Orangetheory Fitness: Ellen Latham

26:36Then, yeah, kind of silent. Then they brought me in to kind of, is this something you're doing? And I said, yeah, I really want to do this type of thing. And they said, well, then we need to part ways. Wow. And it was like quite scary because again, I'm like out of a very good paying job and, you know, I've got a nine-year-old son and I'm single parenting. And, but again, it was just this, like, there was obviously an itch that I had to scratch. But at that moment, of course, you're sitting in, wow, what did I do now? So basically get up the next day with that ache in the pit of your stomach and really decided, and this is where my father, he was still alive then.

27:21He was such a great influence. He was one that focused on, so there's a sports psychologist theory called momentum shifting, and you can momentum shift up positively or down negatively. So, you know, your team's losing, your players are not performing. Instead of focusing on what's not going right, focus on what they do well, have discussions about that, put energy into that. And that's how you will climb out of that. And he was lived by this whole momentum shift up theory. We actually had discussions about that at that time. And you called him and you said, Dad, I've got to leave this job or they're basically asking me to leave.

27:59And I don't know what to do. And do you remember what he said to you? You know, he made me start to think about, well, what do I do well? What can I start building off of? So I did get that little concession, spinning concession going. And that brought a nice supply, not a lot, but at least, you know, some finances in. And then I started doing Pilates because I went and got a Pilates certification. I just kept certifying and everything. And I bought one machine. I put it in a spare room next to my son's bedroom. And I solicited the women in my spinning classes to come and do private Pilates with me in my home.

28:40And that's how I started my entrepreneurial hanging of a shingle in a spare room next to my son's bedroom. When we come back in just a moment, how Ellen moves from that spare room in her house to her own studio, and how an unexpected windfall from Cole's department store helps her grow even bigger. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

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33:03Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 1999, 2000, and Ellen is teaching Pilates out of a spare room in her house. She'd love to open her own studio, but she has no money to do it. And then one day, when she's literally getting her nails done, she stumbles on an opportunity. I did my nails at a spa that had two floors. The second floor, the woman who owned it had kind of a storage room, 1 ,100 square feet, that she just stored stuff in. The girl who did my nails, I was telling her all about it, and I said, you know, I don't know. I just feel like there's something to this Pilates.

33:41I think if I did it in a group setting, no one was doing Pilates with 10 machines. Absolutely not at that time. No one, a matter of fact, when I went for certification, they kind of poo-pooed doing it in a group. There's no way you can do this in a group. You've got to correct people too much. But my brain just works differently of how I saw it. And so I just felt there was something to it. And so she said, talk to the owner. I'm going to set you up with a meeting with her. I talked to her. She said, I'll take the boxes out. Let's figure out a year-to-year lease. So I didn't have to go hang a shingle anywhere.

34:16And Nick, my partner, who now we're 22 years being together at that time, We had been together a couple of years and he basically said, I will loan you the money to buy the machines. And I bought 10 Pilates machines. How much did each one cost? Do you remember? Oh, they were pretty expensive. I think the whole thing cost about$38 ,000 that he loaned me. And I bought them right out and I put them in there. I figured out how to do it in a group. I was only doing one on ones before, but how would I teach? But now you had 10 clients. A group, that's right. But that's right up my alley is kind of figuring out group fitness, a little out of typical lane.

34:56And it exploded. And I paid Nick back in four months. Wow. And were you leading all the classes? Was it just you in the studio and you teaching all the classes? Or were you able to hire somebody else? There was me and one other person, but I was absolutely teaching morning, night, and day. Wow. So you were there all the time running this thing. And what was the studio called? So it was called Ellen Studio Fit. And it was just Pilates? Just Pilates. Okay. Tell me a little bit about, because Pilates is a lot of core exercise, right? But there's not a lot of resistance or impact, right? So Pilates is about your stabilizer muscles.

35:37So you have muscles at your joints, at your spine. They stabilize your bones, muscle to muscle. They are your inside muscles. That's how I look at them. You have outside muscles, you work out in the gym. These are your inside muscles. So yeah, they're going to make you from the inside out strong. This is going to prevent injury. This is going to give you better posture. This is going to give you more flexibility. And many of the women saw differences in their trunk because the trunk is the main stabilizing, you know, muscular for your arms and legs to work off of. So they started seeing all this reshaping and that's what they absolutely loved about it.

36:12And it was all women, your customers? Very few men. Very few men. All women. Although a funny, exciting story. One of my women clients was Matt Damon's wife now, Lucy. She was a bartender in Miami, and he is still married to her, a matter of fact. And so she's coming, taking classes when she was just started dating him. And I'll never forget her telling me one day, so I'm going to bring my boyfriend to class. Do you mind? And I said, absolutely not. Of course, bring him. And he goes, well, he's kind of like a movie star. So it was right out of the gate, like Matt Damon's taking a Pilates class.

36:49Yeah. So the Pilates gym, as a standalone Pilates gym, lasted for about four years. Is that right? Yes. Okay. And you, because of a variety of things, you had to move the location and you were getting feedback from clients that they wanted something more. You started to think about like a new fat burning workout. Correct. So they were looking for a workout that would burn fat. They would be of a cardio workout. And Pilates didn't do that. And then it just so happened that, you know, talk about timing. I guess I've had a lot of fortunate timing. A Kohl's department store wanted to build right on top of me.

37:31Well, my lease wasn't done, so they had to buy me out. So now I had, like, some money to move to a bigger space. And I said, OK, I'll build another room and I'm going to create the ultimate metabolic workout for you guys. So I ended up finding this cheap space, which was bigger and built it out. A friend of mine, husband was a builder, so he helped me out. And I built the first phase of what now is the Orange Theory Fitness workout. All right. Let me step out for the story in a second. and ask about the science of weight loss, because of course, this is elusive, right? I mean, it's like the fountain of youth or the holy grail.

38:12Everybody's been searching for it. But my understanding is that weights and resistance training actually has a bigger impact on weight loss than cardio alone. It's a combination of both. But when you do cardio like we do it, which is interval training, you are asking the human heart, which is the most important muscle in your body to exert itself over 80%, 80 to 85%. And you create what is called an oxygen debt. So you know, when you're puffing air, when you're like really pushing hard, if you do at least 12 to 20 minutes of that in your workout, your body has to repay that debt. So over the next 12, 24 hours, the human cells, your body is working harder to bring it back to that homeostatic state.

38:58So that is what is changing your metabolism, hormonally, all of those good things. Lifting weights is absolutely a great complement. You want that to it, but you would not not want to have a cardio component. Yeah. And so how did you start to think about how you could answer the demand from your clients? How did you start to think about a new kind of exercise regimen? Yeah. So that's where I went back on all those years in exercise fizz and really understanding how the human body responds to exercise. And that's when I said heart rate interval training. That is the key. Because what you can do in 12 to 20 minutes of getting your heart rate over 80%, you would have to go jog at just a steady state pace for an hour and a half.

39:45So 12 to 20 minutes to an hour and a half, pick one. Most people would pick the 12 to 20. So when you want to challenge yourself, especially in intervals, the muscle cells that you want to hit are all in your lower body. You know, that's where the large muscle is of our body. That's where you start to get your heart rate goes up, like squatting, for example. Correct. Correct. So treadmill is the best way to do that. That's the best piece of equipment. And then we did put Strider and bike in there for people with orthopedic issues. Got it. And then the rowers was non-impact power. So think of power as like a light bulb.

40:21So a 100-watt light bulb has more wattage to it than a 40-watt light bulb. As you age, you lose wattage. That's that energy. I need another cup of coffee. You're losing this energy cellularly. So I need to find something that – so, for example, CrossFit uses box jumps. So you know how they explosively jump? Well, I knew my knees weren't going to be interested in that, and my women weren't going to be interested in that. So I had to figure out what could I find that would give the same physiologic response but non-impact to the joints. And I found these rowers that no one was using in the corner of gyms.

40:57And so I said, perfect. I'm going to use rowers for my power wattage. I'm going to use treadmills for my interval training. And I'm going to use dumbbells and body weights and weighted balls and BOSUs for what's called usable functional strength. And by the way, this was not a new theory. Like this was the basis of a lot of exercise routines, right? Yeah, I absolutely did not create interval training. It was created in the 1940s. And basically all I did is put terms. We have base, push, and all out. Base is your aerobic zone. Push is your anaerobic zone. And all out is you kind of just finish off with piling some lactic acid in the system where you have to walk it off.

41:35Right. Basically, the idea was you'd have three different intensity levels during the exercise. The base level, I guess, just sort of. Arobin. Moderate heart rate. Yeah. And then push, like really getting your heart rate going and then all out getting you to the maximum heart rate, right? Yes, correct. And so it's really this dance between base and push that you become extremely metabolically charged. And that's how I was training. So that's a part of it, too. Don't forget, I was now at that time 51. So it was like there was also an aspect of what am I, you know, want to do in the next couple decades without damaging myself.

42:16There was this great varied fitness levels in a class. I mean, I would have a 65-year-old with a, you know, who had heart issues next to a Miami Dolphin in my class. And they're all taking the same class. But this is interesting because you're coming up with a new way of exercising. There's treadmill. There's going to be the rower and the rower's low impact. That's great. But, I mean, it seems very counterintuitive because if you were – you had to move to a new space and like from a – you'd already invested all this money in Pilates gear. Like from a cost-effective perspective, like the best thing to do would have been to like just put mirrors all around the walls and a couple of ballet bars and then done.

42:56You got a class, right? Like you don't have to buy any equipment. Now you're talking about treadmills and rowing machines. I mean that's like – Insane. Yeah. Yeah, that's insane. It is absolutely, and even more insane is that I had not piloted that actual program. So I'm running my women around parks doing base pushing all out. I've got Bosu's in the parking lot doing. Those Bosu balls are like a half yoga ball with a rigid back, and you can stand on it and use it for push-ups. Right. And you were using Bosu balls and things like that to experiment, to figure out what worked? In parking lots. In parking lots.

43:37With whoever would sign up. Exactly. Well, I had this group that was, you know, very committed to me, my Pilates women. So when I opened up that studio, I spent every penny on the treadmills. I wanted to pay everything all out. You know, that comes from my father, a family thing. Not a lot of things you got on credit. You're paying stuff out. And I did that. And I'm like, oh, my goodness. What if this doesn't work? I just signed a five-year lease. I have all this equipment in there. And I just, again, we get back to intuition. We get back to what's in your gut that you feel. I just feel that there is no way people aren't going to exit there without results.

44:16So how many treadmills and rowing machines did you initially buy? Ten. Ten treadmills. Ten rowers. Ten rowers. Ten treadmills. And when you start it, like when you bring people in, you're like, OK, we've got the rowers and the treadmills and the BOSU balls and just like listen, the weights and just follow my instructions. Like that must have been weird to like go into a room with like 10 treadmills, 10 rowers behind it, BOSU balls and weights. And like how do people react initially? Oh, my gosh. Again, I wish I had video of that in the early days because it was literally a three-ring circus. And there was a lot of trial and error, let's face it, in the fact of figuring out I had people running into the bathroom throwing up because they overexerted.

45:02And I had to really figure out how to bring them back with language, with the design of the template. So there was absolutely a learning curve. Thank goodness many of those early members are still working out in that original studio doing this workout because they found such success with it, but they stuck with it even through the learning process. So initially this was called the ultimate workout, right? That's what you called it. Ellen's ultimate workout. Ellen's ultimate workout. And it was an hour, right? Yeah. Roughly an hour. What did, I mean, just from a business standpoint, right? How did you make sure that this was going to be sustainable?

45:41because you'd invested a lot of money in all this equipment. Walk me through the math. You had to charge people for the classes, and you needed the classes to be full. Yeah. You know what's really crazy then? I didn't even sell memberships. I only sold it by the class. By the class. That's really crazy. You have to really be performing if you're talking about you're only getting paid for people showing up in that class, not just a membership turning over every year. So, you know, it really forced me to not only be a great performer with this kind of workout myself, but start to train other coaches to coach this workout as well.

46:18Yeah. You know, listen, in the beginning, it was a crawl. It wasn't like I was packed out of the gate. People were a little like, whoa, what is this? Oh, my God, it's too hard. But it had some sustainability. And I think that comes from the performance end of things, of me getting on that floor, Vinny getting on that floor, who was my coach at that time, and just really making sure that people left there feeling noticed, making sure you did a great job. You know, really things that are more important than just going in there and killing a workout. Yeah. And who were your customers at that time?

46:54I mean, who were your typical, was it like a super fit woman between 25 and 40? It was probably women 25 to 50. It wasn't super fit because, again, I wanted to really appeal to, you know, like I said, my Pilates women, I had a variety of fitness levels. And that's where, you know, we really worked from the front of the house, the front desk to the coaches, making the first workout, the first five workouts, you know, really just walk. No jogging. Don't jog. I know you can jog. Just walk it today. Walk on the treadmill. Don't run. Yeah. Because the key was making them successful. I knew that if they exited the front door going, oh, I can do that, they'll come back.

47:40Our oldest member is 95 years old in Colorado. And, you know, people can do the workout. And so that was, again, this was not yet Orange Theory. This was Ellen's ultimate workout. And how long do you think it took you before you were – you could kind of breathe a sigh of relief and say, OK, this is working. This gym is working. Good. We got it going. It was probably a good year, a good year that, you know, we figured out how to really design these templates that, you know, we weren't killing people. But we were really – And when you say we, it was just you and this guy Vinny. So there was Vinny, there was myself, and there was Casey, who actually now owns my Ellen's Ultimate Workout Studio.

48:19Oh, wow. Which still exists. Yes, absolutely. And the Ultimate Workout still exists and is very busy there. So there were the three of us that were coaching classes. All right. So you've got this going and it takes about a year before. But then now you're kind of in a stable position. You are not sitting back and thinking, OK, Ellen, now am I going to conquer the world? That was not what you were thinking. Absolutely not. I was thrilled. I was like, oh, my goodness, look what's happened. I literally started working out of a spare room in my house. I did this like little build over time. And I have this great place that people love.

49:00I love going to. I was thrilled. All right. So you've got this gym that is pretty good, doing well and making a living. And I guess one of your clients, she mentions to you that her husband, a guy named Jerome Kern, is like an expert in franchising and that you should meet him. What do you remember about that? Correct. So she came to the front desk one day and she said, Ellen. What's her name, by the way? Her name is April, April Curry. And she said, look, this workout is crazy. It's waitlist only. There was a waitlist to get on. Yes. And so she said, listen, my husband and his partner are in franchising.

49:43They were big in the MassageMV world. He owned a whole region of MassageMV. MassageMV is like a massage franchise. and his partner worked for the company, Dave Long. They partnered off and they created their own franchise company and they're looking at concepts. And she said, I told them about you. I said, you've got to meet this woman that's got this thing going on over there. And guy, really funny how the story goes. I remember exactly that moment and looking up at her and just the franchise word was very frightening to me. It was the unknown. and I looked up at her and I said, April, you know, that's great, but I know nothing about franchising, you know, I don't think so.

50:27And she left. Yeah. So what had happened was I went home and I'm like telling Nick and my sister and, you know, this is so crazy. This, one of my clients came in and she's, and they're like, uh, entertain it, uh, have a conversation. Have a conversation. of course. You know, if anyone could pull this off, you probably could like get in there and give it a good run. And so she came in like the next day and we're talking and I said, you know what, why don't we connect? And Jerome ended up coming over with Dave. They took a class. We sat down, had a conversation and I got to tell you, I don't know much about partners and business because this was my first, but we decided to give it a shot.

51:16When we come back in just a moment, why Ellen decides to trust two strangers with her business and how it grows from one gym to over a thousand in only nine years. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

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53:58hey welcome back to how i built this so it's 2009 2010 ish and to expand her business ellen has joined up with two franchising experts jerome kern and dave long they plan to open a pilot studio in fort lauderdale with the same concept as ellen's ultimate workout but with different branding, starting with the colors. My room was red at Ellen's Ultimate Workout. So they said, you know, why are your walls all red and this and that? I said, well, colors to me represent energy and red is dramatic and intense. And so they said, well, we don't want to copy that exactly. You've got your studio there, they said.

54:35And so we talked about colors and orange is another very dynamic color that's about energy and all of these great things. And orange was like a close sister to the red. Yeah. And then, I don't know. I think it was Dave who came up with Orange Theory because, of course, the theory is you need to get your heart rate in that anaerobic zone 12 to 20 minutes. And that's how the name came about. So Orange Theory was going to be the new name and it was going to be. So Ellen's ultimate workout would remain. Correct. But Orange Theory would be spun out of that as a new brand. And you open the first location not too far from there in Fort Lauderdale.

55:14It was in Fort Lauderdale. It wasn't good like 25 minutes away. It wasn't right. Yeah. And how long did that take to build that out? Well, that was, you know, yeah, we had to figure out what does that mean? What does it look like? How big is it? What is the best footprint? So that was small. I think that might have been about, was that 2 ,900 or 3 ,000 square feet? We started identical, the 10 treadmills, 10 rowers, 10, you know, wait stations, that type of thing to my studio. You know, and then we had to start writing manuals. You know, basically the three of us are looking at each other and going, okay, you know, how do we do this from the ground up?

55:48I mean, they knew franchising, but, you know, if you're going to duplicate this, you have to find ways that you're going to be able to do it and it not be about Ellen. So, interestingly enough, in the early days, they basically said, just so you know, you can't coach here. You can't show up a lot here. We have to prove our concept that this can be duplicated and it not be about Ellen. Right. So that's what the challenge was. I did make them put cameras in the studio because I wanted to see how the coaches were coaching it. So I did negotiate that. But I mean, they're right that to scale a business, you got to depersonalize it, right?

56:25But what I'm wondering is, I mean, here you had this concept without any desire to franchise it. But then you had two people who knew how to franchise and saw in your concept and opportunity to franchise it, rebranded it Orange Theory and said, let's try this, right? But how did you protect yourself? Like, how did you guys figure out, because I'm imagining they were putting in some investment in it and they were going to put in some money into it. How did you make sure that you could still control it or own most of it or all of it or I don't know? Oh, yeah. I definitely got great counsel. And luckily I had, I mean, these gentlemen are just so legit.

57:06It's not funny. I just was so fortunate to have men who respect me every step of the way, who are supportive of me and my ideas. And, you know, look, this is different as a woman coming in because, like you say, you don't know what you're getting involved with with individuals that you don't know. And, yeah, I lucked out. You were 50. I'm sorry I keep repeating your age at the time. And I'm just saying it because it's awesome. Like I want anyone to hear the story to understand that you can start a business at 55. Yeah. You can start a massive business at 55 or 60. Like you can start a business that will become a billion-dollar business.

57:47And at the time, did you have a patent on this? Could you patent it, this model? Or could any of it? I mean, in theory, Dave and Jerome could have just taken the class and taken some pictures and been like, let's just replicate this. Yeah, possibly. I mean, actually, some people tried to do that, and it just didn't, like, take off. Yeah. When I had it at Ellen, some people flew in and heard about, you know, this woman who's doing this workout and this and that. But, you know, gut-wise, I felt, you know, Jerome grew up in Buffalo, you know, right in my backyard, which was very – I felt there were these signs.

58:24You know what I mean, guys? There were these signs that said, I don't know. I think, like, we're good. All right. So the Orange Theory gym opens, and you're not really allowed to go there much because they want to see if it's going to work. But presumably from day one, the idea was let's franchise this concept of Orange Theory. It was. And look, we felt even if we have one of these, two of these, three of these, let's just do the best we can with. And if, you know, that's all we have, then we have three fitness studios we share together. I mean, I remember those kind of conversations amongst us, which I think are important as opposed to sitting around a conference table and going, you know, let's, you know, these kind of bizarre expectations and you're maybe not paying attention to the important things.

59:08All right. So you have this first gem and the idea, and it's amazing to me that's just 2010. Here we are in 2023 at the time of this recording and we're talking about something just 13 years ago. but one of the ideas, I guess, is to bring in technology, right? Your concept exists. Your concept was there. It was like get your heart rate to one of these three zones, right? Like you want to be between 70 % and 90 % of your maximum heart rate for most of the exercise, for most of the hour, right? Yep. And so the concept was there, but there was no – you weren't like giving people heart rate monitors or measuring them.

59:48But these guys, your partners, they suggested, let's bring this technology into the studio. They did. And make that part of it. They did. They said, you know, listen, Ellen, you always talk about what you do not measure, you cannot improve. Yeah. What if we did that, you know, legit with everyone having heart rate monitors? So at that time, the only company out there was Polar that really was doing it. You strap it to your belly, I think, right? Yeah. So we started with them and the guys just really wanted to keep forging forward in this, that they felt that here's a real unique path and lane for us to not only the workout that you created, but having this valuable information that our members could have in regard to heart rate response.

1:00:32Yeah. And who is up there? With Peloton, there's leaderboards and you're competing against other cyclists. This is different, right? You're not competing necessarily against the other people in your class. No. Our emphasis is competing against your last best performance. You're only going to have so many people that are always on that leaderboard. We offer that. We put that on there for some people who like that. But our emphasis is working against yourself. And the model is not a membership model. Oh, it is. But it's not like you don't have to sign up for a year. It's like a month to month thing.

1:01:08Correct. Correct. I'm curious because it's a very – depending on where it is, an exercise gym can be very risky and isn't necessarily guaranteed to succeed. I mean I think lots of people listening have been to empty gyms, right, especially in areas where there's a lot of saturation. I mean, did anybody say, you know, there are a lot of gym concepts out there, like there's bar, there's this, there's that. You know, this is just risky. We were told constantly, don't do this. Don't put your own money in this. There's too much in fitness out there. Absolutely. We heard it over and over and over again.

1:01:48Yes. And that didn't scare you? You know what? Again, I think that they believed in me in regard to the workout, and we just agreed to reinvest. You know, they still had business in Massage Envy. I still owned Ellen's Ultimate Workout. So basically, we agreed as partners to put every bit of money coming in, invest it back into the company with heart rate monitoring and these types of things that would truly differentiate us. I think within 18 months, there were 12 Orange Theory studios. Were they all franchised? They were franchised, correct. And listen, in the beginning, it was a lot to work out.

1:02:36We had one in Arizona. We had, you know, most of them being built in Florida around us, which made it easier to control. Yeah. But from what I understand, the first few franchise units did not actually perform well. Like this was not going well initially. Like, what was the problem? Were they just not trained well? Yeah. I mean, you know, I think it was, you know, do we have the right partner who is the franchisee? And also, you know, some of our systems needed to be, you know, the three Ps we say are really what create great success in franchising. You have to have the right people, the right processes and the right program.

1:03:18Well, the right people is your franchisee, your staff, so it and so forth. The right program is like, again, the workout that I created. Well, the processes are the system. How are you checking people in? How are you following up with them? You know, those we needed to maybe tighten up a little. So we stopped franchising. franchising, we worked on our processes, we worked on the program, the training, this type of thing, and then we reopened the franchising concept. And that really worked well for us. Ellen, how did you guys, I mean, you'd gone from running this one gym and teaching classes, and then, you know, you had some employees, and so you were kind of overseeing it.

1:03:55But now, you've got a growing, you know, even with 10 or 15 or 20 franchises, it grew very quickly. your role changes. Now you are in a corporate setting. You're a part of the corporate executive team. Tell me how you guys divided up responsibilities. Did Dave and Jerome focus on the business and operations end and you focused on the branding side and being sort of a brand ambassador? So the three of us each have these great strength in our lanes. So I consider myself like the artist. So the artist is the one I created, right? The art of the workout. Then we see like Dave Long as the manager. He manages the business.

1:04:39He's the CEO. And Jerome is without a doubt an entrepreneur a thousand percent. His concern is how do we open up 10 more, 10 more, 10 more. But my intentions never changed from 50 years ago when I got in this business was I really had the desire to offer great fitness to people. And then the other half of that was to allow a fitness environment that a fitness professional who wanted to work in it could make a decent living. Those were two things that I often found lacked in the fitness industry. And that's why a lot of people got out of, you know, getting into fitness. It was like a side job. It wasn't like a career.

1:05:21So I love the fact there's more and more fitness professionals now I'm giving work to. Yeah. How did you, I mean, the growth of this business just exploded. Like you opened the first location in 2010, right? By 2014, so four years later, you've got almost 80 studios. By 2016, you have 400 studios in six countries and 40 states. I mean, that pace just seems totally nuts. It's just such a huge, explosive growth. I think, you know, did you up until this point, your whole life, you had a very clear way of living. You were teaching classes. You were running gyms. It was one location. That's what you did.

1:06:10Now, in your 50s, you completely changed the way you live and work and structure your time and your life. So how did you cope with that? Yeah, it's a lot. And especially now, I'm 67 years old. So it's a type of thing where I guess because this came to me late guy in my 50s, I spent many decades living a certain way. So I'm not really living much different. I have the same friends. I have the same circles, the same things that I do, this type of thing, if that makes any sense. Yeah. And it's interesting because a lot, I mean, there are some businesses that where the people start them when they're very young and they don't have any kids or mortgage.

1:06:48There's some businesses, of course, people start when they have kids and they make it work. And then you started this, your kid was already older. He didn't need you to like pack his lunches anymore. Exactly. He living on his own. He co-owns four Orange Theory Studios. He lives in Tennessee. He's got three kids. He's, yeah. Let me ask you about COVID. Right before COVID, I think you guys had about 1 ,200 studios in 22 countries. What happened during COVID? Yeah, no, COVID was horrible. We had 1 ,500 studios open and 1 ,500 studios closed. That just was devastating. We pivoted as quickly as we can to go to virtual.

1:07:29But that didn't really cover it. No, we just needed to do what best we could for our members and for our franchisees. You know, that was of our greatest concern. But what did you do during that time? How did you, I mean, you guys were probably in crisis mode. Was there ever a moment where you thought this is not going to, this isn't going to survive? I don't think that. But luckily, coming out of it, people do want to be in a studio concept or in a group concept. They don't want to exercise in front of their TV. And we have found that since 2021, we've increased our member base by 51 percent. And we just feel by the end of this year, you know, we'll be back pre-COVID.

1:08:19Yeah. But it's very tough. It breaks our heart because, you know, our franchisees are our business partners. And there was a lot of struggle going on. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is, I mean, today I think you've got how many locations? About 1 ,300? 1 ,500. 1 ,500. Okay. 23 countries. I mean, it's just remarkable, right? And this was not your intention or your goal or your expectation, but it made you rich like later in life, which is probably, I have to imagine, totally unexpected. Totally unexpected. Absolutely. And I would even say that when I'm teaching classes, I'm like, okay, guys, let's make it through our 70s, 80s, and hopefully maybe even 90s.

1:09:02You're still going to see me here. But what really excites me is this huge platform to be able to do what I had intentions doing 50 years ago. And maybe then I was only doing it for the group of 30 women in my class or the spa that I managed who maybe had 300 members, to have like a million individuals who have been touched by this workout and have made their life better. Listen, does it get much better? Yeah. By the way, do you ever teach classes anymore? You know, I just stopped before COVID. I was coaching right up to before COVID. And then I just really haven't gone back to actually coaching.

1:09:42So, yeah. Yeah. And do you take the classes yourself regularly or? Yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately, right now with the knee, I've got some things going on, but once I get my new knees, I'll be ready to go. And so how do you adjust for that? Because I think that's a big market. I think I think there's a huge untapped market of people who did run, did yoga, did pull out, did stuff, and then had hip replacements in their 50s, 60s, 70s. And there's no one who's really, like there's physical therapy, but there's no classes that are geared towards people like that. Yes, I was just talking about this.

1:10:18I talk about that 95-year-old woman in Colorado. Do you know that she joined mid-COVID the Colorado studio? And she sent me a picture with her mask on. She was taking class. I said, how are you doing this, Betty? Tell me, explain, what was your thinking? And she goes, I know all about what goes on with the heart and the lungs, and I've got to fight that now. So why would I not do this? So it's just, you know, an attitude. And I'd love to get out there more with people to say, give it a try. Yeah. I wonder, Ellen, when you think about what happened, because this was only the last 13 years of your life, right?

1:10:59It was like your life before, which was great. Like you've really built a great reputation and then life after. And what happened, the explosive growth of this concept and all the wealth it created and jobs and all these things. How much of that do you attribute to you, your hard work, your intelligence? And how much do you think has to do with just how lucky you got? You know, look, I definitely have been described as relentless. And, you know, I agree about a kind of a dog with a bone. And, you know. You don't let go. I really don't. And that, you know, may come from way back at my father. So whatever I'm doing, and it could be a menial thing, I'm going to do it at the best that I can do it.

1:11:43I'm an intentional learner. I was just listening to a webinar on how heart rate responds when you're on a bike, how it responds when you're on a treadmill, how it responds when you're on a rower. Just the other day, you know, my design team laughs at me at corporate. They're like, you'll never stop, will you? So intentional learning, I think absolutely being relentless was a big part of success. I think that, you know, many people are in jobs that they're miserable at. And what a thing that I'll contribute to my father as well. When I was in high school, I remember asking him, gee, dad, I don't know what to do.

1:12:16What do you think I should be? What should I take in college? And he looked at me and said, I don't care what you choose. I just want you to be passionate about it. He goes, because when you're passionate about something you do, you will always find work and you may find even a lot of money one day. Wasn't he brilliant with that advice way, way, way back then? That's Ellen Latham, creator and co-founder of Orange Theory Fitness. By the way, a few years ago, Ellen had the opportunity to honor her dad, Art Calandrelli, on the very football field where he spent much of his life coaching. He probably never made more than$50 ,000 a year and was the happiest man walking around day to day.

1:13:02And I was able to get the football field that he practiced years and years and played games on named after my father. So it's now the Art Calandrelli football stadium. And I give two scholarships every year to football players that would need it to go to college. And that's probably a major thing I'm proud of. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please do follow this show so you don't miss any new episodes on Apple Podcasts. Just click the plus sign at the top of the app. And on Spotify, just click the follow button. If you want to contact our team, our email address is hibt at id.wondery.com.

1:13:44If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at howibuiltthis and mine is at guyraz. And on Instagram, we're at howibuiltthis and I'm at guy.raz. This episode was produced by Alex Chung with music composed by Ramtin Erablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Sam Paulson and technical assistance from Patrick Murray. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, J.C. Howard, Carrie Thompson, Kira Joaquim, Elaine Coates, John Isabella, Chris Messini, and Carla Estevez. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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