The Hardest Year of My Life as a Founder Ollie Marchon | The Without Limits Podcast | S3EP.01

0:00Ollie Marchon:Hello, and welcome back to the Without Limits podcast. It's been nine months since we last released the episode. Those of you that are fans of the podcast will know that episode was shortly before Christmas. We took a break, and we intended to be back a lot sooner than we are, but we're back now. And this is episode one. We're going to do a recap of everything that's been going on over the last nine months. We will try and touch on as much relevant detail as possible, bring you up to speed with the word Marchon. And then we can look forward to future episodes with some of the episodes. another lot of amazing guests.

0:33Ollie Marchon:Without further ado, I am not the host, but Sam Lopez is. Well, technically he's still the host. Jumping as producer. Oh, nice. Nice title. So yeah, we're going to look at the last nine months. Do you remember where the business was at roughly when we did release that last episode? Do you know what? I actually don't. I know that a lot has changed between Christmas and out it feels like a fucking lifetime to be honest sammy yeah um yeah we wound down for christmas so much has happened in that time i couldn't tell you have you got any prompts there for me just to jog my memory we'll unpack it that'll be helpful i just wondered at first glance if there was anything that uh i mean when you started the year personally and for the business as well do you remember any of the goals that maybe you've set i remember coming into the new year with running being a big part of my identity um so building towards the london marathon i think was the first kind of big goal um i know that we were trying to build a big narrative around that um obviously me being one of the um more influential people within the business from like a social standpoint it was you know put that sub three target on ollie's back so we can do it uh we had a number of products that we obviously wanted to bring out in line with that as well we were moving into the endurance range within the supplement brand um we had our race kit coming out as well from an apparel standpoint um and also i think that probably the biggest thing on the horizon for the business was the uh starting to build on the next two gyms so bath being the first one victoria being the second one so i remember that's the first six months of the year being or particularly first three months being extremely busy um and we were trying to fight on all fronts which has been a bit of a narrative for us for a period of time now so the last nine months for myself i'd see whether you agree or not it's felt like a lot of change uh and a lot of we'll call it opportunities rather than struggles but there has been some struggles in you know all the different sections of the business we'll break down um the sections supplements gyms apparel and online training separately and we'll go through sort of what's happened in those sort of sections um what sort of the first question and so if you could distill the biggest lesson from the last nine months what would that be i mean is there an sort of overarching theme of the last nine months and what what it's been like for you as a founder in a business that's growing uh it's been tough i think look again we want we always want to be um as raw and honest as possible as a business you know not everyone's got it figured out and we don't profess to so i think we know where we're really strong and i think we know where there's areas that we're constantly going to be learning and for a lot of the things we've been doing is Untrodden Ground.

3:17Ollie Marchon:As a founder, bringing together the team, developing on that headcount, I think as we sit here today, we're around 45 to 50 employees. I should know that number exactly, but it's been, you know, in the last quarter alone, we've added another 10 people to the company. So when you are going through phases of rapid growth, and like I say, you're trying to fight across multiple different fronts, you're launching new gyms, you've got a new supplement lines coming out um and obviously a big part of our business is the app so it's you're constantly feeling as though you are you know jumping from one fire to put it out to the next um and i think if we're true truly honest with ourselves there's been areas where we haven't performed as well as we could have sometimes through no fault of our own sometimes through i just i think a lack of understanding of what it's really going to take to to deliver on the things we've said we're going to deliver on but i think i can't lack the effort that everyone's shown up with um and i think they've all been really good lessons and brought us closer and helped us focus on the things that are important so what do you think the again some of these answers might relate into some things we'll go into more detail in a little bit but what do you think the hardest challenge has been in the last nine months and how has it impacted your approach as a founder trying to run a fucking sub through amharic

4:31Ollie Marchon:um no i think that's obviously part of it like i think um i'm not a full-time athlete or anywhere close to a full-time athlete i probably get seven hours to eight hours training a weekend if i'm lucky maybe nine um but obviously a big part of who i profess to be is if i say i'm going to do something i'm going to make sure i do it and i um you know anything that i sort of set my mind to I I it has to take importance or it has to be up there in my priorities in which case I have to try and make space for it I have to give it some complete focus but I do think that you know for me fitness used to be um for a long period of time fitness used to be just about what it gave me in terms of my day and training at six or seven o 'clock in the morning I was never going through the motions but it was a time for a bit of like freedom before I started my day and just sort of serve myself first I do think that there's been times where I haven't had a goal And so that training has become a little bit too routine and not pushed me enough.

5:26Ollie Marchon:But I think this year the goal has been so, so big in terms of like stretching my capability that it's meant that those mornings have really had to be, you know, going pedal to the metal from the get go. So I certainly found that tough because that adds an extra bit of accountability in the morning. Like I said, it's been nine months now for me trying to slay that dragon and still not slayed. So that's been tough. And I think then at times I've been a bit of a passenger in work. Like I said, I'm slowly removed. Over time, you slowly remove yourself from the kind of epicenter of each one of those businesses because there's other people that kind of come in, you resource it and you add firepower to it.

6:03Ollie Marchon:And I think that means I'm slightly then further removed. And part of that is a bit of a struggle for me because I feel as though I don't have the control that I once had, which is a good thing for the business, but sometimes can leave me in a bit of a nomad's land in terms of what my role is and how I can influence and add value to an area of business. So I think those have been struggles, like I say, increasing headcounts of the business, the implications that then has on the kind of organisation, the roles and responsibilities and how we can keep people accountable. and also making sure that people can meet the standard that we set when we were a smaller team and everyone was an A player and making sure that people that have the potential to be an A player, they're given the kind of support and guidance and not kind of just left to figure it out themselves.

6:48Ollie Marchon:I think that's really important. I think there's been a fair amount of investment that we've made this year, bigger than ever before, which I think is the right thing for a bootstrap business year on year. You're trying to look at where do we deploy capital to take it to the next level. we spent circa a million pounds on on gyms in the first you know three months so with every decision now when they're at that kind of level there is a huge amount of risk associated with making sure that it works not only is that the initial investment but gyms now cost us some of our gyms cost us a hundred you know hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in rents and rates and everything else um and that weighed on me in the start of the year when you see that much money exiting the business you uh yeah it's squeaky bum time at times you know cash flow becomes more of a problem than it ever has been before particularly when it's coming in quick succession so i think it's a bit of a combination you know my own personal ambitions of what i was trying to do from a fitness standpoint um and i don't regret any of that like it's kept me accountable and it's kept me operating at a high level um decision making in the business like say the the risk and reward you have to you're constantly weighed up and i've made bigger decisions than ever before and then I think yeah bringing in more talent to the team making sure that they are able to embed themselves in we set them up for success and when you bring together all those businesses everyone can see from the same viewpoint comes a level of respect and trust of those around them and operates from a place of conviction and confidence in their own ability but also is vulnerable to the fact that they might not have all the answers.

8:17Ollie Marchon:Amazing so you mentioned just then about sort of not being as involved in every part of the business which is going to happen as we grow you'll have less communication with more people essentially what sort of conversations in the last nine months have you had with yourself or others privately that would help someone else going through a similar standpoint whether it's someone that has a staff of three to five or and they're starting to feel like they're losing a little bit the control that they had which is like you said is good but it does come like a slight weird feeling that as a business owner and a founder you're sort of letting go bits of your business for other people to take take the reins on i think you have to remove kind of emotion from a lot of it which i think is difficult in our business because of how tight-knit we are you know we often talk about the family that we've created um and i think at times in fact most of the time that's our superpower but equally if it then starts to become you know cloud people's judgment and how they should deal with a certain situation for fear of upsetting someone.

9:19Ollie Marchon:We need to be able to have, you know, grown up mature conversations around performance. So I think so long as, like I say, you set someone up for success, they clearly understand what they've been brought into the business and what they need to deliver on and you're able to manage their performance. I think that's super important. You know, I've fortunate enough that I got into a position now where I've been called the CEO founder, where I've then built a leadership team that can kind of look after then everyone beneath them. So for me, it's really been about just making sure that I'm able to constantly stay in communication and lead my leadership team, which I actually think in the last nine months I've been below par at times because of travel, because of, you know, family commitments, all that other stuff.

9:59Ollie Marchon:And it's, you know, sometimes probably being not leaning into the tough conversations when I need to try and have them for fear of upsetting certain individuals. But again, I think that's part of my maturity in growing as a leader. So in the last nine months of building the business, have there any, I'm sure there's been lots of times where discussions around strategy or pivoting or even sort of doubting assumptions that you've made around what the right call is? what what does the you know every is it monday that you have the senior leadership meeting obviously everyone that looks after all the verticals of the gym and of the business in one room and you go through goals and all that sort of thing what does that conversation look like in terms of your role of it and what that's looked like in the last nine months really for me that the monday morning is an opportunity for me to get my finger back on the pulse with each one of the businesses so we look at what's going on in the last seven days from the previous meeting And obviously we're going to peg that to, you know, hard data in terms of this different metrics that we're measuring across different businesses.

11:03Ollie Marchon:But we'll look at that data and that will get presented to me. And then each, it's an opportunity for each MD to kind of build a narrative of why we're seeing what we're seeing. And then for me to, and basically ask, you know, kind of, you know, what's going on in the business and distill that down to three to five points. I can obviously see the hard data in terms of like the numbers, like I said, the things that we're tracking. And then it's what are the challenges and what are the things that you need support with? and it gives me because like I say I play this role of being able to dive into an area of the business help someone unlock a constraint or bottleneck or create a solution or gives a different perspective and then sort of like jump out and jump into something else so understanding what the needs are from me from one of those leaders that week really helps me then prioritize my time and I think it's like I like to keep my diary quite fluid for the rest weeks so I can do those things.

11:49Ollie Marchon:It's just when there is contractors to speak to, um, which was, you know, for the first half of the year, it's all about building these gyms. And I was doing a lot of travel from Bath and London and negotiating with landlords. And there was a lot of legal stuff involved. We were looking at gyms in Manchester, probably getting a little bit carried away with ourselves. And so when I have all those kind of appointments in my diary, it becomes very then difficult for me to stay, you know, finger on the pulse with that. But that's primarily the kind of role of, of those Monday meetings. Um, And like I said, it just brings together these kind of cross-functional teams to understand if I'm operating in one area of the business, how does my area maybe impact that person's?

12:28Ollie Marchon:And can we start to draw some collaboration in ways in which we can work together to achieve a common goal? Amazing. So let's talk about the section of the business. So we start with supplements. Tell me a bit about what's been happening in supplements in the last nine months. it's been sometimes maybe good sometimes maybe shit to be honest nah that's a little bit too harsh it's been incredible I mean you know I speak so fondly of of the supplements team led by Lauren an incredible leader I think if you asked her team what would they give her out of 10 all of them would say 11 obviously that's backed up with Liam who's another expert in his field and we've been able to add more firepower to that team we've got Joe in sort of the customer experience we've added Katie and Alex and so that team is really building into a nice little unit I think we've probably been guilty of not really understanding well enough what global expansion had to take in terms of resource on people's time and energy I think we'd committed to launching between July August September into Australia Dubai and and the US and I think you know I've got to hold my hands up that I you know I fully got on board with that and drove that narrative is something that we could do um and I actually think you know if luck had gone our way and if we you know probably understood a couple more elements of it we'd have got it done but as ever like things you know things don't go to plan and I think that's something that we um yeah I think that's something it's just a learning a learning point it's been very frustrating and I think more so for the for our audiences and communities that are in those you know countries that I've made promises to and I haven't been able to keep them but it will happen and it's happening imminently I think as an aside to that Liam is so good at product formulation and we've really tried to move the needle in terms of the innovation of what our products are comprised of and the kind of solution they provide to people's nutrition strategies and we've tried to build out now this range across the lifestyle training and endurance and we're looking at ingredients that aren't easy to come by we're looking at formulations that have never never been done before and so the mpd process when you're trying to bring out the volume of products that we are has taken longer and like i say some of that stuff in fact most of that stuff is outside of our control um because suppliers and manufacturers aren't able to meet the timelines that initially we talked about so that's been a little bit frustrating because it means we haven't been able to bring the products out in the time frames in which we wanted to which then obviously impacts our um our pnls and um and the sort of targets that we set ourselves so i'd say that as like say it's been it's been some good and some bad what has been really good is the product continues to be market leading the feedback has been incredible the products that we have released have been really well received the community has been stronger than ever we're now um the kind of official stockist into also houses in the uk we're in over 500 gyms across the uk and ireland our wholesale numbers have never been as big as they have before so we've got real momentum and i do think we have to just be sensitive to the fact that that business is essentially in its in its second full year um because prior to that it was just me and john hitting and hoping most of the time what's the reasoning behind having the products be so well thought after when it comes to formulations etc right so as a business that's in supplements obviously there's lots of supplements companies out there today um some springing up in the last 12 months or 24 months whatever it is some have done some crazy numbers looking at you know just a small set of products or a basic range of products what why put so much time effort and resource and financials behind making the products different using different ingredients the research-backed ingredients all that sort of thing what's the reasoning from your personal standpoint and and what the team believes in that business around what that product looks like?

16:28Ollie Marchon:I think it's the shared values that we will have. I think, again, when the company's led by myself and Lauren and to a large degree Liam in terms of the direction we want to go, we're all people that have been in this industry for 15 plus years, grown up around fitness and the demands on your body that fitness has and then the different goals, particularly more recently around endurance endeavors. and so I think if we were going to do something we want to do something different we want to do it our way we don't just want to add to something that's already there I think when we look at the across the sector there is a number of different brands that you know that have a product or a tight line of skews and just have a media team that helps sell it and an influential person or people that are then on the front of these campaigns they don't actually have anyone behind that cares about what the product is you know an MPD team they don't go through rigorous forms of testing to prove that those products work um and then you've got the big larger corporates that have been around forever just where the products are all commoditized and it's just like cheap shit that they're able to sell because they can they've got distribution of volume um i don't really want any part in that because it's not very very you know very exciting moreover from a user like i want to make sure that the products we are taking have a particular use case and they taste great and also they improve athletic performance and so when we came into the space.

17:47I think if I gave Liam a brief that, you know, you don't have license to go out and find

17:51Ollie Marchon:the best ingredients on the planet, he wouldn't want to be here. And I think if I gave Lauren a brief to go, we're just going to do electrolytes. It's not very exciting. And we can be guilty at times of trying to do too many things at once, but equally we want to create a premium one-stop shop, you know, that covers everything, like I say, from a health and lifestyle perspective through to in-gym training, pre, post, during, and endurance. And I think we're well on our way there and we're going to get there so i think it's i think it's a values piece i think it's you know who do we want to serve and why are we doing this um and i think if we've got the ability to go and find the best ingredients and we can make a commercially viable product then that's our duty that we need to fulfill to make sure that we're actually you know delivering on who we are as a company so like we just talked about obviously the the market is quite crowded in supplementation um and we've talked about differentiating through you know people like yourself that live and breathe the products that you're making which is a big factor into why someone might choose a march on product over something else that they're trusted by piece is there anything else that you think in the last nine months we've developed in terms of supplements business that does differentiate us from other brands out there I think the key pieces are every one of our products is third-party lab tested.

19:10Ollie Marchon:So obviously many people will be familiar with banned substance testing to make sure that your products don't have banned substances in them. But what a lot of brands won't do is third-party lab testing. So if something says it's got 25 grams of X in it, this level of testing will prove within a certain threshold how much that has in it. Now, obviously, we've seen creatine gummies get bashed and there's a number of other things. And there's a reason most companies don't try and put creatine into a gummy, particularly that strength or that dose, because it's not possible. And so the third party lab testing was just so that everyone has complete confidence that if we're saying this amount of product is in this product, then you can guarantee that it is.

19:52Ollie Marchon:the other thing I'll say here is going back to these unique formulations some of them are actually quite simple but a lot of products will put a load of different ingredients in so they can market the fact that ingredients in there and for the user they don't really know any different just that maybe this all-in-one has all this stuff now we talk about efficacious doses all the time and making sure that whatever the dose is of the thing that we've put in it is there for a particular reason and it's giving you the dose in that serving that elicits the response that we need so So I think third-party lab testing is super important.

20:23Ollie Marchon:And then more recently, we've done the band substance testing. Now, this is something that we've always wanted to do. We didn't have a particular need at the time because when we were just working with powders, which is what our brand or our supplement range was predominantly, our manufacturer were on the Informed Sport manufacturing program. And so every powder that came through, every raw material that came through their manufacturer by default was absolutely fine. So that gave us confidence. and we weren't really trying to go after tested athletes. But more recently, over the last sort of three, four months, we've now had every one of our products, every SKU, every batch goes off to banned substance testing.

20:59Ollie Marchon:So now not only are we bringing premium products to the market, the best ingredients with the best formulations backed by all the science and rigorous testing that we've been doing internally. And part of that is bringing on Peter Tierney as well to help with user testing. You can also rest assured that we've got all the accreditations and proof to suggest that third-party lab testing has been done and the band substances. Amazing. What is the biggest lesson that you've learned personally over trying to grow the supplements business in the last nine months? Does anything stick out? I know there's been some big pains when it comes to use of your time and things that haven't gone right in terms of promising certain things.

21:42Obviously, we were in Australia. Dubai was on the list as well, like you mentioned. things like that not going right hasn't been easy right for you or the team to have to deal with the repercussions of that and then planning what's next what's sort of the biggest lesson

21:57Ollie Marchon:yeah i suppose it's like i need to be careful not to make it sound as it's been all doom and gloom because genuinely if i look back at where we are right now um fuck it wouldn't have suggested our wildest dreams would be where we are and um and i'm super super like excited and optimistic about where we're going to be and close the year out there's just been a few things i think when you hold yourself to such a high standard um and like i say we kind of speak something into existence we kind of expect it to happen and i think up until this year we'd kind of had a lot of the stuff we said we're going to happen you know actually happened um but i think the toughest thing none of it's really tough because i think the the beauty of our business and the people that sit around the table in that leadership meeting is everyone's got that founder energy everyone's got an energy where it's like fuck it we're just gonna fuck around and not fuck around and find out but we'll we'll make it work we'll run through that brick wall and see what beast is on the other side and we'll slay the beast and we'll keep moving forward and i think that's why um we're able to move at speed we're able to move out with with across those different businesses because everyone's kind of got that energy so i don't think anything's been particularly frustrating these are just usual um the usual downsides of of startup life um like i say when you're learning most things for the first time you're not going to get it right the first time every time i think the scariest thing or the biggest realisation and again I talked to this just a little while ago when you're a bootstrap business and you're not spending someone else's VC dollars on athletes certain marketing spend you're able to compress your margins so much and launch into retail and get all this visibility and these big PR moments where you're not actually making any money off the back of that that's not how we're building this business and so we have to be more pragmatic but the investments are still super scary because it you know like i said we launched two gyms it cost us a lot of money we're then making these orders on these skews and so the biggest lesson i think with supplements is just like the drain on cash at times and like how much you have to watch watch cash flow um to make sure that you're not flying too close to the line because that can become a problem so from your perspective i mean is not sort of supplements related in terms of the whole business what what makes you maybe hesitant is not the right word because it may be something you've considered but the the like you said some businesses do take a big pool of cash from investors and they they use it to explode growth or sometimes it doesn't work and they've spent a load of money and it's no longer a business anymore but why for march on do you think at the moment that money's not been looked for?

24:35Ollie Marchon:I ask myself all the time because you know sometimes I'll get sleepless nights but I'm not the person that's constraining the business to be able to you know grow grow faster there's probably a few things and I'll try and list them in a way that's succinct I think first principles are um a number of people my sister and brother being two of them but there are a number of others of people in the business that mean a hell of a lot to me And so managing the level of ambition for how big and fast I want to grow this thing with the fact that fundamentally some of those bigger decisions do influence other people and you make one wrong decision of that magnitude and it can all go tits up and we've seen the good, the bad and the ugly.

25:14Ollie Marchon:I think you only ever also see or hear the really good stories when you're looking at, like I say, on social media now, there's a number of different social channels that are news across the fitness industry. This brand's raised X, this brand's got this evaluation, whatever else. you never see the other you know nine out of those 10 businesses that go to zero and so that's not to say um i don't believe that we will be the one the one of yeah the one the 10 of that um 100 that i'm talking about but i also just don't think i think it's premature to go okay i need your help i need your money because i think there's um the people like i say the people around the table i think have the the capability and potential to take us to to a level and i don't think we've reached that level yet so I think that's one I think it's like say fundamentally what this business means to me um I'm not a growth or cost person because this business if you were to ask me what industry do you want to build this business in and what is that business going to represent we're building it right now and so I'm 37 years old I've got all the time in the world to keep wanting to build it so long as I'm building it in a way that is ambitious and exciting enough for the people around the table and everyone can live a good life then then we're in a good place when i feel as though we're getting to a place where we're maximizing our capability and our potential and the cash really becomes the limiting factor which it isn't right now then i'll you know be forced to go and take investment and i need to really understand why we're taking that taking that on i think the other bit is then the fact that you start to answer to different people and you're making decisions away from like your you know your real values um and i also think we're fortunate that we're in a business that does generate good cash flow because we've built it in a sustainable, profitable way.

26:52Ollie Marchon:And so we can still make the bets that we want to make. We can still make the investments we want to make at a rate that is ambitious, still means we're a market leader, still means we can kick it alongside all these other VC-backed companies. And I also think that the fact there are so many of them doing it now because they have to, because the businesses are built on weak foundations, our story becomes more powerful. How big of a difference do you think building the business that you have now with the community that's behind it is something that is maybe just exploded out of nowhere that doesn't have the the history of people that have backed you from the beginning does that make sense as a question perfect sense i think yeah because i think people that maybe have come across the brand more recently don't realize that it's a brand that's you know started a long time ago i think it's massive i think um i think it's massive and it's something that we will never take for granted.

27:48Ollie Marchon:The business started in 2016. And I think the people that have been along the journey ever since, I actually think that the reach of the brand necessarily hasn't, sometimes doesn't get the reach it deserves in terms of the eyeballs. The level of depth we now have with our users, it just gets deeper and deeper because I think we are a brand for the people. And I think everything that we go through in life, in your twenties and your thirties, forties, fifties, we will try and find a solution that's linked back to your health and fitness and longevity and the quality of our life. and I will go and seek out the expert that can bring that product or service to life and we'll bring it to the market in a place where you can trust that we've done the due diligence and we've done it to the best of our ability.

28:28Ollie Marchon:So yeah, I think that the fact that we have a bought-in community is a massive factor in our success right now. And I think, you know, with the recent track meet and things like that, people know that that's a big part of what we do. A lot of the stuff that we do, it's not for a return on the investment, it's to create better experiences for the people that are back to us. so obviously you've done a lot of travel this year in the last nine months um i've been with you on a couple of those occasions and there's always people that come up to you and tell you how their lives have changed through fitness or products that the company makes what does that feel like and what does it look like moving forward obviously you mentioned obviously community being a massive part of the business which it always has been um in the last nine months how much sort of growth have you seen in in the community what does it mean to me was the first bit and it means fucking every like it means everything and again this goes back to like the ambition it's like so long as i still have the fire in my belly like i'm excited to come to work which that fire in the belly is not even like i don't think that flames dimmed at all if anything the flame gets gets bigger and we're having the impact we're having and people really close to me are able to put food on their table and just like enjoy work then that's success for me like for right now um so means the world I was actually just down in Bath the last two days visiting that gym I think it's the first time I've been there for a number of months and I'd say a dozen members stopped me like they came up to me in multiple times one of them walked into into the office which you know is the staff office to tell me they've only been there two weeks but they'd actually found me on social media and how much it changed their life and they were you know it was incredible another one was there from the beginning again life changing couldn't leave without it i dropped into the gym first thing in the morning the next day all the 6 a.m as i just finished it it was about seven o 'clock all of them you know the same thing so you know whether it's that in this community that's so visceral and intimate like a bath gym where you like that's everything marching is right inside those four walls or it's the run club in bondi that we did very recently when we went out there for the marathon and um you know even even not in the Run Club walking along Bondi, people are stopping us.

30:34Ollie Marchon:It's incredible. And like I say, something I never take for granted, I probably don't reflect on much, but so, yeah, so sick. Amazing. Anything else you want to wrap up with supplements in the last nine months that we haven't talked through? I mean, I'm sure there's lots, but... Nothing really to wrap up. I think what people are going to see over the next quarter is all of the MPD, or most of the MPD, that should have been coming out in Q3 is going to start to rattle out some incredible products. genuinely exciting. I think what we've seen is a desire and consistency from the brand, from Liam, from Lauren to bring great products to the market.

31:17Ollie Marchon:And I think by the close of play this year, our range is going to be one of the most complete on the market in the UK. And I think as we move into next year, the stuff that we've got planned is incredible too. I can't really give too much away, but it's sick obviously the latest fuel bar launch happened we've got the pre-workout coming out very soon which is going to be that was one of our legacy products that we first launched with and I actually had to pull it because there was a bit of problem some for some reason one of the ingredients in that first pre-workout I don't know how the damp was getting into packaging but it started to go quite it used to like stick together and so I pulled that product and we never brought it back because I was I just didn't want a product like that out in the market and people buying it it was going wrong we've created a brand new pre-workout that's genuinely mind-blowing i've been using it for the last few strength sessions over the last couple of weeks and it's mind-blowing so really excited by that then i think it's wrapping up with a nod to the team you know like i said it's a skeleton team that punch well above their weight and um we're just getting started amazing to come on the supplement side um so up next gyms like you said uh a big focus for you in the last in the first few months of the year was the opening of the two gyms yeah those are both now completely open running member base flourishing um what can you speak to in the last nine months of what those gyms have looked like to build oh they're banging man banging i think like as a like separate the subs and the training everything else that i've gone on to maybe we've gone on to achieve back in the day i wanted to be i was a pt and i want that's all i wanted to be and then i went into owning a gym and then it was like can i can i have more than one gym kind of replicate what I've done in one gym in another and I kind of came out the gates after after COVID and opened Stratford without really thinking about what I was doing just being like impatient and wanting to get that open and Stratford have the most amazing community like these guys travel together they go on holiday together high rocks is around Europe, ATHX is turf games all that jazz there's a really good sophisticated group of great athletes in there and there's people that have trained for the first time.

33:16Ollie Marchon:So a sick community, but it is in the arse end of Stratford, if we're real about it. And there are some times where it's like Groundhog Day in terms of growing that gym. So I think like really it kind of dampened our confidence of like what role can the gyms play? But that being said, when we look at it objectively, there are a number of reasons why it is such, like I said, and I think we never really got the credit we deserved from a gym perspective until you go into London. and the opportunity to do something with Justin Noosey down in Bath was just like an opportunity we couldn't give up. So we've created two beautiful gyms.

33:52Ollie Marchon:Anyone that walks into Bath, please go to our gym. Anyone that goes into London, you need to go to Victoria too. So two beautiful gyms in amazing locations and amazing buildings. Bath has caught fire. I think we're at 230 members, which is wild. And Victoria is tracking above what we expected. I think it's provided another tangible experience for what the March on Brand represents for the communities themselves that sit within it for the members like like I said being in Bath the other day it's just visceral like what these things do for the community and like genuinely life-changing and I think that does get to like those terms get banded around so much but people come and tell me like to my face look at me in the eyes and like say this stuff and it's mental so it's been incredible and I think actually going back to other sort of first principles of why i wanted to start the business was about a career in fitness and future proofing um not only my career but those people around me in my peer group um so giving the opportunities to these coaches you know rachel relocating from harpen and down to bath paddy having another opportunity to start a gym over in victoria build a new team out and i could mention all the coaches that sit within those gyms equally the coaches at stratford and harping um you've now got a a team of coaches that sit across these different gyms that collaborate that challenge each other support each other um and then behind that there's circa a thousand members across those across those gyms that we get to you know change their lives on a daily basis so despite all the investment which like i say that was that was very tough at times to see that much money cut the business um particularly when you think about what you could have spent on and elsewhere uh wouldn't change anything and um i want to get closer to gyms over the next sort of six months to really get my finger on the pulse with which direction we take now in terms of the next ones because we've obviously talked about other locations and really understand where we're going to go next with it.

35:41I was going to ask you which section of the business you're most proud of but I feel like that's like asking a dad to pick their favorite child so I won't ask you that but is the gyms and the physical locations do they have a sort of a separate space in your heart because of like you said where where this business began with you Charlie Al in that small space even yourself when you were personal training having those four walls that has your name on it and you know it is yours is that going to continue to be a special thing for you i think they'll

36:11Ollie Marchon:always be the most special because like i say it's the most potent experience of what march on is like being inside that gym um well we just did a group workout today but i'll link like link back to this couple of days i just spent in barth up being inside those four walls you could tell me to do any task and I'm inside the four walls of a gym like wherever it is like it's just the environment it's the office it's just like you feel so I just feel so at home and when you see people coming and going and treating the place like they're home too and they're so obviously the people that are new to the gym don't necessarily feel that way but when the community's formed and it's been like there's a little bit of wear and tear and it's been worn a little bit and people are really comfortable in there it's fucking beautiful it become it really becomes that third space and i think that's like i said it's the most potent formal march on stands for talking to the piece you said there about um what's your favorite part of the business i don't have a favorite part but actually what was fucking sick yesterday was i was wearing a march on tank doing the march on app doing the train program in march on bath and then afterwards i drank a march on shake and it's not like i'm just drinking some white label protein and it's not like i'm just using some third party app on true coach that charlie's written a program on and it's not like i'm just training in some fucking bog standard gym like genuinely i'm getting the best of the best across all of those things and i can say that with confidence because i've traveled the world i've been to every great gym i've used every platform and i've probably drank most protein shakes like it's fucking up there and that was like fuck look what we've created and it's not me it's like i say it's the specialists that sit behind it that are thinking about that day in day out making that come to life i just got to experience it in 90 minutes where I just touched everything I was able to touch everything and everything touched me and I was like fuck that's sick and as someone who's um I think you'd agree not incredible at reflecting having a moment like that what what sort of things were you thinking about when you were looking back on you know where it started you know the things that you have now in terms of like you said those touch points that you'd experienced knowing that they're out there for everyone else as well yeah i think like i say the last three months have been tough uh from a performance standpoint for the business um seasonality of the fitness industry the rapid growth of the business fighting for focus and attention and whatever else so to have this moment as we go into q4 and i can say everything's now set up really for success when i'm training one of those gyms that launched that year it's got x amount of members and it was it was amazing the first time I've really this last two days or last three days this week sorry is the first time I've really sat down to focus on what the March on Training app is going to you know this new iteration where we're going into I've obviously been privy in a lot of the conversations and talking through the developments it's been going on for three four months now but to be able to touch and feel it and do a workout first workout first squats this year post marathon which again was like way more familiar for me and then to drink that protein shake in the brand new tub with the brand new packaging you realise that you fucking achieved a lot this year to your point I don't necessarily reflect on it as well as I should but at least I acknowledged it we'll take it what are the lessons in the last nine months for building those two gyms and the gyms that you have elsewhere in staff memberships or locations that maybe has surprised you has anything come out of the blue obviously you've been running gyms now for a number of years has anything changed this year in terms of that has surprised you just shout outs really i first give a shout out to mark to my good mate chris patterson for helping me project manage and deliver on those gyms i think um yeah anyone that's ever built a house or you know done an extension or done anything like you realize how fucking stressful it is and and um budgets can soon get thrown out the window so i think that's a very fortunate that my best mate is supporting me and helped me through that um i think what it does show you when you put gyms in in those locations are your people or everything and again whether it's a paddy or justin a catty at Brandon, a Deshaun or Rachel, you can list them all.

40:16Ollie Marchon:Making sure that you've got a great team. The amount of people that said to me in Bath how good the coaching team are. And I sort of take it for granted because, again, when we think about products and where March on started, we've always been about trying to find the world's best coaches. So I think what it shows, if you're trying to replicate something in a new market, you've got to have a key point of difference. You can't just go in and do the same thing. You shouldn't be going in and going, what are the other gyms charging? What are their models? how do I fit alongside that you need to be really confident in who you are and go in there and just run your own race um and let's not say we weren't guilty of looking at the market and what are our quote-unquote competitors doing but what's been very evident is us just being you know ruthlessly ourselves has been the thing that actually get given us the voice and the momentum we have but the people being the other you know big part of it um and yeah I just think like we're way more prepared now for how we launch a gym and then the sort of steps from you know six weeks out from launch launch day what the next bit looks like um so i think it's a bit more of a formality it's like i say it's just that the level in which we're operating now the level of investment has to be huge otherwise people aren't going to get a march and experience and if they're not getting a march experience why are we doing it amazing so last question i had about the gyms um i assume there's plans to keep scaling so in that case what do you think so far has been the recipe for maintaining brand values as we've scaled obviously like we talked about right at the start you're in less of the conversations nowadays than you were a few years ago or even a year ago when it comes to the gym supplements everything like that how do you maintain i'm assuming you're going to say the people but also a little bit deeper how do we continue to find the people that align with the brand values?

42:08And how do you maintain that while growing the gyms? Yeah, I mean, you said you're a shumonger,

42:15Ollie Marchon:I'm going to say the people. I'm going to say the people. You look at all of those gyms, Paddy, Liam, Justin, treat the place like it's their own. And so we have to try and always find those superstars that really believe in the vision and we're able to support them for everything they, in everything they want to achieve financially, professionally, personally. but it all starts with that it all starts with that head coach like they set the standard they set the culture they hold the standard and ultimately they're the ones responsible then for the people that work in that day to day so I think those four characters I mentioned are critical I think also their sort of assistant coaches are super critical as well we've just been very lucky that we're attracting great coaches more recently Jamie and Freya again brilliant people I had the fortunate job of interviewing those and making sure they're the right people for us um and you know we've really found some diamonds there so i think it always starts with the coaches i think i also think it's like knowing what your identity is the style of training how you communicate with your members and making sure that you're attracting the right people into it because the community then become a real driving force for the success of that gym they're telling their friends you know they're hanging around afterwards they're bringing everything together um so i think starts with the you know obviously the internal team and then the people that you're attracting and I think like I say right now like there's a level of preparation and understanding that we've got through nine plus years of of delivering on gyms so that area of the business for me is the one that I'm probably most confident in because we can do it like the back of our hand it's just making sure that if we when we do future gyms we're putting it in the right place and we're doing it for the right reasons because it's very easy for me knowing that I can make gyms successful probably anywhere in the country just to go and open loads of gyms but the payback period it is ag a lot of the time um they're not simple businesses to run from a commercial standpoint there's more opportunity elsewhere so it's just making sure that i don't go and take the easy option what is your personal viewpoint on why people want to work for you um like you mentioned all the superstars in the business i have to agree i've never worked in a business so many people who dedicate all of their time to wanting to improve the experience of members or the products that we're putting out and it's on behalf of the business right what makes march on and yourself something that people gravitate towards wanting to be a part of I don't really like saying what like what what makes me something but I think I'm about it like I think that I think that helps I think when I when I look at people that I want to associate with or be around it's again it's like a value exchange or if I'm not there yet it's somewhere someone that's kind of they've got the the characteristics that I want to try and emulate and so maybe it's that like I'm about it I'm dependable I'm consistent I'll I'll I'll be there for them I think the vision is is something that people get can get excited about I think that everyone that comes into and like I say everyone else that sits in around the table are an extension of those things and actually add to it so they're you know where I could maybe be more of something um someone else sort of covers that as well so again when you're looking like a team dynamic a high performing team the people that are influential across the team although I might sit at the top figuratively um they're all again adding to the attractiveness of why you would want to come and work here but i genuinely think when people come to work here probably because we're a fitness brand that has gyms and training programs and supplementation people become you know people start to reach their potential because they're training more they're thinking about fitness more they're thinking about supplementation more they start to follow liam and get a better understanding of nutrition they'll follow the coaches and get a band of sunday training they're in a business that that nine times out of ten approaches everything from a place of optimism and can do attitude attitude and so that's quite infectious and you start to problem solve more and you know you look at things glass half full rather than half empty so it's obviously an extension of me but like i say i think everyone else adds to that um and i think that's something that over the last three months it's really been something i've had to focus on protecting because truthfully like as we look through this next phase of growth there's a number of systems and processes and ways of working that you have to start to adopt that are a little bit more corporate because like I say you have to professionalise the business particularly with the headcount that we've got but it's making sure we don't lose that uniqueness where everyone every morning fire in the belly run through brick walls we just need to make sure that the walls we're running through are the right ones now and not making sure we're not running through ones just for the sake of it but again something I'll never take for granted the level of talent and the work rate that everyone holds inside this, this company.

47:11Amazing. So to wrap up, where's the, where's the next gym?

47:16Ollie Marchon:I think if it was down to me, UK wise, I'll go Manchester. Overseas, like probably Dubai would be my, my first choice just because it's a home way from home. I'd love to do Sydney or somewhere in Australia. Truthfully, the fucking rents are wild. I don't know how any gym survives. So it's a bit mental and it's the other side of the world. And I think that is something that took going back to like what makes you March for Gym Special is how do we control, how do we influence that product when we're so remote? But a big focus of where I want the brands to focus between now and 2030 is the US. Like that really excites me.

47:57Ollie Marchon:But we're leading with the supplements and the training before we consider a gym. Okay. More to come on the gym front. so moving on to apparel talk to me about what's happened in the last nine months with the apparel business this is going to be a short section I think sometimes guilty of yeah again guilty of doing too much and I think the apparel is something where I'm very happy with the where we've got to in terms of our manufacturers and suppliers You know, we're in some of the best in the world. And some of the biggest brands that are household names are in those factories as well. So that's really cool.

48:41Ollie Marchon:Again, it's a lack of understanding from me the time it takes to deliver a product. I think that's something that we have become where we've fallen short. That's an area of the business that hasn't been resourced properly, like every other area of the business. So again, I'll talk to this one, probably one last time. every area of the business has a specialist uh multiple specialists that are delivering day in day out apparel has no one it's got me and john uh with support of lawrence and and fran over time um and so where we've gone gone gone wrong is like we'll release a heavyweight cotton tracksuit in fucking summer um you know we'll create a running capsule for the london marathon and we missed the london marathon by two months um we will do a restock of t-shirts t-shirts but because we're now talking about all the other as the brands like we won't be able to land the t-shirts as well as we wanted to in terms of our marketing and then we're sitting on inventory for a period of time so um we have some great products grateful for people that buy them and that rock them i see it out in places and it's and it's sick i think people are confident in the product now and what we can bring to market.