Building a Global Fitness Brand from Scratch with Nicoline Roth

High performance today is not just about intensity. It is about intelligence, longevity, and building systems that actually sustain growth. In Episode 9 of Deal Flow Diaries, we sit down with Nicoline Roth, founder of NRTHRN Strong, to unpack how she is redefining modern fitness through a distinctly Scandinavian lens. 

Nicoline shares the story behind NRTHRN Strong, a Copenhagen-born concept built around a patented machine designed to replicate the full-body benefits of cross-country skiing, one of the most effective and efficient workouts in the world. What began as a discovery during COVID quickly evolved into a vertically integrated business spanning equipment manufacturing, studio experience, and programming, now expanding from Europe to the U.S. with a flagship in New York and a breakout launch in the Hamptons. 

From building a brand in a saturated market to navigating international expansion, this conversation offers a clear, candid look at what it actually takes to scale a performance-driven business today without losing identity, discipline, or control. 

Join us as we talk about: 

• Building a differentiated fitness concept and why uniqueness matters more than market saturation 
• The realities of launching a business and the power of network-building and community 
• Why execution, not just the idea, determines long-term success 
• The trade-offs of scaling, franchising, and maintaining brand integrity 
• The role of discipline, routines, and mental strength in building both a company and a life 

Whether you are a founder, building a business, or simply interested in how modern wellness brands are built, this episode delivers a grounded perspective on discipline, growth, and the systems behind sustainable success. 

Deal Flow Diaries, where strategy meets execution, and the real stories behind building something meaningful are told without filters. 

Follow Nicoline and NRTHRN Strong: 

IG: @nicolineroth, @nrthrnstrong 

Website 

Questions and comments; reach out to us at inquiries@dealflowdiariespodcast.com

Find out more about the dealflowdiariespodcast.com 

To stay up to date with Deal Flow Diaries and get all the behind-the-scenes content, follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and on YouTube.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple or Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts.

Recorded at The Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center.

Thank you for listening.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

DealFlow Diaries, where the Dealmakers Talk. A podcast that takes you inside the minds of the Titans shaping today's global economy. I'm Alexandra Fairweather.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

And I'm Elaine Chamberlain. Together, we sit down with visionary founders, fund managers, and deal makers across private equity, real estate, fashion, tech, and beyond.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Each episode, we uncover the untold stories behind their biggest deals, hardest setbacks, and boldest bets. Lessons in strategy, risk, and ambition you won't find anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Smart, unscripted, unfiltered. This is DealFlow Diaries.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

High performance today is not just about intensity. It is about intelligence, longevity, and building systems that actually sustain growth. Today's guest has built a fitness concept that reflects exactly that philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Nico Roth is the founder and CEO of Northern Strong, a Copenhagen-born fitness concept redefining functional training through a distinctly Scandinavian lens. She launched the brand in 2022 with a clear vision to bring the power and efficiency of cross-country skiing, widely regarded as one of the world's most effective full-body workouts, into a modern studio environment. At the center of the Northern Strong method is the patented Northern trainer, engineered to mirror the natural movement patterns of cross-country skiing, delivering a low-impact, high-intensity workout that integrates strength, cardio, and mobility into each session. Born and raised in Copenhagen, Nico draws deeply from the Nordic principles of balance, simplicity, and connection. Under her leadership, Northern Strong expanded beyond Denmark with a sold-out SAG Harbor pop-up in summer of 2025 and the opening of its first U.S. flagship in New York City's Flatiron District. Nico, welcome to DealFlow Diaries. Thank you so much, ladies. I'm so happy to be here. We're so happy to have you. We're obviously very familiar with each other, and we've both been to the Sag Harbor pop-up, which we loved. So we're so happy to have you here. We're big fans. Well, I'm big fans of you girls. Thank you. So I want to start off from the beginning. Where did this idea come from? Tell us a little bit about who you are outside and before the original location in Copenhagen.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Yeah. My background is not in fitness. I've always been very into fitness. I've played handball, which is a sport nobody in the US knows, but it's a big European sport. I played a lot of golf as well. But my background is not in fitness, it's in business. And I grew up in Copenhagen in Denmark. Then I studied abroad at Columbia in New York. That's when I was first introduced to the boutique fitness industry. This was in 2016, and I was infatuated by SoulCycle. It was I was just gonna ask which class. So that was kind of in the back of my head. Went back to Copenhagen, moved then to Berlin, worked in a publishing company there, and then ended up in London, where I founded a network for female entrepreneurs. And ran that until COVID. So COVID happens. I moved back to Copenhagen, just hanging out with my parents' house. I was living there for a few months. And that's when I first tried the Northern Trainer. So the Northern Trainer was developed by a doctor and former cross-country skier in the early 2000s. He wanted to create a machine that imitated double polling, which is his classic cross-country skiing technique, and brought it indoor. So the machine does that with a near-perfect correlation. You can also do diagonal polling, and then there are all these other exercises that we have brought into our programming. But his goal was to create a machine that imitated double polling. And my brother, who's an athlete, he had one of these machines at home. It was at my parents' home. And I started training on it. It wasn't a very pretty looking machine. I had seen it before, and I'd never thought, oh, this is something I want to try because it just didn't have a digital component. The colors were off. It looked old and just kind of sad in a way. But I started training on it during COVID because we had it at home, and I loved it. I immediately fell in love with the strength aspect, the cardio aspect, and the fact that you can improve your balance so much on the machine that it was low impact. There were so many different exercises you could do, which was never pushed by that former company. I mean, he's a he's an incredible entrepreneur, the guy that founded the company, but they pushed it just for cross-country skiers and triathletes and for rehabilitation. And you could do so much more with it. So I started training on it and ended up getting in touch with a Pilates instructor, a friend of mine, to see if you could actually do some programming around the machine that would be good for other people than athletes. And that was kind of the start of it. So we spent a few months doing that. And then I started thinking about, you know, maybe there could be a good business here. Maybe you could do a peloton type of business around the machine. If you were able to create this app that showed instructor-led workout videos on the machine, and then on the studio side, I wanted to create a space that was kind of like SoulCycle in the way it was spelt and the vibe. But of course, it should be grounded in Nordic values. It should resonate with where I'm from. And I'm from half Norwegian, half Danish. So we took in all the design elements from Copenhagen, Scandinavian minimalism, but yet warm. And then for on the Norwegian side, we tried to get in natural elements through like the northern lights and making it feel like you're kind of outside.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

The design of the studio is absolutely incredible. It's sort of like a nightclub. It's such a vibe that you just like the energy is incredible. Obviously, you're entering into a market that is so saturated, right? There's a gym on every corner in New York. When you had originally opened the Denmark location, what were the risks that were associated? And how did you feel opening up a location that I assume, you know, is the first of its kind, yet so integrated into the fitness market?

SPEAKER_02 6:56

So we own the equipment and we manufacture it. It's only us who does that.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Um yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

When we did that and opened the first location in Copenhagen, it was purely as a proof of concept. So the goal was always to bring it to the US. I've never been scared of bringing it to a place where there are a lot of concepts because it's so unique. It's not a new Pilates concept. I think that's our strength, that it is a very different concept. And I also think when you're in a city like New York, like when you walk down the street, you have people, men, women walking around in fitness clothing, everything. You see it everywhere, right? You have so many different fitness brands. So it's just, of course, the competition is high, but there's also people they love boutique fitness so much, and they're always looking for like the next new thing. And I think we hit because of the machine combined strength, cardio, and mobility into a low-impact workout. These are three elements that people really care about today because it's like the foundation of longevity fitness. So of course it's a big risk, but I've always felt quite confident about the concept. So it's more whether the execution of the concept, the concept is the right, because I 100% believe it is.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Do you have any advice to the listeners that are thinking about bringing a similar concept just in general into a market that is oversaturated and that can be very risky and scary? I mean, obviously that comes with a lot of confidence and self-belief. I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Before we opened our location in New York, we spent about a year and a half looking for a location. Took a pretty long time. And that my network is obviously in Europe. So what I did, and I would advise anyone to do that, is to really build the found build your foundation, build your network. I would fly over for a dinner and then fly back home to Copenhagen. If I knew it was the right people for me to meet, I would fly over for it just to build that network. And that has really paid off for me, I think, after we opened because the support network that I've had as a newcomer to New York has been great. You really gotta know your industry, but that's no matter what you're launching, you need to know all concepts. You need to know in the fitness industry, you need to know the instructors. I would also advise anyone if you're going into fitness, which is something I didn't do. I think it's one of the things that in the beginning of my journey created the biggest challenges. I hadn't worked in a f in a gym before. So on the operation side, you can always hire operations people, but on that side of things, there are definitely things I've learned through the journey. Had I taken a year off and worked at a Berry's or worked at an Equinox, I think there are things I would have learned and didn't do those mistakes I did in Copenhagen when we f initially launched it.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Could you talk about some of those surprises and a few examples?

SPEAKER_02 9:52

On the operation side, you have the studio and you have your classes, but you need to do proper programming. You need to have your sales associate needs to know exactly what they're doing at the front desk. There's a lot of upkeep to the studio, the way you do your memberships, the way you do your communication, the way you do your lead generation, all of these components go into running a studio. And those are things I kind of like learned as I go or as I went. It would have been smart had I worked in the industry for a bit before I launched my own concept for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

That's good insight. I think even a year, like you said. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

And you can do it while you're launching. Right. You know? Right. I mean, I went full on 100% and started um, you know, had to learn manufacturing first. Went to China, kind of understood how is this, how do you produce the machine. Oh wow. And then I spent that first year really building my concept. It was important for me that when we launched, the concept was nailed down. But during that year, you could have taken a job working somewhere as a studio manager or a front desk. I would have learned so much from that. Now I know it with this studio that we opened here, and I have an amazing operations manager, but I did not know that when we opened the Copenhagen location.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Since you do manufacture the fitness equipment as well, are you looking to build that in so that people will be able to do it more at home as well?

SPEAKER_02 11:10

The machine has a tablet that shows your stroke rate, your what, and your distance and your time. And there are also challenges in the app that we do in class. So you can kind of progress your stats in real time and then you can see your progression over time. When we initially launched it, I built an app with instructor at workout videos. So we were gonna sell the machines for at home. But it's two different businesses. And so for sure it's the goal of mine someday, but we don't have the capacity to do it yet. We're a very small team. We've decided only to manufacture machines for ourselves. Also, so we can really there's a bit of technique to the machine. We want to make sure people know it. When they see the machine, they recognize it. And we really want to own that experience on the machine. We're doing that only in the studio now, but we're looking into it and we are getting requests from people that have seen us on, you know. I went on the Today show last month, and we got a lot of requests from people all over the country wanting to buy machines. Then it's like, okay, should we take that on? It's a different business than running a brick and mortar studio.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

I think that's a good segue into the topic of scaling. So you had your first events in North America in the Hamptons this past summer. Yeah. And what was the launch strategy there? And how do you foresee scaling in the future?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Initially, when we signed our lease, we knew we were going to open around September, October 25. And my initial idea was to do events around the city. You can carry the machine relatively easily to do events throughout the summer leading into the launch. But then we found this opportunity of a space in Sac Harbor just, you know, three months before opening. And we decided it was a good idea. It wasn't something we had planned. The opportunity just all of a sudden came up, and it was the best thing we could have done because we were able to do events, get some great publicity around that location, and also build some of the foundation for our, you know, our members. And even people that didn't come to Psych Harbor had heard about it. So when we opened in the city, they wanted to come and try it. That worked out brilliant for us, especially as a concept coming from a different country. Looking ahead, we have a plan, it's not set in stone. We do want to do one or two more locations in New York. That would be our goal. Do you think you'll ever franchise? We don't know yet. For now, we are opening, so when I say we, I am running the business together with my family. So my sister's an architect and handles design around the studio. And my dad, he's more on the business side of things with me. So we're still exploring and we might do it down the line. I think there are good and bad things about franchising. And if you're able to make a profitable studio by yourself, I think that's a way we prefer to go.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Could you speak a little bit further on the pros and cons of franchising? I think so many people that we have in the studio talk about scaling too quickly. And people that aren't in business, they think that it's so smart and so great to one raise and then scale. And a lot of businesses fail that way. So I'd love to hear your thoughts specifically on your brand and your business and why right now you're not moving forward in that direction.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

So franchising, as you said, can be great. You can scale very quickly. I think with franchising, there's always a big risk of losing your brand identity with the studios that you open. There's also the control of the equipment that it works. The equipment is still evolving. We're finding things on the machines that can be improved. So we have a full-time guy that works for us in Copenhagen and we work with him very closely. Whether that is the sound on the rails or how smoothly they run, we're continuously improving that. So we want to have control over our products still. So we're very hands-on on that. And then I think the for sure the controlling the brand and we want to make sure it has that Nordic vibe and the values of the Nordics, and I think that's authenticity. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Can you tell us what you view as the Nordic values that you're embodying?

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Yeah, so the biggest term that we use in the Nordics is hugger, right? Which is something that is cozy. People in Scandinavia, they have it's a very easy-going, chill lifestyle, care a lot about being outdoors, doing things together. I mean, when you say doing things together as a community, you do that as well here, but it's it might be in a bit of a different way. And we're trying to get that easy-going sort of vibe in the studio. So that's something we really care about.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

I would like to focus a little bit more about female founder life, especially being international and going back and forth. I saw you were just in Copenhagen. And I think there's something special and unique about female founder discipline and routines. And I'd love to know more about what your routines look like. And especially, you know, moving here and not being from the United States. How do you adapt and what do your routines look like?

SPEAKER_02 16:30

I have a very strict routine, but I've always had that. I think I have it from my mom. So I wake up, I'm an early bird, so I am a 536 girl. I love my quiet mornings. I do not put my phone on for at least 45 minutes after I wake up if I can. I have it on not disturbed. Most mornings I start with hot water with lemon, then I do alkalize by Sarah Raggi. That's like my morning routine. I'll do three to six minutes of breath work. If I feel like it, I'll write down an intention and then I'll kind of, you know, make my coffee and then get started on emails. My meetings normally start quite early because Copenhagen is six hours ahead. So I'll start meetings around 7 a.m. So I live very close to the studio in Flatiron. So I like to try to go down into the studio for most classes when people are being checked in. I love to speak to the members and just be present in the studio. So I'll go down to the studio, be there for check-in, and go back to my place. Today I have I'm all over the city. Some days I am working from my on my Zooms, you know, all day. And then again at night I'll try to go down for check-ins. On weekends, I try to be in the studio for the entire morning. Uh that's where I feel that I can connect most with people. So that's like my routine on a daily basis. I'm not strict with what I eat as a fitness entrepreneur. You would you would maybe think that, but I'm not. I'm I'll grab something on the go. And of course it's late. It's long days. So it's often early mornings leading into dinners at night. What time do you go to bed? I go to bed around 11. I'm very big on napping, so I nap almost every day for 15 to 20 minutes. Just in the afternoon, I'll lay down on the floor and then put on eye prizes 15-20 minutes. Um, but um, but it's long days, so and it it I can sometimes feel as end of the week the exhaustion really hitting me. But I I love that feeling because it makes me feel so accomplished and I've been productive throughout the week, right? But there's no balance in my life. I try to add in these morning routines with like the breath work and so on, which helps, but I don't have any balance and I definitely close my computer way too close to going to bed. And but you know, that's how it is when you're building. And do you do morning workouts or afternoon workouts? What's your workout time? I work out four times a week, I think, sometimes five. And I work out based on what meetings I have. I often have people that have to meet in the studio, or I try as much as I can to alternate which classes I'm doing just to make sure I'm coming to everyone's classes. I mean, I love all my instructors, so it's not that I have favorites, but I try to do as many different classes as possible, also so I can give feedback on programming. Yeah, you know, I'll uh it's your baby. Uh it's my baby, so I'll notice little things sometimes morning, sometimes evening. Again, if I have a week where I have a lot of meetings and I don't work out a single time, it's also fine. I don't have to do it. It's not a huge pressure on you. No, I don't have to do my workout every day. Which I think if you are busy, I think it's important not to put too much pressure on too many things that you have to do because you're just gonna be disappointed, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah. Talk to us a little bit more about working with your family. I think it's such a unique dynamic, and I love this. When we first met you, it said that, and I was really excited to hear more about it.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah, so I come from a very, very close-knit family. I have an older brother and an older sister, and my parents have been married since they were well, they've been together since they were 15, so you know, for ages. Um, so we're all very close. My dad is becoming more and more involved as the business becomes more complicated. I think I speak with him on the phone for probably two, two and a half hours every day or on on Teams or whatever. And what's his background in? He comes from investment banking. Okay. So he's invested in various startups, but this is the first one where he is like getting his hands. The latest thing is he's falling in love with Claude AI. I mean, we use it for everything. I require my employees to use it for like whether it's newsletters, whether you have to do a handbook, whatever it is, you should be using it. We use it for mapping out what classes work, what classes don't work. Amazing. It's just quicker than putting it into a spreadsheet yourself. And you they get strategic advice, which sometimes you gotta, you know, see everything and then think discernment. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's so efficient. So he's very involved. I love working with him. It's he's you know, he's my I've always looked a lot up to my dad. And now the fact that you're the baby. I'm the baby. We get to work so close, it's just amazing. And my sister is very, she's very creative. So she on the design side of things, you know, you saw the pop-up in Sec Harbor, she'll walk into an empty space and she's just like, Oh, we should do this and that, and this is how it would look amazing. And so, even though like the main idea came from me in terms of when I started the company, you know, what feelings that I wanted in every space, she's just able to bring that to life, which is incredible. And she's not Running the Copenhagen studio. And my brother, he's an athlete. He has two of his own companies, and then he helps wherever he can, whether that's being a model in our videos or um doing testing with athletes and that type of thing. Of course, sometimes it's hard, but it but but that's how it is. But I do think when you work together with your family and it's hard, it's hard in a different way because you know that you have to make it work. It's almost better at that. It's almost better, yeah, exactly. So I wouldn't want to have it any other way. And I I think I'm I'm so blessed that I am able to both work and travel with my family the way I do, and we have that relationship. I mean, we have so much fun together as well. My mom will, whenever we talk about business, she will leave the room.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

She says she can't deal with it.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

So her contribution is in Copenhagen, she brings a lot of homemade pastries to the studio. So we'll do like so nice. They'll do like sweat equity. That's like the Nordic like coziness, right? So she'll bring it on Sundays and people love it.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

So that's you the only one in New York or in North America. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

So I moved here in April when we were launching the pop-up in Sack Harper. We opened it in the end of May. So I'm the only one here, but they are back and forth a lot. So whenever there's important meetings, my dad will come over, my sister will come over as well. But it's me holding around the fort here with I have one full-time employee, my operations manager, and then now we're growing the team of instructors.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

So I know that you'd recently added a new class to the lineup. Can you speak to each class and what it's focused on? And we have a mutual friend who you invited to the more Pilates type. Yeah. I'm not a Pilates girl, but I would love to come to the strength one. So can you just speak to all of them and what that interest peak might be?

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Yeah. Our signature class is called strong. So all classes use a machine. The strong class, you are 60% on the machine, 40% on floor. This is all about building strengths, functional strength, infused with cardio. So you're doing, you know, you'll do a round on the machine that's eight minutes, then you do a round on the floor that's eight minutes, and then you're swapping like that, and then you'll maybe end with a finisher, a cardio finisher of four minutes. You will break a sweat, but it's focused on strength and it's still low impact strength. Right. Then the demographics for the strong class would I would say is maybe 60% women, 40% men, something like that. So we have quite a big crowd of men coming for the strong class. The sculpt class is 99% women. This is around 70% on the machine, 30% floor. Here, the exercises on the machine are very slow. You're focusing a lot on improving your balance, stability, your training to create muscle fatigue. So you're doing a lot of repetitions, but they're very slow. There's a resistance on the machine. So here you'll maybe, you know, increase the resistance a bit. And then the last class is our cardio class. We didn't launch this at first. We have it in Copenhagen just because you need to learn the technique of the machine. It's a fast-paced class, it's only 30 minutes. Doing 60 minutes of cardio on the Northern Trainer is death. I mean, I'm not trying to say people not to come to cardio because it's my favorite class. It's amazing, but that is very, very tough. I was just filming a video on the machine earlier. Like your heart rate, the girl I was filming with, she was like, after two minutes on the machine, she could feel a heart rate, which is up. So it's you can really do great cardio on the machine. This is purely machine work, very simple exercises, but it's all about training your VO2 max. So using the tablet where you can see your stats. And we have created the tablet so it shows the northern lights colors, kind of following the trajectory of what a heart rate zone would do. And so we use that in the class, and it's about elevating your heart rate throughout the class. So those are the three different ones. Many people they'll do a strong, they'll do a sculpt, and then build out the confidence. And when they do their cardio, they just love it. It's slow and controlled movements throughout the class. But it they are so different, the three classes. So if you come in, you know, always make sure to read about it on the website to see what's you. I like to combine all of them. The mobility aspect is super important for you. There's a lot of exercises where you don't get that because it's just like go, go, go. Right, right. Um, so adding in that sculpt class is good to do. So, but even for guys, it's great and very challenging. A lot of the sculpt exercises, there's a lot of rotational movements. A lot of these exercises are incredible for athletes as well. Whether you're a golfer or a tennis player, all these rotational moves where you're working, you know, the small muscles around your knee or around your ankles, strengthening those, yeah, are incredible to do on the machine.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

I'm curious what your marketing strategy is. Any gym is very difficult. How are you getting people in and how are you approaching that strategy?

SPEAKER_02 27:05

When we started out, word of mouth has been great for us. Getting the ones that we had in the Hamptons, kind of building that foundation and bringing them into the studio in Flatiron. So, word of mouth, we do a lot of events with brands, both influencer events, community events for brands. That's how kind of we started. I'm working with a PR company that's helping us on more of the traditional PR size, whether that is articles in different newspapers or doing TV segments, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

I found you through your PR company. So Yeah. So they're they're doing a good job.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

I learned that they I mean, they are they're amazing. And then also, like me, what I'm spending a lot of my time on and I'm trying to is building out the network, going to events. Like I had a friend that invited me to the event that you hosted at the NED and just trying to approach as many people as possible and you know, get the word out, and then it kind of has like a trickle-down effect.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Yeah. I would love to hear more about your approach to networking and relationship building because, like you said, we did meet at the event at the Ned, and it was a packed room, but you still made the intention of coming up and introducing yourself. And I love that. I think that's so important and building anything, right? And so I'd love to hear your thoughts on networking and how important that is, especially coming from another country and entering a market. That can be very challenging.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Yeah, so I think your network is everything. And I once started a list, like a Google sheet. Also, because sometimes you'll meet somebody and you'll forget that you met them. I did a Google sheet, like initially when we were gonna launch here, of everybody I knew, who they were, what they did, who I met them through. Also just to keep in mind the connection and where it came from. Not even to use them, but more when you meet them, you're like, oh, right, I remember because I know you through this person. She's really being aware of your network and trying to support the people that you meet on your way. And anything that you're able to go to, go to it. Don't be afraid to go up to people, ask them questions, introduce yourself. There's been so many times where I've introduced myself, and somebody will look at me and be like, Why are you even doing this? You just gotta keep on going because then you'll meet somebody lovely like you who's like, you know, oh my gosh, I would love to come to your studio and see it. That's just how I've always approached it. And then really trying to have a very open, positive mindset myself. Yeah. I'm an extrovert, so I love meeting new people.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

I love that advice. I love the Excel sheet. I'm actually gonna do that.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

No, but and yeah, because and even for when you forget, because you will forget people that you've met that could be interesting for you to keep in touch with. So keeping that Google Sheet, it's a really good idea. Exactly. I even like when I go to restaurants in my notes on my phone, I write down waiters' names, hosts' names, chefs' names. So smart. Because then when you go back, you it's much easier to stay in touch with them and making them feel like, oh, you remember and special, right? And then the chances that they will introduce you to somebody else is just so much bigger.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Our last guest on the podcast was talking about how important it is not to burn prejudice and be kind to everybody because you don't know who that person is. You don't know what their experience was. And I love this way of integrating everybody you meet into one located spreadsheet. I mean, it sounds so systematic, but like I I love that, and I'm definitely going to take that advice.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

And like, and and I totally agree with that advice. The energy that you put out is the energy you'll receive back. I'm a firm believer in that. You gotta remember it. Like you gotta keep it in mind. And it's even if somebody leaves a company, how do you want to leave that company? You want to leave on bad terms with the biggest. We're just talking about it. Yeah, but you want to leave on bad terms with the company. Oh, an abadie. Bad impression. No, because your reputation is everything. Exactly. I'm sure that there are many people that think I'm horrible or annoying. That's how it is. You can't please everyone, but what you can make sure is that you know that you are the nicest version of yourself to anyone you meet on your way.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to go back to Cloud Cowork quickly. Are you using any other AI tools that you're really enjoying right now?

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Cloud AI is the main tool I use. For like design purposes, I'm trying to organize it more through AI. It's something I'm learning.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yeah, we've been sort of studying Higgs Field, and then you just tried a new one recently. Which one?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Artistly, it's really great for graphics and obviously with my brand and building a clothing brand. It brings images to life. You can, you know, create all of these amazing graphics, and I've loved just playing around with it. And Alexandra and I constantly talk about AI and just building and what is best for entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Like I even consider once to do like an AI class to really know which because you can do it online to really know all the tools because there are so many tools you don't know about. Okay, then you think Cloud or ChatGPT are the only tools, but it they're not, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Maybe we can all go to the net and do that. Oh, yeah, maybe we can all take it together.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

No, but that could be a great event as well. Absolutely. Very specifically, how do you use AI for, you know, videos or photos or showing you how you use the tool to design, not just saying you can design in this through this tool, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:35

I recently tried something, so I use ChatGBT a lot, so it has a good sense of like what my workflows are and my pain points and in various businesses. And I asked, like, knowing what you know about me, what can I automate with Claude Co. And it was like nearly everything I do. And so I mean it really is like amazing, then just even to ask from the knowledge base, like what could I automate that I'm not already automating?

SPEAKER_02 33:01

I like that you could categorize more. You could do project and you can share with a team. So we have this team plan so everybody can access it, which is which is which is pretty great. So you can follow whether you do reporting or whatever it is, then you kind of have it in you know in separate folders.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

I'm gonna look into that. Yeah. So we end every episode with a speed round.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Underrated habit for founders. Having a very good morning routine. What was the hardest time in building Northern Strong? It's about consistency, doing it every single day. Your personal definition of strength.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

For me, strength is it's not just physical, it's mental as well. So it is taking care of your mind and your body, and that taking care of your mind starts with yourself, the way you speak to yourself in the morning, the way you start your day. If you consistently show up every single day, I think that's a strength. The way you act towards others is also part of your strength. And then, of course, you have the physical aspects, and that I think that kind of leads into having a lot of physical strength because the better your mental strength is, the more physical strength you'll get, and more energy you'll get for workouts. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

I love that. Where can everyone find you?

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Everyone can find me on Instagram at Nicoline Roth. You can find me on TikTok now. Because I just got a TikTok at Nicoline Roth. And you can find me at our studio on 21st Street at uh Northern Strong.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Love it. We're gonna be there soon. Today's episode focuses on the intersection of discipline, intelligent training, and what it actually looks like to scale a performance-driven brand in today's market. If there is one takeaway, it is this sustainable strength in business and in life is never accidental. It is built deliberately one decision at a time. Thank you so much for being with us today.