HALO Talks: Elevating Wellness

As the Founder of Crossrope, (which he bootstrapped from the beginning) Dave has jumping in his blood! He spent 12 years as a Naval pilot and, while in the Academy, also competed in both long jumping and high jumping. He says, "I've always had this indescribable, innate, passion for the freeing feeling . . . for the challenge and enjoyment of jumping!" Crossrope has a hugely dedicated following with an incredibly enthusiastic online community.

He and Pete discuss how the company went about setting themselves apart in a highly commoditized market, the product lifecycle, intellectual property protection, how they've dealt with people's concerns around "I haven't done this since elementary school!" and more. Dave goes on to chat about his 'contrarian' views on entrepreneurship, hiring, the EOS management system, where the company is going in the next 5 years and more!

With a 40 year background in the industry, Sara started in group exercise, eventually owned her own studio, became the #1 distributor for Les Mills for years, and then founded SCW Fitness Education. She was at the inception of the boutique fitness world, before it was even called that!

In this wide ranging discussion, she and Pete chat about everything from the future of the industry post-COVID ("We're going to have a shortage of . . . group exercise instructors and personal trainers,") to why it's important to not restrict instructors as we bring them back in the clubs (and how to implement that exactly.) She continues on about the critical need to learn lessons from outside our industry (with specific examples from Apple, Lululemon, Kate Spade, boutique hotels), and more!

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Ian Mullane is the Founder of keepme.ai. With a strong background in finance, predictive analytics, and the fitness industry (he owned Vanda.fit in Singapore) Ian related, "I asked myself if I could possibly utilize the data within my organization to predict whether or not a member will stay or go? That's how Keepme came about . . . if you're going to build a platform of substance, it helps to have had the problem yourself."

He and Pete chat about the importance of retention in the industry, how the thinking around it really hasn't changed in the past decade, what can be done about it, why technology should be an 'enabler' to building relationships, and more!

Download Ian's Future of Fitness whitepaper here.

As Founder of The Wellness Agency ("TWA") Jay describes it as, "Kind of a Y-Combinator meets William Morris or UTA for wellness." Prior to TWA, Jay founded Mammoth Records and was Head of A&R at Atlantic Records before selling to the Walt Disney Company. His extensive experience helping artists grow carried over perfectly to his business ventures.

TWA has a vision to being a material part of creating 10 unicorns in the next decade. They provide startup accelerator services, access to an investor network, DTC strategy and implementation, and market entry to China. He and Pete chat about upcoming trends and products, the increasing importance of "microinfluencers," experience with "celebrity investors," and how those deals come together, and more.

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With a challenging history of severe autoimmune disease, Shauna Reiter's journey to eventually founding Alaya Naturals has been a long, but rewarding one. Alaya's annual revenue is $6 million with over 100,000+ customers and a team size of 5!

On evaluating other products, she states, "You have to ask whose agenda is it? What's their Mission and purpose? Who are they associated with? If there's a big profit to be gained, then sometimes quality can be overlooked, and there's plenty of marketing gimmicks that . . can mean nothing. You have to do a deeper level of research."

In a wide-ranging chat with Pete, she discusses the role politics and law play in the nutrition and supplement industry, (e.g., the use of the term "organic"), the need to let go from time to time when it comes to diet and nutritional choices, the importance of slowing down and not rushing a product to market, challenges in keeping a company small and personal versus scaling too fast and (possibly) losing credibility, and more!

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Erika Flint is an award-winning hypnotist, best-selling author, speaker, co-host of the popular podcast series Hypnosis, Etc., and co-host of the radio program Reprogram Your Health. She is the founder of Cascade Hypnosis Center and the creator of the Reprogram Your Weight System.

Before becoming a hypnotist, Erika designed software for the high-tech industry. She was working in that field for over a decade when she realized how interested she was in the most powerful computing device available – the human mind. Now she combines her analytical expertise along with powerful hypnosis techniques and her compassion for people to help clients utilize their most powerful asset – their mind.

"Hypnosis allows us to be the CEO of our own operating system. . .it helps business owners make very clear decisions and feel good about them--and that's paramount," she says. In this chat, she and Pete discuss why hypnosis is becoming more popular, the hurdles the pharmaceutical industry poses, differences between meditation and hypnosis, how you know if hypnosis is right for you, differences between guided meditations and hypnosis, and more!

Check out a great hypnosis relaxation recording for free here and if and you'd like a free copy of her books - Reprogram Your Weight, Lighter, or Can You Be a Hypnotist - email [email protected] and she will send a PDF version. Click here to download transcript.

The Joy of Mom's Mission is, "To unite and empower women everywhere to be unapologetic warriors and sisters while navigating the ever-evolving life cycle of motherhood." To say they've succeeded would be an understatement! Founder Vicki Reece has, from the ground up, built a "natural, organic, beautiful community of over 5 million Mom's!" "They have a 60 million reach average monthly," which is, according to COO Dush Ramachandran, "Completely organic. Not one like or share has been paid for. Every post gets 1.5 billion annual impressions. Videos get 334 million annual views. 80 million annual engagements."

This incredible community not only continues to grow, but engagement grows with it (which is usually not the case.) Dush and Vicki discuss how to know when to "let the business go" to allow it to grow, fundraising, the importance of providing "trust based value" (the right company valuation will follow!), where the community is going, and much more!

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Aileen Hoffman is the VP for the National Sunrise Walks,, a series of walks to help raise funds for the incredible Sunrise Association. "It's been an unbelievable 15 year journey serving thousands of children impacted by pediatric cancer," she states. Their next event is June 4-6, Rise Up for Sunrise.

The Founder Arnie Preminger, realized a while back that there was not a single day camp in the entire world for children with cancer. He started small in Long Island with 96 kids and--15 years later--they have grown to 8 camps, plus another 3 in Israel and no family pays a single dollar! For anyone who has been lucky enough to have the summer camp experience, you know how important and life-changing it can be.

Have a look at this video to learn more about this incredible group, and reach out now to donate or get involved!

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A former student-athlete and author of #sponsored: How Athletes & Brands Can Leverage Each Other to Create Value, Jasmine Chou chats with Pete about the differences between--and ways companies approach--both amateur and pro sponsorships, concrete steps on approaching companies, the three types of amateur sponsorships, how recent changes in the NCAA have impacted the sponsorship community, challenges of social media and more!

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Kaumil Gajrawala is the author of a seminal, recently released (April 6, 2021) initiating coverage report from Credit Suisse titled, Wellness Sector Initiation: An Apple a Day which can be downloaded here.

"We think HALO will be a $7 trillion industry. Not every piece will be a winning piece . . . but at the end of the day you're talking about something growing very significantly on a global basis," he states.

Integrity Square views this as a critical milestone for the industry in that it's the first time a top-tier investment bank such as Credit Suisse has authored a report strictly focused on the wellness (HALO) sector.

Kaumil discusses his thoughts on scaling, valuations, brand building, certain benchmarks to be aware of, the pitfalls of looking at public company comps, running a private versus public company, the #1 performing stock of all stocks since the 2000's, (it's not who you think!), his bullish thoughts on the sector moving forward and more!

Click here to download transcript.