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Joe Vennare: These Companies Are the Future of Fitness (Podcast)

Written by David Tao
Last updated on November 11th, 2024

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Today we’re talking to Joe Vennare, co-founder of Fitt and the mind behind Fitt Insider, one of the fitness industries leading platforms for the business of fitness. Joe’s also a former gym owner and passionate writer in the space. 

Joe lives at a unique intersection of fitness business and practice. That means everything from breaking news on digital health & fitness, connecting investors with startups in the space, and highlighting what his team things are the next big things to impact how wellness-conscious consumers live our lives. In today’s episode, we talk about the future of working out at home, how COVID-19 will have lasting impacts on the fitness landscape, and the next billion — or even trillion — dollar opportunities in health.

Watch our interview on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/Bnrl_Dqetgc

On this episode of The BarBend Podcast, host David Thomas Tao talks to Joe Vennare about:

  • Joe’s company — Fitt — and the Fitt Insider vertical covering the business of fitness (2:24)
  • Why the “business of fitness” is such a hot topic for content, and what Joe tries to bring to the community (7:35)
  • How fitness tech is carrying over to the strength community (10:20)
  • The companies who are innovating in strength tech (12:00)
  • The gym authenticity that connected fitness might never crack (14:10)
  • Fitness super-users and the great question of willpower (17:00)
  • The most surprising business moments in fitness, and the sheer size of opportunity in the space (18:50)
  • Big opportunities for wellness innovation (21:48)
  • How COVID-19 will impact brick & mortar gyms (23:40)

Relevant links and further reading:

Transcription

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

There will be a tipping point where it’s like, how do you actually crack the code of adherence, willpower, and behavior change to affect a broad swath of people? That’s what I’m most excited about.

David TaoDavid Tao

Welcome to the “BarBend Podcast,” where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches, and minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao, and this podcast is presented by BarBend.com.

 

Today, I’m talking to Joe Vennare, co-founder of Fitt — that’s F-I-T-T — and the man behind Fitt Insider, one of the fitness industry’s leading platforms for the business of fitness.

 

Joe is also a former gym owner and passionate writer in the space. Joe lives at a unique intersection of fitness business and practice. That means everything from breaking news on digital health and fitness to connecting investors with startups in the space, and highlighting what his team thinks are the next big things to impact how wellness-conscious consumers live our lives.

 

In today’s episode, we talk about the future of working out at home, how COVID-19 will have lasting impacts on the fitness landscape, and the next billion or even trillion-dollar opportunities in health.

 

Also, I want to take a second to say we’re incredibly thankful that you listen to this podcast. If you haven’t already, be sure to leave a rating and review of the “BarBend Podcast” in your app of choice.

 

I’d also recommend subscribing to the “BarBend Newsletter” to stay up to date on all things strength. Just go to barbend.com/newsletter to start becoming the smartest person in your gym today. Now, let’s get to it.

 

Joe Vennare, thank you so much for joining us. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing you for quite some time. It’s almost a decade now, I think when we were both starting off in fitness content online, but in the past few years, you and your brother have developed a niche within a niche. We’ve called that within the fitness space, through Fitt, F-I-T-T.

 

You cover in many ways the business of fitness. What is this industry doing? What does it look like? How is technology factoring in? If you don’t mind, for those who might not know, give us the elevator pitch for Fitt and the kind of things you all cover.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Definitely. Fitt.co, what you mentioned, is basically a discovery platform for health and fitness content. A few years back, we saw the opportunity around Eater, Thrillist, and Infatuation.

 

A lot of these sites that basically tell people where they can go to a bar, get a burger nearby. There’s really nothing like that for fitness, so we created that for gyms and studios, juice bars, hiking trails, things of that nature.

 

We’ve taken it from one city to 30 cities. Scaled that business up along the way to be able to do some bookings, so now you can find that yoga studio, in another time when yoga studios are open.

 

You could register for classes. Mindbody — who’s a big booking platform in that space — is an investor. We’re working with them to pilot booking in a bigger way. When it comes to the business of fitness and wellness, we also have a vertical newsletter and podcast called “Fitt Insider.”

 

That’s really focused on what’s happening, really, in a quick-evolving, fast-evolving industry. We really target it towards the investors, the entrepreneurs, and the founders, who are doing everything from connected fitness, to wearables, to just wellness more broadly. Try to cover it all.

David TaoDavid Tao

One thing I’ll warn readers of…This isn’t a warning. This is a celebration. There’s going to be some inside baseball here. This is a podcast where you’re going to learn about how the fitness industry really works behind the scenes, from the business side of things. That’s something I’m really going to pick your brain on Joe.

 

I do want to back it up just a little bit. It’s Fitt.co. It was originally Fittsburgh, correct? Because you started off in just that one city of Pittsburgh.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Man, taking it way back. It hasn’t been that long, but yes. I’m from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’m based there. I’m there now. We started just as a hobby. David, as you mentioned, to begin with, I was doing a lot of writing across the web, on all types of health and fitness content.

 

As a side project, a hobby almost, my brother and I said, “Hey, why don’t we post some of these things that we see, and come across ourselves in Pittsburgh, just for people to see?”

 

Farmers markets, run routes, where you might go on a hike, hidden swimming holes and things like that. People really seem to like it. From the time that it was a black and gold, Fittsburgh site till now, it’s evolved quite a bit. Now, we dropped the burgh and it’s just Fitt. Very humble beginnings and no intention of doing what we’ve done to this point.

David TaoDavid Tao

That was your Facebook to just Facebook moment. Drop the burgh.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Exactly. Yeah.

David TaoDavid Tao

[laughs] It seemed like there was a moment, because you mentioned you have investors, Mindbody is one of your investors. You did raise a round of funding. As someone who’s done that before, I know there is a moment where it’s like, “Oh. Oh, we’re doing this now. This is for real now.”

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah.

David TaoDavid Tao

When was that moment? About when were you like, “OK. This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to go all at this. We’re going to make Fitt.co a thing.”?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

 I think there were really two things. That’s a great question. The first was when people started coming to us and saying, “Hey, how do we do this in our city?” Friends that have maybe moved away, or people that I went to college with or had worked with in the industry, were like, “Why don’t you do this in Boston or New York, or Cleveland or Portland or wherever?”

 

We thought, “Wow. Maybe there is an appetite for this beyond just a side project.” At that time, maybe passive advertising revenue to the extent that exists. That gave us the, “Hey, why don’t we try to do this?” We actually took some of our own money, and bootstrapped it from that first city to call it five cities.

 

Then at that point, we were able to sign on some pretty big partners — UPMC Health Plan, which is a big insurance company here in the region — as well as some of the sports teams. The first group of investors were actually the family that owns the Pittsburgh Pirates.

 

They were our angel pre-seed funding. Last fall, we did what is a typical institutional round, Mountain State Capital, which is a VC firm, and then Mindbody joined as well.

David TaoDavid Tao

Great. Now, the thing I want to focus on more is, obviously, Fitt.co is a booking platform. Something that I’m sure we could talk ad nauseam about the complications of that, given the COVID-19 pandemic and how it’s changed things.

 

One thing I really want to focus on, that I think is thriving right now, and it really is of interest to me and potentially our readers, is the vertical where you cover the business of fitness and how fitness is changing.

 

I love following you on Twitter. I subscribe to the newsletter. I love hearing what you all push out. I saw it first through you all. I’m not sure if you officially broke it, but Lululemon acquiring Mirror — the connected, at-home fitness company — for $500 million.

 

I saw that on your Twitter feed. Got your newsletter blast about it. You’re really on the cutting edge of covering these things. Why did you decide to open up this vertical? It’s only tangentially related to the original core business of Fitt.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

The idea, initially, was totally self-serving, to be honest.

 

We looked at the initial platform and said, “Hey, we need to get partnerships. We need to get advertisers. We need to get API integration. We’re relatively nobody in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so how is it that we’re going to get to these folks, without just cold-calling them or leveraging our existing network? Let’s create really compelling content.”

 

That started just about a year ago at this point. It’s grown rather quickly in terms of the demand and appetite for it. From there, when we started to see like, “Hey, people are really enjoying this.”

 

Then, we looked at the industry in terms of who’s covering it in detail. You see, there’s really old-school players. Maybe a club industry, or a health and club racket industry, newsletter.

David TaoDavid Tao

They all have health club racket something, and I’m biased. I’ve actually spoken at some events…

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah, they’re great.

David TaoDavid Tao

They’re great. It’s just the names seem like they’re a bit from a bygone era.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah. You very much got that vibe, that it was big box gyms that they were focused on, how do you operate a health club? All of that, which is great. We can talk about how the landscape is shifting.

 

On the flip side, the only other thing that existed was, every now and then, Fast Company would write about Telecon, or they would write about SoulCycle, or whatever the big, popping name brand was.

 

We thought, “Wow. We have a lot of insights with operators, investors, executives who are really deep in the weeds. Maybe we can land somewhere in the middle, to give people who are just interested in the consumer aspects some insights. Then operators, some really in-depth insider baseball — like you mentioned — info to help them with their careers and network.

David TaoDavid Tao

I do want to clarify, because people who are listening to this podcast…It’s a “BarBend” podcast. We write strength training news content, strength sports. Strength is our thing.

 

What you’re covering is the broader realm of fitness, but it’s still very relevant to the strength community. I want to emphasize that because it’s not just, Peloton, the at-home stationary bike, right?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Right.

David TaoDavid Tao

It’s company like Mirror, like Tonal, which we’ve actually reviewed on BarBend. Things that are relevant to strength training at home, the connectedness of strength training, being very data-oriented, quantified self. Things that may not be impacting the average powerlifting gym right now. That technology certainly has a carryover to the strength training space.

 

It’s something that, if it’s not already impacting your life, immediately, it will be soon. We have strength athletes with whoop bands during competitions. These are things that are relevant to the strength community.

 

What are some of the companies that you have covered, that you think are most relevant to strength athletes right now? If they’re not super relevant to strength athletes right now, should probably be on their radar moving forward.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

100 percent. I’ll start super close to home. Rogue. When you look at Rogue and what they’ve been able to do in transforming the landscape, scaling up their business, especially how it relates to COVID-19.

 

Now, with the…whatever controversy you call it at CrossFit, them stepping into the industry and potentially having a more leadership role if that continues to evolve. That’s huge. They’re going to continue to define that landscape.

 

As you go down that path, someone who’s closely related to the CrossFit industry is OPEX. OPEX, obviously, training a lot of the athletes at the games. A good buddy of mine, who also has some Pittsburgh roots, Jim Crowell, who used to be the CEO at OPEX, talked to him on our podcast.

David TaoDavid Tao

We’ve had James Fitzgerald on our podcast as well. It’s a cool thing, what they built there and a lot of roots, way old school in the CrossFit community.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

100 percent. What I take pride in is being able to take these things that are central to the landscape, as consumers might know it or as different athletes or exercisers know it, and relate it to some of the new evolutions that are coming out.

 

More specifically, you mentioned Whoop. Will Ahmed over there as the CEO, doing some really innovative stuff. Certainly, a lot of cross-fitters are using that, a lot of strength athletes are using that.

 

More recently, you have companies like Tempo, which is a Mirror competitor. Mirror being this interactive LED screen that you can get personal training, group fitness classes from. They focus a lot on no weights. Tempo actually comes with weights, I think it’s close to 200 pounds. A barbell and some dumbbells that you can do the strength training along with it.

 

Leading the way with that innovation is Tonal. Tonal is, think of it as, the Peloton of strength training. They come in white-glove service, affixed it to your wall. They use magnets and levers that move up and down to generate force. I think over 250 pounds of force.

 

Recently introduced 17 sensors that track form range of motion and positioning, giving real-time feedback for that at-home exerciser, who’s interested in strength training.

David TaoDavid Tao

We had a Tonal setup in the BarBend gym for a bit. We reviewed the product and I was a little surprised. I saw it coming in, and I’d seen mirror before and I was like, “I’m a pretty strong guy. This isn’t going to be too much of a challenge.” Anyone who can tell you though, it can be humbling.

 

The fact that a lot of these systems…it could be Tonal, it could be Tempo. I’d want to say broadly, that I think they’re doing a really good job of saying, “OK. Where are people’s goals when it comes to strength? Are we delivering an experience that can replicate the feeling of being in a gym?”

 

It’s not just the fact that people want results. People enjoy their workouts, they do this because they enjoy the training.

 

If consumers aren’t getting that feeling, if they’re not feeling like they worked out or they had some resistance, it’s not going to go over too well. It’s cool to see what people are doing with these setups, when it comes to the experience of working out, not just the results-oriented aspects.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Listen, as much as this stuff is cool and there’s a lot of hype around it. When you look at Peloton, which is a multi-billion-dollar company, Tonal was reported to be raising upwards of $200 million right now. That round hasn’t closed, but that’s what people are talking about.

 

I have a gym set up. I have bumper plates, I have kettlebells, I have a dumbbell, I have the full-blown CrossFit setup. I’m fortunate enough to have the space to do that. That’s what I love.

 

I don’t think I could get into purely relying on an at-home connected fitness device. For people who don’t have the space, maybe they live in a small apartment and this is all that they have. Especially in a time now where you’re talking about a pandemic, where gyms are closed, that’s where you’re seeing this surge of sales and interest in these devices.

David TaoDavid Tao

You even mentioned the classic garage gym setup that you have. I live in New York City, so I don’t quite have that space. I do have my sets of kettlebells and dumbbells and my steel base at home and these things I use.

 

I was thinking of this in preparation for our conversation today. I was swinging my kettlebell earlier this week, one of my kettlebells, and I was, you know what, this seems really old school. This seems like something that is the least technologically advanced.

 

10 years from now, am I going to be swinging the same kettlebell with that same cast iron or — depending on if it’s a competition bell — stainless steel finish? There’s going to be a chip in there and an accelerometer and it’s going to be a connected kettlebell.

 

I’m still getting that same experience, but then I can get on the app after and track my force output or something like that. Is there a way to transfer that old school experience with new connectivity?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah. Quite frankly, those things exist. There are some early stages. There’s a company called Jacks, that is a kettlebell that does some of this stuff. I do believe yeah, we’ll continue to see it evolve. People will track it, they will gamify it and they will measure progress and range of motion.

 

A big thing that’s happening right now is how do you translate…especially for strength training. This is dangerous, potentially, if you don’t know what you’re doing and there is a learning curve.

 

When you have somebody like Tonal, what they’re saying is “We’re reinventing the system of strength training to make it not reliant on — you have to have a personal trainer, you have to go to a physical location to do this.”

 

There’s even a conversation, I talked to the CEO of Tonal on the podcast and he said, “Hey, you know, we might open physical locations, not just showrooms, where you can come in and work with a personal trainer, learn how to use the equipment and then use yours at home as well,” which I think is smart.

 

At the end of the day, the thing that nobody has been able to crack — at least to this point — is willpower.

 

You still have to swing the kettlebell. There is an element of behavior change that comes along with it, to the extent that the industry is growing and people are buying these devices.

 

A lot of it is marketing. A lot of it is building a brand around this aspirational product and some social signaling that might come along with having these different devices.

 

The people — at least right now — who were going to find a way to exercise anyway, would go run in the park, would do push-ups outside, are the people that are buying these and using these, because they want the next latest and greatest thing.

 

There will be a tipping point where it’s how do you crack the code of adherence, willpower and behavior change to affect a broad swath of people. That’s what I’m most excited about.

David TaoDavid Tao

I got to say, is that something that we’re going to see roll out from Fitt in the near future?

 

You’re a willpower coach or your product is willpower, commoditized willpower.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

If I could do that, it’d be much different conversation. We’d be probably standing on — much like Peloton — the floors of NASDAQ ringing the bell and changing the world. If I get that out, we can break it on the podcast. [laughs]

David TaoDavid Tao

You let me know. I’ll be the first investor in that. We’ll get some funds together.

 

I want to chat a little bit about…You’ve been in the fitness industry for a long time. As far as the vertical of fitness, covering the business of fitness, it’s just over a year old, but you’ve had perspective for much longer.

 

We all have these surprise points, or at least I can point to these surprise points, where I’ve been surprised about the business of fitness and how valuable it is, could be monetary value acquisition.

 

Lululemon’s acquisition of Mirror for $500 million recently — we’re not even two weeks removed from that announcement — surprised a lot of people though, like, “Wow, that is a huge acquisition.” Mirror was a company that had raised a lot of money. They saw themselves having that high valuation. To some, it was a surprise, to some, it was not a shock, right?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Right.

David TaoDavid Tao

Do you have that moment or those moments that come to mind, where you were surprised by whether it’s the value of a company that they’re raising at, or that they’re acquired at? Or it could be when someone announces, like, “Hey, we have this many customers now, and we’re touching this many lives.”

 

What kind of metrics have started surprising you, or do you remember that stick out to you, since you’ve been covering the business of fitness?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah, probably a few things. Just to give listeners some context, when you’re talking about the health club industry — the brick and mortar gym industry — in the United States, it’s like $30 billion a year. More broadly, when you think about the wellness industry — everything that goes along with taking care of yourself — it’s a $4.5 trillion global industry.

David TaoDavid Tao

Whoa.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

[laughs] Yeah. Getting into a lot of those numbers, those things really surprised me as we started going down the path of like, “Do we want to create this vertical, and is there enough to cover broadly?”

 

There’s been a change over more recently. Call it in the last, probably, 30 years, where people have the luxury of taking care of themselves, of spending money on not only their personal wellbeing, going to the gym, but everything from skin cream, to supplements, to vitamins, to vacations that are all geared around wellbeing and wellness more broadly.

 

When you start to look at those things, this is a huge part of our lives. As we focus on doing that, it’s only projected to grow, going into the future. When you look at things like Peloton raising hundreds of millions of dollars before they went public, and even at this point they have a million users. 1.8 million users, they were going on their last earnings call.

 

That’s still such a small piece of the population. When you think about all the people just in the United States, it’s a fraction. You look at companies like, maybe an Aaptiv, which is an audio training app. More recently, they said they have 250,000 members. 250,000 members out of all the people in the world that could be running, which is their main focus.

 

There’s still so much room to grow. I think about it the inverse of…These numbers are massive now, but as it relates to all the people that could be using it, wow, there’s so much more room and upside in that industry.

David TaoDavid Tao

We’ve talked a little bit about connected strength training, and how that’s something that’s we’re still in the nascent stages, when it comes to connectivity and strength training.

 

You’ve mentioned Peloton, you’ve mentioned Aaptiv, and you’ve mentioned the fact that no one’s cracked the motivational code just yet. What other verticals within fitness or even recovery, we could call that, or nutrition — that’s something you’ve been tweeting about a lot. What are those next have sub-verticals within wellness that you think are ripe for innovation that we’re going to start seeing innovation within the next 5, 10 years?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Man, we could go all day. [laughs] How much time do we have?

David TaoDavid Tao

This is the Pandora’s box question. [laughs]

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

There’s a lot of cool stuff that I’m excited about. One area, potentially, is what we’ve classified as the high-performance lifestyle. This transition between what is fitness and what is personalized healthcare. You see companies like Eight Sleep, which is the mattress optimizing and tracking your sleep. Obviously, the Oura Ring, which is the wearable.

 

You have companies like Levels, which is a continuous glucose monitor that tells you how your body reacts to different foods that you eat and if there’s glucose spikes. All of these different companies, Hyperice, which is a recovery device, much like the Theragun, and all these things that are…How many devices and gadgets can one person have for recovery or performance or optimization?

 

It goes back to that point that people are willing to spend anything that makes them feel better. If it can make them feel better in the end, they’re going to throw down some money on it.

 

It’s this evolution of not just fitness but what does personalized wellbeing mean to me? What are the products and services?

 

You can even go further down that path and you get telemedicine companies like Roman or hims & hers, who are giving you the things that you want, based on some level of personalization, some level of telemedicine, and convenience. All down this path of how do we make it more accessible and convenient for the end user?

David TaoDavid Tao

That was a much more eloquent summation of that than I could have even dreamed of. I have all these follow-up questions, but I’m actually going to move ahead because I don’t want to harp on that too much.

 

You really summed it up. You summed up those categories well and where we might expect innovation in those categories and the subcategories.

 

Changing that a little bit. Let’s bring it to today.

 

Not looking necessarily 5 and 10 years ahead. Maybe looking one year ahead. Maybe looking six months ahead. The COVID-19 pandemic. Something you and I have chatted about online a little bit.

 

How it’s impacting everything from the CrossFit world to home fitness. I want to talk about the brick and mortar gyms. I want to talk about this gigantic elephant in the room. The question that I’ve been asked.

 

Literally, I get asked every week. I’m not the expert on this. I cover strength sports content, journalism and training at BarBend. I am not the expert on the economics of big box gyms.

 

A question I get asked literally every week at least once is, “Hey, what percentage of gyms do you think aren’t going to make it out of this? What percentage of gyms in New York City aren’t going to reopen?”

 

I literally got a text message yesterday about that. It’s going to be different based on states, based on reopening protocols obviously.

 

What are some of your high level thoughts on the impact that COVID-19 will ultimately have on the landscape of physical gym locations?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

It’s going to be pretty devastating, I think. I am not in the camp that thinks this is the gym apocalypse. That this is the end of gyms and we’re not going to have working out in person.

 

I just think there’s too much to be gained from the community, from the environment. I used to own a CrossFit gym. I’m a former affiliate owner and trainer.

 

I know what it’s like to have that community and to build that from the ground up. I don’t think that you can replicate that at home with any device short of creating an entirely VR world. That’s far off in the future, right?

David TaoDavid Tao

Yeah. Like a ready player one for fitness, right?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah. I’m not in that camp either that thinks that’s around the corner. Just on the gym memberships alone, I read something the other day was the industry can expect to lose $10 billion in value through the end of the year just on memberships to traditional health clubs.

 

There’s no way around it. It’s just like restaurants. It’s just like any business that relies on somebody coming through the door. What you will see is one, it comes down to a lot.

 

Is it a big brand name gym that has the financial backing of investors who are willing to get them through this period? You see companies like Planet Fitness who’s doing pretty well considering that everything’s closed.

 

While 24 Hour Fitness is in bankruptcy. Gold’s Gym is in bankruptcy. Just got bought out of bankruptcy yesterday. Other gyms like Town Sports International who’s considering bankruptcy. They’re just going to restructure.

 

They’re going to go through this process of closing some locations. Laying people off and coming back potentially stronger than they were. That game is a little bit different because it’s a real estate game.

 

A lot of them they own these locations. It’s what is the value of this real estate is over the long-term. On the flip side of that, when you look at a lot of CrossFit and boutique studios and yoga studios.

 

A lot of them are mom-and-pop shops. They’re just people who are super passionate about what they’re doing. They’re month to month. They’re day-to-day in terms of their paycheck.

 

If they can’t get in a position where either they work with their landlord to come to some type of agreement that we’re going to suspend payments, work with their staff to furlough them, and hope to bring them back on the other side of it, it’s going to be tough sledding.

 

That’s where we’re going to see a lot of the closures. Is on that smaller sole proprietor or small group owned places.

David TaoDavid Tao

Now, local to Pittsburgh. Is this something you’ve been talking with local independent gym owners a lot about?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah. Pittsburgh is probably a little bit different in that it is more affordable here. It’s not the rents of New York City or a big city.

 

Also, being that it’s like a smaller town, everybody knows everybody so that to the extent that we can be supportive of the different gym owners, we will be. I know this is not isolated to Pittsburgh but renting out equipment, renting bikes, renting barbells and weights with the expectation that we’re returning them when we get back.

 

Those types of agreements. Doing outdoor workouts in the parks and in the parking lots. Just being able to keep you informed as to what’s happening. Given that, there wasn’t a mass exodus in Pittsburgh. We didn’t have the levels, the surges that other cities have seen.

 

Everybody’s still here. We’re still able to interact to some extent, compared to other larger markets. When you get to somewhere like New York, people have left the city. They’re not staying there. If they are, they’re not going outside to the extent that they were, let alone going to a gym.

 

Even here, there are people who are feeling the squeeze. It’s when I start talking to folks, who, even have some — what could be considered name brand — gyms and studios and chains. They’re just like, “We don’t know what we’re going to do. If our investors aren’t willing to float us during this period, if we can’t come to some type of agreement with our landlords, like we’re really stuck here.”

David TaoDavid Tao

Joe, we just scratched the surface on topics that I know you all cover in Fitt, on Fitt.co, and I guess it’s the “Insider” vertical, where it covers the business of fitness, which is a fantastic subscriber. I would highly recommend people do it. We’ll link to it in the podcast description under the corresponding post on BarBend.com.

 

Beyond that, where’s the best place for people to follow the work you’re doing? It could be on the subscription and access model of Fitt, or the side of covering the business of fitness?

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah. I think the Insider.Fitt.co is where folks can learn about the newsletter. There’s also a corresponding podcast. I’m on Twitter. I try [laughs] to keep the content coming out there, as well as maintaining the day to day. Just @JoeVennare, my name.

 

Otherwise, just super willing to connect. Eager to engage with folks who are interested in this space, and be helpful in any way we can.

David TaoDavid Tao

Awesome. We’ll include all those relevant links. Joe, I really do appreciate your time chatting about something a little different on the “BarBend Podcast” today. Thanks for joining us.

Joe VennareJoe Vennare

Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity.

About David Tao

BarBend's Co-Founder and CEO, David is a veteran of the health & fitness industry, with nearly a decade of experience building and running editorial teams in the space. He also serves as a color commentator for both National and International weightlifting competitions, many through USA Weightlifting.

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BarBend

BarBend is an independent website. The views expressed on this site may come from individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the view of BarBend or any other organization. BarBend is the Official Media Partner of USA Weightlifting.