011: Pitching Shark Tank with Sarah Apgar

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Hello friends. I am thrilled to introduce you today to Sarah Apgar. So Sarah is the founder of Fit Fighter, a way of life that makes you mission ready. I originally found out about Sarah when she burst onto my TV screen in a fabulous red jumper on Shark Tank within her two minute pitch. I was just blown away. My jaw was on the ground. She's an Iraq veteran, Princeton grad, got her MBA at Dartmouth, volunteer firefighter, mom of two and super badass founder and CEO of Fit Fighter. And Sarah, I've been watching Shark Tank since the earliest days and you are one of the most fantastic, fabulous, powerful, dynamic pitches that I've ever seen on the show. So I'm just thrilled to be chatting today. And that was even before I found out that we had a mutual friend, Dorie Clark. So welcome to the show and shout out dc.

Yes, echo that and thank you so much. I'm so psyched to be here.

So you went into Shark Tank pitching asking for 250k for 15% and spoiler alert in case you watch the pitch, Sarah came out with 25% investment from Daniel Lubetzky. So I'm working backward a little bit. But I would love to know Sarah, how did you even think about approaching this Shark Tank pitch. And were you happy with the results because 25% is a lot of your company to give up to a partner.

Yeah. So it's sort of, you know, when you, when you start with the end and sort of the end of this pitch, it just brings back these waves of memories of the couple of months beforehand when I was going through the process. I had received this phone call at the end of May of 2020 from the shark Tank producers saying that they wanted to feature Fit Fighter on the show. And of course, you know, starting from that moment, you know, that's the sort of pinch me moment, you know, where you wonder if you're dreaming or, you know, if you're on candid camera and eight weeks of interviews and submitting business documentation and really considering, you know, how this is going to feel in reality and how you want to walk, you know, what's your end in mind when you walk in? There is sort of something that percolated for quite some time for me, and what I decided is that given the state of the world at the time, which of course I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about, but 2020 and having sort of gone on this roller coaster of launching the company in 2019 and then really pivoting from a B2B strategy of working with trainers, coaches, gyms, academies and team settings, pivoting 90 degrees into the direct to consumer market as a new fitness brand. You can imagine this was a bit of a Hail Mary moment for the company. And so what I had decided walking in there is that unless I was given an offer that was really something that as a founder, I couldn't stomach, something like purchasing the company or something that.

I could not, both from a business standpoint and sort of psychological and philosophical standpoint that I couldn't stomach that I was going to walk away with a new partner if that was someone who I felt like was a great strategic partner for me, for the company. So that is a decision that I had made walking in. And from that standpoint, I'm thrilled with the result and couldn't be happier with the partner in Daniel Abetzky that I have, because the mission alignment is so strong. And for me, this was, this was really, this is a move that is really not about 25% equity for 250k. You have to think about the value of this opportunity in a completely different way than if you were raising a seed round just in a boardroom from a different kind of partner. So I'll sort of, you Know, pause there. But that, that gives you a sense of sort of my mindset going in and the, the way that I really framed this experience for myself as a CEO and as someone who had just been through the wringer during a very difficult time and came out the other side on a rocket ship to grow the vision that I started with.

It's just wild hearing you talk about pivoting as you needed to into this Hail Mary of direct to consumer and then getting called by Shark Tank that they, those producers called you and invited you to the show. I want to come back to getting mission ready for your pitch. But in terms of once you get an offer from one of the sharks, how do they structure? So have you met with Daniel at all since you were on Shark Tank? How do they set that up as an ongoing relationship once you do have a partner?

Yeah. So once you, once you've had the entertainment version of what is otherwise.

A standard business partnership, strategic partnership that links the two companies together, really, this is what ensues after that was really what you'd expect from bringing on a strategic investor into your company in any other way. And so that's been really, really very special because once we sort of came out of the limelight, we, you know, had our initial conversation about a week later with Daniel and his team and started the process of due diligence the way that you would with any other investor. And that due diligence process allowed us to get to know each other, get to know our teams and who's behind the scenes and start to build that personal relationship that's really more of a marriage than anything else. And so that was a time when I got to really confirm for myself what I had perceived when we had this conversation in the pitch, which is that Daniel is a great person and a great partner for me and for Fit Fighter, you know, him being the founder of Kindbars and you know, the various other, both nonprofit and for profit pursuits, you know, in his own life as an entrepreneur, are so aligned with my own and my own philosophies and my own vision for the impact that we can have with mission driven companies, profit companies. And so we, we've developed a personal relationship. We now are on the phone once a month, both personally, one on one, and also with his team. And we're building that long term relationship. So it's very exciting and I'm actually loving this period of time now a few months later, because finally we're, we're off that tidal wave a little bit. Right. We're off of that sort of moment of drowning, coming out of that limelight and off that TV screen and into what, what I'm excited for, which is laying the foundation and the infrastructure for the future of the company.

Yeah, I love, I love Daniel and his mission of kind bars. And it sounds too like you have this vision of reaching millions of Americans. Like your vision is so big and inspiring. And it's funny to describe the post Shark Tank as a tidal wave. It's like you go into the tank and then come out on a tidal wave. Especially in your case because your business is fitness related. And actually I want you to tell us about the Fit Fighter in a moment. For anyone who has not been graced by this wonderful pitch you mentioned due diligence. I know that that involves a ton of paperwork and getting to know the intricacies of your business in a way that even if you're the founder and CEO, you don't always have top of mind. And so I could imagine the diligence, the due diligence and sort of prep that you had to do going in must have been really intense because I always think about when you're watching these pitches and the Sharks are throwing all these questions out, I don't know if you're allowed to have notes or a teleprompter. I know you mentioned it was about 45 minutes in the tank for a seven minute segment. But like how do you have all these numbers off the top of your head and just ready to go and then even in doing the due diligence afterward, it's, it's intense. So I would just love to hear your process of data gathering and making sure that you are ready for anything they had to throw at you.

Yeah, that's, it's so interesting because I think some people, you know, Shark Tank makes it seem, does a really amazing job of making it seem like you've. There are, you know, overnight successes and then, and then these sort of epic failures, right. Depending on how they, they've edited in the particular segment. And really the, you know, I'm, I'm here to tell you that there's definitely that, that tried and true equation of commitment plus rehearsal plus sort of dogged, you know, perseverance, plus really studying your audience plus a little bit of luck, of course in the end about how things play out are what ultimately led to the success. I mean, for the 30 days prior to the pitch itself, I, I was on a really regimented schedule. Day after day after I put my entire being and really set aside Huge other priorities in the company to focus on this moment, focus on this pitch because of the stakes. And this is meaningful, I think, in the sense of how we think about as CEOs and as founders, how we think about our priorities and how we think about leadership of the company at any given time. Because it's going to be this roller coaster of all of these different phases and chapters. And for this chapter, for me, you know, this, this was okay. I have, you know, again, sort of eight weeks from the time of that initial phone call and really four weeks from the time of feeling like we had confirmed this date of the pitch and that I knew it was going to happen and that I was day over day going to do 90 minutes. And in the morning I would do a meditation to start off my day and to really set my frame of mind. I would then do 90 minutes of pitch practice, start to finish. So literally 90 minutes of just that to that initial two minute pitch, over and, and over, practicing portions of it, practicing on video, playing back the video, and then I would do 90 minutes of question and answer practice. So we had actually a very diligent process of reviewing all of the aspects of the business that we'd be asked about during the pitch, which is something of course, again that you would do in a boardroom as well. Just a little bit of a different animal when you're in Sony Studios, but looking through all those categories of questions about your capital strategy, about your sales and about your business model and about the ultimate sort of the long term enterprise value of your company and all these things you're going to be asked about and really practice that through. I role played with friends and family advisory board members. With friends, I made phone calls and sort of just had off the cuff discussions. You know, I placed myself into all of these different contexts and environments and with different people and then really played that tape out as it would be in the pitch. And you know, I think that knowing that there was that two minutes at the beginning that I had, that that was my chance to crush it because I knew they weren't going to interrupt that two minutes. I felt like, okay, I'm going to really nail that. And then with everything else, I'm just going to do my best to be as prepared as possible, but I'm not necessarily going to memorize or rehearse specific answers to a specific question that may never be asked, but more to just feel prepared and to work a lot on that confidence and that mindset piece because that's in the end, you Know your business like the back of your hand. You know, you know it black and white. And you're the only one, you know, who has that, that sort of beautiful kind of, that sort of crystal ball. And so ultimately that's the advantage you have. It's really more about the mindset to walk in there with the confidence to have a conversation about your. And answer the questions thrown at you in ways that you can really communicate your vision and ultimately convince someone to share it.

And were you happy with how your two minutes turned out?

I was, I was happy. I cr. I mean, absolutely crushed it. Like, you know, you crushed it, you crushed it.

And not only. I just want listeners to know that Fit Fighter is a three foot piece of recycled fire hose filled with, I don't know if it's still wet sand or if it's other materials. What is it filled with now?

No, it's filled with steel and it's always steel. Steel is a very important, is a very important element of the, of the, of the product itself is that, that, that's why it's called the steel hose, because that's actually that, that structure that it, that semi rigid structure that the flowing steel gives it is completely different from the structure of any other, you know, sand or grit or, you know, anything else. So that's actually a very, that the steel itself is a very important part of the, the, the sort. Founding and sort of the beauty of this magic wand.

Indeed, a magic wand. So what I was getting at is that your pitch was not just you looking, sounding fabulous, radiant, brilliant, but you were also working out basically.

Because you were like throwing this thing around and you just, you know, they always say show, not tell. And there you were with your like ripping. I mean, sorry to be like creepy because normally I wouldn't comment on what you were wearing, but it's like your outfit was fabulous at the same time that you're like super cut while doing the Fit Fighter, while giving this pitch and your incredible background. And it was just, I think jaws dropped across America. Like, who is this woman? And then Robert Herjavec even said, he said, and I quote, you are one of the most impressive human beings we've ever seen.

Amazing. So I would say you nailed your two minutes.

Yeah, man. So funny to think back right to the hymn and like the big moment with, with Cuban before the commercial, you know, with the, with the you need help moment. It was so great. I mean, so interesting to see the, the, the pitch become sort of its entertainment, you know, take on its sort of Entertainment form. But yes, I mean, thank you. I definitely felt like that that's, that's sort of what shows that, you know, that's entirely about that preparation. I mean, 90 minutes a day for 30 days. Right. For those two minutes and, and I knew I was ready. I walked out there feeling, you know what, I, if nothing else, I'm going to walk out here and I'm just going to rock for two minutes and just absolutely nail this part. And if in the end this doesn't work out and walk out of here unsuccessful, I've done every. You want to know that you've left it all out there in the field.

I love hearing too how diligently you practiced. And.

It'S so fascinating to think about those 90 minutes repeated every single day, plus time after that later in the day. I'm sure you'd be mulling over then it would kind of sink into your subconscious later in the evening after that and maybe while you're sleeping. And you know, there was just so much effort that you put into those two minutes and you made that tidal wave. You created that tidal wave by putting all this preparation in prior to ever stepping on stage.

Yeah, I think that, you know, as I said, I think that it's so interesting. We all have our strengths. We all have our strengths and our limitations as leaders and as CEOs of our companies. And you know, it's interesting to think in the end, while I never necessarily imagined that this is how we would ultimately launch our direct to consumer brand, because whoever quite imagines that, you know, that this is like how you're going to do it, but in the end. Absolutely. You know, one of, I mean, one of my strengths absolutely is just is performing and one of my strengths is building confidence and sort of using those, all of those experiences from the military, from collegiate athletics, from gosh, our times as parents and moms, to the volunteer fire service work, to my Warby Parker career and sort of all of these things add up ultimately to these huge moments. And these are just. These moments, one after the next, are opportunities for us to really leverage our strengths and to do our best to bolster our limitations with the people who we have around us and the support network and everything you've created.

As you founded your company and as you're growing your vision. And I think of Shark Tank a lot as a reflection of just this beautiful moment where I was able to leverage a strength and no question my limitations also shined as well. Some of the conversation that you saw as more of those sort of pithy, like pre commercial entertainment moments. Absolutely. There's this reality where as founders and leaders.

This is sort of the first couple years of any company is entirely about figuring out how to prioritize and how to focus on the growth strategy for your company and how to pivot where you need to and how to really put your energy and resources into the things that, that matter the most. So I just, I think that this Shark Tank experience, when I reflect on it, is this, this just this beautiful sort of culmination of the first two years of my experience as a founder and of Fit Fighters, you know, ultimately FIT Fighters founding story. And so I'm just, so, I'm so very grateful for that and what has come of it and how it has planted our feet firmly on the ground to grow into the next billion dollar health and wellness brand.

Ooh.

I love it. I love it. We'll be right back just after this.

Yeah, you mentioned so many great things in there, but one being a culmination. And I don't even think I knew about Warby Parker in your background, but just this. When I wrote Pivot, a lot of people said, especially mid career, they said, it feels like my whole life and career has been preparing me for this. And when you describe your experience in the military, time in athletics, being a parent, working at Warby Parker, like the education, the schooling, being a volunteer firefighter, it's as if everything in your career has been preparing you for this, for founding Fit Fighter and then it's sort of like the perfect tool of our times, you know, health and wellness, like do this from anywhere. And I love how you just described Shark Tank being this marker of a launchpad. I mean, it's just the beginning for you. You mentioned growth strategy and I'm curious. So it sounds like you have very big ambitions of billion dollar health and fitness company. How do you think about growth strategy? And is there a Goldilocks size for you in terms of your operations? Like do you want to just grow as big as you can grow to meet the demand and reach millions of households, or do you have a sweet spot of the operations and team that you want to manage?

Yeah, and this, listen, this is still absolutely, you know, this is evolving as we come off of this experience, recognizing in our success after Shark Tank, I mean we had, in 12 weeks time, we had a million dollars in sales coming off of the Shark Tank experience. And I think what that showed us, you know, almost 10,000 new members of our steelhose family, new steelhose owners and users and then a thousand members of our online community, Fit Fighter Life. And so, you know, what that showed us is that here we were, you know, less than two years into the birth of this company, having started with this, this business to business strategy of trickling down, you know, from the top of the pyramid, from the strength and conditioning, community training, community coaching, community gyms so that people would start to see the steel hose and see the fit fighter training philosophy and everything that I stand for, and that we stand for in our mission of preparing you for your everyday, whatever that is for you. And here we were putting steel hoses into people's living rooms. This brand new, completely novel free weight and strength training tool born in the firehouse, was being slid under people's couches, hung on their wall, next to their TV in their basement gym. And you know, this was, this was everything that I was looking for and imagining in terms of our ability to put a steel hose into the hands of millions and hopefully billions of people and have them benefit from it, have them see this beautiful value in completely reimagining what strength means for them. That strength does not mean a 45 minute fitness class that you squeeze into your everyday, you know, so that then you can grab a shower and go on with the rest of your sedentary lifestyle or sort of, you know, that there's this sort of thing that you carve out called fitness or called, you know, whatever it is sort of in your life. But actually that weaving strength and weaving readiness back into our everyday lives as a principle, as a concept that we live with and that we're confident about and that is serving ultimately, you know, our ultimate purpose in whatever we're doing. Caring for our families, being great professionals, you know, being confident members and productive members of our communities. I mean, this is ultimately what Fit Fighter is about. And I think this stretching experience and this launch, this sort of incredible shot from a canon, you know, launch and, and now this trajectory we're on has really showed me that we, we can reach for the stars. We do have something special. We are reinventing the way that people think about fitness and strength, ultimately their strength in their life. And that's very, very special. I do believe in that. I do believe that we have the opportunity to use this, as I like to call this deal hose, this little magic wand to then share with people a much, much bigger idea about how to transform their lives. And I've watched it happen before my eyes. I mean, the feedback. I'm in touch with customers every week by email, by phone. We Randomly cold. Call our customers and talk with them all around the country right now so I can get a sense of who's joined us and how we're impacting them. And I hear people, I hear the disabled veterans with nerve damage who are benefiting from the great grip, the nice soft grip of a steel hose. I hear prenatal and postnatal moms who are trying to keep that core strength as they either prepare to have a baby or just have. And they're trying to regain their strength and stability. Teenaged athletes, professional athletes. We just hosted Matt McCreen on our Steelcast launching Friday, talking about how his unique need for mobility and stability as an NFL kicker. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And so I truly believe that every person from the age of 8 to 80 we can impact with this. Not just a great training tool, but truly a new philosophy about how they think about their strength. And I just. What an incredibly special and powerful thing to sort of watch happening and unfold before our eyes.

Oh, it is just so incredible. To hear you describe. Makes me wonder, so how did the idea first come to you? Do you feel like it came in an aha, flash of insight or intuition or did this, like, how did you know that you were onto something that ended up to be so versatile that it could support people at all these different stages of life and from 8 to 80 and, you know, fit under the couch? Like, what gave you this insight to even create it?

Yeah. So this is, I think, my favorite question so far amongst all of the other, of course, super fun questions about, you know, Shark Tank and the stage and the pitch. But what I love about talking about that the real slow baker founding story of FIT Fighter is that I think people think sometimes I sort of set out to create, you know, the, the, the sort of biggest new idea in, you know, fitness training tool or in fitness equipment and that I'm here, you know, total. Again, spoiler alert. I mean, I'm here to say, like, that's definitely not where we started. Where this entire project started was five years ago when I joined the volunteer fire service. And I just was trying to solve a simple problem, which is that I had recognized this chasm between the strength training and the movement training that was happening in the gym setting and in our skills drills in the truck bays. And anytime we were sort of working on that strength and conditioning for our work was just. It wasn't a reflection of ultimately the way we moved and the requirements of the job on the fire ground. And I just set out to close that gap, to develop training that would just make our team and our firefighters just realize the connection between the strength and condition they were doing, the movement training, the grip strength, the mobility, the joint mobility, all of these components of our health and our strength and how that was connected to their success in doing the job and the feeling they were more prepared to do it. And so it was during that time when we started to tinker around with tools in the firehouse, and the idea of creating a tool that would mimic this lifeline of the fire ground, this charged fire hose, ultimately used to flow water and to, you know, to do our job, sort of came about and it was very organic. And ultimately I ended up sitting in my garage for a couple of years just making steel hoses, teaching myself how to sew, tinkering, as you've noted, with, you know, these different filler materials that would do the best job of mimicking a charged fire hose. And so that was the original mission that I was on. And then what started to happen over time is that I started to have just other people outside the firehouse just raise their eyebrows as to what I was doing. They would see us out in the, you know, on the truck ramp or out in the backyard of the firehouse doing this training, and they realized that what we were doing was training the fundamentals that anybody ultimately needs for whether they're a lacrosse player or whether they were one of their personal training clients, someone who maybe they brought, you know, to their fit body boot camp. So I started to have these trainers and coaches come to me and say, hey, can we try this? Can we try out these tools? Can you give us a couple seal hoses? And, you know, we're very interested. And that's when it started to very slowly and organically dawn on me that we, we maybe had a much bigger idea than I ever imagined and that we had from, from a deliberate sort of problem solving viewpoint, we had actually created something that had applications, you know, beyond my wildest dreams. And it is ultimately the simplicity of the design and the project and that painstaking few years I took refining it and developing it and figuring out what the dimensions were and what size hose I wanted to use and what the perfect steel was for the inside that ultimately have created that beauty and that simplicity that gives us all of those applications. So that's a mouthful about sort of, you know, founding story and where we came from, but also some commentary on product design and development, on the importance of open minded innovation, listening to people, to your customers, getting out There hearing and listening to people talk about your product and your service and sort of what it could be for them and what ultimately they value, because that's turned into things that even in the past six months, since we finally put this into thousands and thousands of hands, we also didn't realize the power of. There's been this beautiful evolution in realizing that safety in and of itself. The fact that the hoses are a nylon polyester, you know, soft on the outside, semi rigid on the inside, means they're not going to scratch your wood floors. It means you can slide them under the couch, they're easy to store, they're safe to put in your trunk, you can have toddlers around. You know, they're safe for your family. And there's no other strength training tool. Think about dumbbells, kettlebells, medicine ball, hard rubber, hard steel, right? These tools are dangerous. You know, ultimately they sort of. That's why they've taken on this sort of like, oh, I'm going to put this in my garage gym or my basement gym room. Right. And so you can't weave them so much into the fabric of your everyday life in the way that the steel hose sort of symbolically lets us to do. So anyway, again, sorry, mouthful, but hopefully some interesting commentary.

I love it. And now you can add the garage lore to your founding story as so many startups.

That's right, the Apple Garage.

Yeah, the Google Garage Garage, Exactly. You have your garage story. I just think it's incredible. First of all, you are incredible and joining as a volunteer firefighter, but in hindsight to realize that even firefighters didn't really have a way to mimic a charged hose. Like, these are the things that they're only obvious looking backward, but looking back, we can say, how on earth was that the case? How are you going to train for a job? And it kind of took you, a volunteer firefighter who came in from the outside with your outside experiences, to note that gap in training functionally for the job you would actually be doing. It's just so interesting. And then, yes, end up designing this super elegant. I think that was what was so compelling on Shark Tank. We're all watching you throw this thing around. We're like, what is this?

And yet it's so versatile and powerful. I just love it. So as you look to the future, I mean, tell us like, well, actually, okay, before we wrap up, I'm also curious. So you develop this slowly in your garage and then when the pandemic hit, I think for so many of us who ran A business were like, don't even make me go back to March 2020. I don't want to remember it. Like, I don't want to think about it. It was so stressful. What was going through your mind that month and the month following as all of your B2B customers had to shut down and close shop? Like, were you, what was your mindset and approach to pivoting to B2C in those moments?

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm sure that our community listening probably has, you know, everyone has their story about, about that moment a year ago. And for us, you know, you know, it's interesting is that people, I think sometimes when they look back and they reflect and they sort of say, oh, this must have been, you know, for you, this must have been a time that was actually very fruitful because, you know, so many people turn to home fitness and, and so many people needed ways now that gyms were shut down to strength train at home. But what this is a great lesson in is that time for us was devastating because I had built the company and the strategy and everything about it. The way I had capitalized the company with friends and family funding as our way to launch it, the way I had developed the product as a set for pros that was ideal for studios and for gym chains and personal trainers. And everything we had designed was different strategically from the idea that all of a sudden we had this great home fitness equipment and home fitness, a product and training. So I think people, that's something great to acknowledge that. I understand why people think that. But actually for us, I mean, we didn't have good brand recognition yet. Nobody knew who we were, nobody knew what a steel hose is. And this is a completely novel invention in our industry. And so in a very muddy industry and a crowded space, it was actually a huge struggle. Yes, we got some eyeballs on, you know, once we launched our Instagram lives and you know, we started to, you know, get some at cost steel hoses out into folks hand through our trainer community that I'm affiliated with. But this, this was pushing a boulder up the hill the same way that so many companies and, and small businesses in particular had to do during that time when we all had to figure out how to pivot. And so what was going through my head is, I'm not sure we're going to make it. I mean, listen, I'm the first to say that I am the eternal optimist. I wake up with rose colored goggles on every day. I don't think you become a founder of this kind of business unless you do that, because they're so day after day, it's such a roller coaster. But I really did feel like that time, there were times I would come into the factory, into my studio, and I would sort of stare at the blank wall and think, I'm not sure what to do next. You know, we don't have a lot of capital. We haven't launched this as a direct to consumer brand. We're not set up that way. What am I going to do next? And so it was just trudging, you know, dragging that anchor through the mud, trudging, putting one foot in front of the other and, you know, ultimately to get to the other side of that, you know, that valley of death. And so that's really, that's what we did for months on end. I had a couple of really incredible, beautiful teammates with me. Very small at the time, you know, only three, really three to four of us full time working on the company, and that includes my machinists, you know, making the steel hoses. And so we trudged through. And so my story, you know, the fit fighter story during the pandemic was actually quite similar in those early months to any other company, you know, that struggled with that upheaval of the world. And then it was really that time in the summer when again, we had this really extraordinary sort of lightning in a bottle moment and opportunity. And it was very clear that that was one to seize and put every ounce of my energy into that.

How did the producers find you, speaking of which, because that seems so fortuitous that they contacted you. Do you know how they found out about you?

Well, they, I mean, I think they have a very. They have a very robust, you know, they, I think at this time, you know, now they're looking at thousands and thousands of companies every year, you know, to feature on the show. I mean, there's lots of different ways you can, you can ultimately, I think, apply for, you know, you can submit an online application, you can go to a public casting call. You know, they, they can reach out directly. There's lots of different ways to sort of get your, you know, to, to get your sort of 60 seconds of. To connect with the Shark Tank folks. So I think they found us because we had, we had, you know, great. We had a great novel, interesting, unique and different product that they had never seen before. They loved the story, I think the founding story, we. A beautiful founding story video which you can see now on our homepage, just that described some of the elements we talked about today. And so I think those elements came together into what felt to them like something that was worthy of a few minutes in the limelight. So I'm very grateful that they did.

Yeah, just beautiful. And to have pivoted your company and come through that really tough time of not knowing you're going to make it and then this kind of reward on the other side, not that you, you know, the reward is keeping the company alive, but this is icing on the cake and as you described it, lightning in a bottle. Sarah, the last question that I like to ask everyone for this show is if you could give fellow business owners permission to drop something, think about something differently, any kind of permission, what would it be?

Oh my gosh. I think, I hope I'm answering this question the way that you want. I would say that you, you need to, I give you permission to be the most curious person that you know and don't try to be perfect. I think that we have a tendency to feel like we need to, to be someone that we aren't. And it doesn't mean that we don't need to learn, be constantly learning and be constantly becoming better leaders and striving every day, day in and day out to be the best possible leader and founder and CEO that we can and ultimately recognize what that perfect role is for us. But I think there is also this incredible personal burden that we place on ourselves to try to also be the perfect founder and be the perfect leader and the perfect CEO. And that's, I think, ultimately a good recipe for a lot of anxiety and a lot of feelings of self doubt. And so ultimately I think the permission to just be curious and be sort of doggedly and stubbornly and persistently curious, but not feel the need to be perfect.

I love that and I love thinking. I've never thought about curiosity as the antidote to perfectionism. That's so good. Permission to be curious. And where do you want to send listeners to learn more about what you're up to?

Yay. So come visit us. I mean, if you type into whatever search box you're typing you type fitfighter, you will find us. Fitfighter.com itfighter on Instagram itfighter on Facebook.

You can find us@classes.fitfighter.com to check out our training platform. We have a 30 day free trial for everyone to enjoy their steel hose and experience training with my world class pro team. And I'm sure that you will then be with us for life because steel hoses are hard not to love. So come, come find us and come find me. You can DM me directly. Actually Sarah Apgar on Instagram is a great way to find me and I can't wait.

Amazing. Thank you so much Sarah. What a treat to get to chat. And congrats again on everything. I can't wait to to see you reach Billion Dollar Unicorn. If anyone deserves that, it's you and this beautiful mission. Thank you so much.

Thanks Jenny. I appreciate it. Well, I'll be back. Yes.

Can't wait.

Can't wait.

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