Sam Wood – How a non-geek built a tech enabled health and fitness empire

Special thanks to organisations who support innovation and tech leadership in New Zealand by partnering with NZ Tech Podcast: One NZ HP Spark NZ 2degrees Gorilla Technology

Episode Transcript (computer-generated)

Paul Spain:
Hey, folks. Greetings, and welcome along to the New Zealand Tech Podcast. I’m your host, Paul Spain. And today, we have Sam Wood joining us. Welcome to the show, Sam. First time.

Sam Wood:
First time, Paul. Yeah. And really excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Paul Spain:
Yes. Not very often we let, Australians  on the show.

Sam Wood:
Well, I’m Australian. I’m also not that techie. I feel like I’m lucky to be in here.

Paul Spain:
So, maybe just to give listeners a little intro, why you might be on the New Zealand Tech podcast.

Sam Wood:
So I started my own online nutrition and training business, 28 By Sam Wood, just over 8 years ago in Australia. And we have now had over 1,000,000 people, join my platform, join my program in that 8 years from all over the world, predominantly Australia, but organically, it’s sort of spread all over the world. And, we’re now sort of testing the water in other markets and really excited. We’ve already got a few thousand New Zealand 28ers as we call them. And, they’ve always said, why don’t you come over here and give it a bit more of a push? There’d be so many New Zealanders that could benefit. So here we are, and it’s great to chat to you.

Paul Spain:
Fantastic. Yeah. I’m really interested  in, hearing your story. We often hear from sort of  the technologists, the people that are deeply involved in in the technology. But in your case, you know, you’ve really figured out how to leverage technology while not being a technologist yourself. So, yeah, I’m really interested to to delve into that. Before we jump in, big thank you to our show partners, to One NZ, 2Degrees, Spark, HP, and Gorilla Technology. So in terms of your story, you know, bit of background, where where did you grow up? I guess health and fitness has been a big part of your your career.

Paul Spain:
So where did where did that all, fit together?

Sam Wood:
Yeah. It’s been a journey. That’s for sure. You know, people sort of say, oh, overnight success when they see the final product when something finally pops, but it definitely hasn’t always been the case. I’m from Tasmania originally. Grew up in Hobart, moved across to Melbourne when I was 20 to do my exercise science degree and start working in gyms and as a personal trainer and, absolutely loved it. Loved loved working with people. Loved, working out the best sort of personalized way to be able to help them the most, not just in the sessions, but outside of those sessions from an accountability perspective and nutrition and sleep and all that kind of stuff.

Sam Wood:
And then when I was so I’ve done that for 6 years, and then when I was 26, I I’ve always sort of been relatively entrepreneurial and I wanted to start my own business. So I launched Australia’s first ever kids gym called Gecko, and we do after school programs and birthday parties and sports camps and junior gecko for 3 to 5 year olds, and I loved it. And we had, you know, 400 kid members between the ages of the 3 and 14 within months. But it was always the challenge from a business perspective of trying to scale that, trying to open more centers with success and keep that quality control. And it was it was really challenging, and we started by licensing our kids’ fitness programs similar to a Les Mills, you know, after school programs that go into gyms, and you give the equipment kit and train the trainers and there’d be manuals and all that kind of stuff. But it was very dependent on the coach. You know, if the coach left and they employed someone else to replace them, who’d you’d ever had direct contact with, the quality of the programming really dropped. And so we pivoted and went to a franchise model where we instead of licensing it to the gym, we sold the franchise to the actual person.

Sam Wood:
So we’d have personal trainers or PE teachers or whatever it might be doing that. And that was a lot more successful. We had 35 franchises around Australia. But then, that was all going along. And then it’s kind of out of nowhere. I got selected in Australia to be the bachelor, which, is probably not what your viewers are used to hearing about.

Paul Spain:
Well, the funny thing is we have had another bachelor.

Sam Wood:
You have. There you go.

Paul Spain:
Well I never  Which is I don’t know how this happens, but, you know,

Sam Wood:
you’ve let us in again. Who would’ve thought? What? That that surprises me. And, so, yeah, I got selected to be the bachelor in Australia in 2015, which was the 3rd season of the bachelor down there. And I’d never seen the show. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I’m sort of being put forward by some friends to apply to go on it and just to appease them. I’d sort of said, alright. To keep you guys quiet, I’ll do it.

Sam Wood:
And, out of nowhere, I got the gig and then it was sort of that fork in the road moment of, if I don’t do this, I’ll always wonder what if and probably regret it. So I dived in the deep end, and, lo and behold, I’ve met this incredible girl from the other side of Australia called Snezana who had a 9 year old daughter. And we’re now married, and we have 3 more daughters. So we’ve got 4 girls, and it’s just been the best thing that I ever did. But from a business perspective, it really boosted both Snares and my profile. You know, I remember sort of sitting there. I think pre bachelor, we had 600 Instagram followers between us. And within a literally a few days as the show went to air or the finale went to air, we went to 600,000 followers on social media, and I’d be inundated with direct messages across different social media channels saying, Sam, I know you’ve been into fitness, and can you write me a program or whatever whatever? And, I’d always looked at a couple of other online fitness programs.

Sam Wood:
I thought, god, that’s amazing, the reach that they get and how many people they can help, and it’s not just from their local community. It’s either Australia wide or worldwide. Yep. And I just admired it both from a business perspective, but also just the ability to help so many people. And so we gave it a crack. And on, 20 where we 2016, 1st of Feb, we launched 28 by Sam Wood, my online fitness and nutrition program. At that stage, it was just a website. People had signed up for a month, $50 a month, on a ongoing subscription.

Sam Wood:
They get all their workouts, their recipes. I’d send them videos every day from a motivation and education perspective. But it was a bit clunky, you know, we’d use Facebook community groups and, logging on to their website, you know, a bit of an older audience, sort of 40 plus. Yep. But it just exploded. We had 5,000 subscribers in the 1st month, and I was like, holy crap. There’s something special here.

Paul Spain:
So so to to lay those sort of foundations and to get launched, you know, often, there could be different approaches people take to to deciding on the technology forms and so on to underpin it. Sometimes it’s just like, look, we wanna get going and we’ll we’ll we’ll just get started with whatever. Yeah. Other times it’s like, look, we need to spend a couple of years and sort of build all the technology, you know, foundations and so on. And, you know, often the best result is kind of some sort of, you know, some sort of hybrid. Yeah. How did you figure that stuff out, someone that wasn’t a technologist as to, you know, what what sort of approach and

Sam Wood:
Yeah.

Paul Spain:
And and so on. Who are you who are you working with? Who else was

Sam Wood:
Yeah. So we worked with a little tech group who sort of built out websites, build out sort of pretty user friendly platforms. I was really heavily hands on with the features that I wanted, the features that I didn’t want. Yeah. Really focused on keeping it simple. I was probably a bit too much of a perfectionist. I remember early on in the in that sort of stage, someone sort of saying to me, look, mate. I know you want every button to be in the right place and, you know, every colour, and you’re gonna eat a lot of money and a lot of time if you fixate too much on that stuff.

Sam Wood:
You know? It it only needs to be an 8 out of 10 and then and then you evolve it. You know? You just gotta get it to the market and see what the market says. You know? Like, if you launch perfectly, you launch too late type thing.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Yeah. That was that was a case for you.

Sam Wood:
You had to leave a go

Paul Spain:
a little bit on some of

Sam Wood:
those sites. Yeah. That was a leap of faith, and I, you know, wasn’t I mean, I’ll it’s funny. You always look back at what you first launched when you go, oh my god. You know, 8 years later, how could we have gone to market with something so basic? But thank god we did. You know? We did we’ve always been very customer centric. You know? The the evolution of the features, the evolution of the content, you know, even the platforms and the way with it we stream it, you know, allowing people to stream it through their TVs for comfort of doing the workouts in their lounge room, different channels that we talk to people on to allow them to not only connect to us, but connect to other 28 as that might be in their communities. You know, it’s it’s but a lot of what we have done over an 8 year journey has been driven by the customer, and I think that’s that’s boded really well for us.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. It’s often a challenge to to get that, customer experience. Right? And, yeah, I think all of us could think of of so many scenarios where where things aren’t, you know, very customer centric. In fact, I had a interaction with with a government entity in the last, last week or so. And and I don’t wanna, you know, upset anybody that works in the Inland Revenue Department here. But the reality was the experience I was I was trying to, you know, step through was an absolute shocker. Yeah. And, they were probably 90% of it was probably awesome.

Paul Spain:
But, of course, you hit that sort of 10, 20% that’s painful. And, yeah, it can, yeah, just ruin the whole experience. And I imagine that’s probably been part of your journey as sort of tweaking and improving those things along the way. Sounds like you’ve come a long way from where you where you started out with your original technology and and the ease of use seems to have got you know, you were talking about, yep, may maybe being a little bit uncomfortable with some of the some of the gaps initially. But I was looking at your app on the iPhone app in the App Store. There you’re 4.9 stars. You know, there’s plenty of things that these days I’ll come across, and it’s got like a 2.3 or something. You think, what? This is a, you know, global company and not rated very well.

Paul Spain:
You know, how have you gone on that journey? I guess that’s part of the the evolution of of 28 as a business. It’s got bigger, and you’ve been able to tap into sort of more and more resources with the growth.

Sam Wood:
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we didn’t know who our customer was gonna be. We didn’t know what features they were going to gravitate towards, what features they would have no interest in, what content they’d like, what you know, we’ve we really let them drive it. And I guess 2 things that I think really set us up for long term success because there was always you know, there’s a bit of imposter syndrome when it all first started from my perspective. I was a bit this has really taken off. Do I belong here? It could all end tomorrow. You know, though, I didn’t I didn’t feel like it was secure a little bit from a business owner who’d kinda gone from earning, you know, a couple of $100 a year as a really good personal trainer, but, you know, turning over 1,000,000 of dollars in subscription revenue in a few months was a a real sort of shock to the system.

Sam Wood:
But what we did was made sure that we understood what my strengths were and understood what my weaknesses were and got good people to feel those weaknesses, people that I could trust, people that worked in house, people we could talk to. You know, I almost felt like I needed a bit of a tech interpreter, if you like. So when we were building out new features or deciding, does it go from website to app, how do we do that? Do we do that in house? Do we use an agency? You know, having a right hand person sitting there with me to really be able to break that stuff down, put in layman’s terms for me. And I’d always look at it through the customer lens, and I’d always look at it through the tech lens, and we’d just have to make sure that there was a good marriage there. You know? I’d always important. Yeah. I’d always be okay. How’s this gonna change the customer experience? All I care about is the customer experience.

Sam Wood:
Yeah. And cost within reason. But, you know, I remember thinking we’re turning over pretty good money. It’s absolutely critical though that I reinvest that money to make sure in I was thinking back then in 2 years’ time, we’re still around. I’ll only in 8. So, you know, back then, there was only a couple of online fitness programs. There was Michelle Bridges who was sort of website only, and there was Kayla, who’s now Sweat. You know, sold her business for $400,000,000 last year or 2 years ago.

Sam Wood:
And These are Australian Both Australian, but she’s very she had a very big global presence. Yeah. She got bought by a US, fitness equipment company for $400,000,000, yeah, 2 years ago. And I’d sort of look at look at those and go, okay. Where do we sort of sit in the market? And we were finding that because we’re an at home fitness program, lots of our customers were female, 90% female. They were asking for certain things. And so we didn’t try and be everything to everybody. We made sure we invested a lot in our people and our in our tech evolution, and we listened to that customer and gave them what they were asking for.

Sam Wood:
If you want pregnancy programs or evolution of our eating plans or, you want the ability to Chromecast your workouts onto your TV so you can do it from further away while your baby’s crawling on the mat, That’s what we’ll give you. And, you know, I remember when I started the kids’ gyms and we had sort of undulating levels of success, someone would say to me, you know, mate, you just can’t clone yourself. And then with this, with the with technology the way it was and how smooth and seamless streaming was at that time when we launched in 2016, I remember sort of sitting there one day going, I have claimed myself. You know, I can send these people a message on how to read a nutrition label. I can give them advice on how much water to consume at the touch of a button. I can get on live forums and answer any question that these guys have these guys want in real time. I can do live workouts. I can you name it.

Sam Wood:
I’ve now got the ability, whether it’s tapping into an existing platform or doing it through our own to connect to tens of thousands of people every single day. And it just it just snowballed from there, but it was just this beautifully exciting moment. I was like, I’m not a tech guy, but the way technology like it was blowing my, my own mind with my own business in real time a little bit. I was like, and, and I’ve always had this feeling of gratitude from a timing perspective, almost like imagine if I went on the bachelor 20 years earlier. You know, really, TV didn’t exist 20 years earlier, but so I know that didn’t that wouldn’t have happened, but I just wouldn’t have had the capability to do what I’ve always loved doing to so many people. I would have gone back to my gym and gone back to work. It was a it was a beautiful, sliding doors moment. That’s for sure.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. And so walking through, you talked about having sort of a interpreter Yeah. On that tech front. So talk us through that. How did how did you find that sort of help and

Sam Wood:
Yeah. So we brought in a what they look like. Chief product technology officer who handled our relatively small team at that stage working just with the website. Mhmm. Then it was a big decision to what we did from an app build perspective. We’d been a website for 2 years. We had 20,000 subscribers. But we knew to take things to a new level of speed, customer experience, connectivity, push notifications, all this stuff that works really well in a fitness space.

Sam Wood:
An app was definitely needed. We took the but we already had an existing business. We didn’t wanna stuff that up. So we actually took probably the safer, more expensive route, and we went with a really high end agency, an agency called 2 Bulls in Melbourne. And, you know, we’d go in for our fortnightly sprints. I’d be intimately involved from a customer perspective with my CTO next to me from a tech perspective as we sort of navigated our way through that. You know, the $500,000 quote ended up being double. It was very expensive.

Sam Wood:
Yep. Yep. You know, the million dollar app was built, but I was really proud of what we launched. And because our customers were relatively satisfied with their web experience, we didn’t rush it too much.

Paul Spain:
Yep.

Sam Wood:
Again, we we didn’t wait forever to get it perfect, but we we didn’t tell them it was coming too early either because it would have been when is it? When is it? We waited till it was probably about 4 weeks away, and then we got them really excited and build a lot of hype. And it was a relatively smooth transition. And now we still have a website for those that wanna stay there, but 88 percent of our users are on on the app. Mhmm. It just makes it better for sign ups, better for a retention and churn, better from a customer engagement perspective. The data that you can pull out of that is really, really powerful. You get it in real time. You know, we use our data a lot, both from an engagement perspective, making sure people are getting off to the right start and learning what are they using, what are they not using, what are the what should we be giving them more of.

Sam Wood:
You know, you don’t even need to ask them these days. You can tap into that data with your data analyst, and you can learn stuff in real time and make changes really efficiently.

Paul Spain:
Yep. Yep. So if you, you know, if we we’ve got listeners that are sort of in, you know, involved with with coming up with, you know, technology solutions with building apps, websites, and so on. You know, from from your perspective sort of sitting across the table, what would, you know, what would be your your advice in terms of how to, you know, how to work well with people that aren’t necessarily, you know, so deeply deeply technical, the the non geeks such as yourself?

Sam Wood:
I think I think there were moments early on where I’d lost a bit of belief. You know? I was like, this this might all be a bit above my head from a tech perspective. So I think surrounding yourself with, you know, it’s okay to not be the smartest person in that room. In fact, you probably shouldn’t be. You need people you can trust. And it’s actually okay that your skill set might be on the other side of the table because often that’s where their weakness is. That’s where their blind spot is. You know, if you just said to a a tech only person you know, obviously, if you’re going to an agency, they should have sort of good people in customer experience and, you know, all that kind of stuff, and you should be pretty well sorted.

Sam Wood:
But if you’ve just got the builder on the other side of the table, the app the app, the developer, they can often miss those key customer, you know, human elements. And I think it’s when you come together with those people, that’s where the magic happens. So so don’t don’t necessarily be worried by your weakness. Embrace your strength and fill in the weakness with with people that are better at that part of what you’re not good at, I think, is my advice.

Paul Spain:
Yep. Yep. Any particular sort of challenges that stand out from sort of going through that journey? You’ve mentioned about it costing, you know, twice as much than, than that than

Sam Wood:
it than

Paul Spain:
it anticipated. And, you well, yeah, certainly not the not the first to have been through that that type of scenario. And and your case, I mean, was it that things changed dramatically, or did you get a clear handle on, you know, why it became a lot more expensive

Sam Wood:
Yep. And therefore, I was requesting lots of changes. I was my my brief wasn’t as clear as it should have been from the outset, so I was costing myself money and kicking myself for it. Mhmm. You know, I I probably felt like if we’re gonna launch with an app, it needs to be vastly different from our web experience. This needs to blow people’s minds. And from launch, it probably didn’t. That could have been something that evolved over time, and it could have been a lot cheaper and simpler to almost launch with something very similar to our web experience and build that out.

Sam Wood:
I I thought it needed to have running features and all this other kind of stuff that I’d seen on other apps, either in the fitness space or or elsewhere, that I thought would lend themselves really well to us. I also think you get a bit caught up too with new technologies. You know? Like, sometimes you want a new feature for the sake of having a new feature, and it doesn’t actually get used. It just tends to be something that has a, I don’t know, a bit of a cool factor, but it’s it’s not very practical to the user, but you think it needs to it needs to be in there. You know?

Paul Spain:
Was there a particular example?

Sam Wood:
No. I was I got hell bent on this stupid geofencing thing, and people it was it I had this ridiculous idea in my head of, you know, you could sort of tell where people were so they could connect with each other, but which would have been a good feature, but, you know, catching up for runs on the weekends and that kind of thing. But then it was about I don’t know. I had this weird idea in my head, and this is gonna sound absolutely ridiculous because it was quite far fetched even at the time of you know, you can tell if someone’s going through a McDonald’s drive through, for example, and you could send them alert on their phone saying, should you be making a better food choice question mark or something as they went through the drive through. It was it was a bit tongue in cheek, but I was sort of like, what could we do here if we really sort of explored it? But Yeah. It it was it it, you know Did did you initially to have? No. No. We scoped it out, and it was gonna be a very, very time consuming, expensive, nice to have, and we we moved away from it.

Sam Wood:
But we went down a few little rabbit holes that perhaps we shouldn’t have got down during the process. Yep. And did you

Paul Spain:
end up with any geo, you know, geolocation types of, you know, things like telling people we’re at home or things like that where you you trigger things or you just didn’t end up

Sam Wood:
using that? No. We didn’t. We’re building more of that out now. It’s a lot of what we’re doing now is about enhancing personalization. So based on them answering some questions from an onboarding perspective, when we’ve now partnered with a DNA company. We had a we had a a a bit of an exit event 2 years ago, which involved us merging with a DNA company, and, we’re looking at how you can use your DNA insights to really personalize your wellness experience by giving you customized eating plans, advice on caffeine, sleep. Are you an endurance or power athlete? And then not just getting a report on that, but that being reflected in the programming that you get served without even thinking about it. You know, you get power workouts because your body respond better to those.

Sam Wood:
You are advised on what time to go to bed, whether you’re an early bird or a night owl. You know, some people genetically, benefit from having caffeine pre workout. Other people, it it has a negative impact on their workout performance. So there’s some really, really interesting science and, DNA insights, but people don’t really know what to do with them. And they’re often given to people in a a very, hard to understand six page DNA Insight report rather than here’s the practical applications of what this report is telling you, and you can actually press a button here and that will, personalize your 28 experience based on your DNA insights. So that’s something that we’re we’re building out. It’s a bit of a next horizon thing happening at 28.

Paul Spain:
And, I mean, that DNA front, it’s a it’s an interesting, you know, area. Obviously, the technology’s, you know, really improved, and, you know, the cost of doing DNA testing

Sam Wood:
has been the game changer. Reasonably accessible. It used to be $1,000 only a couple of years ago to do a test. And it was a bit intrusive for people. And you’d get your results back 6 weeks later. It’s now a saliva swab in the on the cheek. You get your results in about a week, and it costs under a $100. So I think some you know, and we’ve all been through COVID and done millions of those tests, and we’re pretty comfortable doing it.

Sam Wood:
And if you, I think people are realizing it was also a lot of people had used it for ancestry or, you know, family tree history, or they’d use it for whether they were predisposed to get certain illnesses. But actually using it from a proactive wellness perspective within nutrition and exercise hasn’t really been done. So that’s something we’re super excited about.

Paul Spain:
So, you know, looking at the at the data you get from that DNA testing side, how how solid do you think that is? You were talking about, you know, whether you’re a a morning person, a night person, and and and so on. And, you know, some people will start out one way and then they’ll, you know, they’ll they’ll make an effort to get up earlier even though Yeah. That maybe hasn’t been the the norm. What, you know, what what have you actually learned there? Do you think that’s pretty hard coded? Or is it one of one of those things

Sam Wood:
that actually DNA doesn’t lie. No. No. The DNA blueprint is who you are and who you will always be. That that’s who you are for life. Now that’s not to say if you’re a power athlete, you can’t run a marathon. That’s not to say if you’re an early bird, you shouldn’t stay up late. There’s obviously practicalities.

Sam Wood:
But if you’re and I had this with my wife. You know, she’s quite nocturnal. I’m sort of up and at them early. And, you know, I’d try and stay up later to help our relationship, and she’d be wide awake, get sort of frustrated at me for falling asleep at midnight. I thought I was doing a pretty good job. I wasn’t going to bed at 7 o’clock. But just having that understanding that I was actually genetically an early bird, and that’s why, you know, that that was powerful to me. So okay.

Sam Wood:
So, you know, let’s meet a little bit earlier. And it doesn’t mean I’m gonna change and doesn’t mean you’re gonna change, but there’s a way that we can find some some medium ground here and and make it work better. And I think it’s the same from a power of endurance perspective. The food intolerance to stuff is really interesting. I mean, the amount of time and effort and torture some people go through to work out certain foods that agree with them, certain foods that don’t, hay fever medications that they should be on and shouldn’t be on. There’s all these practical health things that your genetic insights can just tell you the right path for you from day from scratch. And you can head down that path and save yourself a fair bit of time and effort. So, it’s it’s not about turning your life upside down and and being perfect, I don’t think, but I think making smarter choices in line with your genetic makeup, you know, you know, I always sort of say to people, train smarter, not harder.

Sam Wood:
And I think these kind of insights allow you to do that.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Oh, that’s pretty interesting. You know, I haven’t seen too much, you know, down that track. You know, it’s something we I guess, you know, we’ve we’ve talked about for years and, you know, what’s the future of health and health care and and and so on. And it seems like, you know, most of it hasn’t hasn’t really arrived yet. So there’s still that opportunity, to to really, you know, establish these things. So, myDNA, which is as the company, you know, walk us through what what happened because you’ve, you, you know, involved in a in a merger there.

Sam Wood:
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
Australian Tech Life, MyDNA, 28. Sort of walk us through that.

Sam Wood:
That’s holding company for 28 is Australian Life Tech. And we we we had a great business. And then during the COVID, we really exploded because we were already an at home fitness option for people. Mhmm. We had a couple of massive partnerships with some big, health insurance companies and, you know,  you talk about things where you get caught off guard. You know, we signed up with, Bupa, which is the biggest health insurer in Australia. They got four and a half million, customers. And they said, look.

Sam Wood:
We’ve identified a segment of our audience, about a million customers that we’d love to offer them 3 free months on your, on your program to really help them during this really tough time of lockdowns in Australia? And we’re like, yeah. Absolutely. We’d love to help. And we sort of said, look. What who how many do you anticipate would take it up? And he said, look. Maybe 10,000. You know? We boosted our servers and got everything ready for this big influx of sort of 10,000 new customers in a sort of 48 hour period. And a 130,000 of them joined in 3 days.

Sam Wood:
So we’re ramping up our servers and prepare. And it just went crazy. We had about 30,000 members and we went from 30,000 to 160,000 almost overnight. And it was just this great test of sort of the rigor of your tech. And now you’re prepared to handle that many customers coming onto the platform at once. And we handled it, and it was seamless, and it was exciting. And, you know, we we obviously looked after them for free during COVID, but lots of them stayed on the platform. And we’re really grateful for what we’d done for them during that tough time.

Sam Wood:
So we we had a really I mean, we still do have a you know, it’s even better now, but a really exciting business. And as it sort of naturally happens, not that you know, as a passionate founder who loves helping people in fitness, you know, people always say, oh, you gotta know what your exit looks like and selling your business. That wasn’t really how I was wired. But a few inbound inquiries started to come in. So we thought, oh, we better take these seriously. And, yeah, we we sold the business for 82 million New Zealand dollars, 71 Australian, 2 years ago. So that was it was an amazing amazing result. I still pinched myself.

Sam Wood:
I can’t even believe it sitting here talking to you, Paul. But, you know, I’m still at it. I went back to work the very next day, and, it’s really for me, the money is lovely to give you some security for your family, but it’s about now with the resources that we have and the backing that we have. You know, you sort of got big brother in your corner. What can we do from a international expansion perspective, new product perspective, evolving the app, you know, from an AI and personalization perspective? You know, we really wanna customize that coach feel that you really do feel like you’ve got a coach or a nutritionist or a psychologist coaching you every step of the way, and they understand what makes you tick and how you like to be spoken to. And they can identify what behavior you’re exhibiting based on certain communications and and, alerts that you’re pushing to them, and and it’s just, you know, it’s just helping people. I was always a bit cynical when I first started. Am I really gonna be able to connect with people in a digital world the same way I do with face to face with my clients at the gym? But it’s even better.

Sam Wood:
Because at the gym, they’re wonderful when they’re with you. But for the other say they train with you twice a week. For the other 166 hours a week, you don’t really know what they’re up to. You know? Are they eating right? Are they sleeping well? Are they going for walks? You know? Are they recovering properly When they’re all in your beautiful ecosystem and you can tap them on the shoulder anytime when they need it, You know, they might need a hug. They might need a kick in the pants, but you can do either. It’s pretty powerful.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. So, yeah, it’s interesting you mentioned that. I was speaking at a conference for, New Zealand Tertiary Sport some some months ago. And and that was a kind of example that, you know, that that I shared with them. I think, you know, often with the role of AI and so on, there’s kind of that that fear that can come into people of, oh, you know, what’s this gonna do to Yeah. To my work and and and so on. So if someone’s a, you know, a trainer or a coach,

Sam Wood:
you know, where where is the their job.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Where’s where’s technology gonna gonna fit in? But, you know, that was sort of one of my examples of, well, there’s these times in between where you are, you know, in person, obviously, where where, this sort of technology can fill in the gaps. So it’s not just for those that aren’t getting any in person, you know, coaching, but there’s there’s obviously this type of technology can apply in in those sort of circumstances. But in terms of, you know, what what you’re doing, I mean, how far how far do you see that, AI can really, you know, can can take, an app like 20 8 Yeah. In terms of, you know, do you do you have it having a virtual version of you and video that’s auto generated and a virtual, you know, voice and and so on in the future? Is that kinda where you go? So you you literally are replicated as as many to as many customers as you’ve as you’ve got in in different languages if they’re in different parts of the world? Yeah.

Sam Wood:
It’s interesting. I I don’t know. I I we’re watching it. We’re always looking at where the technology is at, you know. As long if it feels real, if it feels authentic, I’m happy to go there. If you can tell that it’s not quite right, I would rather be authentic to the customer. And when they get me, they get me. And when they know it’s not me, they know it’s not me.

Sam Wood:
I mean, we’re we’re dipping our toe in the water from a you know, if someone wakes up at 5 AM to do their workout and they’ve, you know, they hurt their back yesterday or something at work and, you know, what can I swap this exercise for this exercise for? I think being able to give people instant advice, it can be really powerful. You know, I I don’t like mushrooms. What should I put in this recipe? So it’s it’s got the same macros or whatever? You know? I think for that purpose, it’s fantastic. As, you know, at in its current state, I think to actually, you know, transport yourself in some kind of physical format. You know, the whole VR thing, it’s it’s interesting. But it’s it’s it’s as much of a barrier as a wow factor. You know? There’s a cost barrier. Do I wanna be doing a sweaty workout with a big headset on? You know? Like or do I just wanna press play and go and following Sam along on a video absolutely suffices for what I need, and it’s just a quicker lower barrier experience.

Sam Wood:
So I think, you know, asking our 28 is what they want, watching the technology, I think, absolutely what we’re gonna do. We’re not gonna get left behind with it. But, yeah, the initial personalization from understanding their behavior, you know, how often they exercise, what their diet’s like, are they a smoker, how do they sleep, you know, and getting a full snapshot of perhaps where they’re at most risk and what they benefit the most from. Because people people want you know, in the fitness industry, it’s all about how do I make the medicine taste better? And a big part of it is I don’t wanna think about it. I just wanna wake up and be told what to do. That’s why personal trainers have a job. So I turned up to the gym saying, what are we doing today? Don’t wanna think about it. The more you can create that in an online world you know? Oh, great.

Sam Wood:
I told him I was I had 2 hours a week. I could do 4 workouts a week. They needed to be 30 minutes each, and I wanted to be stronger and more flexible. And my plan just got served to me. Fantastic. You know? Told him I was vegetarian, and I am happy to cook my own dinner 3 times a week. Lunches are a real sticking point because I don’t eat well at work, and I drink too much coffee, and he gave me a plan. You know, that that’s what people want.

Sam Wood:
And I think the more it can feel personalized just to you and you’re not getting this cookie cutter program that everyone else is getting, the better. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
Well, I cert I think, you know, certainly, the the technology offers, you know, the ability to achieve that, doesn’t it?

Sam Wood:
It does. Yeah. I mean, we’re already there. It’s the next step that you’re talking about that I probably haven’t got my head quite around you. I like it. It excites me. I’m not saying no. I just need to see it in full flight a bit more, I think.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. And and, yeah, I guess that yeah. There’s a there’s a there’s a there’s a lot of, you know, pieces, you know, to to come together, and it’ll be interesting to see, you know, what happens more more broadly, I guess, in in in this sector. Anything else that jumps out at at the the role that technology has kind of played in in your success having been in terms of what what you’ve achieved so far?

Sam Wood:
Oh, look, it’s been everything. I mean, I’m literally sitting here saying without the technology where it was at, I would not have a business, not a business to where it’s at. I just wouldn’t have one. I’d be still working in gyms, which I’m very proud of where I’ve come from, but it would be a very different existence. And, I mean, the thing I love about tech is it’s so interesting. You don’t have to un you don’t have to be able to build it to be amazed by it. You don’t have to be able to build it to, you know, have a business with it. You know? And I I’ve just loved learning as I go, and, you know, we’re starting to use more gamification.

Sam Wood:
We’re we’re looking to do partnerships with supermarket chains and health insurers where the more you move, the less health insurance you pay. It sort of connects to your rewards points. It gives you real dollars to spend on healthier foods. And, you know, we really want the technology to be the conduit between if I take better care of myself, I save myself money. If I take better care of myself, I make my life with these, you know, essential day to day things that I need to do become easier. And, you know, and then just the way it connects our community. I mean, the way they talk to each other, you know, and then the way tech becomes back to real life. Like, we see you know, these people have had Facebook friendships for 5 years, and next thing they fly in from another country and get picked up from the airport by another 28er or and stay at each other’s houses and then go back and stay connected through technology.

Sam Wood:
And it’s it’s pretty special the way the two worlds can come together.

Paul Spain:
How much does sort of the technology risks weigh on you? Because you obviously have a lot of personal data around Yeah. Sort of individuals that are using 28 and left, right, and center. We we, you know, we see data breaches

Sam Wood:
and and

Paul Spain:
cybersecurity dramas and, you know, some pretty big scale ones Yeah. In in Australia, and New Zealand too. Yeah. Have you tackled that, or is that something now that you’re part of a bigger entity that you can you can kind of focus on the more innovation and and creative sides, and you can leave that to somebody else?

Sam Wood:
No. We still we still handle it ourselves, and we always have. It’s it’s it’s hard because it’s not sexy. It’s not it’s not that tangible new feature you can tell your community about or you can sort of get excited about. But if it goes pear shaped, the consequences are dire. So we we’ve always been really, really stringent on it, whether that’s been the website being down for a minute or 2. You know? You know, always saying, if I’m getting up at 5 AM and the website’s down, you know, touch wood, it’s barely ever happened in 8 years, that’s just not good enough. You know? We work so hard to build trust with our customer.

Sam Wood:
That’s basically the reason they’re with us. They they know us, and they trust us. Now that’s obviously from a exercise and nutrition guidance perspective, but that carries over into, well, I know you won’t do anything wrong with my data. You won’t sell my data. You won’t pass my data on. So we make sure that we really take care of the customer. You know, I mentioned the big Bupa thing that we did. That was a really, stringent audit to make sure that if they were gonna do something with us on that kind of scale that we we met all the standards that were needed.

Sam Wood:
So, you know, that was that was a really nice moment for us that we passed the test because that could have sort of made or broken the deal if, oh, no.

Sam Wood:
You guys don’t have x, y, and z covered. There’s no way we can do this. We were sort of really proud of the fact that our tech guys had had always run such a tight ship in that aspect. But, I mean, you see it happen. You know, like you say, the Optus had a howler of 1 late last year, and it’s all over the news for all the wrong reasons. And your customers leave you, and you, you know, you can spend years and thousands of dollars building that trust, and you can lose it like that in a second. And, yeah, we’re really conscious of it.

Sam Wood:
Try not to, you know, I hate to talking about it because I feel like I’m moozing myself. But touch wood, we’ve never had any issues, and touch wood, we never do.

Paul Spain:
Cool. Well, yeah, lots that we’ve touched on. It’s it’s been, yeah, been really, really fascinating. So, yeah, really, really appreciate it, Sam.

Sam Wood:
Absolute pleasure, mate. Thanks for having me.

Paul Spain:
Now, part of the reason that you’re here in New Zealand is to kinda, you know, wave the flag a bit

Sam Wood:
for for

Paul Spain:
28 by Sam Wood. So though those that are kinda curious and thinking, oh, yeah. If I can, you know, step up my health and health and fitness, yeah, maybe it’s something they should look at. Yeah. You know, what what does it cost and, you know, what do people need to need to do to, you know, to have a have a bit of a, you know, do do some investigation?

Sam Wood:
So it’s normally, $50 a month, but we’ve got a new 8 week challenge starting. And to sort of celebrate getting a lot a lot of New Zealanders on board. It’s, nearly half price at the moment. So you can get on board for sort of 50¢ a day. All your workouts, all your recipes, you connect directly with me. You get coached by me and my team. And if any of your viewers and listeners would love to, jump on board and give it a try, I’d I’d love to work with them. It really is a very easy, convenient option that you can do from home.

Sam Wood:
And, if you got people out there that are listening and watching going, I actually would benefit from a couple of workouts a week, and Sam seems like a guy that I could try that with. I’d love to work with him.

Paul Spain:
Great. Great. Well,

Sam Wood:
yeah.

Paul Spain:
That’s, that’s very helpful. And I’m sure there’ll be, you know, a bit of a boost after your time in New Zealand.

Sam Wood:
So can you they can download the app or head to 28bysamwood.com and, join through the website.

Paul Spain:
Is there an option in there to, like, turn off the Aussie accent and transfer for Kiwi one?

Sam Wood:
Well, we should go there. We should go like your satnav. Yeah. We should give people an array of options. Hadn’t thought

Paul Spain:
of that. Just putting it out, yes.

Sam Wood:
Are you putting your hand up, Paul? You bring your hand up? You’re gonna be our New Zealand’s voice. Yeah. We’ll have to we have to have a look at that.

Paul Spain:
I think you probably find some more people than me. I’m not gonna comment on that today. Yes. I know that cuts both

Sam Wood:
both directions.

Paul Spain:
So That’s true. No. It doesn’t. I’m just kidding. Cool. Well, it’s been it’s been really good. Thanks everyone for listening in and, to our show partners, Gorilla Technology, HP Spark, 2degrees, and 1 n zed. And we’ll look forward to catching everybody on the next episode.

Paul Spain:
If you’ve been watching the, the stream, then make sure that, you jump on to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever your favorite podcast app is to get the audio. And, of course, if you’ve been listening to the audio, which tends to be most of our audience, then, you know, make sure you look out for us on wherever you catch video, YouTube, x, Facebook, and you can follow me for the live streams that come up on, on LinkedIn. So that’s us. Thank you very much, Sam Wood.

Sam Wood:
Great.

Paul Spain:
Cheers. Much appreciated. Thanks, Bob. Okay. Cheers. Thanks,

Sam Wood:
everyone.