Pro Cyclist Alexey Vermeulen & Photographer Avery Stumm on YouTube, the Creative Process, Collaboration & Storytelling
Alexey Vermeulen decided to leave the highest level of professional cycling in Europe to compete in gravel, road and mountain bike races back in the United States. In 2022 he won one of the biggest gravel races in America, the Belgian Waffle Ride San Diego, as well as the Iceman Cometh mountain bike race, and took part in the Lifetime Grand Prix series. Avery Stumm is a videographer, photographer and creator who came up in the BMX scene.
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On their YouTube channel, Alexey and Avery, they tell the story of Alexey’s experiences as a pro cyclist and break the fourth wall to tell the story of their relationship as a content creation team and everything that goes into what they make. That includes Willie, the dachshund that Alexey sometimes carries in a backpack on rides who has become dog famous. Avery is part of the story and it paints a picture of life behind the pro athlete highlight reel that’s a new and different kind of viewing experience.
This episode is about much more than pro cycling. We talk about logistics, teamwork, the creative process, how doing hard things with friends makes success more fun and much more.
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If you enjoy this episode, please give it a five-star rating on Spotify or Apple podcasts, subscribe and forward it to a friend who likes doing hard things, and sign up for the newsletter.
If you’re new to the show, welcome. Choose the Hard Way is a podcast where guests share stories about how hard things build stronger humans.
I’m Andrew Vontz and I’ve spent more than 25 years telling and shaping the stories of the world’s top performers, brands and businesses. I’ve held executive and senior leadership roles at the social network for athletes Strava and the human performance company TRX. My byline as a journalist has appeared in outlets like Rolling Stone, Outside magazine, The Los Angeles Times and more.
Today I advise and consult with businesses and nonprofits on high-impact storytelling strategies and I coach leaders to become high-performance communicators. If you’d like to work with me, reach out on LinkedIn, DM me @vontz or send an email to choosethehardway@gmail.com.
I’m also now considering sponsorship from mission-aligned brands to support this show in 2023 and beyond. If that’s you, reach out. We’re revamping the newsletter, so be sure to sign up at www.choosethehardway.com to get a monthly drop of insights and a look at what’s ahead.
If you’d like to suggest a guest or say hello, you can DM me @hardwaypod on social or send an email to choosethehardway@gmail.com.
In This Episode:
Alexey Vermeulen YouTube | Instagram
Avery Stumm YouTube | Instagram
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Andrew Vontz LinkedIn
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Choose The Hard Way is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production
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Anthony Vennare 0:00
It's kind of funny, my entire life has been a constant battle of chaos i, because of who I am and how I operate within normal guidelines. Like I don't operate good on a plan on a daily thing I don't, I'm not the type to get up in the morning at the same time. I try for it every day, but it always fails. So that was just today getting up early enough. Working out on time. You know, going in getting to the office, coming to walk here, it's raining because I couldn't walk I like to walk every day to get to the office. So nothing goes right every day for me. So it's just not what didn't go right or what didn't go. It's not what went wrong if what went right and probably so far got my coffee from my favorite coffee shop. That's about it.
Andrew Vontz 0:42
What was your adjustment based on the rain?
Anthony Vennare 0:46
I had to drive which was a huge bummer. I never drive. I just got a car used to have an investment and only drive a scooter. And it was either Walker scooter, you had to do it snow. I live in Pittsburgh. So it's snow and it's rainy and scrappy. Yeah, I have to do but I recently had to be accretive to get a car so I drove today and I haven't driven in two months.
Andrew Vontz 1:05
Wow vest, but in the winter those sounds prior to the car. That sounds like a dangerous lifestyle. Were there any incidents based on that basketball lifestyle early on?
Anthony Vennare 1:15
No, it was a slow driving. And sometimes a lot of walking was the only thing if it was bad out I would walk in, I gotta walk two miles, I gotta walk two miles, I gotta walk five, I gotta walk five, whatever it was. So yeah, it was not smart at all. It was just me being difficult, which is probably the kind of tone of everything today is just trying to fight against myself to make things more difficult.
Andrew Vontz 1:40
You know, I as I noted, before we got started, I've listened to I think the full catalogue of podcasts interviews that you've done, and I heard one from way back. I know you've talked about how you, you entered the Marines. Your father was ill and you had to come home to help out with things for the family. But I heard you say that you dropped 100 pounds before you enter the Marine Corps. Did I hear that? Right?
Anthony Vennare 2:04
Yeah, I, I was to 60 to 70. I was a lineman. In high school, I was very large. And then what was it three, four months later, I left for the Marines at 160. So it was not healthy, not something I would recommend. But as most things again, it's like how if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. It's gonna be insane. We're not going to eat anything but protein shakes for three months, and we're gonna go and try to be in the best shape of our lives. And, and that's what I did. Luckily, I had a recruiter that brought me into the Marines. He was a formal former Special Operations guy. And he was just as crazy as I was, if not 10 times more because of his background. So we were training three times a day. It was insane. So it was it was not smart. But yeah, it it happened.
Andrew Vontz 2:57
And when you enter the Marine Corps, was that right out of high school? Yeah. What was your plan at that point of time? What did you want to do with your life?
Anthony Vennare 3:06
Yeah, my goal was, I wanted to be in the Marines for 20 years, and then join the FBI after I got out. So it was a big grand plan, because I was not good at school, I barely graduated. I had, I think, graduated 2.1 GPA or something like that. School is not for me, I had learning disabilities, I didn't fit within confines, I didn't like it. And then I was gonna go play high school, or college football. But I had gotten, you know, picked up by smaller schools, I'm only 510 I wasn't going to be anything big as a lineman. So none of them really could give that whole, you have bad grades will still get you in and give you a scholarship thing. So that plan didn't work out. So I had always, always always wanted to be in the military, and then the Marines game, and that was great. But I left for boot camp. The week after or two weeks after I left for boot camp, my dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. And that's what changed my whole life trajectory.
Andrew Vontz 4:04
Yeah, that must have been incredibly rough at the time, and probably still now. Thinking about it. And I've heard you discuss it in other places. But I'm curious, how did you feel when you got that news and then had to leave the Marine Corps to go home and I know you went on to be a reservists. But what did that feel like for you?
Anthony Vennare 4:27
Yeah, it was. It was crazy. Because my goal was actually to go through what's called a platoon leadership course where you go and you enlist in. You enlist, generally, as a Marine. You go to college, and then you go to become an officer. You get all of the experiences. And when when I didn't find out about my dad until graduation day at Boot Camp, because they didn't want to tell me because you can't just leave bootcamp. They're not going to just let you go home. So they didn't Tell me I didn't know I was writing letters. I had gotten a call them a few times because I had won certain competitions, it was going very well for me. And I never got to come engage with my dad. I didn't think anything of it. Graduation day, I saw him. He was pretty obvious. He just had brain surgery, whereas entire, you know, head was operated on. And yeah, it was just supposed to be a big important day for me. But it was just much different story when seeing him and finding out he had cancer.
Andrew Vontz 5:32
And when he got back home, I'm sure that there was quite an adjustment to make as you thought about your future. But at that point in time, you'd had this idea, hey, I'm going to be on for 20 years, get to retirement going into the FBI? Did you immediately shift your focus to something else? Or did you were you in drift for a bit as you tried to reorient yourself?
Anthony Vennare 5:55
I was fortunate that before I joined the Marines, I did my senior project on fitness. And I had gone and shattered somebody at the YMCA and all of that. So I knew fitness. Well, I trained that all through high school as an athlete, I had gotten fortunately a really good strength coaches. And then me going and preparing to leave for boot camp was just 99% just fitness. So it was something that I enjoyed and I liked. And Jim, my brother and I had always had our focus on that, like, I entered bodybuilding competitions when I was younger, like the team bodybuilding.com stuff. So I was like, Oh, I like this. This is fun. And it was just something that was like a way to distract myself from what was going on. Because I came home for 10 days, and I had to go back to MLS school and then come home for another two weeks and you go back and do other stuff. And it was constant fight to get home, go back and do what I have to do all of this stuff. And it was just a back and forth for a number of years until he unfortunately passed away.
Andrew Vontz 6:58
Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. And as you noted, you talked about your brother Joe, your brother Joe is your business partner today in all of your endeavors. I'm curious what your relationship was like when you were young people? Were you competitive with each other? Did you help each other out to choke each other out? Like what went down?
Anthony Vennare 7:19
He's the older brother. So yes, we always fought choked each other out. Didn't you know, we were brothers from an Italian family. So we were close. But we weren't. You know, we fought all the time. Everything was a competition. He was the older, smarter 4.0 student got a scholarship has a master's degree. That and I was like the kid who couldn't read. So and I was the younger brother coming up. So it was definitely a crazy time. But it was, it was a weird transition as this went down with my dad, because we became very, very close. And you know, he took care of them when when you when I wasn't there. And in general just like going through that it was we became very, very close. And then he was a teacher, or high school history teacher. And after it was probably, you know, a year after my dad had passed away, I was trying to find my career and job I was 20 going on 21. And I started training people in parks, I started training people in their houses, I got certified and like I was doing my best to make money for the family because our family was not well off. And then after that in this way, we really weren't in a good spot. So it was like make money for everyone type of thing. And I ended up doing very well at that to the point where I was training all over the place I had, you know, probably close to 100 clients. It was just became this out of nowhere massive business because my passion for fitness was all that I kind of put my head down into. With everything going on. That's what I did. And it was just after seeing my dad so frail and sick. You realize like if you don't have health, nothing else really matters. So we go through that. I just I had read the Malcolm Gladwell book and about 10,000 hours I listened to it as well as audiobook and it was i How can I go and build my 10,000 hours as fast as humanly possible. So steady work, train workshops, everything you can do. And it led to the point where I got in a position where we could you know, we have enough clients, we were doing well enough. I was like, Oh, I feel to the gym. And that was our first real business was me going and signing this lease for this massive 12,000 square foot facility. I had no idea what I was doing and what was going to happen. But within a month it went so well that I had I went to Joe it was my older brother. And he was a teacher Tom was like you have to quit your job as a word doing so well that I need help. And he was as intense as I was. I was like I don't know how to hire people what to do, but I was like you have to come work with me on this. This is crazy.
Andrew Vontz 9:57
It is crazy. I've spent some time around that and During my time when I was head of content at TRX. And for people who are outside of the fitness and wellness industry, they might not realize your story is a very uncommon one. That's not the experience that most people have when they go to start a training business, I would say, most people struggle. Why do you think you had so much success so rapidly as you stepped into the space? And also would you like to apologize to any skateboarders? Because I understand you destroyed a skate park in the process of launching your training business, which sends me
Anthony Vennare 10:33
Yeah, we have some pretty crazy photos of us tearing down like an indoor skate park. It was abandoned though, so I didn't like interrupt anything. It was one that felt like the phase was over over these indoor skate parks. And it was, it was insane. Literally like half pipes. And those 12,000 square feet, I was 21. I had no idea what I was doing. I think the reason it worked was part because of my passion for fitness. It was probably my throughout my entire career that my entire life, the only thing I was good at sports, being active in fitness was the only areas that I had died. Everything else school behavior, none of that was a good thing for me. So it was my thing, it was what I spent time on. And I kind of have this insane, similar Oh, so I'm literally like this person I like diving in. And that's what I'm gonna do. So I had spent so much time and I had such a passion for it. And I've always been a passionate person. So when I am, when I'm talking about something when I'm doing something people like, Oh, this guy's into it. And I think if you do it genuinely people are drawn to that. And then the other side was it was life or death, we needed money. Like we needed to take care of family. My mom, like it wasn't a point of like, oh, you know, it was like, we need to make money, we need to make a business, we need to do something, and I had no other skill set. So it was like it was purely, I think that's what fueled most of it was, there wasn't a fallback, I didn't come like no one was gonna take care of me, I couldn't get to my, you know, my dad's alumni network to help me get a job or start somewhere get into school, like there was nothing else. So in doing that, you just kind of have to make it work. And that's why I also look at business a lot of times, especially when we do in a different lens. And I think most people because I never knew what an entrepreneur was, I never wanted to be one. I never thought it was cool. It was just like, I have to take care of people. So this is what I I figured out I can do.
Andrew Vontz 12:29
And let's time travel for a second. So fast forward to today. How many companies like setting aside companies in which you're invested to how many companies do currently operate?
Anthony Vennare 12:44
I would say, debris. But uh, Joe and I have structured stuff. We're fortunate that one of my really good friends is a lawyer and a fantastic lawyer that they're, they're set up in different ways with holding companies, and it has different properties and, you know, different media things. But in reality, it's all based under one company, which is Joe and I operating within the fitness industry. And we still own, you know, a website that sells programs here or a coaching business where we do this on the side or other stuff, but what people really know us for and what our main businesses is for fit Insider, and now fit capital.
Andrew Vontz 13:25
Right. And I want to get into that in a moment and talk about the ecosystem. You briefly address. Just the the veteran landscape generally in the growing up. It wasn't something that was on your radar. I know you've shared on other podcasts that you read a Gary Vee book and it sounds like that was the catalyst for you then pivoting in a new direction. Can you talk a little bit about what that book inspired? And what I haven't heard you discuss is once you had this insight, what was the process like and how long did it take to go for you to go from learning about venture capital to actually going out and raising money and doing something different?
Anthony Vennare 14:05
Yeah, it it. I can't remember what book it was now. But it was just reading about. He kind of mentioned it in passing in the book it was talking about, you know, if you're going to start a company, you could do this or that. And it was like, you know, some of my friends he was talking about his early kind of stages with some of my friends raising money. And then he was doing well. So he started investing and I was like, Hold on What is this? And that was really I went down kind of a wormhole like Oh, angel investing people are investing in companies you could get venture capital you could get all and it was just the spark that went off in my head because I up until that point over the the multiple kind of businesses that we had at that time. I thought you had to start a business with your own money. slowly work your way up and build a business and this silica I think it's kind of funny to a lot of people talk about Bootstrap businesses and this and that. There's even a lot of popular podcast people out there. They're like, Oh, well, I Bouchard business. No, you raised a million dollars, you don't think that's because it wasn't venture capital is your friends and family it was your uncle's money. It was whatever, you didn't bootstrap your business, bootstrapping your businesses, having $0. Finding your first client making $10 and using that $10 To make 20 and then going down. So that's the game that I knew. I didn't know anything else. And I think that after hearing about venture crap, I was like, Oh, I can, I think I can kind of get people to get behind my ideas. And then it was, you know, years before that ever happened. But it was something that I realized now and I started thinking and listening and went down this kind of other end of like, oh, business isn't strictly brick and mortar doesn't strictly, you know, do it and build it. And there's other ways to think about things. And there's other ways to create wealth. And that was, you know, probably like a five year path. But it put me in that direction. And it was like, I can remember I was in our gym, cleaning the turf, we had turf in our gym, listening to an audio book. And I was like, I heard this and I was like, Holy shit, someone gave him money to start that, what, and that was like the starting point of it all. And that was, you know, I had no steal Jim on at that time.
Andrew Vontz 16:20
It sounds like you've been relentless in your acquisition of new knowledge or skills in order to enable dreams or goals that you've set for yourself. And in the case of moving in the direction of forming a venture firm or seeking venture backing for your endeavors? What did you have to learn in order to do that? And how did you acquire those skills or expertise? And who did you turn to to help accelerate that process?
Anthony Vennare 16:46
Yeah, unfortunately, no one pretty much up until now, I've been bad job of learning from people just because we didn't didn't who was going to learn from no one that I knew, or the two or like, even five rungs down the ladder was somebody that could inform me on stuff like that, or had experiences like that. So my plan was always read and research and find somebody doing it. Look at how they did it, and then try to do it over and over again until it fails. And that was like the story on some of the podcasts I've told you, like, I heard somewhere I would listen to like, I heard somewhere, someone that owned a gym talk about going door to door with flyers. So I did that. And it worked. And then I heard about somebody putting stuff up at coffee shops, I did that. And it worked. And I've very early on, heard about somebody running Facebook ads, and building websites about their business and selling programs online. So it's like, I got to figure this out. So I learned how to build a WordPress website or run Facebook ads or whatever. So it was I don't, it's not the smartest way to do it. Because you have to learn a time and you never become that big of a, an expert in it. You kind of just learned enough to be dangerous and do the thing. But that's what it was. So like when we first started to one went out to raise venture capital. I went to some random workshop here locally held by like, economic development group and heard about things. And I was like, oh, okay, I can do that. So I made my first version of a pitch deck and started sending people and it was absolutely horrible. And everybody said no, and they're like, half the people didn't respond. So and that didn't work. So do version two, version three to version four. And that's all it's been. And I think that's why I'm so excited about the investing piece of what we do in the future of what we how we look at that, and the types of talent that we back, because it's not the guy that went to Harvard and had some degree and has some experience, I don't really care. It's the person that does it and figures it out. And those are the ones that I think are always going to win. Because they don't, they're in the same position I was they don't have the fallback of family and support and money and access. They have to make it work. And we want to be there support them to make it work. And hopefully we can be the kind of catalyst to help people create that opportunity that previously wouldn't have. And that's all it was for me it was figuring it out and, and trying to Joe, my brother always says it's just running through walls. I've run through 1000 walls and you just get used to it. And it's kind of easy after that.
Andrew Vontz 19:21
You're the Kool Aid man.
Anthony Vennare 19:23
Exactly. That's it. That's all I do. Sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't sometimes I break into the wrong room, but that's all I do.
Andrew Vontz 19:30
Yeah, your story about flyers makes me think about some things from my childhood. I had a lawn business when I was like 10 I think I wanted to get a bike. My dad said if you want to bike, make some money. And if you want to make some money, like go up the block and knock on the neighbor's door and see if they want you to mow the lawn, which I did. I did it with my older brother. There were some altercations there may or may not have been a half mowed lawn and a mower abandoned somewhere due to miscommunication and eventually there were flyers and As I think about the application of flyers, I'm thinking about like, could you potentially put up a flyer in a coffee shop and secure? Like a seed round?
Anthony Vennare 20:11
I mean, honestly, depends on the coffee shop. You never know. I mean, the the game, especially with investors nowadays, I'd say not now six months ago or a year ago, yeah. Any Terrible idea was getting funded left and right. Especially in fitness and wellness, my God, there's some bad ideas getting backed and tons of money flowing around. And that was the other thing that I learned kind of on that note, I had always looked at people that were successful, had money or manage money or came from those backgrounds is like, they had a level of education, understanding or success that was almost unattainable. And I quickly realized, no, not at all, I can do that. And that was my thing is like, if he can do it, I can do it, I'll figure it out. And then I'll beat them at it, because that's just who I am. And that was always my goal was like, almost like always running a race and having to have that next person ahead of me so that I can be done.
Andrew Vontz 21:12
I love it. Like, I just see you like getting up and looking in the mirror and telling yourself I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go do this today, I'm gonna raise that round.
Anthony Vennare 21:22
I mean, the science behind us, a lot of the stuff we do is a little bit too much for people. But yeah, so it That's exactly how I wake up every day and think,
Andrew Vontz 21:31
yeah, and if you're listening, and you're not watching this on YouTube, the signs in the background or cash checks break next, the other one says, Start,
Anthony Vennare 21:41
create some hope and purpose. Yeah. And earn your stripes. So obviously, it kind of that's exactly how I think every day.
Andrew Vontz 21:49
And your ecosystem has a couple of different components today, when you set out on this next part of your journey and thought about getting into like, I'm assuming you wanted to go raise money for yourselves initially. And then it turned into having a venture studio. But at the outset, what was your intention? And what did you want to build? And how has that changed or not over time?
Anthony Vennare 22:14
Yeah, it's always been, you know, there's multiple businesses that kind of all look like they play together. But they're all just separate things. And that's where it's not really a venture studio, but it kind of is, and that we create multiple products and run them. But from the onset, it was always looking at the fitness landscape. Seeing even back in 2016 2017, when we were pitching our first company, nobody understood the game of fitness and wellness, and understand the consumers attention. They didn't understand what they're doing. They didn't understand what it meant to be a trainer or coach or what that industry was like, and even the numbers back then the billions of dollars that were spent on it. So it was always how can we put ourselves in a position to create and invest in and help start the next version of fitness companies. And that was really it. And it became multiple things and multiple companies and projects. But it was always building towards this bigger vision. And unfortunate that content has always been something we loved. Creating content, we've built and sold media companies, you know, being the stores the place that can create that content for a certain thing or category. That's what we really enjoyed. So that's what we always did. And that's where fit insider came out of. We'd like the fitness industry, I didn't think anyone was talking and fitness, wellness health generally. And we didn't think anybody was talking about it. Well, we I think anybody really understood. So it's like, how can we create that content? And not say, you know, it's not like the answer, if you remember the others were, this is what I think you should take, or this is the workout I think should do. It's this is the industry. This is the businesses that are being created. This is what we think about this part of the industry or this opportunity, or this business or this investment. So with that it just took off organically. And it was because we knew the space, we created the content, we had always spent time in it. And and we had no idea what lead to what it is now, but it was always just trying to lead the way and create the content and be the source for that stuff. And if you do that long enough, I think people come around.
Andrew Vontz 24:24
So when you think about the way you position yourself, as you said the content has helped you position yourself as an authority in the space. What does that what opportunities does that then create for you or what function? If you had to be explicit what function does content play in your ecosystem?
Anthony Vennare 24:44
It's the whole ecosystem. It's the foundation of it. If it's investors, founders, whoever operators in the space, if you are the place that they go to To inform themselves and keep up to date and interact with a market, you become an access point to that market. And we have put out 200, some newsletters and 150 podcast about this space interviewing top founders and executives and writing about business, you know, businesses that have raised money, what they're doing our analysis, our interest in the space, breaking down categories, showing the trends and doing research to show there's X amount of dollars spent on this, or there's X amount of people interested in this. So when a founder is trying to build their pitch deck, and they're using our data, or our information, or our talking points are quoted in their deck, or when an executive wants to get the word out about their business to the market, they come to us and we help tell that story. It just puts you in a really awesome position. And we're just super fortunate that it's always it's, it's what we would do anyway. There's nothing to do with the business I like we love talking about the market. We love working with people, we love, entrepreneurship, and founders and all of that. So it's really fun. But it just so happened. You know, we started talking about it at the right time, and the interest in venture capital dollars. And then when COVID hit everybody's attention was like fitness and wellness. And we were the only ones really talking about it the way that we we were, and we kind of still are the only one. So yeah, it was just great timing as well.
Andrew Vontz 26:24
I wanted to talk about that moment. I'm also curious, because as you mentioned, you had a number of other content based businesses prior to the current iteration. And so you had phippsburg, you had I pardon me, I don't remember what it's called, but you had fit. You had a content based model for different cities in the United States providing information about health, wellness, different fitness studios. And then you went in the direction of the newsletter you have now, which is really industry and sites. Also covering deal flow, you have a job board, you have the podcast, when you moved into the direction of the current iteration, did you test your way into it? Or did you take a leap of faith? And were you confident this was what needed to happen?
Anthony Vennare 27:09
Leap of Faith, we just again it was I saw industry dive industry dive has been around for 10 years, they actually just sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. And I saw them talking about like the pharma industry. And like the being what it means, like CFO daily is one of their things, and such specific niche markets and talking about those categories, and build a massive business off of it. So it's like, oh, this, it's kind of crazy. It did exist with like, you know, club industry and Ursa and others that have been in the space, but they were all they weren't doing it the way that we would do it. So that that was the spot doesn't go, we need to make this. And that was really it.
Andrew Vontz 27:57
And by positioning yourselves as an authority, or somewhat of a gatekeeper for information in the space, what has that what opportunity has that afforded you? And when did you know? Hey, this is working? This is working out the way we wanted it to?
Anthony Vennare 28:11
Yeah, we actually look at it almost like the opposite of like a gatekeeper of authority. It's, we think about it as if there was somebody that wanted to build the market and help build the market. How do you support it? How do you highlight it? How do you show that it's there, because I think the interest from COVID was massive, and there was a lot of dollars, but the market wasn't that much different from 2018 2019 2020 21. There has always been tons of money, there's always been tons of opportunity. There's always been hundreds of 1000s of trainers and workers and people in the industry and peloton wasn't new and been around for years. And all of these other companies weren't new. But it was this the attention. So, you know, however the or so before it was? How do we we see the market, we know what the opportunity is. We just it just needs to be phrased the right way. So it just needs to highlight this in the right way or talk about and show. This is going on this is massive. And that's what we started doing. And that was the only idea of it was like how do we do this? Because we've all you know, I think that's one of the most exciting spaces to be in if you can create. There's obviously the bet but the good side is especially digital health is a big part of what we cover too but like everything from psychedelics to personalize nutrition and mental health and wellness and well being and all of that, like if you can create products that help people feel better look better, live a healthier life access health better in there's really nothing better than that, in my opinion, like this is amazing. So it's like how do we highlight build this? And it was honestly almost like an authentic way of like, we just want to do this. And that's all we want to do. And that doing that the right way. And over time and not selling out not doing certain things led to us being kind of the voice in authority, but it was strictly through a genuine approach of like, I love this space, I want to make it better. And I think it could be 20 times the size. And that was it.
Andrew Vontz 30:14
Yeah, and I'd love your reframe there, specifically around the word gatekeeper. What I'm thinking of is that by elevating awareness of what's happening in the space, and putting your company out there, I have to imagine that that puts you in a position to get potentially deal flow or access at a stage when other people are not getting it. Is that correct? Yeah,
Anthony Vennare 30:34
it's this amazing venture media fly. That was what we call it. And it's, you know, like I said, it's not a founder, we don't, we don't promote that we invest really, it's, it's out there, it's on a site. But it's not something we talk about, really ever. And we have an amazing access, and both network and to founders and everything else. And it's because when a founder, whether they're series D company, or they're coming up with their idea, if they want to validate, they'll ask us help for help. And like, my biggest battle in life is trying to manage my inbox. Because the email that goes out every week from the newsletter, that's my actual inbox. That's my email. And it's bananas. Like up, that's where you might like that's, like, every week, hundreds of emails come in just on Tuesday, we're applying what we wrote about talked about everything else. And I'm always behind getting back to people. But the goal is, I send something out. It's about a topic, it resonates. People in that space that either are creating want to create or have created things. And they reach back out and I like I like this, or I'm doing this or I'm building this. And your information is good. Or can I get more information? Or can you help me with this? Or can you look at what we're building to see what you think. And that was really it. And it's super fun.
Andrew Vontz 31:49
Yeah. And Anthony, I know, in our exchange, I mentioned this when I was a communications executive at Strava. I know my team was interacting with you and Joe pretty frequently. I, I wasn't directly interacting with you all. But I got an email that you sent one of the Fitbit insider newsletters and you mentioned something post liver kings exposure as being a PD user, like what a shocker. But I wrote back and I was I just asked a few questions, kind of checking the math, because I saw some things that I seen repeated in other spaces, and I hadn't seen verification of it. But will you go on the record and confirm you do believe the livery King had built a supplement industry that was north of $100 million?
Anthony Vennare 32:33
Yeah, with it goes back to what I said in our email, like I have over to my right is kind of like our table of stuff that people sends us that send us just looking at some of these brands. I know that one's doing $35 million a year because I've seen their pitch deck. I know this one's doing 50. And I think about him his brand. And it's not the liver King supplements. He had his own one that was liver Kenya, another one. But it's like ancestral supplement brand has been around, right. And it was on Rogan, and they were selling and if you look at their site, you can look up through different plugins, like sales on Amazon, volume for website searches other stuff, I, yes, his total of all of the things that he was doing, I could assume that that's revenue, though that's not profit, obviously, they were most likely doing $100 million a year or in that range. It wasn't ridiculous to think that that was the number. And if you look at the email that he sent, it was like, I want to be this person. So that I can drive sales essentially, like I want to be this person, right? So I can build this brand and sell shit. Well, I mean, people fell for it. It's terrible, but they fell for it.
Andrew Vontz 33:42
Yeah, it happens. I mean, it's a story as old as humans probably, to move in a slightly different direction. When you look at the landscape of all the different types of companies that you describe from psychedelic medicine, mental health, recovery, fitness, whatever the case may be. Broadly, how do you think of segmentation of customers in this marketplace? Like who are the customers and how do they differ?
Anthony Vennare 34:09
You mean, in terms of like the the customers for those specific businesses? Yeah, we're our customers, okay. There's a ton. The market itself is so broad, and that's why, you know, technically we obviously cover a niche market but in reality, the market of health, wellness, fitness, nutrition, active lifestyle, even like someone in the beauty, it's, it's everything we wrote about this probably six months ago, the newsletter called Everything is wellness, everything is wellness, everything is health, everything is fitness. So it's almost every consumer, they're obviously broken down, but like my mom, my fiancee, my friends, my cousin's, like every type of demographic in person is in some way interacting with fitness, wellness or health. And that's why I think it's also important for us I keep working with an industry because I think a lot of the industry is kind of bullshit like the Olympic Games. So that's, that's where a lot of these consumers are getting tricked by nonsense or taking supplements and things that aren't aren't worth it. So it's every consumer now, even my seven year old aunt is looking and saying that there's going to be she's looking at supplements that, you know, she saw on some like TV show, and I'm like, please don't buy those, like, this is insane. But she's a she's a target customer now,
Andrew Vontz 35:34
right? Yeah. And if you had to stack rank the different types of consumers within this space, who do you feel are the customers who have who can drive the highest ROI for a company? Or could it even be characterized that way?
Anthony Vennare 35:58
Yes, definitely. It's a good thing. I forget what the kind of acronym means, but it's like the high earner, the Henry like the high earner. I forget specifically what it is I can't think of right now. But it's the like, you know, millennial, young, professional, early or sorry. Yeah. Like, that touches on to like the older Gen Z population. That's who's driving a lot of trends and span and information, especially when you think about fitness. Think about wellness. When you think about that stuff. It's, you know, I'd say 45 to 25 right now, is the market of driving that area.
Andrew Vontz 36:34
Okay. And I know that in recent months, you've talked about the implosion of connected fitness hardware specifically. And I've also heard you share your thoughts about peloton and some of their strengths as a brand and mistakes that they've made. And, you know, at this moment in time, a lot of people are looking backwards and saying like, hey, what was happening with the tunnels, the peloton is the world. This implosion was inevitable. What assumptions do you see people making today as we look forward that are likely wrong?
Anthony Vennare 37:09
I don't think in any other case, if you look at peloton, as an example, there wasn't an implosion. There was an implosion of stock price, and poor business decisions which fueled the implosion, but like their business was doing well. Their numbers were massive, they were growing, they're doing it. And it was the investors the market the interest, the consumer investors, the everything, driving them down this direction. And then the founder, drank his own Kool Aid and got carried away and kind of went crazy. And did all these things. And then, you know, the new acquisition of insider trading and all that or not, yeah, insider trading, and all that stuff. But same thing with tonal tonal created a product and they went to market, and they were selling and it was a cool product. It was the investors they kept fighting to invest in a higher valuation, give them more money, spend more money, grow your team, expand your product. And then the founders buying into that. That was the problem with this. I still think connected fitness is amazing. I work out at home and go to the gym. I think a lot of people will do that. I think as consumers go and they build houses and they expand into different areas. And they they do different things. They don't go to the gym up the street anymore. They do work out at home all the time, or they're healthy in their own way. I don't really care how people work out, I think they will always do both. There's a group that will go to Planet Fitness, there's a group that will go to Equinox, there's a group that will buy a peloton, there's a group that will buy a you know, an arena or tone or whatever it is. I think it's always just weird market in media and industry like gyms versus at home gyms or dead at home is the best zoom. Everyone's gonna work out at zoom. I could have told you I'd from day one, I said no one's going to do this post COVID like some will, but having my trainer watch me at home on Zoom is completely pointless anyways, it's like it's just all of this hype and market and just what happens in every industry. Look at I mean, what is it thinking of this because I'm going to the movies tonight, but like the the whole the movie company that had their stock price go crazy and come back down and everything else like it's all kind of hype and nonsense. And that was just people letting that happen to the market, unfortunately. But no, I think it's still a huge potential and fitness and the market in general. And the interest of people being healthy omni channel we just wrote about it two weeks ago, like all of that stuff.
Andrew Vontz 39:37
Where do you see serious unmet needs or where people are not building and again, I can link to another podcast where you're talking about mega trends that you see coming, but just if today point blank, you had to make some kind of decision about, hey, this specific area, I see I perceive there to be a high degree of unmet needs and people are building in this base. Is there anything that exists like that right now?
Anthony Vennare 40:04
Not that people aren't building but it maybe they're not building the right things. And just the areas that we're interested in generally one is some version of personalized nutrition. Every trend that sweeps the country or the world, comes in phases, and happens everywhere. It's kind of insane how it happens. Think about the Atkins diet, or keto or intermittent fasting. I can say those words to most people, and they're like, Oh, I've heard about that. And it's just this kind of crazy wave. But one, one version of nutrition and access to food and other things doesn't match the other person's. So finding a way to help people personalize their nutrition based off of their body is something that I think is is a massive opportunity. Another one is kind of, I think it was three four weeks ago, longevity. What does that mean? There's so much money being spent on people living longer and being healthier as they age. I think some you know, a lot of the stuff out there that are the supplements and other things are, are kind of nonsense and okay, but like what does that mean? And then the last one that we really are excited about is this active lifestyle piece. And the hard thing about it is, you know, how do you monetize somebody running outside besides shoes or hike, bike, run, climb, gravel cycle, play pickup sports pickleball like active lifestyle is one of my favorite areas because I'm super passionate about and I think it's a way it's almost like what this Joe said everything is everything like it's a cycle. It's you know, back when I think my mom would go to the YMCA and other stuff that was jog and run and play racquetball and walk outside and be active and be move your body. And it's like, how do we bring that back because I think the I said on the last podcast but 2010 to 2020 was fitness studio fitness. Why seven Barry's kind of moved into peloton, which is still essentially studio fitness cycling. And I think 2020 2030 is active lifestyle. You move you bring your community and your social, into your fitness through activity. Like I see people a lot because we'll go meet up and walk or we'll go get coffee and walk around, we'll go play pickleball it's nice out, or we'll go play soccer, or we'll go play basketball. Or like even golfing, like being out moving doing things while your cue your community is there, or working out as a group or going on a group run. Like I met with a guy named Pittsburgh the other day that just That's a small city, random city, you know, 150 people, twice a week, get up in the morning at 6am and go for a run together like that. That's what is exciting to me.
Andrew Vontz 42:49
And a couple of things that you mentioned really jumped out to me specifically with diet and I think like there's only between things such as the passion people have for diet the passion people had for peloton, I believe. I don't know what it is now. But one point at a time, peloton. NPS was north of 95, I think which is like Tesla level NPS, which is pretty insane. With diet. I don't know if you've read the matt Fitzgerald book diet cold. But I think that's one of my favorite books on the topic. And with all of those things, I think part of their power is it gives people a point of they start to build their identity around the activity that they're doing. Whether it's dieting, there's someone who does peloton we saw the same thing with SoulCycle. We see it in all kinds of different domains and with active lifestyle. Something that I'm really curious about is when people are involved in something but it's more about putting on an item of clothing or doing something perhaps lower intensity. Does it become do they think of themselves as I am an active lifestyle person versus I'm someone who rides a peloton? I don't know what people call themselves when they ride a peloton. But yeah, just like that point of self identification and membership and a community that it confers upon them seems to be a really critical vector for how these things start to take off.
Anthony Vennare 44:15
Oh, yeah. And it's kind of crazy. It was. It was actually another thing. I put a trend out there. And 15 top trends for this coming year. And one of the things was this continual growth of community and it it sounds crazy to say, but if you look at the organizations that previous generations were a part of most club, VFW church, other things. Most of the newer generations aren't part of those things. So they are building their fitness around communities and these like wellness third places and wellness activities. It's like the peloton you know, I have buddies that they ride together through that thing. And they compete and they work out at same time, or they kind of do it as a group. Or we actually have a, we sponsor a cycling team, a good friend of ours who runs it, and they do, they go on ride, you know, 50 miles together as a group, you know, a couple of times a week when it's nice out, it's their community. And that's the driving force. And that's the holy grail of running a fitness product is building the proper community like St. FC is, is a pickup soccer app, we just had done this on the podcast, the former founder of Foursquare, or this company called CrossFit does like basket pickup basketball. Yeah, it becomes like, you know, we all work all day, we don't do anything else, because we work too much. And then I have to get my workout in, I have to go do this, I want to see my buddies, we're going to do an activity. And that's why I love it. Because they aren't, they don't think that they're active lifestyle, being fitness, whatever, they're just doing, what they got to do. They're like I'm working on I'm hanging out, I'm having fun, I'm doing my thing. That's when fitness becomes part of your lifestyle. And that's where another thing that on the kind of prediction side is within the economy that we're going into and where everyone keeps saying recession. Otherwise, I think fitness won't be on the chopping block this time around for that those types of things. If I'm spent, if I previously like, Oh, I'm going to cut my gym membership, or I'm going to do these things, because it's kind of extravagant money, and I need to save but fitness has now become ingrained in people's life, both their social, and their overall well being. And I think that they're gonna keep spending their money on it. And it's, I think it's a big opportunity, because it means more than what it was, it used to be looked at is fitness wellness was I want to look good. And now it's like this broader thing, especially with mental health being in the picture as well.
Andrew Vontz 46:46
On the topic of community, something that's been on my mind recently is with the, with what's happened with crypto with FTX. And these other exchanges, falling apart and Kryptos reputation generally declining, the core technology is likely to stick around, it's likely to continue to shape our future. A lot of people conflate crypto and web three. But on the web three side, before we had everything happening with FTX, there was a lot of action, not necessarily on the NFT side, which I don't really want to get into, but on the community building side and what brands could do with web three to align incentives with their consumers creating amplification, and a means to build brand build community. And to give people a sense of ownership. And we saw a number of things happening in this connected fitness space there step in and a variety of other companies. What do you think is the future of web three and its relationship to this space?
Anthony Vennare 47:54
It's really hard for me because I believe in the overall aspect of it. So you're saying some of the technology behind it, but I feel like it just draws the worst type of person. And the worst type of person is building these products and because of that, it's never gonna go anywhere. So I don't know I have high hopes in theory, but I just think it's, it's going to be super long time before it becomes impactful in the fitness industry in any way. Because it's just like I said that people not people that I would want to be involved with their spend time on building these products. And they're not building them in a genuine way. It's all like not saying anything negative against steppin but like, and those some other ones out there, they're not really moved to earn. And if they are, what does that mean and how many people put time and money into it. And it didn't really pan out, but it was hot at the time. So I don't have high hopes for it. I I've seen 1000 pitch decks about it. And we have done zero investing in it. But at the same time, pieces of it I really love. So one of my favorite companies is called any distance we invested in them. They created essentially it started as like a workout sharing app. And then it became track your workouts and track your activities and and then it became earn collectibles and earn, like I have this thing going where I'm trying to do workout in every state. And I have these like digital collectibles from each state that I have like that. It's technically is it web three, it's a collectible, it's digital, it's all that. I love it it's super enjoyable, and it was created out of a genuine approach to getting more people to be active and doing things this way. So I think there's pieces of it that I thoroughly enjoy are like Strava syncing with the shareable routes for Snapchat stuff like that. Awesome. But outside of that, the whole move to earn other stuff. I only see it ever working if it connects directly to health care, but it doesn't have to be worth three for that to happen. Doesn't have to be something and it kind of already exists for activity because you, you're not going to get paid to walk. But you could get reimbursements or discounts or technically been paid to walk based off of your health care, cost expenditure, all that stuff.
Andrew Vontz 50:12
So I'm not going to remember the name of the company, is it health IQ, there's a company that will provide incentives, if you share your stripe activities or your Apple Watch or whatever for life insurance. If there's if that's not health, IQ, sorry, health, IQ,
Anthony Vennare 50:26
something like that. But yeah, that's I mean, like, it has to be connected to some bigger thing. It's not just because I buy a digital sneaker, and I go on a walk right in more there. So I think eventually it will be there. But I wouldn't even call those went through. Because even if they are using some version of what their technology it's, it's not going to be this, like the whole wave wave of like NF T's and other stuff. Like it's just craziness that that's what how it went down. And a lot of people thought that that was going to be the thing.
Andrew Vontz 50:56
Yeah, it's I've watched that whole space evolve. And in like you, I have a number of things come across my desk from two different people building in this space. And my observation has been the experiences are all extremely high friction. And I don't know if you've gone and played around with any of these things, but just to get signed up and to make the things work. It's very high friction, it's very cumbersome. I consider myself to be a pretty technically savvy person. And often I just can't figure it out. So that's not a very good sign at the outset. I don't think. And then maybe there the idea of earning make believe things is, well, I guess there's a lot of social proof that those types of incentives do work within, you know, different video game ecosystems. And that's kind of the whole idea of the metaverse, but it's still really hard for me to fathom that, that actually is going to be motivating to people at scale in a way that did. That really works. But also, I don't know.
Anthony Vennare 51:59
Yeah, and that's where, like with us in the bed on a distance was there's a number of factors, but one of them being, you know, I can earn things like I did so much activity on the shirt. And now they're partnering with brands, where if I do found out, it's almost like Pokemon Go, where if I'm out in the world, and I see this thing, or I find this thing, I can get a discount, or I can get a free Lululemon thing or whatever it may be. Again, I think it's, it has to be more than just this move to earn or this NFT or whatever it's going to be. But I think there's something there and it will come around. And yeah, like I think video game The reason we went with any distance was because the video game concept of like earning things and moving but it's not for money as much as it is. It's it's your activities, what you do. It's even as far as you know, people doing things like how much of a thing as Spotify wrapped. And so like me essence is doing a fitness route or it's like your What did what were your activities for the year? Did you hike, bike run? Where did you do this? Where did you do that? That's cool. That's fun. But it's like you earned it. You did it. I don't know there's something there. But that's as far as we've gotten so far.
Andrew Vontz 53:07
Right? And as you think about where you've gotten to with this concept of what you're doing on the investing side, and how many companies are you invested in today? 2525. Where do you see yourself in five years? Where do you want to take this?
Anthony Vennare 53:23
Yeah, we want to be the largest health and health wellness fitness investor. Across the board. A lot of funds are sports and fitness, and media and fitness or whatever in health. And then there's some digital health ones and healthcare ones and others but with what we've built and what we have, not only do we want to be the largest fund, but we want to be the largest platform, you want to get hired, we'll have the jobs for if you want to research, whatever data thing that you can access, if you want to understand something, we'll have masterclasses and office hours and you know, we'll have in person events, we'll have everything that I would have wanted as a founder and fitness, wellness, everything that a founder needs, and then what the community needs will create and build. And that's both will fit inside. And that will to do over in Europe in the UK, expanding that out. And then I think more importantly, on the investing side, we will be able to invest in valuable companies at the very early stages when that founder who leaves Strava and was head of whatever thing says I want to build the next company. The goal is that they come to us first and we help them co create that company. Or when somebody is working on a thing and they're serious, you know, even a precede seed stage company, and they need their first bet or their first check in that round of 250 or 500k. I wanted them and work with them and then support them from the day they work on something until the day they sell to the company that they're going to sell to or go public or whatever it is. And I think we have a massive opportunity here to do that and do it in a super fun I'm very inclusive and just cool way because we're just not thinking like the traditional people. Oxygen is not who we are.
Andrew Vontz 55:09
And just, I'm not sure I totally understand the mechanics of how you all are set up. Are you nested inside of another venture firm or inside of another fund? Or how does it work?
Anthony Vennare 55:19
No, we, we partnered with some other firms and funds. So like, I'm an advisor, Joe and I are advisors to courtside, and they were advisors them and then we have some capital backed by a group called Elysian Park ventures, which is a group that's connected to the LA Dodgers. So and then as we got to raise more money and launch multiple funds, there's different teams and companies and individuals and sports that are backers, but we operate, you know, as our own entity, Joe and I running it with our team.
Andrew Vontz 55:52
And how do you and Joe divide what you do today?
Anthony Vennare 55:58
Yeah, it's a fun thing. Left side, Joe, he's the CEO organization, makes everything run and operate and be on time and does it in a phenomenal way. And he's also essentially like Head of Content, he's making sure that all becomes the thing. And on the other side, I operate. And he is the most organized and put together person on this side, I'm pure chaos, my thing is driving forward. But the companies we invest in talking to people, I'm probably in 3040 hours of calls a week. But it's not like bullshit meetings, it's talking with founders and investors and people and working on projects and building that. So doing that, and then fundraising and managing that side of the business with both money in money out in the investing side. And then together, we just kind of come together. And we have a phenomenal team. It's super small right now. But it's like five or six. But working on building the team, and together, kind of hopefully expanding the things that we can do in the space. So it doesn't really rely on him. And as much because there are crazy, talented people in this space. And that's what we get excited about too is like, there's a lot of opportunity. If we can get writers and podcasters and content creators and investors around our table, we want to build the foundation, and then just surround ourselves with the best possible people.
Andrew Vontz 57:21
And you and Joe obviously have a very long relationship, it spanned the entirety of your life. And it sounds like you have a very deep understanding of the complementarity of your skill sets where your expert where he's expert, what you're good at maybe where you shouldn't spend time. Also, when you're an entrepreneur and you're scaling things, you often have to pick up other things where you might get distracted by the noise of opportunity. How do you stay focused on the areas where you are excellent, and not get dragged into stuff that's going to be a waste of your time, or you don't add value?
Anthony Vennare 57:56
Yeah, it's been one of the biggest fights of my entire kind of life honestly, is, there's a lot of things I'm not good at, I want to be good at those things, but I just can't do it, my brain works the way it is. And I always thought I could so I have always become a blocker, I think we would have been 1000 times more successful in certain points of our career if I wouldn't have done things, because Joe has the capabilities and the skill set. But I would try to do things that didn't fit within that. So now it's a constant fight and a reminder and support. Like, you know, now we brought on like a an admin slash chief of staff to help me with stuff to do things I can't do. Like the email back to you, I didn't send that they did. And that's awesome. Because like for me to sit down and go through my inbox of 500 emails on Tuesday, it's gonna take me 18 hours, because I'm just terrible at it. So being in a position both for camp Joe and team there to tell me like, Hey, man, you're not good at that, stop doing it, or like, change this thing that you're doing. So it works a different way. And then being kind of fortunate to be in a position where we can hire those people and build those teams. So I do not do things that I'm not good at. And I have, I feel as though I'm over that hump. But I mean, it took me 10 years from the beginning of my career, I'm 32 now 33 One of those 33 now, and I started when I was 2021, doing things that took me 13 years to figure out not to mess up and try to do things I can or like not play to my strengths, my strengths. So you know, it took a while.
Andrew Vontz 59:33
Love it. It's a good sign that you're busy enough when you can't remember what age you are. So, yeah. Well Anthony, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks for everything that you shared love what you all are doing. I look forward to getting the newsletter or listening to the podcast and if people want to check you out, learn more where should they go?
Anthony Vennare 59:50
Yeah, really appreciate having me awesome. The talk shows the podcast guy and I have been on podcasts over the years but it's only you know, I'm never one to talk. So it's fun to be able The do it. Fit Insider. If you just Google Fit insider, there's the podcast newsletter, jobs board. My email is the email that there once you subscribe, if you're working on something in this space, you want to build something you have ideas or you're just genuinely passionate about it.