A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:44:47 · Pablo Srugo, Lee Silverstone
[00:44:47] S0: Yeah, I think there was a few steps. First of all, let's talk about the spectrum of great customer discovery from Zero, which is GymTrack V1 to 10, which is we never did it. We were like, we moved to three or four, right? There's a few steps towards it. First of all, what we looked at, and I remember this distinctly, actually Lee would remember maybe this, too. Ken MacAskill, our CFO, who had been in software for a long time as we're thinking through this change that we're going to have to make, these cuts, he's like, who do you want to leave on the team? What do you want to go do? We're like, well, our edge is a hardware, so let's stick with the hardware team. Ken was like, are you sure? You guys don't want to just do software? [00:45:27] S1: Yeah, he was like, why don't you guys just go and build an app? We were like, no, that's stupid. [00:45:31] S0: That's silly, right? [00:45:32] S1: In that conversation too, I don't know if you remember this, but there was one time where I came to the office and I was like, Ken, Pablo, I need to talk to you. I know what the pivot is. I was like, we're going to do GymTrack, but for people's homes. My idea was we were going to build Peloton but for weightlifting and whatever. There was all these ideas around it. You guys looked at me like, what the… [00:45:55] S0: Yeah, I shut that down quick. [00:45:56] S1: I don't even think anyone said anything. You guys just looked at me for a while and I was like, thoughts? Just there was silence. I was like, okay, I guess that we're not doing that.
00:45:56 · Lee Silverstone, Pablo Srugo
[00:45:56] S1: I don't even think anyone said anything. You guys just looked at me for a while and I was like, thoughts? Just there was silence. I was like, okay, I guess that we're not doing that. [00:46:07] S0: Point made, but this is the thing. My first point is the missed opportunity was we still started from, okay, what do we have? What can we do? Versus, okay, we actually met with all these gyms. We could just do real research. We skipped that. By the time Rob came on, we already had this hardware type team. It was clearly we needed some hardware device. We wanted it to be simpler. That's why we did what we did. The other thing that happened is that original conference where you met a bunch of different gym owners, we thought it was really smart to pre-sign for a year ahead because we got a 20% discount. Now comes that time where we're trying to cut costs desperately and it's a $25,000 bill. We're, hey, we're not going to go this year. We're not going to pay. They're like, you're paying. [00:46:49] S1: We agreed to go, but we signed a contract but didn't pay. They were like, you're coming.
00:46:49 · Lee Silverstone, Pablo Srugo
[00:46:49] S1: We agreed to go, but we signed a contract but didn't pay. They were like, you're coming. [00:46:54] S0: We're like, but listen, we have no product. We have nothing anymore. It's like, well, you’re paying for it. We're like, okay. We started working backwards from that. It was like, okay, well let's get something together, presentation together that we could at least pitch to these gym owners. We moved up a little bit because all of a sudden it was like, okay, let's at least have these real conversations. Let's ask them what they think. Let's really care and listen. Let's go through pricing, which is another thing that we went through, but the problem was we still jumped the research phase. We actually didn't do any real research. We had our idea and we were just validating the idea. What happened was, Rob and I go, we meet 20 gym owners and of real chains, solid people. Everyone loves it. I don't know if you remember, Rob, I was elated after Day 1 because every meeting was like, oh, this makes total sense. I don't know what equipment – the idea was to be clear, these little sensors, they go on every piece of equipment. They can measure when it's used or not used. Then they can report a dashboard to gym operators so they can buy equipment more intelligently instead of buying it blind, right? Our motto, by the way, this is total tangent, but it was called “Free the Reps.” They’re stuck in your treadmill. You’ve got to get them to the cloud. Free the reps. We make shirts. I still have it. I still have it. I still have them.
00:46:54 · Pablo Srugo, Lee Silverstone
[00:46:54] S0: We're like, but listen, we have no product. We have nothing anymore. It's like, well, you’re paying for it. We're like, okay. We started working backwards from that. It was like, okay, well let's get something together, presentation together that we could at least pitch to these gym owners. We moved up a little bit because all of a sudden it was like, okay, let's at least have these real conversations. Let's ask them what they think. Let's really care and listen. Let's go through pricing, which is another thing that we went through, but the problem was we still jumped the research phase. We actually didn't do any real research. We had our idea and we were just validating the idea. What happened was, Rob and I go, we meet 20 gym owners and of real chains, solid people. Everyone loves it. I don't know if you remember, Rob, I was elated after Day 1 because every meeting was like, oh, this makes total sense. I don't know what equipment – the idea was to be clear, these little sensors, they go on every piece of equipment. They can measure when it's used or not used. Then they can report a dashboard to gym operators so they can buy equipment more intelligently instead of buying it blind, right? Our motto, by the way, this is total tangent, but it was called “Free the Reps.” They’re stuck in your treadmill. You’ve got to get them to the cloud. Free the reps. We make shirts. I still have it. I still have it. I still have them. [00:48:11] S1: I'm going to get a T-shirt that says Free the reps. Free the reps. I got to get a T-shirt that says... That's so funny.
00:48:11 · Lee Silverstone, Pablo Srugo, Rob Woodbridge
[00:48:11] S1: I'm going to get a T-shirt that says Free the reps. Free the reps. I got to get a T-shirt that says... That's so funny. [00:48:17] S0: Anyways, the real, the important part of that is… [00:48:20] S1: I forgot about that. No, that's the important part. The important part is the “Free the Reps” motto. [00:48:25] S0: That's a win. That's a huge win. Then by the second day, to the point that we sit down with people and they're like, oh, you're the GymTrack guys. X, Y, Z told me about it yesterday over drinks. Super interesting what you guys are doing. This makes total sense. We walk out like, man, we've got it. We really nailed it. Dude, we got I think exactly zero sales, maybe one, maybe one pilot out of that, 20 people being like, yes. [00:48:52] S2: The University Of Calgary, they were interested in it. That's what we – that was the follow-up.
00:48:52 · Rob Woodbridge, Pablo Srugo
[00:48:52] S2: The University Of Calgary, they were interested in it. That's what we – that was the follow-up. [00:48:55] S0: Why do you think that is? Why do you think, when you sit down with customers, they want to tell you this stuff to your face? What's the lesson? Yeah, so here's the thing. When you skip research and you go to product, obviously we thought it through. It's not like it was a stupid thing. It was like, listen, you have 30 treadmills, it costs you $10,000 a treadmill. That's $300,000 and you could have bought 25, you could have bought 35. You have no idea. That makes a lot of sense. When you go to somebody that's a gym operator and you're like, doesn't that make sense? First of all, they see all the work you've put into it. They're just predisposed to be like, yes, but you know what? It does make sense. They're like, dude, that actually makes a lot of sense. I should really pay for this. Then when you call them and you're like, hey, let's move forward, they're like, well, I got to open up a club today, so sorry. Well, this thing happened with my members, sorry. What you didn't discover because you started at the idea instead of at the problem, whether it's, yeah, it's a problem, but it's Problem Number 10. That's the problem is that you're solving Problem Number 10 and you keep hearing next quarter, come back next quarter, come back next year until they just ghost you because they're just like, whatever. I'm not interested anymore.