? And who is the technical person, right? She's the one with a little bit of IT knowledge. So how, what's what, what month is this in 2020?

Kelly  

Yep. So this, this was April 2020. So this is really right after and we, we sat down we I told her I was like, I'm gonna volunteer to help my grandma's friends. She looked at me like, she's like this, this could be something really big. Like, this is a huge, huge opportunity to really make a difference, not just like the lives of our grandmothers and our grandmothers, friends, but, you know, millions and millions of Americans. But we also understood as engineers that we are not the end user. Yeah. And so it was important for us to not just say we have the solution, but to go out and test it. And so that, we kicked off that summer pilot with a senior living community in the US. So people that we didn't know, to understand, do older adults want to work out online? Do they want to work out with others do they retain? And the answer after that was an enthusiastic Yes.

Will:  

So this is really interesting. So obviously, you have created the business, which we're going to link to in the show notes. And we're going to talk a lot more about in the second half. But one of the things that I think is most inspirational about your story for the types of listeners that we have to this podcast is that you saw an opportunity to reach a population through the types of services, the types of fitness services you're providing. And you went out and did it. And I know that a lot of people listen to this, also understand that the biggest opportunity for them, when gyms are still trying to get the millennials and the Gen Z's and the young, fitness activated people into the gym. There's a real opportunity around people that are currently on the couch or don't feel service by that, which is exactly the community with the slightly sort of older demographic skew that you into. How did you get into the assisted living community? Like what was your steps for getting in there? Because that's the kind of thing that an instructor in the UK or an instructor in Australia, they could do that as well, right, like, obviously, but they can also go to Balanced. But how did you go about doing that? Like what steps did you take to get this proof of concept that other people might be able to take some inspiration from?

Kelly  

Definitely. So we we partnered with an expert in the space, we partner with a gerontologist who really understood the the senior living community space. And we we knew we wanted to test the concept with people who, like I said, were not peers or like family friends, we really needed to test it with a group of

Will:  

this is where being in the tech startup community makes sense. Because you know, that like it, like test and iterate, test and iterate.

Kelly  

Exactly a lot of testing, right. And so we, you know, got him on board to help us reach out to a number of senior living communities, which was difficult at the time, they were, you know, being attacked by COVID. Essentially, they had a lot going on, but they also understood the importance of exercise. And so we're able to get an amazing partnership with Embark Senior Living. Because also, we're offering a service that they they needed, they shut down their in person exercise, and their, their members no longer had an ability to exercise. And so that was a really clear, a clear win on that partnership. And being able to partner someone who knew the space was really, really important.

Will:  

Okay, so you did this partnership? And then how did you go about testing out your concept? Like, what what was it that you're providing at this point in the journey and life cycle of the company?

Kelly  

Definitely. So I call it like a bootleg beta. Really, it was, I mean, we did we boot-legged it. So we were lucky to find five trainers across the country who were willing to train once to twice a week from via zoom from their homes. So nothing fancy, no mics, no lighting, nothing. And so we had a set schedule that we sent out via Google Docs for people to sign up the week before. And then they would join via zoom, we would send them manual email. So it was all manual, we were really just testing with this group, we selected 11 people out of 180 were interested, which was 88%, we were still working full time at the time, we didn't have time service 180 people. So he selected 11 people to participate in the pilot. And so that felt chewable that we could sustain. And that felt like a good enough number, we could get a good signal of if if they would keep doing it and keep coming. And they were, yeah, they did.

Will:  

And did you know at this point that you wanted to go the funding and turn it into a business? Or were you, were you kind of experimenting? Like how sure, were you that you'd hit on to a concept that could take it into a fully fledged business that could take you away from your full time job? At what point did that become a reality?

Kelly  

Definitely. So there was definitely that spark, when honestly, when I was training my grandmother that joy, like you could see that magic. And we could see that in the pilot with people who didn't know each other training with a trainer they didn't know, but seeing them build that relationship. So we knew there was something there kind of be a billion dollar business, we you know, we had no idea. Now we're very confident. There's many ways, I ran the financial models, there's many ways to be a billion-dollar busienss now. But then we decided quite honestly, we decided, okay, let's give this a try. Let's apply to Y Combinator, which is like the premier incubator.

Will:  

For anyone that's listening in kind of doesn't come from the startup space, this is the, the accelerator that Airbnb and lots of other tech companies got scouted by and then sped up.

Kelly  

Yep, so we applied, we had a great interview, and they rejected us because we were still working full time at our jobs. They said you got to jump, you gotta commit. And so with that, and after, you know, personally reviewing our financial savings, Katie and I both really enjoyed our jobs, too. So it was, it wasn't an easy thing to leave. We both felt so passionate about.

Will:  

Especially in the pandemic right, because you're like...

Kelly  

Yeah, no, absolutely. So it was a combination of just like making sure we had enough savings, and knew when our personal runway would run out. So I knew I had, you know, four months that I could work, you know, with just expenses, no income. Yeah. And so that's when we're like, alright, let's give it a go. You know, we imagine how much we can get done if we didn't have a full time job.

Will:  

Yeah, this is the thing, right? And I like I think, and speaking of someone who started the business, I think the thing you forget is that you work at your runway, and then you figure out how much you've got to invest and then sometimes I know that I had mapped this out and then I forgot about living costs. Which is where having a having a law degree to fall back on doing some legal consulting was very, very useful as I said. Okay, so you jump into this 100% giving me jobs and focus wholly in on balance. Was it called Balanced at the time?

Kelly  

It was called balance at the time.

Will:  

And then you managed to get some funding right which is where how you really started to kind of scale up and know that you are going to go into what people will see when they check out your site today.

Kelly  

Absolutely. So we we understood we could build a business, you know, brick and mortar or not brick and mortar, but we could build it with our own savings, slowly, but it was important to us to be able to reach we wanted to reach, you know, the 54 million Americans yesterday. So venture funding, so getting outside investment would help us accelerate that.

Will:  

Like, if you did it well, other people that did have that funding would see what you were doing and, like, cut you lunch? 

Kelly  

Exactly. So we decided we're gonna make this a big venture backed business. So we went out and started to fundraise. We, one of the luckiest things that happened is we both came from startup backgrounds, very close with the founders of our previous company, and people who founded companies are able to get introductions to VCs pretty easily. And from there, we we had one conversation with Brian Schecter, who is now our lead investor from primary, which is an VC firm out of out of New York. And it was, it just clicked. And we had several conversations, and I went pretty quickly. And he, he understood the vision, and he understood this could impact people's lives. And this can also be a really amazing business. So from there, we're able to raise, we quite as we went out to raise $500,000, we raised 1.5 million, with a couple of key angels as well. And that's why we're able to get them funding to really invest in the production studio, our trainers, training our trainers, building the brand, building the website and the application. And now we're able to finally launch it to the public.

Will:  

Okay, so we start, pandemic happens. You start doing some zoom training for immediate family members in April, May 2020. At what point are you jumping off doing the full time thing and getting the funding? What month was this?

Kelly  

Yep, so we left our full time jobs in January, we had started talking to VCs a little before that, yeah, we got the funding, we got funded end of February. So moved pretty quickly, cash came in, in March. And that's all we can really go for it.

Will:  

So like full disclosure, I know Kelly, because we did some work together through so a wonderful, wonderful ex-colleague and both of ours, Sherry put us in touch. So it was at about this point that you and I chatted about. And I did some consulting for you, on all range of things, that that we have many, many involved and laughter filled the conversations about. So tell me a little bit about the journey, you have got your proof of concept. And so I've obviously heard this story, but I really want the people that are listening to here, because I think it's really interesting. You had your proof of concept. You've done that via zoom with a small select group of trainers. And it was the people in their test group from the assisted living facility, you knew that this was something you wanted to do. So what was the next steps from there, you had the brand name, and you knew that you wanted to do live-stream classes, right? Like I remember those are the kind of the two things you want to do demographic, which was older, older adults that needed to exercise and wanted to exercise. And you wanted to make it accessible to them. You're going to do live streaming, and it was going to be balanced. Tell me more like as like, what other things did you think about I know that you did a lot of surveys into the boutique fitness scene just to see what you could pull from there and modify. Tell me a bit about.

Kelly  

Definitely. So I mean, starting off, right, as you know, like starting from zero, the the sky's the limit, which is an amazing but also terrifying opportunity. Because there is no path you're really setting that forward. So really, the first thing was sitting down and saying, Okay, what do we need? What will really be the unlock for the business? Where can we cut corners in terms of cost? And then what will the timeline be? So in terms of what we needed, we knew we needed a production studio so we were getting into commercial real estate, you know, things I've never done before. I found an amazing spot. We knew we need a trainer. So we started you know going out and recruiting having auditions we actually hit the market at just the right time because it was right before gyms start opening up and back in New York. So there was actually now there's a need for trainers. But there's actually more trainers out there that were looking for opportunities we were able to get inside amazing, amazing trainers at that time, which well helped train them on being on camera and they are pretty incredible. So we knew we needed that. We also knew we needed an amazing brand, because we have such affinity to like the SH1FT brand, for instance, Will, like so amazing. So well thought out, community driven, very high energy. Senior older exercise for older adults is not a new concept. There are brands out there that do this. Yes. SilverSneakers, Silver and Fit, Wise Fit, it's it's all these, these brands that really like feel so clinical really remind you that you're, you're aging.

Will:  

You should be doing this because you're gonna die. 

Kelly  

Yes, he messaging on these websites is like, did you know one in three people have falls every year?

Will:  

Do you have osteoporosis?

Kelly  

Not inspiring. And so we we made a big bet on like building a brand that was about possibility would be super important. So we put a lot of effort working with an amazing branding agency on that. And then the final piece was the tech side. We needed, you know, we needed a web, we decided just to do web base. So we don't have an application out yet for your phones or iPads. But we did a web base. So having both the front end website web page working, but also the backend.

Will:  

One of the things about your particular demographic is that you could probably make certain decisions on the tip from based on what the capabilities of your demographic will be. You cannot get away without having a mobile application, right. But you'd probably make a safe bet that you can start on web and build from there.

Kelly  

For sure, we were like, let's start on web, we knew people are accessing from their computers or their iPad. So and that makes sense. Of course, like the bigger the screen, the better. It's hard to watch anything off your phone. So we decided to do web base, which kept the scope to be smaller and build build a custom application because similarly, yeah, the options out there are tough, lik mindbody is a tough app to work in, especially if you don't have familiarity with it. So we decided to roll our own and that was a big bet as well.

Will:  

Um, so we, where are we at now? We're kind of in the middle of the year. So you have a studio in its Dumbo. 

Kelly  

Yep, in DUMBO in Brooklyn.

Will:  

Yep, Dumbo, and explain Dumbo for anyone that's not a New Yorker. 

Kelly  

Ah, DUMBO stands for down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. So it's a real it's right on the water in Brooklyn. You're right by the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge. It's really, really great. And also a very like burgeoning area for startups.

Will:  

Exactly. So you kind of got you got a good area to mix and mingle with other people that are dealing with some of the same technical and growth issues that you might be. So I am really interested to hear a little more about the launch phase. Yeah, it's really interesting. I was talking to a person who is very involved in the fitness industry. And she was talking about this, which is for anyone listening that doesn't know that it's the International Health and Racquet Club Association. Like it's a weird name, apparently, yeah, rebranding it, because obviously, that name just doesn't make sense anymore. But I was asking about, they had their first live conference. And the simple answer was that it was very pale, male and stale, which, unfortunately, is the fitness industry, if you have been involved in for as long as I have, you know that that's the case. And so there's a lot of new players that are coming in like you guys, which are shaking up what the fitness industry will be. But one of her observations was that it was so difficult to go online, and to solve the digital proposition that a lot of the people involved with gyms and some of those big fitness facilities. As soon as live classes started coming back, they almost breathed out a like breath of relief when but thank God because now I can stop having to pretend like I really want to do digital. And I can go straight back to doing exactly what I did before because that shit is hard. And so the good thing about what you guys are doing is you're you were already primed to be catering to a different market and a different demographic than people that we're going to jump back into gym and studios. Because I know a lot of digital startups have really started to struggle because people now that they can go back, they want to go back. So tell me a little bit about how your launch how you how you went about launching your product in the period when everyone was going back into the gym, when your product is so firmly based around at home fitness.

Kelly  

Definitely. So we we really believe in being a digital first platform. And that's for a myriad of reasons. But one of the main ones being is that we're able to distribute balance to many more people. For a lot of people like we talked about either intimidation of going into a physical gym is high especially for this generation who didn't grow up, you know, with this fitness first mentality of many people have today of going to a gym and so it's very high barrier to entry, but then also to it's access.

Will:  

Let me just ask for color on the rest of the conversation. What is the average age of your user?

Kelly  

Yep, so we're going for about the 65-75-year old range. 

Will:  

These are people who didn't you right? They didn't have gyms when they were growing up. They might have played sport, but they didn't, like they're almost a little bit before that kind of Jazzercise, James Bond moment where everyone started moving into the gym. 

Kelly  

Yes. And we found that through our user research is, you know, when we say glutes and quads and all these nicknames for muscle groups, you know, you and I know this many people our age or in our demographic do know this as well. But this group really needed to understand, okay, when we say glute stature, they want to understand what the muscle is. But that's the muscle, the big muscle in your butt. Like, we know having that education piece.

Will:  

That's funny, because, so full disclosure, I'm 40. I turned 40. This year, I'm like, at the top end of a millennial, like, I'm almost Gen X, but not quite. But even I think of that first iteration of the gym back when they were kind of wearing, you know, unitards and doing all that feels retro to me. So we're talking about a generation that that was a little bit too newfangled for right? That's, that's the people that you're serving with this product.

Kelly  

Yeah, exactly. So they weren't gym goers, you know, didn't grow up gym goers. Yeah, and then access. So either the, the barrier to get to a gym is high, or they can't get to a gym, it might be too far, you know, especially here, here in New York, it's dark at 4:30. I'm gonna drive I don't even want to drive to a gym at that time. So we do believe that being digital, first, we're able to get balanced to people who really need it. And who wouldn't otherwise be able to access exercise in one of those big box gyms.

Will:  

Yeah, I mean, just just being realistic about it, right? Like, it means you can invest in one high quality studio where you can make it really, really awesomely fit for purpose for what you're doing. And then not have to worry about growing it out or expanding it too fast. Like, I know that you know, as as you guys grow, you're hopefully going to have different time zones and all these different kinds of considerations. But for now, you can just have one great location and not have to worry about the the challenges that come with having a live bricks and mortar operation.

Kelly  

Absolutely. Yep, it just it scales so much better.

Will:  

So you launch was, your your big full launch, because I've seen all of all of the PR stuff is going out at the moment. I saw of you recently where your hair looked extremely glossy and lushes.

Kelly  

Doesn't usually look that way as you know.

Will:  

We may have seen each other on various like conference calls where you're in the evening, and I was in the morning where we didn't quite look quite so sort of PR presentable. But you've been in pre launch for how long? So I've seen the website, iterate and make some changes. Tell us a little about the process of getting the you got the branding in place. The branding looks fantastic. But the website looks different now to how it looked a couple of months ago, right? What was the purpose of testing and transformation that?

Kelly  

Definitely so we've been basically building since January. So once we had our pilot, we decided, okay, this is where we're gonna take our big bet, we're gonna leave our jobs we're gonna build. So that came with a few different things. One was the physical build out, Studio, plus getting our trainers. Two was testing the product and the concept continually. So we're still doing live classes, we started testing videos on demand. So if you miss a live want to catch it or want to do something specific for you how to do that, we started testing that we're using a third party application for the backend to run reservations and account management, we were running into so many issues and accessibility on it that we decided to build our own. And so that meant the process was really first, like build out the team. Right? We turned on the camera and said, as you know, I was like, I don't know how to run production.

Will:  

I remember working to get you an equipment list.

Kelly  

Yes. So that was the level so we hired two amazing, amazing producers who one of them built out that the virtual production at 305 Fitness. So she's done this incredibly before. Now she's coming to it with balanced and really build it out there. So one of the production. And then two is building out the team, we made a big bet on hiring a full time product manager and a full time engineer. And that was because we knew we wanted to continually test and iterate we didn't just want to launch with one product and not be able to build on top of that. And so we hired both of them. They're incredible. Also coming from a virtual fitness background. So having done this, a lot of this before I apply those learnings to what we're doing now. So we built out the front end website, the branding, we built out the app on the tech side. And then we built out the studio, which is delivering that amazing experience.

Will:  

And how many trainers do you have on the platform at this point?

Kelly  

We have five trainers right now.

Will:  

Okay, cool. So you've just you can how many, they teach sort of how many classes per day? How many classes per week?

Kelly  

Yep, so we're doing we have six lives a week. And so they teach at least once a day. And then what we're doing is we're just really being able to develop a lot of content when we found back to you know, my mother who had a shoulder injury put into things is that this population as we age, we become really heterogeneous. The current options out there for us are one size fits all you hop on a bike you go however, older adults have chronic conditions, injuries, you name it, too. They're actually really unique in their needs. And so now we're being able to build out everlasting content that's specific to that, for example we're doing, we're doing a shoulder spear, my mother shoulder friendly, upper body strength training series, how can you still build that muscle, but keeping in mind that shoulder injury and being able to work within within that range of motion and that and that ability?

Will:  

Awesome. And so I'm going to go back to probing you for questions that might help our listeners who might see me compete with you on a small scale, but probably okay with it. So tell me you do you film six workouts a week? And do you film them all with the express intention that they're going to go into your on demand library afterwards? So is that like something that you do planned in advance?

Kelly  

Yep, for the most part, so we do so all for the most part, most of our lives will go on to on demand, except for dance cardio, because music licensing. Um, so that will go on to on demand. And then we have explicit, we call series. And so we'll film you know, 3, 5, 10 classes specific around a particular goal all in one go with our trainers, right?

Will:  

So this is not these aren't live stream classes. These are classes where the person is, so you have your live stream class that let's say, for example, 9am, and then the trainer might stay behind and do another two classes, or each day for the week or something like that.

Kelly  

Exactly. Yeah. And so then we're able to produce is really pointed, high quality content that people can then use at their leisure.

Will:  

It all looks completely consistent, right? Because you've got your studio and it all, it all looks of a nature and of a family. Yeah, exactly. And so how do you go about identifying and deciding what those special series are going to be? Like how do you determine what the best kind of workout styles are for your users?

Kelly  

Yep. So we we ask them, so we use a lot.

Will:  

Oh, ask a question, get an answer?

Kelly  

So two things happen. One is one is we have an amazing advisor, Dr. Landau. He started the physical therapy program at USC, he's worked with balance and dizziness for 40-plus years. So he comes in and has like this deep, deep expertise in the space. We also have when somebody joins balance, an onboarding plan or an onboarding session. So they tell us some key information about themselves. So we we really understand our members, right as they get onto the platform. And that's the key, right? We know if they're coming in with any injuries, what type of workouts they like to do, they do they want to do seated workouts, mat workouts, standing workouts, what pace, so we're able to get all this information. And then we're able to recommend classes specific for them. They have osteoporosis, we have a build strength, or build strong bones class for people to ask you a process. So we can serve that to them directly on their homepage. And they can take that specifically specifically for them.

Will:  

This is such a great thing, right? So for anyone that's interested, we, as I said before, we're going to link to the website. But you've got an onboarding process, which asks a set of questions that you've thought a lot about in terms of what can we ask that will? Because there's always two considerations when someone's onboarding, how do we get as much information without asking for so much that they get bored and stop? To complete the complete the buyer journey?

Kelly  

2-minute survey. That's it.

Will:  

Exactly so you ask people whole lot of information. And what's amazing about that is it allows you to do two things at the same time, which is understand them personally and personalize it to them. But also build an aggregate profile of your user base, which allows you to think more tactically about what it is you're going to create. So you know that you know, 30% of your user base has bad knees, but 50% has bad shoulders. So if you're going to create a special series, the shoulder series is probably the one to go for first, for example.

Kelly  

Exactly, exactly. And now we're it's pretty, you know, as a Data Editor myself, now it's cool because they're doing some second level analysis of being able to understand, okay, if somebody prefers a seated workout, we actually found this, they're also more likely to prefer a slow paced workout as opposed to a fast paced work. Yeah. So now we really understand, okay, we don't have to just like mix and match. But we know profiles of people to be able to develop content specifically for them.

Will:  

And so tell me, we've talked about all of the stuff that you've done with getting the product out to market tell me what are the biggest challenges that you've faced in terms of getting to the point you're at right now, like in this could be from right at the start to, to where we find ourselves today? Like what have been the biggest challenges the biggest pain points in the process?

Kelly  

Definitely. So I think it's just knowing it's having confidence to know where to go. And so what I really had to work on is I came from a data background where all the decisions that I made and how we move forward was through data analysis, which is why now I'm really excited. Yeah, exactly.

Will:  

And now you're getting into your sweet spot.

Kelly  

But as we're building, you don't have data that you can rely on. 

Will:  

Yeah, you have to either sink or swim and you learn a lesson through both.

Kelly  

Exactly, you got to do that. And then you just have to, you know, get that proxy to just kind of talk to people, um, is getting qualitative data is actually really helpful. And just always think the key of where we are today is understanding we are not the end user. And so always having them in the conversation has been super, super important. But I mean, one of the hardest things is like, where do we invest? Like, what are those big bets that we want to make? Who do we hire, there's so many different ways that you can invest in the business, but understanding which will have like the highest returns, that was a lot, that was a big, big, big thought exercise and a big, you know, trial and error.

Will:  

It's, it's interesting, I can completely understand where you're coming from. And also, as an observer of the space, I think I've seen a lot of a lot of digital fitness brands not necessarily targeted at the same demographic that you are, that have come into the space and have lead with their lead with the content that they think is great and probably is great, but doesn't necessarily think about what is the content that their user base wants to use? Exactly. It's funny, because I feel like, I feel like I every time I log into LinkedIn, I'm seeing a new digital fitness provider. And there's so many, you know, connected fitness options, like there's always another sort of treadmill and row or and then you've got the existing companies like pre core Technogym that are upping their digital. So digital is very, is a very, very competitive space. And it's always going to be hard to compete with Apple, because they can do everything in such a massive scale and make it look really, really great. But yeah, it's and that's something that I think that all people listening to this can learn from it's it's not thinking, I like this. So I'm going to teach this for my users, but thinking what do my users actually want?

Kelly  

Yep, putting the members first and having just like extreme empathy. That's, I think that was the key to getting where we are is where we are today.

Will:  

And so, okay, so that's the that's the key to getting where you are, what are the strategies and tactics that you use to, to have extreme empathy and to really understand the users like, what do you do to get there and to understand?

Kelly  

Yeah, so we, I'm going to plug this platform, we run user testing every single week. So we're constantly putting different videos, the website, everything up on this platform, we're able to then get feedback from people who are 55+ and it's like, long form video recorded, so we're able to get that voiceover. And then we're constantly talking to our members. I mean, you know, I know them all by name now. We're sending them emails where we're doing things that don't scale right now, because we have the ability to do that. We can talk to our members one on one, we won't have the ability to do that soon. And that's totally fine. We can do things at scale. But right now, we just, you know, do the things that help us have those conversations.

Will:  

What do you do for community building, like do you do it within the website within the platform? Do you use social media? What's the method? 

Kelly  

So currently, we're using Facebook so once again, we wanted to meet our members where they are. And that's the platform that they are most using.

Will:  

I think that was one of that was like one of my top like...use Facebook.

Kelly  

Yes. Yes, exactly. So we're using Facebook right now for like our offline engagement. And then we also have, it's been really great to see for those live classes. So the live, so how, our point of view of live versus video on demand, we went back and forth of this, there's so many different points of view, there is that video on demand scales really well, and you're able to really personalize content. Yeah. So build that content that lives for perpetuity and is specific to a member. So we're able to do that with our video on demand content.

Will:  

Yeah. But if you if you're targeting in on something like a shoulder series, or a seated series, or that kind of thing, right, in a way that you're doing a class that anyone might attend, you just can't do it, or you will turn them off.

Kelly  

And are you members interacting with each other?

Kelly  

Right. But the live classes are important because it builds that routine. And it really builds that community. And so seeing people come back week over week, they have relationships with the trainers or trainers know them by name, calling them out and seeing that progress is also really important. So that's why we we made the decision to do both right now. And we we've found that that really builds the community because it goes back to communities about relationships with individual people, the brands important of course, but you don't have a relationship with a brand you have relationship with a person and so really, you know empowering our trainers to build relationships with our members build that community is important and again, we'll find out ways to scale that but for now it's been really fun to really see that that interaction.

Kelly  

They do.

Will:  

Because this this is the other this is the kind of the two things and listeners of this podcast will have heard me talk about this before like it's not it's not a new thing or something that I even created myself, but it's like the two things that I think are most important are use the networks that are like the things like Facebook that don't require you to build anything, because building things is hard and expensive, and two, get your members talking to each other because that like creates that connection and conversation that you then don't have to always be the one feeding.

Kelly  

Absolutely. And we will have some icebreaker questions for a class that we can then discuss, discuss afterwards, which has been really helpful to see people from all over the country then be able to connect on something that maybe perhaps they didn't think they, they could before. Had a really funny interaction with that one was our one of our trainers birthday. So the question was like, what's your what's your astrological sign? Yeah. And one of our members said, she's a Pisces, so yes. Does that reflect? Do you think that's reflective? She's like, Yeah, I love to swim. It's a fish. I'm like, yeah that works. Not what we were expecting. It was great. And just like, you know that those those are like those magical moments that are absolutely incredible. Or when a trainer calls out somebody on screen, you see their face light up. It's, it's those little magic moments, like, keep people coming back.

Will:  

And so obviously, you guys are just getting started. And this entire, this entire lifecycle of your business is still so young. But but if I ask you the big question, sort of what is next for balanced? And what is the goal? And you've alluded to a little bit of already, but I'd love to hear exactly the answer to that question.

Kelly  

So we want to get Balanced to the homes of older adults across the country. And so the way to do that, in the US is through health care, and older adults expect to be able to receive these benefits through health care. And most people don't have retirement savings when they retire. And so even though we know I might think, okay, $20 a month, no problem, that can be a real strain on people's wallets, and something that they're actually not able to access. And so the next, the next big thing for Balanced is being able to provide Balanced through Medicare Advantage, or the the health care solution for older adults. So that's where we're tracking towards, and then we want to make aging a time of possibility. So it starts with fitness, we need to get this right.

Will:  

Yes, give me that branding. I love it.

Kelly  

It also goes, there's so many more things on that there's mindfulness, there's nutrition, there's so many other ways that this population hasn't been served in the past and that the pandemic has opened up a new technological wave that they are able to receive this via via digital, and especially as people prefer to age in place, like 77% of people want to age in place. So they're not going into these independents.

Will:  

You mean, they want to stay in the house that they were living, they don't want to go into a facility.

Kelly  

Exactly. So we're seeing this cool trend in the US of the de-bundling of the facility. How do you get people these, the ability to stay in their homes and really give them the services just where they are? So we're we're excited to see that that trend as well. And we think that yeah, balanced should be in every home, and engaging and making aging again, a possibility through something that's inspiring and not, you know, fear mongering about falls.

Will:  

Hmm. Well, thank you so much for coming and chatting to me, I've been wanting to catch up with you, because I've been seeing all the launches and all I am so proud of what I see on the internet, knowing where it came from and, and the the the swiftness with which you've moved. And also the fact that from a personal perspective, I obviously work with so many fitness brands that have been involved in the fitness industry for sort of 20 years. And I'm just really bored of a lot of stuff. And I'm particularly bored of seeing the same kind of young people doing hard out stuff wearing, you know, not a lot of clothing and, and what you guys are doing just feels like it is something that is not only a really great business idea, because there's such a captive market for but it's something that needs to be done. And it's actually providing sort of a net positive to the overworld. Right, because we all know and this is something we've talked about on the podcast before and kind of the background to to your business as well as that the population is aging, and people are staying active for a lot longer. But as we get older, like the cost of health care increase, and the single biggest way to protect yourself against all the illnesses that you face in old age, including any pandemics that come back up or come around to the future is to just be physically active and healthy. And so anything that can help people to do that, as they get older, is providing such a massive benefit to just every society that exists. Absolutely no as well as potentially growing a really cool big business.

Kelly  

That's the goal. Very cool, big business that really changes people's lives.

Will:  

Exactly. Well. Thank you so much for chatting, um, for anyone that's interested in getting the themselves or their parents or their grandparents involved with Balanced, we will put a whole lot of links to the website in the show notes of this, and you can check it out. But Kelly, thank you so much for taking time to talk to me. And I look forward to talking to you again when your businesses in the next stage of explosive growth around the country.

Kelly  

Thanks, Will.

Will:  

So that was my chat with Kelly. Now I've spoken about finding your niche on this podcast before. And I think balanced is such a great example of this. Targeting the older audience isn't new. We've all known about SilverSneakers, or aqua aerobics for a long time, they've been around forever. But what Kelly did was find a new angle to service this population. These are people of my parents age, so I think I know them pretty well. And they don't want to be constantly reminded of their limitations. And contrary to popular thought they can work a computer. It's important to note that Kelly and Katie are both young millennials, quite a bit younger than me. And they're the first to say that they had no idea what it was like as an older person working out. But what they did, as you would have heard Kelly said, was ask questions and listened. And then they asked more questions. And they listened some more. They never made any assumptions. And they planned their business around what their test customers said they specifically wanted. This part is crucial, and I want you to remember it. And this applies to whatever audience you are serving. So many of us think that we know what our audience wants. But don't ever take the time to ask them properly, and then get it wrong. Balanced has now launched and is gaining traction really quickly. Customers are loving it. And it's so nice to have a fresh new content platform. That service is such an integral segment of our community. I am 100% sure that the success of balanced is due to the fact that they didn't leave anything to chance, even though it's happened so fast. And they took so many big swings and big risks. They put their customer voice at the front and center of everything that they did. And that's how they got where they are today. And if there's one thing I want you guys listening to this podcast to think is how you could also serve as the same community. I've talked about it a lot on this podcast, but your classic gym, your classic boutique studio, your classic online fitness platform, are all going for engaged exercises. They're all competing for that same small 20% slice of the pie that everybody has been competing for since the 80s. The opportunity for you as an instructor who is making their own way in the post pandemic fitness business, is by getting people up and off the couch. So what can you learn from balanced to allow you to expand the scope of your community, make more money, and most importantly, create more healthy change in your community? Thank you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, don't forget to subscribe for all the latest episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please drop us a review. You can also get in touch with me at will@sh1ftfitness.com. I'm Will Brereton and you've been listening to Group Fitness Real Talk.