Millions of people are going to come off GLP-1 drugs. Some for cost, some for side effects, some because they were never meant to be on them forever. When they come off, the weight tends to come back, and they are going to walk into your studio asking your front desk questions nobody trained your staff to answer. Meanwhile the shelf behind that desk is filling up with products making bigger and bigger promises, and most owners have no framework for evaluating any of it. This episode is that framework, built with a founder who agreed to be asked hard questions about her own product.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Lekha Vyas, Founder and CEO of SYNQ Wellness and Founder and CEO of ELVY Lab, and goes behind the build:

What role a wellness product can and cannot play alongside physician-directed care when a member is transitioning off GLP-1 therapy, and what your front desk should actually say

How to separate published literature from a company's own observational data, and how to tell where the evidence stops

Who owns the substantiation problem when a studio owner repeats a product claim to a member

Lekha Vyas is the Founder and CEO of SYNQ Wellness and the Founder and CEO of ELVY Lab, a second-time founder based in New York. She spent more than five years at Procter & Gamble leading supply chain planning and operations, then moved into leadership roles across some of the largest beauty companies in the world. At L'Oréal she played a key role in the Urban Decay acquisition and integration, running supply chain planning, retail planning, and global business planning. She joined Chanel as Director of Inside Sales, then Estée Lauder as Executive Director of Global Business Planning, where she led global planning initiatives, portfolio strategy, and M&A integration. At Guthy-Renker Ventures she served as Head of Strategic Planning and Operations, helping evaluate, incubate, and scale emerging consumer brands. She was also part of the founding team behind JLo Beauty. Most founders in the supplement industry come out of marketing or product development. Lekha comes out of enterprise strategy, supply chain, operations, and commercialization, and that is why this conversation goes well beyond a typical founder interview. SYNQ Wellness is developing a patent-pending oral dissolving film platform focused on metabolic health. Its first product combines dihydroberberine, or DHB, with six additional plant-derived bioactives in a fast-dissolving oral strip. Rather than creating another supplement, the company's thesis is that formulation and delivery can be just as important as ingredient selection, while building toward what Lekha believes can become a broader oral delivery platform across multiple wellness categories. The company has built an early access waitlist of more than 4,800 people and has publicly documented much of its product development as it prepares for launch.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

Watching members cycle on and off medications with no plan for what happens next

Sending staff to the front desk with no script for questions that are really medical questions

Stocking retail products they cannot evaluate and could not defend if asked

Tying up working capital in inventory before they know whether it moves

Top topics we cover

The GLP-1 off-ramp and the duty of care. What a wellness product can responsibly sit alongside, what your front desk should say when a member asks what comes next, plus screening, labeling, and contraindications including insulin and pregnancy.

From enterprise operations to a one-product startup. What actually transfers from global supply chain and commercial planning, and what has to be unlearned completely.

Formulation and delivery versus ingredient selection. Lekha makes the full case, then names exactly where the thesis hits a ceiling.

Three buckets of evidence. Published literature on the ingredients, a company's own observational data, and future validation studies, and how an operator should weigh each one differently.

Claims and who carries them. Where a structure and function claim ends, where regulatory exposure begins, and what happens when a studio owner repeats a claim to a member.

The business underneath it. Landed cost, gross margin, blended acquisition cost, month three retention, wholesale terms, and the working capital trapped in inventory.

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: you get a repeatable set of questions to ask any vendor before their product touches your shelf, and language your staff can use when a member asks about coming off a prescription.

If you're a multi-unit operator: you get the staff training gap made visible across locations, and a clear line on what your front desk should and should not say.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: you hear how someone who ran M&A integration at global scale allocates capital when proof is expensive and the company is pre-revenue.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: you get the honest version of what claims cost you, and the planning mistake Lekha watches wellness founders make over and over.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Most operators can describe the business they want to build. Very few can describe the first ninety days that make it real. Jim Donnelly has done it across five industries, sold companies out of three of them, and is doing the hardest version of it right now in longevity. This episode is about the execution, not the vision.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Jim Donnelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Humanaut Health and Co-Founder of Restore Hyper Wellness, and goes behind the build:

What was structurally fragile in the Restore Hyper Wellness franchise model, and how much of it was set on his watch

The real unit economics of a 4,000 square foot longevity clinic: members to break even, blended acquisition cost, and payback on the buildout

Whether franchising actually works for medical and quasi-medical services, or only works until the market softens

Jim Donnelly is the Co-Founder and CEO of Humanaut Health in Austin, Texas, a premium longevity and health optimization clinic. Before Humanaut Health, he co-founded Restore Hyper Wellness and ran it as CEO from 2015 to February 2023, building it past 220 locations and $32 million in revenue by 2020, number one on Inc's list of the hottest franchise businesses in America, number one in its category on the Entrepreneur Franchise 500, and a Fortune top workplace in health care. He served as a US Army officer from 1991 to 1994, then held brand and marketing roles at Kraft Foods on Jell-O Pudding and Cool Whip, BellSouth, Coca-Cola as a global brand manager, and Citigroup as Vice President and Director of Marketing, where he built the brand for Citi f/i, Citibank's internet-only bank. In 2000 he co-founded IgoUgo, a user-generated travel content platform, and sold it to Sabre Holdings in February 2005. Through Pursuit Group in Charlotte he developed luxury mixed-use real estate, placed two buildings on the National Historic Registry, co-founded a men's grooming lounge, and founded the Charlotte Athletic Club. He then built Kin Valley, a family social platform, from 2010 to 2015. Humanaut Health's first location is 4,000 square feet in The Grove in Austin, with body imaging, fitness testing, an IV lounge, and a regenerative medicine procedure room. Memberships start around $355 per month, and every member receives a full-body baseline across more than 100 health markers. Jim raised $8.7 million in an oversubscribed seed round led by The Kabech Fund with Midnight Venture Partners, and built a leadership bench including Chief Medical Officer Dr. Amy Killen, regenerative medicine lead Dr. Harry Adelson, Chief Technology Officer Tony Cheng, and Chief Product Officer Elliot Karathanasis.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

Signing franchise agreements without knowing what breaks when the category softens

Adding clinical or medical services with no model for how the P&L absorbs the labor

Watching membership revenue look strong on paper while month twelve retention quietly falls apart

Building a service line on a regulatory assumption that can change without warning

Top topics we cover

The pattern across five industries. Strip away the category and there is one repeatable thing Jim does every time. He names it.

Reading an early market. Arriving early is usually how founders go broke. The specific signal Jim looks for to separate a real market from a mirage.

The first ninety days of a new venture. What he does personally, in what order, and the short list he refuses to delegate.

Running a medical company as a non-clinician. Where he defers completely to his physicians, and where he has overruled them.

Franchising medical services. Rent, equipment, clinical labor, and a royalty stacked on one P&L, and what he deliberately changed the second time around.

Longevity membership economics. Members to break even, acquisition cost, buildout payback, and the retention mechanism for the member who feels fine in month seven.

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: you get a working method for testing whether a new service line is a real market or a trend you are about to fund.

If you're a multi-unit operator: you get the labor and capex math behind clinical services before you sign a lease you cannot unwind.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: you hear how an $8.7 million seed round got structured and what the investors underwrote.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: you get an honest look at what was fragile in a top-ranked franchise model, from the person who built it.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Most operators in fitness and wellness can tell you what a lead costs. Almost none can tell you what a member costs to acquire. Those are different numbers, and the gap between them is where the money goes. This episode gives owners the questions to ask their marketing person, their agency, or themselves, and the targets to hold them to.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Jessica Yarmey, President of Squeeze Massage and a 25-year marketing operator who has run budgets at Gold's Gym, Youfit Health Clubs, and Club Pilates, and goes behind what happens when a career Chief Marketing Officer suddenly owns the whole P&L:

• The three questions a weak marketing function cannot answer, and the vanity metrics to throw out of the report entirely
• Real targets for customer acquisition cost, LTV to CAC, and payback period before an owner should shut the spend off
• Why more leads did not mean more revenue at Club Pilates, and what that means for any operator about to buy more traffic

Jessica Yarmey is the President of Squeeze Massage, the Founder and CEO of SizzleSociety, and the host of The Society Pod, based in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. She was Director of Franchise Marketing at Gold's Gym, advising domestic franchisees representing 230 gyms and global franchisees across 28 countries. At Youfit Health Clubs she ran a 16 million dollar marketing budget across 115 locations. She then spent three years as Chief Marketing Officer of Club Pilates during its rise to the largest Pilates franchise in the world, advising the other seven brands under the Xponential Fitness umbrella. Her own reported numbers from that run: 2018 delivered plus 220 studios, plus 33 average leads per studio per month, and 10 percent same store AUV growth. 2019 delivered plus 180 studios, only plus 5 average leads per studio per month, and same store AUV up 17 percent. In October 2020, mid-pandemic, she founded KickHouse, a kickboxing concept staffed by women, took it from zero to roughly 30 locations, and sold it to Mayweather Boxing + Fitness in 2022. In November 2025 the wellness holding company GoSaga, founded by Geoff Schneider, acquired Squeeze Massage and named her President. Squeeze was built by Drybar founders Alli Webb and Michael Landau, with Brittany Driscoll as Co-Founder and CEO. Schneider has said publicly that the brand and user experience were the strength and the business functionality was the weakness. Jessica walked into that gap.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

• Paying for leads and not knowing what a member actually costs
• Marketing reports full of impressions and engagement while cash is tight
• Agencies and marketing hires who cannot connect a number to revenue
• Buying more traffic to fix what is actually a conversion or retention problem

Top topics we cover

• What changes when a CMO inherits the whole P&L. The first ninety days, the line item that surprised her, and the marketing spend she cut as President that she would have defended as CMO.
• The owner's marketing interrogation. Three questions to ask in the next meeting, and the metrics to delete from the report.
• Real CAC, LTV to CAC, and payback targets for a boutique studio or recovery concept, and the point at which you shut the spend off.
• Where the money actually leaks. Lead captured, appointment booked, appointment shown, first purchase, month four. Most owners think they have a lead problem. Jessica says otherwise.
• Marketing's last mile. When leads come in and a front desk employee does not convert them, the spend is wasted but the failure is operational. How to assign that number.
• Channels in 2026. Allocating 10,000 dollars a month for a single location with no brand recognition, the national versus local ad fund fight, why direct mail is working again, and what AI search is doing to local top of funnel.
• Building it, selling it, doing it again. What made KickHouse acquirable, and the one unit-level number that has to be true before a new franchisee signs.

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: You leave with a marketing scorecard you can build this week and the CAC and payback targets to judge it against, instead of arguing about spend with no reference point.

If you're a multi-unit operator: You learn where the funnel leaks by location and how to assign conversion failure to the right person, so you stop buying traffic to cover an operating problem.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: A brand can be strong while the business is weak, and buyers price that difference. This episode shows you what that gap looks like from the inside of a deal.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: You get the national versus local ad fund split, the accountability structure behind it, and the case for proving unit economics before you sell another franchise.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Get your tickets for the Healthspan Summit October 1st - 3rd in Los Angeles, CA

PROMO LINK is live - https://www.accelevents.com/e/the-2026-healthspan-summit?discount=Stratego

Code "Stratego" 10% off

Your vendor says clinically proven. Ask what the phrase actually means and most of the time the answer falls apart in under two minutes. This episode gives fitness, wellness, and longevity operators the exact questions to ask before a supplement, a device, or a peptide program goes in front of a single member. Because when an operator repeats a vendor's claim, the operator owns it.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Elias Arjan, Founder of the Healthspan Collective and Co-Founder and CEO of PRUVN Research, the company wellness brands hire to generate the actual scientific evidence behind their health claims, and goes behind the evidence problem in longevity:

• What "clinically proven" really means, and the ways it can be technically true and functionally meaningless
• Where the 90 percent bioavailability claim usually comes from, and what to ask to find out
• Who carries the liability when a studio owner repeats a claim a vendor handed them

Elias Arjan runs two businesses at the center of this industry. PRUVN Research, based in Los Angeles, builds the studies behind wellness health claims, including at-home virtual trials with no site visits. The Healthspan Collective convenes the clinicians, founders, and investors building longevity, including the Healthspan Summit, now in year four, October 1 through 3 in Los Angeles. His path there is the strangest resume Albert has read all year: fitness trainer, a decade as a circus performer and ringmaster, years as a principal art auctioneer running million-dollar rooms, then first executive hire at Biostrap, the clinical-grade wearables company. Ten thousand hours on a stage before he ever ran a research company. The reason underneath all of it is older than any of it. When Elias was nine, his mother nearly died and he watched the hospital system fail her. His stated mission is to move this industry from hype to evidence.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

• Vendors who say clinically proven and cannot produce the study
• Bioavailability and efficacy numbers with nothing behind them
• Not knowing whether a peptide offering is something they can responsibly sell today
• Carrying the substantiation risk for a claim someone else wrote

Top topics we cover

• The evidence tiers, weakest to strongest. Ingredient studies, animal data, presale customer feedback, open-label pilots, randomized controlled trials, and where most of what is sold in wellness actually sits.
• Structure and function claims versus disease claims. The exact line between a supplement and a drug, and what happens to the brand and the retailer that crosses it.
• Inside a PRUVN engagement. What it takes, what it costs, and what percentage of companies find out their product does not do what they hoped.
• The operator's diligence checklist. The questions to ask a vendor, in order, and which answer means walk away.
• Peptides and the regulatory moment. What a clinic or studio can responsibly do today, what to wait on, and the risk of moving early.
• The Healthspan Summit and the conflict question. Elias curates the stage and sells exhibitor space to the same brands PRUVN sells validation services to. Albert asks him how he keeps that honest.

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: You get a vendor script you can use this week, so retail and program revenue is not built on a claim you cannot defend to a member.

If you're a multi-unit operator: You get the standard to write into vendor contracts once and apply across every location, instead of relitigating it site by site.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: Unsubstantiated product claims are a diligence finding. This episode tells you where that risk hides before a buyer or an investor finds it for you.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: You learn what evidence your own claims need to survive contact with a regulator, a franchisee, and a lawyer.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Most wellness businesses are built by one person wearing every hat: clinician, operator, and finance brain, all in one exhausted founder. This episode is what it looks like when those hats get split on purpose. Three leaders, one business, and an honest look at how the recovery floor actually performs.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with the leadership team behind The Fix Wellness Lounge in Hermosa Beach, California, and goes behind the build:

• What changes in a wellness business when a real finance operator sits at the table from day one
• How a clinical founder and an operator divide decision rights without stepping on each other
• Which recovery modalities carry their own cost, and which ones are there to serve the member

The Fix Wellness Lounge is Hermosa Beach's destination for holistic healing, recovery, and peak performance. The offering covers chiropractic care, functional nutrition, and a full recovery floor: cold plunge, cryotherapy, infrared sauna, IV therapy, NormaTec compression, near-infrared light beds, and EXOMIND transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Dr. Lisette Beam is the clinical foundation. A Doctor of Chiropractic and certified functional nutrition specialist with over 25 years of clinical experience, she spent nearly a decade building a boutique practice in Manhattan Beach before expanding that vision into The Fix. Her approach is root-cause healing: advanced chiropractic technique, functional evaluation, and finding what others have missed.

Amy Standing Confer is the finance engine. An owner and founder of The Fix, she brings a resume you almost never find inside a wellness lounge. She is CFO and Chief Compliance Officer of Northern Air Systems, the former CFO of Summer Street Capital Partners, a private equity fund manager with over $550 million in committed capital, with earlier finance leadership stops at Discover, Citi, and Constellation Wines.

Kelly Gelfound is the Chief Operating Officer, running the day to day of the lounge, the team, and the member experience.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

• Being the clinician, the operator, and the finance department at the same time
• Adding modalities without knowing which ones actually contribute margin
• A recovery floor full of expensive equipment and no read on utilization per station
• Making partnership and equity decisions on a handshake and hoping it holds

Top topics we cover

• Splitting the hats on purpose: how clinical, financial, and operational authority gets divided and where the lines blur
• What a private equity trained CFO sees in a wellness P&L that most owners never look at
• Modality economics: cost per session, utilization per station, and the honest case for keeping a service that does not pay
• Memberships versus one-off visits: which one protects cash flow in a recovery business
• Building on clinical credibility: how 25 years of chiropractic practice becomes a business moat
• Partnership structure: decision rights, disagreements, and what founders should settle in writing early

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: you get a clear picture of which roles you have to fill before growth stops depending on you personally, and how to sequence those hires.

If you're a multi-unit operator: you get a framework for reading utilization and contribution margin by service line and station, not just by location.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: you hear from a CFO who has sat on the fund side of the table on what makes a wellness business look clean and financeable, and what kills a deal.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: you get a real look at how a multi-modality recovery stack gets priced, staffed, and standardized before anyone tries to replicate it.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Most studio owners think their software is a scheduling tool. It is actually a margin decision. This episode breaks down what your platform should be telling you about retention, utilization, and pricing, and why most owners never see any of it.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Laura Munkholm, President and Co-Founder of Walla and a boutique fitness operator with nearly two decades on the floor, and goes behind the build:

• Why she ran a studio P&L before she ever built software, and how that changed what Walla measures
• How AI predicts which members are about to leave, and what an owner is supposed to do with that 30 days out
• Where the real money hides in class utilization, pricing, and staff scheduling

Laura Munkholm is the President and Co-Founder of Walla, which bills itself as the industry's most advanced AI-powered fitness studio software. Before Walla, she spent nearly two decades in boutique fitness. She managed a Yoga Six studio where she carried the P&L and grew revenue 40 percent, then founded Studio Solutions, a consultancy where she coached thousands of studio owners on operations, talent, and price optimization. Walla was built out of that work: software designed to speak the language of wellness leaders, simplify operations, and make profitability the standard instead of the exception. WallaPredict is the retention engine that flags at-risk clients and re-engages them automatically. AI-optimized scheduling targets the empty class spots that quietly erase margin. Laura also hosts the Well, Well, Well podcast and is a vocal advocate for women in leadership and for founders finding joy in the businesses they bleed for.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

• Finding out a member churned after the card already stopped hitting
• Paying for software that stores data nobody reads
• Guessing at price increases and hoping the roster holds
• Running full-looking schedules that still miss on contribution margin

Top topics we cover

• Studio floor to software founder: what carrying a P&L taught Laura that a product roadmap never would
• Retention as a financial line item: what churn prediction is worth in real dollars per location
• Utilization and empty seats: the cost of an unfilled spot and why owners underprice it
• Price optimization: how she coached thousands of owners to raise rates without losing the room
• Legacy software versus an AI-native stack: what actually changes for the operator, and what is noise
• Leadership depth and joy: building a team that runs the business so the owner is not the system

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: you get a clear read on which numbers in your platform actually predict next quarter's revenue, and which ones are decoration.

If you're a multi-unit operator: you get a framework for comparing utilization and retention across locations so you can tell an operator problem from a market problem.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: you get language for the retention and utilization data a buyer or lender will ask for, and why clean member data raises your multiple.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: you get Laura's view on what your tech stack has to standardize across franchisees, and where you should stop trying to control the operator.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Most wellness founders believe great work gets found on its own. It doesn't. This episode breaks down how reputation actually becomes a business asset: one that lowers acquisition cost, lifts pricing power, and opens doors that outlast any single media hit.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Natalie Trice, a chartered PR professional with 30 years across global media, and goes behind the build:

• How a personal crisis, her son's hip dysplasia diagnosis, became Cast Life, DDH UK, and coverage in the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and the BBC
• The honest ROI conversation on premium PR fees, and where earned media actually shows up in the numbers
• What separates founders who convert visibility into real business results from the ones who get the hit and nothing changes

Natalie Trice is the founder of Natalie Trice Publicity, a boutique, senior-led PR agency for experts, founders, and brands in health and wellness. Over three decades she has worked with CNN, the Discovery Channel, and Cartoon Network, plus organizations including the Royal College of Art, the International Menopause Society, and the Harley Street Fertility Clinic. She's a three-time author, founder of PR School, and founder of YOMU Magazine, built to make health and wellness information accessible inside a $1.8 trillion global wellness market. Next up: a PhD.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

• Being the best-kept secret in their market while louder competitors get the coverage
• Spending on ads with no idea whether PR belongs in the budget yet
• Building a brand entirely on the founder's face with no plan for it to stand on its own
• Chasing one-off media hits that never change the numbers

Top topics we cover

• Turning a real story into a movement: why authentic stories travel where polished campaigns stall
• The financial case for PR: acquisition cost, conversion, and pricing power
• Reputation as a compounding asset that can lift valuation and open deals
• Getting picked up in a crowded market: what makes a journalist say yes in a $1.8 trillion industry
• Regulated and science-based wellness brands vs. lifestyle brands: where the PR play changes
• DIY vs. outsourced: the highest-value PR work a time-strapped owner should never hand off

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: learn the PR work you can do yourself before you're ready to spend, and when it's simply too early.

If you're a multi-unit operator: understand where earned media shows up in acquisition cost and pricing power across locations.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: see how reputation functions as an intangible asset that lifts valuation and opens deals.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: build a brand that stands on its own so the business stays valuable when the founder steps back.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Most operators dream about expansion. Landon French sold his own business to go execute one. This episode is the operator's playbook for turning a single reformer studio into a regional brand: the real estate underwriting, the unit economics, the presale strategy, and the green light that tells you it's time to sign the next lease.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Landon French, President of Lawless Pilates CO., and goes behind the build:

• How he underwrites a site before signing a lease, and what has to be true about rent, square footage, and market
• Why Lawless pre-sells founding memberships before the doors open, and how that cash de-risks every new location
• The number that has to hold at locations one through three before he commits to location four

A'Lexus French started Lawless Pilates CO. at 21 with one reformer studio in Rapid City, South Dakota, built from a bank loan and 80-hour weeks. She built her own method, her own instructor training, and her own grading system so the Lawless experience holds up in any city. Seven months in, Landon sold his business and joined as President, owning real estate, site selection, lease deals, build-outs, and the math under each new location. Fourteen months after studio one, they opened Sioux Falls. This June they opened their third location in Omaha, Nebraska. Today Lawless runs six full-time staff and more than thirty instructors, with a vision to build across the Midwest.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

• Guessing on leases instead of underwriting them
• Opening new locations that drain cash instead of pre-selling it
• Scaling a business that depends entirely on one person
• Not knowing what number actually says "go" on the next location

Top topics we cover

• The bet: selling your own company to join a seven-month-old studio, and what the early numbers showed
• Real estate underwriting for boutique fitness: rent, square footage, and the market test before you say yes
• Secondary Midwest markets versus coastal metros: how Rapid City, Sioux Falls, and Omaha change the unit economics
• Revenue mix that actually drives a studio: drop-ins, class packs, and memberships
• Founding memberships and presale cash flow: de-risking a location before you teach a single class
• Utilization in a capacity-capped business: classes per week, seats per class, and the booking window
• Losing nearly an entire team in year one and rebuilding in six weeks: protecting the model from single-manager risk

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: you'll learn what a repeatable method, in-house training, and a grading system make possible when you're ready to open door number two.

If you're a multi-unit operator: you'll get Landon's underwriting framework for the next lease and the reporting cadence that lets him see every location's performance.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: you'll hear how Lawless decides between cash flow, debt, and partners to fund the next opening.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: you'll learn how a proprietary system keeps the customer experience consistent across instructors, managers, and markets.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Operators will spend six figures on a build-out and then neglect the one asset that actually runs the business: their people. And the most neglected person of all is usually the founder. This episode is a live coaching session on the leadership problems that quietly decide whether a fitness, wellness, or longevity company makes it.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Dr. Alyssa Webb-McCune, LPC, licensed professional counselor and Founder of EDGE, and goes behind the human side of the build:

• What under-investing in people actually costs you on the P&L
• How to coach the founder who can't let go at eight locations and 70 hours a week
• How to save a burning-out location manager in the next two weeks, before they quit

Dr. Alyssa Webb-McCune holds a doctorate in professional counseling and a master's in clinical mental health. Through EDGE, based in The Woodlands, Texas, she combines real clinical training with practical business strategy to help leaders and their teams perform: burnout, resilience, hard conversations, team dynamics, and the performance of the people in charge.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

• Being the bottleneck in their own business
• Watching their best managers burn out and walk
• Leadership teams stuck in silos where ops blames sales and sales blames finance
• Avoiding the hard conversation until it explodes

Top topics we cover

• The P&L cost of neglecting your people: the case for a numbers-driven owner
• Coaching the 70-hour founder: why delegating feels slower and how to fix it
• Outside capital and the anxious operator: carrying pressure without leaking it on the team
• Separating self-worth from revenue without killing the drive
• Accountability without killing the family culture that built the place
• Resilience as a skill, not a personality trait

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: you'll learn how to stop tying your identity to a bad month and start building capacity beyond yourself.

If you're a multi-unit operator: you'll get a two-week playbook for the burning-out manager and a reset framework for a leadership team that stopped trusting each other.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: you'll hear how new capital changes the person at the top, and how to carry that weight without breaking the culture.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: you'll learn how much culture is trainable and systematized versus leader-dependent, and where to spend your energy.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

The wellness category is moving fast, and most operators are being told to chase the next modality without anyone showing them how to make the math work. Ben Crosbie sees this business the way the people who listen to this show do: as a P&L, not a press release. This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity operators who want the honest unit economics behind IV therapy and the longevity wave before they bet on it.

Today on The Owner Seat Podcast, host Albert Ramos sits down with Ben Crosbie, CEO of The DRIPBaR and a franchise builder who grew and exited more than 500 Tapout Fitness locations, and goes behind the economics of building a longevity brand:

• How to think about a single DRIPBaR location as a P&L, and the levers that decide whether it prints money or just survives
• How to protect contribution margin per visit on a high-touch, nurse-delivered service while keeping the price where members come back
• The opportunity a fragmented industry creates for a brand with real infrastructure, and how to be the consolidator instead of the consolidated

Ben Crosbie is the CEO of The DRIPBaR, one of the most recognized names in IV therapy and wellness, and a franchise builder first. He is the founder of ZOR411, a franchise development company, and before The DRIPBaR he founded Tapout Fitness, where he secured the global rights to the TapouT brand and grew it through more than 500 franchise locations across 11 countries before exiting in 2019. He sits on the Leadership Advisory Board of the American IV Association and came up through franchising, real estate, and fitness, with a degree in kinesiology and nutrition. Under his leadership The DRIPBaR has moved past hydration into NAD+, peptides like Sermorelin, hormone support, and the longevity services shaping the next decade of wellness.

This episode is for fitness, wellness, and longevity owners, franchisees, and multi-unit operators who are tired of:

• Chasing new services that get commoditized in months, not years
• Watching contribution margin erode on every high-touch visit
• Pricing pressure as the hot molecules get cheaper and more available
• Building something that gets consolidated instead of doing the consolidating

Top topics we cover

• The franchise builder's lesson: what building and exiting 500+ Tapout locations taught Ben about what actually makes a location profitable, not just sellable
• The levers inside a single DRIPBaR P&L, and how to protect margin per visit
• Memberships versus walk-ins, and what a healthy recurring-revenue mix looks like for predictable cash flow
• Utilization across fixed chairs and fixed nurse hours, and what moving that number does to the economics
• Where the real demand and margin are heading in NAD+, peptides, hormone support, and longevity over the next three to five years
• Staying on the right side of pricing pressure as the GLP-1 wave resets the metabolic category

How this episode helps you win

If you're a single-studio owner: you'll learn the levers inside a location P&L and how to keep a member past the first 90 days.

If you're a multi-unit operator: you'll get a clear read on utilization, recurring revenue, and how to price new services so you stay ahead of the curve.

If you're weighing acquisitions or outside capital: you'll hear what has to be true in a location's economics before planting the flag in a new market, and where the consolidation opportunity sits.

If you're a franchisor or emerging brand: you'll learn how to build the infrastructure that lets you consolidate a fragmented industry instead of getting consolidated by it.

Work with Albert, Fractional CFO for Fitness and Wellness

I'm Albert Ramos, Founder of STRATEGO Intel Consulting and host of The Owner Seat. 16+ years of P&L ownership at Life Time Inc. (NYSE: LTH), Gold's Gym, and 24 Hour Fitness. I help fitness, wellness, and longevity brands ($500K to $30M) build cash visibility, unit economics, pricing and utilization models, and capital planning so every decision is clean and defensible.

Book a CFO Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

Subscribe to The Owner Seat newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7288029005239267328

Website: https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/

More from The Owner Seat

New episodes every Monday and Friday at 8:00am CST.

Full library: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOwnerSeatPodcast

STRATEGO Intel: https://www.StrategoIntel.com