Botox and Burpees
Botox and Burpees
S05E93 Achieving Success and Overcoming Challenges with FITAID Co-Founder President Aaron Hinde
What motivates someone to leave a thriving career and jump into the unknown world of entrepreneurship? After surviving multiple challenges, how do you grow LIFEAID into a company worth over $100 million? Aaron Hinde shares his transformative journey from chiropractor to co-founder of LifeAid, emphasizing resilience through personal loss and unwavering commitment to quality health beverages.
What makes LIFEAID different from the other companies in the cutthroat energy drink business? Aaron shares insights on product development, the connection to CrossFit, and the lessons learned from overcoming adversity. Would he ever sell LIFEAID? We discuss the beverage industry and how Aaron's core values impact his decision-making process.
In a no-holds-barred conversation, Aaron also discusses the challenges facing CrossFit, how can CrossFit as a business can turn itself around, and offers insights into the future of the fitness industry
This intensely personal and inspirational episode explores the challenges of entrepreneurship, the evolving wellness landscape, and the importance of community support in recovery.
• Overview of Aaron's background and transition to LifeAid
• Early challenges in establishing the brand
• Role of direct marketing in LifeAid's success
• Commitment to clean ingredients and transparency
• Personal reflections on grief and community support
• Analysis of the current state of CrossFit and future potential
• Vision for LifeAid's growth while maintaining core values
@fitaid @aaronhinde #fitaid #entrepreneurship
#BotoxAndBurpees @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness
Welcome to another episode of Botox and Burpees. I have with me one of my most distinguished guests, I think, ever to date. It's Aaron Hind. Dr Aaron Hind, co-founder of FitAid. Dr Hind is the president and co-founder of LifeAid Beverage Company, and their motto is where they reimagine what we drink. Lifeaid is a leading manufacturer of premium, healthy and convenient nutritional products designed to boost performance and speed recovery for people pursuing active and healthy lifestyles.
Speaker 1:I am a huge FitAid consumer myself. This is, as Aaron said, an OG shirt from years and years ago that I got when I first started drinking FitAid. I still drink it. I probably go through about 20 cans every two weeks or so. I have the auto delivery set up so it just gets shipped right to my door.
Speaker 1:I love the and I want to talk about the different flavors. I'm a huge fan of the Citrus Medley Recovery one, but I would be interested in hearing what other products that you have that you think are good, and I would also like to talk a little bit about your personal life. The reason why I reached out to you to do this podcast was because of an email that you sent at the end of 2024, at New Year's Eve, about your brother, and it was such a touching, just impactful email that I couldn't help but have to reach out to you and ask to talk to you about it. It was amazing. It was not something I've ever seen a company ever do or someone who is ahead of a company ever do, and it blew me away. But before we get to that, thank you again for coming and joining me on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me Really appreciate you.
Speaker 1:So a little background. You are a doctor of chiropractic. You got your doctor of chiropractic degree from Palmer College and you were a clinic director at your own sports injury and pain center for over 10 years. That's before you got full time into your business and then, in 2011, you co-founded LifeAid, which is the company, and then, in 2011, you co-founded LifeAid, which is the company, and you have now a number of beverages FitAid, focusaid, lifeaid, travelaid, golfaid, partyaid and the thing that I love the most about this was and I relate to it as a student too was once. Your company had a lot of ups and downs, but once it finally got going, you were able to pay $240,000 in student loans in one fell swoop, and I think that is the dream of everyone who's coming out of training to be able to do that, and that must have been a pretty special feeling.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was amazing. I mean you know how expensive school can be and with nine years, you know post high school education, I had racked up quite a bit of student loans and you know, my first kind of payday. Half of it went to taxes and half of it went to student loans. But I wasn't in love with any money but, uh, at least I was debt free, so that felt really good. It was pretty funny because I, when I entered in you know I've been making payments for 20 years when I finally entered in the full sum and hit submit, you know the screen just was like calculating per second and then it's just said thank you and that's it. And I was like I was expecting like balloons to be released.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. So I think your, your start was really documented well in a podcast my First Million back in December 2019 at season two, number 30, if you want to get a little more of an in-depth part of the start. But I get the sense that you are such a NorCal Santa Cruz product Like that is in your DNA, that's in your culture, that's in your life, that's in your ethos. That's how I see you, as Is that true?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. I mean, we love Santa Cruz. I spent my whole life here, both kids born and raised here, and you probably know CrossFit was born in Santa Cruz as well. I was thinking back to my early CrossFit memories back in. This had to have been, let's see, 1995, 96, somewhere in there. You know I'm coming home from college.
Speaker 2:I was going to St Vincent College in Latrobe, pennsylvania, coming home for summer break and I happened to have multiple gym memberships because they were all pretty inexpensive to have and we had a world gym, two worlds gyms here in san andrews, a goals gym in a 24 hour and I was members at all three because there were, you know, different girls at all three and and thought I'd jump around a little bit and train in a different spot.
Speaker 2:And I remember this guy coming in this, this trainer a little older than me, and he'd always be like hiding multiple pieces of equipment. He'd be running like three people at a time, four people, then they'd be jumping on this equipment and then over to another piece and then like run out the door and run back in and I see him at like world gym and then after a few weeks there that guy was gone and then I'd be over at goals gym. Then I see him pop into goals gym and he'd be working out there and then he would got kicked out of there for kind of his training style and picking up too much equipment and same thing at 24.
Speaker 1:Well, fast forward that that individual was, uh, none other than Greg Glassman wow, so you saw him before CrossFit was even named CrossFit, which is about as OG, I think, as you can get with uh, with the sport, and you've you've supported the sport and you've been a sponsor for all that time until today, and and I want to talk to you about what your thoughts are about CrossFit and and and how that, how you guys helped each other. It's actually funny because I feel like the companies that have sprung out of CrossFit, I think of you, I think of Sieta chips, which I want, uh, wanted to mention as well, like we just got bought a million dollar exit yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so. So it's crazy how the lifestyle ended up supporting products that I think the world has now adopted as as being healthy. But but you started um, obviously as an alternative to high sugar sports drink, and that's something I want to talk about. But you and your founder, orion Orion Mellohan, your first product was named. You wanted to name it Raverade. Is that true? Back in 2011, because of your party lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Well, orion and I were always spitballing ideas. We met in the CrossFit gym. We met in CrossFit North Santa Cruz back in 2009,. I think in the CrossFit gym. We met in CrossFit North Santa Cruz back in 2009,. I think my office when I was in Cairo was in Scotts Valley. Well, crossfit headquarters was in Scotts Valley. So that's how I became acquainted with CrossFit officially is because I was treating a lot of the members at HQ and then when they'd they have athletes come into town and I was already working with high level athletes from the 49ers and and the giants, and so it was a natural fit.
Speaker 2:Now I was pretty athletic myself and and work on all those types of folks and and so, uh, we started. I started, you know they're like hey, you got to come truck across it, across it. And I was like, hi, you know, okay, I'll check it out. And I remember going in there and seeing a couple of the guys, maybe a little younger than me that were in pretty good shape, that that I had seen it at my office. I said, all right, I'm going to pace myself with these guys. They look like they're kind of, you know, ahead of the pack type of thing, and I'll never forget that I I was.
Speaker 2:I remember it was like lots of pull-ups and running involved and I remember our first round. I'm with them on my all right. I'm pacing with the top guy, the top two guys, by round two. I'm in the bushes and I'm breathing. I hate to throw up. It's like my least favorite thing. And I'm just hold barely, holding it together as everybody's just passing me. It was looking me up and snickering up there and I'm like okay, okay, maybe I don't have all my quite figured out here and uh, you know, that was a fun little run.
Speaker 2:Um, but uh, yeah, I mean that's how we kind of got going in the space. And and you know, ryan and I, uh, we've been going to birdie man for years. You know we, we met in a crossfit gym. Well, we had free time, we used to golf. So you know, all of our products really uh represent our, our lifestyle. You know, I mean, our very first uh product we ever launched was it was golf raid and because, you know, we were golfing and there was nothing in the golf space. So as soon as we had the concept for that, we go. Well, we go to crossfit. There's no drink for crossfit. What about today? And, um, you know we, we go to the burn every year. What about, you know, ray-b-ray? That was a little bit too racy, which became Partiate over time. And so those were the first three products Golf, ray-b, partiate and Citiade.
Speaker 1:So I love the story and I don't want to go through it now, but you went through so many ups and downs like not knowing. You know how you know who to look for in terms of bott, knowing you know how you know who to look for in terms of bottling. You know making your stuff, getting it into cans, doing all those things. It's an awesome story. I hope people check that out. But suffice it to say you went all in, you gave up your chiropractic practice and you literally had such lean times. You were hand to mouth for like a year or two before it finally started to turn for you Like that's scary part of it. Like now you look back and you're like how did I even have the balls to do that at that time? What? What is it when someone is in that situation and they're like you know what I? Maybe I made a mistake here, maybe this wasn't the right thing to do. What was it that kept you going on that?
Speaker 2:Well, some would call it stupidity, I call it ignorance and passion, my fellow no, it was. It got really. I mean it's been leaned so many different times that it got really, really, really hairy for me. We had just purchased six acres off the grid in Santa Cruz, had, uh, just purchased six acres off the grid in in santa cruz and and so I move a little 400 square foot uh trailer up there and and we're living off the grids. There's no power, you know we're. We had to drill a well, septic tank. I told my wife, look, we're just going to do this for like a year. I'm going to build us a house, blah, blah, blah, uh. And at the same time, you know, I'm getting state AIDS going and and and Orion and I both have our own, you know kind of real jobs. And they came upon us like, look, we got to make a decision here.
Speaker 2:And where I was with chiropractic at the time, you know I felt like I had just kind of reached the top. I wasn't um, wasn't challenged or stimulated anymore and I had a great practice. It was all referral based about 30 new patients a month, all by referral um from. You know, existing patients had a great working relationship with the medical community. So, like existing patients, number one, number two was with other docs and that just kind of kept me going and I had a great lucrative practice.
Speaker 2:And then a few things happened. One I decided to go all in in real estate because I'm looking around and I'm talking to some of my patients coming in. This was back in 2007. So 2007, I decided to take all my money and then leverage myself and then go in and real estate. I buy like four properties, three or four, three or four. I'm with my existing on four. And well, we know, I know what happened late 2007,. If you're old enough, I mean, it was the absolute peak and the worst time you could possibly do that. So come 2008 rolls around, I've got 50,000 a month coming in and then coming I've got 75 going out with all the real estate stuff, and so that doesn't last very long. So I ended up just completely going under. Fortunately, my practice was still going strong, so I still had income. But then I, you know, I lost everything. So I had no assets, no credit. Then I'm building it back on, grinding with no credit, everything's cash now and the practice again is still going strong. And so 2009, orion and I you know me, and we're getting things going and it's like, hey, we got this company going, uh, by 2011. I gotta, I gotta sell. So it's like, okay, I'm gonna go got this company going by 2011. I got to sell. So it's like, okay, I'm going to go all in with the day.
Speaker 2:This is where my passion's at now. I sell my practice and I have to kind of do it quickly. You know, anytime you're selling a practice, as you know, it's very personality driven, like people are attracted to you and your approach and your style, your bedside manner, et cetera. I sell to the guy who I knew wasn't quite the right fit, you know, he just didn't have the charisma and everything and I sell it to him. I accept payments and fast forward. Six months later he just can't handle it. He goes out of business, stops making payments to me Okay, so now I've got no credit, no money, no income, because I'm not getting paid from FitAid yet and he stops making payments.
Speaker 2:On the practice, I'm living in an RV, I've got two kids, I'm fully off grade and I've got no income. And so this is, like you know, 2011, into 2012 and most of 2012. I'm like, what am I doing here? I'm in my mid thirties, I'm supposed to be in the prime of my life. I still have this massive debt load from my education. You know I've lost everything. And here I am on this beverage company. That's really not doing well. And uh, and I put all my eggs in that basket. And you know we're making macaroni cheese and tuna every night dinner Cause that's a dollar 50 from that meal broke and actually get some good protein in cart with that little bit of that meal. And that was our reality for a period of time and I would hit, you know, pretty low dark spot in my life. It was like, okay, you know, dust yourself off, and that it keep moving forward Like a pity party is not going to do me any good at that point in time. So you know, fortunately we were able to turn things around.
Speaker 1:You did it with direct marketing, which I love hearing you. You went direct to gyms you I love the fact that you reached out to to gyms, first golf, golf places, but then you went all in on CrossFit gyms and you you went from $700,000 to $4 million in sales, and that's just from CrossFit gyms. When you really focused in on FitAid and CrossFit gyms and that blew me away. The beverage industry, as you've mentioned, 95% of companies fail the first year, 99 after five. You're one of the few that survive. And that was all based on just marketing to the consumers that you knew were going to want your product.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the direct response marketing. We learned from a good friend and mentor of mine, ben Al-Sadar, who's one of the sharpest marketing minds in the space, and fortunately he took me under his wing and really went out on a limb for me and paid for some education when I didn't have the funds. And and uh, I dove in both feet all at once into everything I could learn about direct response marketing. And so in the early days of crossfit some of the crossfit gym owners out there might remember, you know, we would just send you a four pack of FitAid in the mail. You wouldn't request it, I just would send it to you and I put you in a follow-up sequence where we would say hey, this is a great product, you know, made by athletes for athletes. Here's why it's, you know, so great. Bring it into your gym with an initial order, 10 cases. I'm going to give you a free refrigerator.
Speaker 2:Well, you remember back in the early days of CrossFit there wasn't really any refrigerators in gyms. They had any products at all. Maybe they bought a case of water from Costco and they were selling them for a buck a piece. It was really not any pro shops or anything. So this was like the very beginning of starting a pro shop in a CrossFit gym. Okay, they take us up on it, we get the fridge in there. Then maybe they got some of their own t-shirts and their waters and you know, you start to see a retail landscape developing on the space.
Speaker 1:It's funny because a lot of beverage companies that are startups now are trying to duplicate what you've done. We get the same type of stuff now that you did from other products that are trying to get into this space, but we only sell FitAid, like at our gym. We sell probably still one hundred and twenty five cans a month, like four hundred, like we like. We don't have anything else. So. So your product is good, I like it, it works for our, our athletes. And then you've increased your retail presence and you're an Amazon and Vitamin Shop and Stop and Shop and Circle K now and you ended up expanding and you bought a couple international distributors along the way. How were you able to figure out like, okay, now we need to buy Life Aid Europe and Life Aid Canada and keep increasing our reach with this and make that investment.
Speaker 2:I travel a lot, and so does Orion and you know quite a bit for work and for fun as well, and when you travel overseas you see a lot of copycat products from the US, you know, and if you, and so we knew that that could be the case if this thing really took off. And so establishing a presence internationally, as well as protecting our trademarks internationally, was really important to us. We had a CrossFit gym owner, heiss, who owned a box in Europe, and said hey, I saw you guys at the CrossFit Games, I'd love to bring it over. And we made a deal with him and he brought over one pallet. You know, fast forward, a decade later he's running all of Europe for us and has done an amazing job. Our European and Australian, australia and New Zealand businesses all in gyms. So we don't have any retail presence over there. We stay strictly in gyms and direct to consumer and have some really great established partners over there.
Speaker 1:That's pretty awesome. I want to talk a little bit about your product because it's really funny. I only actually drink one of your products. It's the FitAid Recovery Citrus Medley. I find that one the original basically. For me it's the original and then the other two that actually are and that's very popular at our gym, also the sugar-free one, the only other one that we really sell because we've tried all the other ones. But the ones that the people really like are the fit aid recovery with the creatine, I mean.
Speaker 2:RX, rather both sugar and non sugar. Oh, is that right? Well, juicy apple, that's my favorite.
Speaker 1:So, um, which ones are the popular ones and how have all these new flavors? You and I want to go through all the different ones a little bit, just just so that people know, like, what the products are.
Speaker 2:And we've got a FitAid uh zero sugar recovery fruit punch, brand new flavor launching tomorrow.
Speaker 1:So so is that right? All right, got to try it. I'll try that one too.
Speaker 2:I mean you have branch no-transcript. I mean you have French, I'll send you out a case.
Speaker 1:After this, I'll be up to my ears in Fit Ed. I can't wait. Thank you, so this has Now. A lot of people say they have clean drinks, but I really feel like this is the one that I can keep drinking and I don't feel like ick and I don't feel crazy about it. How did you come up with the original supplement formulation and have you changed any of it or just added and made different products based on how you formulate it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have changed in how the initial formulations work is. Really. I'm looking at what is the intended use occasion. I mean, if you rewind 14 years ago now, we were actually the very first function for beverage company. People can't even imagine that because you go in the grocery store now everything is function for everything. But we were the very first.
Speaker 2:At the time you had energy drinks, which is basically you know one's drinking energy drinks for health benefits, right, you just drink them to get jacked up. So it's basically a caffeine platform. They're very high in sugar or artificial sweeteners, synthetic caffeine, et cetera. Emergence of kombucha and coconut water very polarizing at the time from a flavor profile perspective that nobody had. You know, if you look at the energy drink companies the big three at the time it was like 15, 20 variations off the same flavor profile. Well, we wanted to be function forward. So he said, ok, what are you looking for? You know CrossFit is the most taxing workout that there is. You know people are just sitting in sweat angels afterwards like what's going to help get your body back to life and and recover as quickly as possible. And so I would just kind of look, go on Medline or PubMed and look at okay, well, what are people taking, what are the different supplements, what are the efficacious doses of this and that? And also, talking to all the athletes in the space, what are you currently taking? Cell room perspective and why? You know, and this, we did that same approach with everything and we did it with party. Look at party eight, five, hdp and milk, thistle and electrolyte b vitamins, focus a. Looking at nootropics like alpha, gpc and uh, l-theanine and etc. So you know we're basically reverse engineering based on the intended. You know the.
Speaker 2:The use of creatine I'm super excited about. You mentioned the creatine. Excuse me, creatine is on fire right now. We've had our creatine skis out for a while. We're using bonded creatine. So we take Creapuro, which is the best creatine on the market. Glambia, a nutritional, encapsulates in a pea protein, so it increases solubility and stability and then we were able to put that into a can. But you look at, like the amount of women now that are taking creatine. I mean we're probably about the same age. I mean, back in the day it was only like meatheads were taking creatine. That was like a bodybuilding thing, but there was really no awareness that how important this particular supplement is, especially for women when it comes to bone density and muscle health, cognitive health, basically anywhere you're getting, you know, high ATP uptake. So you know we're seeing a huge, huge explosion in sales with their treating excuse specifically with women.
Speaker 1:What? What happened to life aid hemp? That was out and now I don't see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had to kill it. Unfortunately, regulations from state to state were so variable that we could ship to certain states and not others, and then it really started to throw a wrench into the core fit aid business because we couldn't do credit card transactions on the same page for HAP versus the other SKUs. I had issues trying to get in on Amazon and so on and so forth. It was a shame because I loved that player profile and I did like the way it made me feel, but the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
Speaker 1:Got it. Let's talk a little bit about your personal challenges. Got it? Let's talk a little bit about your personal challenges. So what really struck me was that back in 2020, you lost your home in Santa Cruz to everything. Now that you're seeing that down in southern california, what do you reflect on with your experiences at the time and and how you feel about what's going on now?
Speaker 2:yeah, my heart really goes out to him. I got to hang out with a good friend of mine whose mom lost her home and I'm just chatting with her later today after 50 years in the same place. You know the it's a deep sense of loss. I mean I'd say the longer you've been, you know, in a in a home and and the more kind of effort and sweat you put into it I mean, my kids were, were born there and grew up there you know you have a real sense of um, of not only belonging but also that that it's, it's part of you, it's like part of your dna. So it's almost like losing, you know, a loved one or a piece of you, piece of your identity that goes away. And you know we lost everything.
Speaker 2:And I had put 22 years of you know hard work and toil and sweat equity into that property, developing it from when it just had a deer trail when you couldn't even see anything. And you know we opened up a beautiful ocean view and, you know, developed it, had, you know, multiple places on it over time and had just finished the beautiful $150,000 tree house up to Redwoods, 50 feet with the bathroom. I mean the whole thing it was. You know it was a work in progress and to take the hit both financially and being severely underinsured. And I'm sure that's going to be a case with a lot of the folks because the insurance dropped and now it's uncovered Californian. So you've got the financial hit, you've got the really the fight or flight mode that it puts you in Like, oh my God, what you know? What am I going to do? Do I even have my wallet, my credit cards? Do I have my passport? Like how am I going to act? Let's see sing. And then, as time goes on, you realize like, oh my God, you know, all those pictures are gone and my grandparents, my grandpa's wedding ring that he gave us and all of these personal items that are part of your identity.
Speaker 2:But it's also an amazing lesson and it takes quite a bit of time to be able to reflect back and say it actually happened for me, not to me, I'm not a victim. I remember, you know, interviewing with some media after the fire and they said oh, you know, fire victim Aaron Hines said well, let me correct you right there, I'm not a victim of anything, you know I'm not a victim. Okay, well, fire survivor, I go, I'm not a survivor here, I'm a fire thriver. That's what you can call me, you know, because how we identify and the stories that we tell ourselves after tragic situations determines whether we become a victim and whether we're suffering or not. You know, suffering is a story that we tell ourselves about pain points in our life. I mean pain's inevitable Shit happens. I mean houses burn down, we lose loved ones, we have breakups, businesses fail, and that was a massive turning point when I was going bankrupt back in the day and overextended on real estate and living in the RV and nothing was working out. And I look in the mirror and I said, look, you have a choice. You, me, me. I got myself in this situation. I take full accountability for where I'm at. And guess what? By taking full accountability, I have the ability to get out of this situation, make different decisions. Anytime I'm finding someone that's in challenging part of their life. It's not necessarily making better decisions, because I think we're all trying to make the best decision. It's the outcome drawn. So it's like make different decisions, just make a different decision and keep moving forward and, you know, minimizing that amount of time that we have a pity party for ourselves and go.
Speaker 2:Ok, I may not see how this little piece fits in the overall mosaic right now, but I do have faith over time that things will be coming to perspective and and who knows what it is. It's a heavy sense of loss, you know you're you gotta go through some grieving, but with time, you know, now I, I go out and it's like, wow, my view is better than it's ever been because there's no trees left. You know, there's things. Now I'm back on the property I'm so appreciative of that, maybe wasn't there before and knowing that I can lose everything and I lost everything financially a couple of times I've lost all my physical possessions. Now, like I can lose everything and guess what? I'm going to be OK and you mentioned that email I sent out you know a couple of weeks ago be okay. And and you mentioned that email I sent out you know, a couple of weeks ago my wife I put my wife's quote at the end that she always reminds me. So it all works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out, it's not the end, you know.
Speaker 2:And life is this amazing journey and without the pain and brief periods of suffering, without that, how do we even know to experience joy. How do we even know to experience the elation of when you know friends and family and our community, you know, comes together and support us. So it allowed me to to learn to be a receiver. I had never been a receiver. I have a hard time getting, taking things from people, but when people were outpouring and like sending me socks and underwear and started to go fund me and doing all these things like I, I needed that.
Speaker 2:I, I needed that support and to have, you know, my community come out, have and also made me more of a, you know, just an empathetic type person Like you know, knowing that everybody's having their own struggles. You know, it's like so easy to come to quick judgment about things but you don't know what people have gone through, where they're at in their lives. People have gone through and where they're at in their lives. So when someone cuts you off in traffic, instead of just being a hothead, like maybe I used to be, I go. Well, maybe their wife's in labor and they're trying to get to the hospital. You know who knows Like we don't know.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of wisdom. Speaking of that email, that was one of the most, like I said, impactful emails I've ever received from a company or the head of a company, and this was something that you sent Tuesday, december 31st of this past year and it was dated. The email was dated September 30th and it was a text exchange that you had with your wife, rama, and you screenshotted it and I'll write. Let me say what it said. It said your wife said sheriffs are here. They came with news about Luke, who's your brother, and you said what news? Tell them he doesn't live with us, please. And your wife said Luke had passed. I don't have details. His body is at your memorial. And she said I'm so sorry, lord, have mercy. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. I can't believe how impactful that was that you shared.
Speaker 2:What made you want to share that with us. Sorry, it still hit home A little harsh. Well, look, there's a lot of products out there. You know, and, uh, you could say all my products better than everybody else's. And you know we make choices on who we want to support and what companies we want to support with our wallet, and, and you know that's part of this great society that we live in.
Speaker 2:For me, our company is more than just FidAid and the products we put out. It's the people behind it, it's the story, it's all of our incredible team. You know, it's all the effort and time and thought that goes behind. You know, everything we do, it's our ethos, it's, you know, the products is one aspect of what makes that that up, and so I found the more I can open up, which is not natural for me, I'm very, uh, introverted person, just innately and and, and so you know, being open, being more engaging is is a challenge for me, but I it's a. It's a great challenge, a necessary challenge, the more that people can relate with what's going on.
Speaker 2:I mean you should see how many emails and texts that I got after that. I mean I had one person text me and, like normally, I would just, you know, delete the year end type emails and, for whatever reason, I felt compelled to open it and their, their little brother, who is also named Luke and also passed very unexpectedly, and she's like. I can't even tell you how much it really hit home for me Reading this. It was the exact message that I needed to hear at that point in time and it's like these products, for me, are all about changing people's health trajectory, like if I can get them off a monster or off a Celsius or something.
Speaker 2:Let's like imagine that compounding effect over time, you know, with that type of lifestyle change, and if I can have that same trajectory change for for someone that might be in a depressed, depressive state or in some type of a funk or feeling like, you know, the world's kind of, you know, closing down on them to to be able to, you know, open them up and let them know, hey, other people are going through the same challenges and it's going to be okay.
Speaker 2:You know we're in this together as a community and, uh, you know, that's really, you know why I choose to to open it up and, you know, put out my cell phone and just let people know where I'm at. You know this is life. We're all living it. We're living it the best we know how and, uh, you know it's not perfect, it can be messy at times and lots of challenges, but it it's also amazing, and I don't know if anyone got out to see the moon last night or this morning before sunrise, but we're so blessed. You know, like God is good and life is good, it's an amazing period of time to be alive.
Speaker 1:It was such a powerful reminder about gratitude and regret and loss, and so, as soon as I read that, I reached out to my two brothers who I'm not as close as I should be and I I just told them I loved them just because of of that, and I thought that was so powerful and and I was so grateful for the fact that, that you were able to share your loss and regret and and um and uh, that made me better. It made me a better person because of that, which I really appreciate, which I never would have imagined from a CEO and president of a beverage company. It's amazing. That just blows me away. So you can do good anywhere, no matter what you're doing, and um and uh, the fact that you keep that in mind with you personally, as well as your company, just makes me feel, uh, like there's really a lot of good in the world, which which I appreciate.
Speaker 2:Um uh.
Speaker 1:So, um, let me talk to you a little bit. Let me switch a little bit gears and talk about you. You've talked about CrossFit and I know there's been so many changes going on with CrossFit and you probably have a best, one of the best perspectives about CrossFit, as well as a successful entrepreneur. What is the future of CrossFit? Where do you think it's going? Do you think it's going to go where it needs to go? You shaped your company. How is CrossFit the company doing?
Speaker 2:How's it doing? Well overall, not well right now. I would say yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not well for a variety of reasons. Some of it's just bad luck, some of it's just, you know, bad luck. You know, um, there there's been a series of things that have just kind of added insult to injury for CrossFit. But and look, you know, I've met the leadership I, you know, I, I, these are good people they're, they're smart people. You know there's a lot of, you know, ridicule, I think, and and some of it I don't think is really founded, I think a lot of it is just how things have played out and people maybe not having a real grasp on how businesses function. Or, if the business is being bought by a private equity group, well, they want a return. That's the whole point of them, you know, purchasing a business. So if I was running crossfit, maybe that would be the best way to answer this question.
Speaker 2:Here's what I would yes, and here's some things that I've been saying for the last 14 years. You're, you know, I I grew up in crossfit. You're obviously a in great shape and a crossfitter and active at the gym. There's two types of people and there's people that are pro cross it and then there's people that have an opinion about cross shit right and it.
Speaker 2:We went, and the reason I say this is very similar to chiropractic in a lot of ways. You know, it's like you go and ask somebody on the street hey, what do you think about chiropractic? They're gonna oh, my chiropractor saved my life. I threw my back, I couldn't move and I went in and they fixed me. It was amazing. Or they're gonna to oh, my chiropractor saved my life. I threw my back out, I couldn't move and I went in and they fixed me and it was amazing. Or they're going to be like oh no, those guys are crazy and once you go to chiropractor, you're always going to have to go and they might give you a stroke and like there's going to be certain objections.
Speaker 2:How are we, as CrossFitters, not handling and especially from an HQ perspective, hammering the objections that we know? Every single person that has a negative view, every non-CrossFitter, let's just say already has about CrossFit. What are they? I'll tell you what they are, because they have not changed since the very beginning of time. Oh, to start CrossFit, you already got to be in great shape, right? If you're a girl, what's going to happen? You're going to get too bulky, right? Or number three oh, you're going to get injured if you do CrossFit. These are the number, the top three objections that have been like that since the very beginning. So, if I'm HQ and I want to provide value to the affiliates which is what this should all be about, because a lot of people are like, oh well, how many people in a Savant or that people, if they're affiliated still, and if they drop due to the price increase which went from, what is it? Now? It's up to like four grand or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like three and a half or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my point is it doesn't matter if it's three and a half thousand, it doesn't matter if it's $35,000. Okay, it doesn't matter. That's not actually the pain point, because if I was delivering, if I'm CrossFit HQ and I'm delivering you as a gym, 30 new members every month and you know that the lifetime value on that membership is 50 grand each or whatever, I could charge you $30,000 a month and it's still a great deal, right. So it has nothing to do with what they're charging, it has to do with the value of the providing for the cost. You need to with any service or product. You need to exceed the perceived value, needs to exceed the cost, okay.
Speaker 2:So number one a massive marketing campaign dealing with the top three objections, which has never been done. Okay, you need to be show people that are completely out of shape, doing a beginner's class in a very safe way and transforming. There's amazing transformative stories in CrossFit. There's no modality in fitness, maybe outside of, like the Marine Corps bootcamp that has the transformative power of the crossfit box. So they need to deal with the objections and show that the transformation.
Speaker 2:And then, number two they need to get the marketing machine going and drive people in the affiliates and and be able to track them, and you could give a report to each affiliate owner. Here's how many leads that we sent your way. Now you can't close the lead. That's on you, the owner, and you're not going to be around very long, but here's the lead that we sent you, and there's already people in the space that have been doing this for years, doing, you know, instagram and Facebook ads, a TikTok marketing. So there's lots of ways we can do this referral campaigns, et cetera to drive people into the affiliate. Then you're increasing the perceived value, the actual value relative to whatever the cost is, and they could make a lot more money and charge a lot more than more members that they're tracking, they're, they're driving into this. Well, it's as simple as that. So why those two things have never been done? I'm at a complete loss. Those are the first two things I would do if I was taken over. Simple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like that's so simple and yet there are. I can imagine CrossFit HQ having a lot of reasons in their head why they can't or won't or aren't going to do those those things, and it it's it's. You're spitting truth right now, to me at least, on that that's it's. It's terrible that they're not going to do what I think they should be doing in terms of success and growth and and that they've been floundering for as many years as they have right now.
Speaker 2:I agree with you. It's a win-win for everybody. It's a win for the community You're getting more people in shape and in the CrossFit gyms. It's a win for the affiliates by driving members in and taking care of a lot of big objections that people may have that are unjustified. And it's a win for HQ because they'll be able to charge more and keep that revenue model. And then when everyone's like, oh, crossfit's great, yeah, they send me X amount of members every month, like you'd have a lot more people going, well, I want to start an affiliate.
Speaker 2:If that's the case, you know, and having this type of model, so it's the challenge becomes and I think this is a big takeaway and this is, you know, everybody at LifeAid gets it's hard to see. It's a little branded notebook here that we all carry around with us and in it we have our core values written at the front of the book, and core value number 10, always play the long game, always play the long game. The problem is, right now, crossfit H2 is playing the short game and they should be playing the long game. The problem is, right now CrossFit HQ is playing the short game and they should be playing the long game, because the long game is beneficial even in the short term. That's what they're failing, I think, to realize. And if they were to handle these things and drive more value and drive memberships in boxes yes, it's going to cost an expense, but it's playing the long game going to increase the enterprise value significantly and make CrossFit cool again.
Speaker 2:I mean right now, you know it might be more exciting in Europe, but domestically and you talk to affiliate owners. I talk to a lot of affiliate owners hey, how come you're not affiliated anymore? How come that? How about this? They are affiliated, but they dropped CrossFit out of their name. It's Santa Cruz Strength and Conditioning instead of Santa Cruz CrossFit. Yet they still play the affiliate fee. Why did you drop CrossFit out of your name? It's doing me more harm than good. You know how many times.
Speaker 2:I've heard that it's doing me more harm than good. I mean that should be a massive wake-up call right there. Doing me more harm than good, like, oh shit, what are we doing with our brand where people are still paying us? They don't even want to market it anymore.
Speaker 1:That's terrible, Terrible. Let me ask you what's the first core value? Just the number one on your notebook.
Speaker 2:Number one create the most fun, healthy, holistic and fulfilling work environment in Santa Cruz and beyond. I love that.
Speaker 1:All right. So let's talk about LifeAid then. So what is your future as a company? Let me just. When I scheduled you for this podcast, I just wanted to look at the energy drink industry a little bit and it blew me away. The numbers are insane. So energy drink sales were $53 billion two years ago. It's supposed to grow to like $86 billion a year in 2027. Red Bull is valued at $22 billion. Monster is like $50 billion. Celsius' network worth is like $6 billion and the buyouts have been insane. Korek, dr Pepper bought ghosts who I never heard of in my entire life. I've never seen a ghost beverage in my entire life. Just bought them for like 990 million for 60% ownership. All of this. Now I look at lifeid and I'm like this is the next announcement that's going to be made. Is this acquisition here?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. Well, I'll tell you. I'll tell you a couple of reasons. We are unwilling to sacrifice on our core values and our ethos. We will never have a beverage that is artificially sweetened with sucralose, aspartame or ACE-K, which does kill your gut microbiome. You know. You look at some of the studies. You know the sucrose level is so small and you excrete it like well, no one, no study has been done on low doses over 10, 15, 20 years on what that does to your body. We'll never use artificial dyes red, this and blue that We'll never use synthetic caffeine that all of those drinks have that comes from the giga factories overseas, with no regulation whatsoever.
Speaker 2:Our products have a supplement panel and not a nutrition panel. Well, why is that? Well, there's, you know that they're in the 60s. There was something that the FDA passed called GRAS, generally regarded as safe for food products, which is complete crack. I mean, if you look at the food additives in the US relative to Europe, it's like they have like 70 approved food additives and we have like 7,000. I mean, it's mind blowing. I'm probably off on the numbers there.
Speaker 2:It's crazy what we allow in our food and what they don't, and there's a lot of little things that we know is crazy. Like we use the methyl for a B12, methylcobalamin right, which is the superior form. It's more bioavailable, you know. It's a better form period, there's no question about it. Guess what? The methyl form is not gross because they haven't updated these things since the sixties.
Speaker 2:The cyano form, cyanocobalamin, which your body does break down to cyanide in small doses and does excrete it. Unless you are diabetic, pre-diabetic or obese, then your body doesn't really excrete it that well, that well. Well, nobody wants cyanide accumulating in their, in their body. Cyanocobalamin is gross, you know. So there's all these like little things that, if you're actually focused on doing the right thing, playing the long game and creating the best, most efficacious, healthiest, cleanest product available, all these other companies that you're mentioning, with these multi-billion dollar valuations, people think that they're healthy, especially women, going towards, like a brand that you previously mentioned, that's, up to six, eight billion dollars, or an Alani or some of these other ones stuff.
Speaker 2:There's a book called caffeinated, if you want to go down the wormhole on synthetic caffeine, uh, which came out of world war ii. The nazis developed it and this is like it's monsanto and pfizer collab from back in the day. It's crazy. Synthetic caffeine, they all use cyanocobalamin, they all use artificial sweetener, sucralose, as aspartame or Ace K are a combination of which. Right, and we're just not going to go down that road. So you know, we're happy being where we're at and and continuing to develop great products and servicing our community and and gyms and direct to consumer and high-end retailers, like you know, whole Foods and Sprouts, and you know that's that's where we stay in our lane.
Speaker 1:I mean, you guys aren't. You guys are a pretty big too. Like your revenue is what? 20 million a year? They're estimating. You don't have to tell me the actual uh, that people are valuating you at over a hundred, 120, 140 million, something like that as a business. Um, I understand. So let me ask you two questions. One is um, you said you wanted to grow to like a billion dollars or 200 million in sales or something like that. Like some, you obviously, as a company, you want to grow as big as possible. What you do, we respect the way you guys do it. We'll just give you a crap load more money to leverage yourself into a bigger player, but you can keep. We won't have you compromise how you produce your product.
Speaker 2:I mean, of course, we would look at anything that that was proposed um, at the end of the day, to to really grow. You know, top line, from where we're at to where I think we can be. It's really a distribution game, you know. You look at all those other brands that you mentioned now. You know they all have massive distribution. They're on a Coke truck or a Pepsi truck or a Dr Pepper truck or a Budweiser truck or a Red Bull truck, right Like, if you start paying attention to these delivery trucks cruising around your town, they're one of like four or five companies. So it really comes down to, you know, getting the distribution to really go for a massive land grab and go wide and go everywhere, like you also have to have. You know consumer demand right now, the average consumer and I'm not talking about, you know, california, or you know there's certain health pockets that people are actually aware of. You know what type of B12 they take and you know these things mean. You know what type of sweeteners are being used. These things mean something to them. As far as their criteria of purchase, a lot of the United States isn't there yet. You know they're not there. I spent six years in Pennsylvania, western Pennsylvania, it's not there yet. You know, they're just behind everything else from health perspective. So we would need the general awareness to catch up, to say, hey, you know, these are things you should be looking for in the foods and drinks that you're consuming, and people to start making different decisions. And it is happening. It is happening.
Speaker 2:When we first started this, there were the big three energy drinks and no one thought that would ever be disrupted. It was Red Bull, monster, rockstar. Well, guess what happened? Bang came along and disrupted that and knocked out the number three. And then Bang got knocked out as quickly as they came up by Celsius and now they're the new number three.
Speaker 2:And why are people drinking? Why is Celsius so big? And you got up to a $20 billion valuation? Because they brought in women for the first time in the energy drink category that women had never participated. They never drank Monster or Red Bull or Rockstar. Now women are drinking an energy drink because of this perceived health benefit from these various brands. Well, it's only going to be a matter of time when they're actually looking at the back of the can and go wait a second. I thought this was healthier than my, than the monsters and stuff. And they look at it and go well, it has actually the same ingredients. Why is it healthier? Oh, maybe it's not. You know what else is there out there. And so, over time, there'll be a natural discovery towards getting cleaner and cleaner and what you're consuming, and you know that's where we're going to be waiting, as we always have been, you know, right at the finish line, when you're ready to really make the leap on the more of a clean ingredient profile.
Speaker 1:It is crazy how the success of these drinks are not based on the quality of the product. It's really on the marketing. When they market to kids not kids or young men it's the Sour Patch flavor that they market, or if it's like some macho dude, it's the Elks Blood flavor and if it's the women, it's quote the healthy type product. And, like you said, you're right, no one ever lost money betting on the ignorance of the general population. It seems like in general it's going to take a real long time. It is happening, like you said, but it's a long game for them to sort of see. I mean, there might be certain events that might sort of hasten this. I'm not sure. It always seems like something big happens and then little jumps and starts happen in terms of health. But I admire you for doing that. It just might take a long time for that to happen. I'm not sure we're in it for the long haul.
Speaker 2:We're 14 years into it now and you know, uh, if the, if it takes, you know another 14, so be it. I mean, celsius didn't really take off until you know, like year 15 or 16.
Speaker 2:They, you know, they kind of went on multiple times and it had kind of a Hail Mary pass right at the end to really turn things around, turn around their positioning on that kind of thing. So these things do take time. We're we're a profitable company. We're, you know, got a great team, a great core team. We've got a great consumer base. You know, most of our new customers still come from referrals. So, like back in my Cairo day, like that's the best, you know you're doing good work when you're getting a significant amount of referrals and many new gym owners out there. That's one of the top metrics you should be looking at how many referrals are we getting? If they're not there, then you need to be changing your systems to. You know, to create and stimulate more referrals.
Speaker 2:Because if you're doing great work in the world, people feel compelled to talk about you. Like think about it, doc. Like what's the last time you had an amazing experience at a restaurant? New restaurant opens in town? You go, you're with your wife, like wow, the ambiance is great, the host is fantastic, you know everything, the waitstaff, like everything about it. What's the first thing you do? You know, when you get home, that next morning or whatever right, you feel compelled to go tell all your friends or your patients about oh, you got to go check out this new restaurant. It is amazing. Let me tell you what they did blah, blah, blah. Right, you are compelled. So if you're not getting referrals, you're not being compelling enough and the experience that you're delivering to your people and so that's always like the metric that I always like look at where. Where are referrals? Are we being compelling? You know, are we educating people well enough than what we're all about and what we're what we're doing?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Um, talk to me, uh, in closing a little bit, I know you also invest in in other businesses or entrepreneurs. You're you. You do a little bit of paying it forward, I would suppose, in terms of looking for other potential ventures to to help fund. Have you found anything that has been really promising or or what's that experience been like? It's fun.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. I. You know I can provide a lot of value from the zero to one crowds. So, like young entrepreneurs, you know, if you're a young startup, there's a thousand things that need to go right and and one of them can literally sink the ship, you know. And so like helping guide people to to avoid that one inaccurate thinking that can really sink it, and then also supporting, you know, great entrepreneurs and people and products that I see come along. I mean my favorite one right now is a company called Good Wipes and what they are is an all organic, flushable.
Speaker 2:Think of a baby wipe, but it's made of all cotton. This whole thing about microplastics, and now there's microplastics in our testicles and our ovaries. It's crazy, right, it's crazy. They see there's like a credit card worth of plastic in our brains. Now I mean this is insanity, all coming probably from water bottles and plastic cutting boards and who knows right. So the same thing was happening with baby wipes. I mean everyone uses baby wipes on their little young kids and here these things are all plastic. They don't degrade, I know they don't degrade. If I have a septic tank, you can't use them because 10 years later open the thing up Like they're still floating in there. They don't break down. So this company, good Wipes, came around and said hey, we are creating an all organic cotton baby wipe with no plastics in it and it's great for adults and kids and they break down in minutes in septic tanks that aren't polluting the ocean. That's a plug to me.
Speaker 1:That's pretty awesome. I love that. So any final takeaways.
Speaker 2:Pretty awesome. I love that. So any final takeaways where, if a gym wants to stock your products, if anyone else all handles as well, and then, uh, if they wanted to come on board, uh, they could email me directly a as an Aaron Hine D H I N D E at uh lifeaid bepcocom.
Speaker 1:Wow, Aaron, it's uh been such a pleasure to talk to you. I feel really inspired actually now that I've listened to you talk about your life and experience, and is there anything else you'd like to say or share before we sign off here?
Speaker 2:I'll end with my wife's quote again, because it's just such an important thing to keep in mind that you know it all works out in the end. And it hasn't worked out, it's not the end. So I love, keep moving forward. We're all in this struggle together and, uh, you know God is good, Life is great.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that quote. I'm going to be using it forever. Thank you so much All right doc.
Speaker 2:Thank you.