The business of better running with the founders of One Track Club

Speaker A: The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio is brought to you in partnership with South Tyrol. From the heart of the Italian Alps, South Tyrol is driving one of Europe's most compelling models for economic development. With environmental sustainability and um, peerless innovation at its heart. Creating an ecosystem that will be a wellspring for the region and its businesses. A place where the future of resilient, high quality business is already being built. South Tyrol is taking its great companies spanning craft, industry, farming, technology and services on a global journey, unlocking new channels, markets and platforms, taking South Tyrol international. Many outstanding South Tyrolean enterprises are small and medium sized, but unified by the strength of their connection to the region, strong local roots and identity with truly global ambitions. Planning today for, for sustainable success tomorrow and beyond. Find out how South Tyrol's on the way to the very top. Visit www.sir tyrol biz now. South Tyrol quality for life. Hello, welcome to the Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio. The show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. On today's program, we're getting into our stride with a couple who turned a free community running club into a fast growing business.

Speaker B: Running was a real release for me and also gave me so much confidence. When you set your mind on a goal and you achieve it and cross that finish line, it's just phenomenal. Knowing that there is a better way to train. I really wanted to get that out there.

Speaker A: This is the entrepreneurs, uh, with me, M. Tom Edwards. You're listening to the entrepreneurs husband and wife team. Anthony and Laura Fletcher are, uh, the co founders of one track club, a running club combining specialized coaching with technology to help runners perform at their best. Prior to, uh, launching the business during the pandemic, Anthony had headed up running at Equinox, while Laura built an impressive career as a fashion industry exec. Together they've managed to grow the brand whilst raising a young family. They stopped by Midori House to discuss building a business as a couple. How new technologies can support coaching without replacing the human touch. And what it really takes to help the busiest people achieve their goals. Anthony, or Fletch as he goes by, began by telling me how it all started.

Speaker C: I don't think there was one exact moment that kind of led to it being created. It was actually a very long convoluted journey, a sequence of events that kind of led to it where When I was 14, I was diagnosed with cancer and I was a sporting protege in some fashion. I was playing tennis by hopes of Wimbledon taken away from me from surgery. So I stopped playing tennis. Therefore my coach Was like, yeah, why you just help out and get coaching. So the introduction to my next level of sport was actually helping others to do their thing. At uh, 14, it kind of helps to form your sort of opinions on things. Right. So off the back of that, skip forward 20 years and going through personal training, qualifications and so on, so forth, things worth mentioning. I'm also dyslexic, so my brain kind of works in a particular way that I think actually helps with this picture. And so fast forwarding to that, I started lecturing on the sort of mechanics of the body and how do we then correct and give people information that's going to help them get from A to B and the eventually onto C or Z. And it just happened to be that the runners had the most questions and where I felt there was a lot of misinformation or peer to peer communications rather than necessarily expert led. And off the back of that just started helping some people and then they started inviting their friends down. They started inviting their friends down. We had like 60 people come down to a track session. We were booked a month in advance. And then it's kind of when me and my wife actually started to get, we got together and she had the fabulous idea of collecting everyone's email emails, which I, I was not doing.

Speaker B: Marketing person.

Speaker C: Um, and then literally a year after that, that was, that was five years of me basically as a passion project, me doing it for free. I was working in the luxury health clubs around London. Many of them sort of have the clientele in that probably are listening into now, but it was just a great vibe. And then all of a sudden the lockdown came along. And so as a family, we had one child already and we had another one on the way. We sat down and said some very choice four letter words. So what was going to happen next? And we decided to turn the run, um club into a business because we'd had quite a few people message me be like, oh, what did you do at track on Tuesday? Just send it to me and I'll do it.

Speaker A: Right, right, okay.

Speaker C: And I was like, oh, people want to train this but not be there. I uh, wonder if they could dial in at the same time and kind of do it with us. And this was like before the days of Zoom and I was like socially acceptable. Like Skype was as close as we got to it and everyone just really didn't use it that much. So as soon as the lockdown hit pretty much four days later, we created a website, we created a class schedule and off the back of that, we tested the technology using Google Meet, and we ran off there over the next five years, 2,000 virtual running classes. And, um, we said to the community, look, we don't want anything for free. This is not a pity party. This is a business. And if you're up for it, let me know. And we had a moment last night thinking about all the little, um, cha Chings on the iPad. People purchasing things were like, oh, it's happening, it's happening. So it was a series of events.

Speaker A: Well, it's going to say what it's great is a series of events, but there still is that. It does sound like almost a singular moment when suddenly the pieces do gel together, which is often the story. And tell me about that, Laura, in terms of your approach, you said, you know, that's the sort of the marketeer maybe sees the world a little bit differently. Had you always had in your mind, in lots of your other work for all sorts of premium brands and so forth, I actually would quite like to have a bash at doing something where, you know, I'm the stakeholder. Had that. Do you think that was in the back of your mind, or was it more opportunistic almost?

Speaker B: I think a bit of both, I think. Before I met Fletch, so about 10 years ago, had just started running. I'd gone through what a lot of people go through now, in my kind of mid to late 20s, not having a clue what I was doing, and going from training for a 5k to a marathon within about a year, stumbling over the finish line of that marathon, completely broken, in a lot of pain, and then learning after meeting Anthony, that Fletch, um, as we call him, that there was a lot of stuff that I just didn't know. And that was my kind of mini moment, really. Running had done so much for me in terms of my mental health, working in really busy, intense industries such as fashion. And I worked in travel for a little while as well for really wonderful brands, but in quite high pressured environments. So running was a real release for me and also gave me so much confidence. You know, once you set your mind on achieving a goal and you achieve it and cross that finish line, it's just phenomenal in my mind, knowing that there was a better way to train and all of the things that I just hadn't done the first time around, I really wanted to get that out there. So that was the kind of opportunity was I just happened to fall in love with somebody that is an expert in this space. And so a lot of what I've been trying to build. I mean, in the early years, I'd refer to building for you. It was about building it as a. It's been a labor of love for me, really, to get Fletch out to the world to go, okay, how can we take Fletcher's brain and enable more people to benefit from this knowledge? And obviously not just Fletch, but as we expand a multidisciplinary team, more people. You're looking at me like you want to say something.

Speaker C: I do, because Laura is such an incredible mind. I don't know, because she's my wife, but she's also entrepreneur, uh, curious in that she was always in house. But you were going to start a cream brand at one point with a friend, and you were kind of going down that route. So you're looking to branch out into something.

Speaker A: You're right.

Speaker B: I mean, I was eternally frustrated, and I worked for founders, actually my whole career. So when I was back, I cut my teeth at matches, worked for Tom and Ruth directly after working my way through the shop floor. When I graduated, it was the recession, so there were no jobs going in publishing or advertising, which is what I thought I would do, having an English degree. So I ended up in retail, really loved fashion, worked for founders there, and then went on to work for founders again at Mr. And Mrs. M. But I was always so frustrated. I felt like I was in a box constantly. And I'd have ideas and I'd be told, that's not your remit. You know, put that idea to that team and I'd be constantly. I think I would have been really irritating. Just too much energy, too much excitement, getting up in other department spaces, constantly telling them how to do their jobs. And, um, I think I was destined to do my own thing, honestly. It comes with its own challenges. But having the freedom to explore and test where the ceiling is going to be and where the boundaries are going to be just keeps me alive. I love it.

Speaker A: Let's talk a little bit, then, about one track. The model, kind of where it is today. That's the origin. That's the opportunity and the. And the need, if you like, what's the usp? Because, you know, there are some products that offer some elements of this. They don't seem as personal, which is maybe a bit of a usp. But what do you see as your professional advantage? Fletching. What is the differentiator? That means there is only one. One track.

Speaker C: We kind of like imagine a sort of a running club and a formula One team had a baby. That's basically how we describe it in that it's the community aspect of everything, the in person services, the care and the personalization piece. But also the technology and how do we drive data in the right direction around somebody's goal. So obviously with a formula one, that's one or two drivers in the same way it's with a runner. No one can run for you, but we can do it with you. And that's kind of how we present it. And you'd be right. There's other things out there that do aspects of what we do. But the problem is no one's bringing it together. And that's where the human is so much more infinitely complex than just a training plan. Or here's how to foam roll or you should stretch more. Here's a program to stretch more. Yeah, but for who, when and how often and all these other things are to be contextualized.

Speaker A: And how, from a kind of structural point of view do you help to institutionalize the personalization? Because I guess lots of assumptions you might make in many businesses are about degrees of standardization. So much of this is very personal. Is that harder as an administrator and an organizer and you know, having to think about the parameters of what you can actually do? Again, that is the usp. But it must make your job more difficult. Presumably to a degree. I guess the more personal the offer is, the harder it is for a team to make sure that you're delivering on all those undertakings.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Or 100%. The messaging and the comms has been the bane of my life actually. And we've gone round the houses of describing ourselves as the most complex things and then recently come back to saying actually we're a run club, just a bit extra, you know, internally obviously and now externally. So the what we. And because it is so complex, there's the human component, the technology, the workouts, the one to one coaching. It's all merged together. And you do get elements of that in a run club. But it's that plus, you know, the real expert360 guidance. But what we're trying to build more than anything is not just somewhere you want to go and train, it's a club like feel. And so that's where we come back to run club. And from a logistical standpoint, yes, I think we're very lucky that we've got over the initial painful years of it just being Fletch and I trying to manage the customer care inbox and each individual that we're training as well as trying to nurture the community that turn up to group workouts that maybe can't access the one to one coaching just yet in their lives because obviously it comes with a higher price tag. But we care about them deeply and we still want to be on the track and educate them and give them as much love as we can. So yeah, the challenge really has been how do we make sure that we are giving that personal touch at scale. And I remember the first deck that we pulled together during the pandemic when some of the runners in our community that worked in the finance space said, are you going to look to do something with this? And we just had a second baby at that point. So we were just trying to survive day to day.

Speaker C: Just want to sleep right now. Yeah.

Speaker B: And it was really buzzy and exciting. We sent over a deck to them and it was dreadful. I daren't even look at it now.

Speaker A: We should definitely look back at that. I remember, I don't know if fun's the right word. Instructive maybe.

Speaker B: Yeah, we got slighted. Someone sent you screenshots of the feedback from somebody else and we were just like, oh. However, there was one line I do remember in there and it was about personalization at scale. And that was one of the things that they ripped us for was, that is impossible. You cannot do that. I still believe we can. You know, we're not anti AI at all. I think we are very much the coaching and training for something is best done with experts. And also because there's so much that goes into coaching that is beyond the plan. It's about the emotional empathy and picking up on various things that are going on in that person's life that we can adapt to and, and help them overcome. AI can help with data points and help inform our coaches as we expand so that they're not doing as much digging through the weeds. Fletcher's done some really insane stuff. He's also been building from a tech perspective. He's essentially taught himself to code and built insane in all that spare time

Speaker A: that he must have. Well, it's funny because I was going to ask about AI, uh, specifically because I suppose lots of businesses that are operating in services talk about the transformational impact and even in hospitality brands, you mentioned travel, you know, say, look, personalization is critical if you're running a hotels group. And actually AI is a game changer because we can deliver personal service at scale. But I guess and sort of picking up on exactly what you're saying there, Laura Fletch. The key is being very evangelical about the idea of AI as a tool, labor saver, driver of economies. But I guess you've got to be very intentional about keeping the human touch. It can't just be you, obviously, as a business scales, but it will only ever be a tool in the toolkit. It's not foundationally part of the direction of the business.

Speaker C: Right, correct. A human first approach for sure. So to back up what we were saying there, the personalization at scale piece is also part of what we call the mdt. So it's the multidisciplinary team that we've created where there's an SNC coach which looks after the snc, there's the technical coach looks after the running training plan and the ongoing supervision of that data. The physio, the dietitian, Everyone has their job spec and their roles and they just get brought in for certain bits when they're needed. And because all the data is centralized, that means they have to reduce all the admin time of catching up on all the transcripts that were ever created. It's like, no, there's the training plan, there's the hennage expenditure. You now can craft that food diary or whatever you want to do. So that's kind of how we minimize the admin side of things. And then with the use of modern technologies, we just reduce that time even further by spotting trends in the data and thinking about how, for example, pace and heart rate drift over a long session can link into durability. How do we then look at building durability? So data spotting and trend analysis, great for a machine to do. Then we can get to the human bit and say, like, how's your kids? How are you sleeping? Oh, man, I've had like three hours sleep last three days. Well, no wonder you're like, you're bad. But actually, your Garmin says you've had eight hours. Oh, yeah, it didn't work. So accuracy, spot checking and making sure the wearables are also accurate comes from a vocal conversation.

Speaker A: Um, quick aside. And again, I've often asked sort of founding teams or family teams on this program about this. Isn't it the case that a family business, the way you guys do it is completely insane? Uh, you're obviously having fun and I love how you talk about one another's skills and qualities, but isn't the truism, you know, don't work with whatever it is, children, animals, or family members, Running a business is hard enough, young family is hard enough, and yet it seems to be working out? Could it have worked any other way, Laura, or is that part of the magic foundational underpinnings of the endeavour?

Speaker B: Because we got married through all this process, I think we made a clear decision to commit to each other for life and therefore any differences we've had with the business we've been forced to work through. And I think that has helped us really, with the foundation of one track. The early years, our communication was dreadful and we had some major challenges. There's no sugarcoating it. We had a lot of respect for each other, but we both had very clear ways we wanted to do things. I think we'd both been told in not so many words and in different ways that we needed to stay in our lanes in our previous careers. And so we had a lot of baggage coming into a business together, didn't we? There've been lots of arguments, there've been lots of doors slammed, for sure. The kids have been brought into it on occasion.

Speaker A: I was going to say, what have we got there? Budding entrepreneurs or are they actually part of the C suite or anything?

Speaker B: I mean, I was told this morning I was reprimanded for not wearing a one track T shirt.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: Ok. So something's rubbing off on them.

Speaker A: Well, if it's any consolation, I was told, uh, last weekend that I had delivered and I'm doing air quotes. A, uh, disappointing weekend. It was.

Speaker B: The whole weekend.

Speaker A: Not bad, just disappointing. It's like, wow, it's not about me.

Speaker B: Hilarious.

Speaker A: Uh, but. So talk to me about that, Fletch, because. Well, it's interesting, I suppose, in another context, in the family business, you talk about, you know, legacy and handing down if ripple dissolve. I don't know, with your kids, what, 15 years into the future? 10, 15 years. If they were like, we're going to be joining you guys on the journey, or we want to. We want to take over. Would you love that? Or would you be like, no, don't do it. Go work someone else. It's much less stressful.

Speaker C: Um, just kind of like slightly reverse up a little bit. I think the key thing in this particular situation is we did not choose to go into business together. We had to. It's a very clear moment where we're like, either we do this or we've got zero money coming in for the rest of our lives. Unforeseen during the pandemic. So I think in that moment we just. We had to make it work. It wasn't like a moment of like, oh, is a plan B available? It's like, no, we have to make this work. And as we then start to get traction, we're like, okay, it is working. Yes. Bumps in the road and healthy differences of opinion always. But that's part of the challenge. And you.

Speaker A: I like that. It's a healthy difference of opinion or a door slam. The same moment, a slightly different lens trained on it.

Speaker C: Um, if my kids turned around and said, I want to be part of the business, I'd be like, brilliant. You can. But it's like any other opportunity. If they decided they didn't want to do it anymore, I'd be like, brilliant. What do you want to do? I didn't have much guidance when it came to work stuff when I was younger. My parents, amazing people, but policemen, uh, and a nurse and don't have a huge amount of risk taking abilities. But also I love the idea of a steady Eddie kind of job. I think it's down to my granddad's lineage in some ways a bit more of black sheep in the family.

Speaker A: Do go on.

Speaker C: Um, can't on radio, uh, listeners.

Speaker A: I'll ask him afterwards.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. All this kind of. So I think it's also part of my brain and how it's made up. But much more willing to take risks and want to make my own. Probably similar to what Laura was saying. A bit frustrated about being kept in boxes. Never actually got into many boxes because I didn't have fear of being in them. I see that in my middle child a bit more. He's much more willing to take risks. He'll just jump off like the top of the bouncy castle without any thought of what could happen to him. But the older ones are a bit more cautious. And so we're already starting to identify traits. And obviously if they go into these things and start to, uh, find avenues of. Fully support them in experimenting with lots. Because if I hadn't found fitness, I have no idea what I'd be doing. I haven't had any other career in any other industry.

Speaker A: I sense you would have probably come out all right somehow.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Let's play a game. Let's do a. Let's do a hypothetical case study. And this is gonna be a test of how attuned your immediate judgment is on these things when people come to speak to you. Picture, if you will, a man, let's say in sort of, I'm gonna say early middle age. Anyone? I don't know why my colleague behind the glass is laughing. Early, uh, middle age, but probably looks, you know, looks younger than he is. Go with me on This M. Black glasses, maybe decent runner when younger and an occasional runner now, but has a dream, a vainglorious dream, that his lifelong ambition to run under three hours for a marathon could be realised even let's say pushing 50, uh, at a glance, if he's got a good amount of run up to that, what are his prospects? What does he need to be thinking about? As I said, asking for this hypothetical friend.

Speaker C: So the hypothetical friend, if ah, it was in front of me, I'd be asking what's your opportunities to train? So on a weekly scale, how many hours you've got to dedicate to this? If it's like two, then it's unlikely we're going to be able to drive volume high enough to get to the marathon distance in that particular manner. You probably could do the marathon, but with that goal being the underlying thing here, we would probably have to then sort of negotiate on more time availability or is other things you can sacrifice on other uh, sports limiting factor that you do other activities, so on and so forth. Ultimately it's like where you're starting at. So we do some testing. So we'll get you into the lab. We do your VO2 max lactate threshold which then also looks at running economy and kind of gives us lots of data around your physicality. And then we basically look at that and say how much do you think we can move that in relation to now to three months time, to six months time. And then we plot the performance graph from there and then it's down to us to help you get there week in, week out on the calls you would dial in some virtual runs with us so we can see your heart rate and pace live and we can talk to you and see how you

Speaker A: get yourself to a immediately.

Speaker C: Can you tell?

Speaker A: Can you tell? Uh, this is so interesting. Can you tell if someone. That's a bit ridiculous obviously. But if someone's got a quite clear goal, can you guys. Have you got to the point where even as a business or just by gut you can be like this person's going to do this, do you think?

Speaker C: Or purely from conversation we can look obviously mindset, there's a type A personality that we can read into and go, this person's determined, they've got a clear understanding of what's the opposite of that.

Speaker A: Type Z. That might be my. That might be my. Sorry, this hypothetical person's problem.

Speaker C: Um, some people kind of like more nonchalant about the thing. I was like, oh, I want to do my. I don't want to do A marathon. But, uh, I just want to see what I'm capable of. And some people tell me, no, I want sub three and there's kind of nothing else is going to happen. And so you can kind of get a read on where they're at. And some people, we are going to have to push on a bit more and be like, actually, you're stronger than you think. You can do this. And other people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, let's just pull it, rein it in a little bit. Your Achilles is flared up and we need to rest it.

Speaker B: I think it's fair to say as well that I hear so much from the coaches. I've learned enough without being a coach myself. People will also surprise you. Fletch calls them the X men and women of the world, where he'll just start training them and working on them and all of a sudden there's something going on genetically with them or their physiology where they just start blowing everyone away. And you think, where on earth, uh, has that come from? And yes, there might have been some activity growing up, but actually the reason one track started in the very beginning with one of our really great friends. He just started training after being inspired by the Olympics at the time and quickly became an age group team GB triathlete. His body was just something else. And you do see that. And that gets you very excited when you do see that. The kid that was in for a VO2 Max test the other day, whose VO2 Max was 78, which is the same as close to an elite athlete.

Speaker C: You know, he's like an elite marathon run is kind of, uh, Kipchoges is speculated around 83 and this guy's only 14.

Speaker A: So how, how do people not know they've got those capacities? Is that almost because you don't know until you push or until people who know tell you or.

Speaker C: I think it's maybe one of the problems with school is that we are taught in a particular manner that gets us ready for the next phase of education rather than assessing strengths and weaknesses from an all round perspective. Mental, physical, spiritual, whatever you want to look at. And so sport is always seen as an activity and probably guided more around play. And uh, then off the back of that going to like GCSE and A level was more like the politics of sport and being involved in a corporation around sport, the working environment of sport, rather than, let's do some testing on you. How far can you jump? Let's measure that, let's track that over the next year, two years and see Actually, gee, you've got a really long jump. Maybe we can think about how tall are you? Let's look at the rowing team, let's see the sprinting team, let's get you involved in that. Or the local running club that we can start to look at. You've got a great aerobic engine. How do we cultivate that piece?

Speaker A: I sense some kind of mass scale education, structural intervention coming. Maybe that's one for another day. Just really quickly because the clock is against us. What's most exciting right now? Let's look through the kind of the, through the business lens lore with you. First of all, what are you most excited about? Is it the next seemingly insurmountable challenge that you're going to just figure out? Is it something that you've already got in mind? Is it an expansion play? What kind of is top of your list at the moment?

Speaker B: Well, for the first time in years we're able to sit back right now and we've been building and building and building for so many years and adding bits and pieces, packaging things up together. And so now we can actually start getting the message out there and we feel really confident about that. So I'm really excited to let more people into the community and to help more people with their goals. We do have a plan. You know, our CFO would go nuts if I said we obviously didn't as would are lovely investors. But for us, we just take one person at a time and we really, really love helping one person at a time. We get a message back from somebody who was told they would never run a marathon and did it and it's heartfelt and there are lots of tears. Myself and Fletch as well, we really care and we get a massive buzz out of it. So to be part of more of those stories I think is really exciting for me.

Speaker A: Fletch, same question to you. What are you kind of most excited about just at the moment?

Speaker C: I'm a bit more of a nerd. So I'm really excited about being able to now bring the personal interaction perspective to anyone in the world at that moment. So now when you train online with us, we can book you in for your run and say, look, actually at 9am in your local time, I'll be there with you. Just put your earphones in, put me in your pocket and I can see your heart rate, your pace, I can talk to you, I can see how you're feeling. All those questions. You would normally go away and back in my day Google, but now you just go and chatgpt or whatever else it is, we can talk about that stuff. And so it's on the run. We're educating you in the thing that you're doing right now. And for me, that's so exciting because I've always been geographically or postcode constrained as to who I can work with. And also riding on a bike next to 15 runners a week is a lot of mileage to kick off, so I can't be there for everybody. But now I can. And we can fit 30 people, 60 people into a single class and we can just have that cultivation of community no matter where they are. So I'm really excited about breaking down barriers.

Speaker A: That was Anthony and Laura Fletcher, the founders of One Track club. And you can find out more about the business by heading to onetrack Club. And that's all for this episode of the program. We'll be back at the same time next week. The show is produced by Laura Kramer, uh, with audio editing by Jack Dewars. You can listen again and find out more about the entrepreneurs@monacle.com. that's where you can subscribe to Monacle magazine and ensure you're reading more about better businesses every month. You can also follow us and catch up with our archive of past editions. Wherever you get your audio. If you'd like to get in touch, drop me a note or write to, uh, Laura. She's on LRKonical. Uh dot com. I'm Tom Edwards. Goodbye, and thanks for listening to the entrepreneurs.