iCRYO Co-Founder Kyle Jones: What Franchisors and Franchisees Get Wrong | Kyle Jones

Speaker A: Welcome back to the Owner's Seat podcast. Most of my guests are in the middle of building something today's guest just walked away from something he spent over 14 years building and I want to talk about that honestly, because almost everybody doesn't. Kyle Jones is a Houston guy, so this one's close to home. Full ride football scholarship, a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Sports from Texas State, then a job at a physical therapy company where he ran into whole body cryotherapy before anyone in the country had heard of it. He In January of 2012 he stood up the cryotherapy startup Inside Vallejo Physical Therapy and built the scheduling, marketing and management protocols from scratch. In July 2015 co founded iCryo, his first location in his hometown of League City, Texas and he co founded the franchise in 2017 with his dad. So listen to this. 14 years co founder, COO chief innovation and branding officer co CEO in April of 24 chief executive officer from September of 24 finalist for the franchise executive of the years in AthleteX news power players award in May of 25 by his own count, 52 locations open across the US and Canada with roughly 250 plus more awarded and waiting to be built. In June of this year, he left all of it. And in the weeks after he got baptized for the first time in his life, he probably didn't expect me to say that and I'm so excited to chat about it. He wrote that he left a lot of his past in that water and they had made specific intentional promises to himself. So let me be honest with everyone listening about what this hour is all about. It's not about just a victory lap. Kyle's in the gap between the thing he built and the thing he builds next. And that gap is the most honest place a founder ever gets to speak from. I'm going to ask the real questions about the build, about the franchiser seat, about outside capital, about what it all costs. Kyle, if there's something you cannot answer, say something, move on. Most follow up. My audience gets more from you telling them where that world is than from us pretending it's not there. Here's the deal. Faith, family and fitness are your stated core values and so are mine, sir. So what a blessing to have you on the show today, Kyle. Welcome to the owner podcast, sir.

Speaker B: Yeah, excited to be here. I always love digging into these types of things. You know, anything that revolves around the uh, core values that I preach on in my life and syncing up with like minded individuals such as yourself. You know, be able to Being able to add value, I think is huge these days, and so I'm excited for it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I really appreciated the other day. Um, we had an opportunity to go to dinner and it was really cool. First of all, I've been on this carnival thing you got me on, and, man, I'm feeling so good. I'm feeling so good. I got this protein glow. I thought it was going to be terrible. And I'm feeling better than ever before. Inflammations down. The second thing, you know, that I got to experience, and I know people experience today, is how authentic you are, how much you care about the people around you. Uh, in, in different phases of your life, like you, you went back into different phases and you can speak to those that have impacted you or that you had an opportunity to impact. And then finally your journey with Jesus and faith. And I can't wait to talk about, um, some of the moments you had to, uh, experience over the last couple weeks or so, last couple of months. Um, I know those are definitely life changing, but we'll jump in. Why don't we start back in 2012. You're standing up. Cryotherapy. I mentioned Vallejo and, uh, no one, no one in the country knew what the hell this was. Cryo chambers. What the heck is that? So walk us through the first one. What did you see? What got you all pumped up about it?

Speaker B: Yeah, so it was interesting. I was actually pursuing my doctorate in physical therapy. I just looking into the space of physical therapy, it really wasn't the physical rehab that attracted me, it was the mental rehab that attracted me. You know, a lot of people don't realize, but, you know, you go through a total hip, total hip replacement, or a knee surgery or any type of an injury of some sort, and it becomes a mental game, right? It's, it's more of a mental challenge and a mental overcoming than, than it is a physical, you know, healing process. So I love the way the mind and body works in connection. And so, um, you, uh, know, digging into physical therapy, rehab, physical rehab, and just understanding the whole process is really what I was passionate about as a, as a young, younger adult. Um, that led me into really looking at different ways to do that. You know, all of the holistic modalities that we see today in the longevity space, they've been doing a lot of this stuff overseas for decades. So looking at Eastern medicine and understanding there are better ways to treat the body and the mind, to heal and to do the right things. And cryotherapy was one of the things that kind of landed in my lap. I was working full time at a PT clinic, gaining clinical hours for my degree, and overheard, you know, a patient talking about cryotherapy. And that led to a conversation with my boss, which led to another conversation of, you know, building a business plan and creating kind of a. We called it a recovery corner in the back of this PT clinic where it started out with cryotherapy. We onboarded compression therapy, we onboarded infrared saunas, we onboarded, you know, low level red light laser, red light therapy. I mean, it just became this, um, additional business model in the back of this physical therapy clinic. And it just consumed me. I mean, we were discharging patients weeks ahead of time. Some of the recovery that I was seeing and some of the benefits that our patients were experiencing was not just from the physical pain element. You know, it was a relief of stress, it was sleeping better, it was more mental clarity, it was less brain fog, it was more energy. I, uh, mean, people were just feeling overall better, their body were recovering faster, we were reducing inflammation markers, we were increasing circulation. I mean it was just incredible to see these services that. It wasn't an injection, it wasn't, you know, any type of a pill, potion, lotion or cream. It was just services and using things that's ethical. So it was, it was exciting and I just, I just engulfed in it so much that, um, I actually dropped out of PT school, didn't finish my, my doctorate, dove full into longevity back before it was even a thing. And uh, I never looked back. You know, I managed that operation for about three years and, you know, turned that chapter and started the first I cry location in 2015. And that's where the journey began.

Speaker A: So I love this because you're getting your doctor at the time, just learning you're in the mix and getting to learn from true data right there in front of you. Right. That mean that is the science behind it. Are people getting the results so clearly? And you could hear it in your voice, you're passionate about the impact that it was giving to others in your community. When did you notice that? Wait a second, here we have a business model. This can actually turn into something. It's not just a service, but there's an actual ecosystem or business here that we can charge for and actually start to build upon that and scale it.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that, that was the big eye opening experience for me is, you know, I get the entrepreneurial side from my father. He's always, you know, built, built and sold companies over, over the last 40 years of his professional career. And, um, you know, when you look at a business that's going to survive or die normally, the ones that survive or get off the ground, just in general, you're usually solving a problem, right? People have. People have problems. If you can solve the issue, you can create a revenue model around that. Right? You can create a business around that. And so we were. We were solving people's problems. You know, whether it was pain, whether it was skin, whether it was aesthetics, whether it was, you know, sleep or stress or anxiety, um, you know, muscle recovery from athletics. I mean, we were solving people's problems in different ways. And so, um, you know, putting these services together in one business model, you had to really understand, like, what did that look like? It's not like we were opening up a restaurant and we could copy from 10 other restaurants around the corner. We had nothing. It was a blank slate. There was no competition in the field. There was no, you know, biohacking longevity center on the planet to date. So everything from sales to marketing to training to education to operations to memberships and packages. I mean it when you. When you talk about starting from the ground floor, from nothing, scratch, like a whiteboard. That's what we did. And to me, I love building things. I love innovating. Um, you throw me in a room with a whiteboard, we can go all day long. So, um, it was exciting, kind of creating that first business plan and seeing how it really spiraled into something massive.

Speaker A: That's awesome. So, Tate, let's. Let's blank canvas. Walk us through your first. First location, right? What did it cost at the time? I mean, this. This is back in 2015. Where. How did you raise the money? And then how long before you realize, wow, we're. We're covering the expenses and then some? Um, let's. Let's lather, rinse, and repeat. Yeah.

Speaker B: So word got around that I was looking to start my own brand. I actually had a lady came up to me at a conference, said, hey, I kind of heard about what you're thinking about doing. Uh, I said, yeah, I found a location, negotiated the lease. Uh, my dad's been a general contractor for 35 years, so we're going to build out the space for pennies on the dollar. So she said, look, I give you 100 grand, you. You make 150,000, you make it go happen. You know, 12 years ago, that still really wasn't enough money to start a company. So, um, you know, I definitely had a shoestring budget from day one. And she did allocate some other dollars additional to that as like a verbal commitment in case I needed to go back to, you know, the bank for whatever it may be. So there were some additional funds, but it wasn't much. It was, here's 150 grand. Make it work. My dad helped me build out the space. We did the construction in about, uh, four weeks. It, uh, was a very, I would say, remedial build out, um, because we didn't really know what we were building out. Right. It was kind of conceptual thinking, uh, what is this going to look like? It's funny, I go back to some of our original pictures of the original construction project and it was bare bones. It was bare bones. Like what you see being built today in like a med spa or a longevity biohacking center wasn't even close. I mean, we were building something super basic. So, yeah, I had an investor from day one. I ended up buying her out a couple years later. You know, we were really, really trying to figure out what services worked. Not really worked scientifically or clinically, but what actually worked together. I tell, I tell business owners all the time, just because something is proven to be efficacious doesn't mean it's going to work in your business model. Um, you can't just throw everything in the kitchen sink and expect it to work and be fluid all the time. And I see a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs in this health and wellness space that they think they have to have every modality that the market offers. And that's just not, that's just the case. You're building a business model specific to your ideas, to your thought process. And sometimes a service just isn't going to check the box. You know, you're going to try to implement something and you're just going to stumble your way and get aggravated. So I always tell people, don't try to shove that square peg in a round hole. You know, sometimes everything doesn't fit in the business model. And trial and error is what we did. Um, it took me about a year to really figure out, uh, here's what the standalone operation looks like. Here are here memberships, here's pricing, a la carte packaging. Here are some of the services that kind of coincide and can coexist together in this business model. And we really didn't turn a profit for the first maybe 12 to 18 months. I mean, it was just constantly understanding, um, we were a concept, we were not a proven model yet. And we had to get there.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And so after about a Year, year and a half, we started to turn a profit. We started to see, you know, what the reoccurring revenue model looked like, what memberships look like, what the flow operationally look like. And at that point it was like, okay, what do I want to do with this? Do I want to open up another clinic in Houston? Do I, um, want to form a franchise? Do I want to license the business out? And you know, we, we don't come from money. My family doesn't come from money. So franchising is not cheap. Uh, it's definitely expensive to get the franchise off the ground. So we actually started the company with a licensing agreement. We licensed out a few locations in Houston, kind of got the brand out there, opened up a few more locations, got our feet wet. Um, you know, the, the space started moving pretty quickly. Back in 2017, um, you had the IV industry kind of taking off as well. So, you know, in Vegas, they were doing the Hangover IVs and that got real big.

Speaker A: And I remember that.

Speaker B: And then it started. Yeah, and then it started to get real intentional. You know, peptides started to come out back then, and we know more about them now than we did back then. But, um, those things started to surface. You had stem cells and Exosome labs that were coming off the ground. Uh, body sculpting was hitting all, hitting an all time high. Aesthetics has always been a massive industry. So it's almost like you had the recovery and wellness space, you had the med spa and aesthetic space, you had sports performance, you have longevity services. There were so many different little industries that came up all into kind of one. Right. They were all trying to figure out that all in one business model. Um, and then, so at 2017, we made the leap and we filed our franchise documents and we started franchising in 2017. It was, it was a heck of a two or three years to get there, but, uh, but yeah, it was official in 2017. Started a franchise.

Speaker A: And how did you get there? Well, if you want, if you don't mind, can you walk us through the licensing type of scenario? Right. Because there's a lot of people out there that can take a similar route. To your point, there's an investment that is required if you're looking to be a franchisor. Right. And start to invest there, uh, let alone being a franchisee. So the licensing play. And then how did you know? Was it, was it the profit? Was it your utilization? Was it member retention? Retention? Like, how do you. Did you know, all right, we need to get An FDD in front of people. And let's start seeing who would like to invest in the brand.

Speaker B: Yeah. So the licensing side of things, think of it like a car dealership. You know, whether it's Chevy or Ford or, you know, the car industry, they do dealer agreements like Mercedes will license out or. Or do a dealer agreement with a person in Houston, Texas, and they give them the trademarks, the marketing collaterals, they give them the ability to basically be a dealer of Mercedes. Right. So franchising's a little bit different. Uh, franchising, there's a lot more controls in place, a lot more brand consistency in place. That's your McDonald's, that's your orange Theory Fitness. Those are the brands that are a little bit more teed up from a retail perspective. A lot more of, uh, the health and wellness brands are going to be franchise model, but just to get a franchise document off the ground, to structurally put together franchise documents. I mean, it's six figures alone just for legal fees. Um, so it's not cheap. Where a licensing agreement, you can get that off the ground for five, ten grand and get going. Pretty, pretty immediate. Essentially you're just licensing out the logo, you're licensing out the brand, you're licensing out some marketing collateral. You don't really have a ton of controls in place, but essentially you're just licensing out that, uh, not really the business model that you've created, but the brand that you've created.

Speaker A: A good example would be like CrossFit, right. The affiliate license program would be a great example, Correct? Yeah, very, very similar.

Speaker B: So it's more of a. I, uh, would say an affiliate program is a. Is a great way to correlate it. Franchising, it's white and black. It's very ironclad. It's very by the book, it's very structured. One of the franchise agreements are some of the most stringent agreements I think I've ever seen. So it's, it's definitely weighted to be very concrete where a license agreement is a little bit more fluid.

Speaker A: Yeah. And how'd you know? Like, how'd you know? All right, we, we, we're gonna make this investment and you typically go out on our, uh. Like, what did it look like for you? A roadshow, Discovery Day. Like, how did you. You almost have to start. It's like recruiting, right? Like, invest in this brand. And here's why. And here's our existing fleet, and this is how we've been doing. Like, can you walk people through that? I don't think a lot of people understand like this isn't like a franchise. Success happens overnight. I mean this is grinding.

Speaker B: It is it, is it? What really dawned on us is we started to go to trade shows, we started to go to exp, go to conferences, um, you know, little 10 by 10 booth. We would attend some of these and going to some of the most influential and the most dominant conferences in the world. And people had no idea what these services were. We would go to some of the most high class, high powered physician group conferences. It'd be everything from the medical field to the med spa industry to tech and fitness and wellness. Nobody knew about cryotherapy, nobody knew about red light therapy, nobody knew about saunas. And they definitely, they definitely didn't know about them in a business model.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Uh, you know, and so it was just, we, we were blowing people's minds that we were doing this in a retail setting. I mean there were tons of people that would come to our booth and say, wait, this is a retail business? And I, I used to correlate it to massage. You know, there was a day where massage therapy wasn't a business. It wasn't, you know, the massage envies or the massage heights of the world weren't around, you know, 20, 25, 30 years ago. And so, you know, at the end of the day you can kind of correlate it to other, other service, uh, retail businesses that have kind of emerged over the last two or three decades that, that it's comparable to. But you know, that's the first thing we saw. We first realized that even some of the smartest people, whether it's professionally on the business side or professionally on the medical side, had no idea this business model even existed or could exist. So it's like the, the opportunity side of things. The white space of uh, an industry that really hasn't emerged. But you could be the pioneer in that industry was, was probably the very first thing that we realized, dang, we could be one of the first people to do this. So it was the excitement of creating something that hadn't been created before. And that's what we gravitated towards. Uh, the first, the second thing was when, when I opened up the first location, seeing the attraction we pulled in, we would have people drive not just out, but from different states. They would fly in, they'd stay for a couple of weeks, they do services, fly back. And so the momentum, the attraction, the excitement altogether, I knew this could be a business model that stood alone and that grew over time.

Speaker A: So let's talk about the franchisor seat, right? You're the best to chat about this topic with. A lot of people don't understand, like the P and L of a franchisee is very different than the P and L of a franchisor. And so just from your perspective, can you walk us through that? Whether it be the royalty or pipeline snow or you know, brand fun like people I sometimes I say that and they're like, what's a, what's a brand fun? Can you just kind of walk us through from your lens as the franchisor, what that looks like?

Speaker B: Yeah, so franchises as the franchisor, you know, you kind of have two different ways to look at that business. Some franchises can open up corporate locations so they can actually be on the ground just like a franchisee. And those P Ls look very similar to a franchise location. Or they can go strict to their guns and say, hey, we're not going to develop any corporate locations. Um, we're just going to stick to franchising. We'll stick to our one proof of concept, which is what we did, and then we'll just franchise out the rest of the business. So in any franchisor you've got the one time franchise fee, which is the fee to basically own the assets, get inside the business. You're signing the franchise contract. Ours hovered between 30 and 50,000 for the one time fee, just depending on what year we were in. As we grew, that fee got a little bit more expensive. Ongoing fees downstream, you've got royalties on top line revenue. You talked about the national ad fund. So it's, it's advertising and marketing the brand as a whole. You know, massive companies that are out there, like McDonald's or chick fil A, they're advertising, you know, college bowl games, they're advertising massive billboards. Right? I mean huge marketing expenses and marketing budgets. So there's, there's always a top line revenue royalty pool from a franchise location and there's always a top line revenue, uh, national ad pull on franchise locations. And that's something that just is standard in any franchise that you operate in. We also dictate that a certain amount of revenue is pulled aside per franchise location to market so they can market their specific territory. So little things like that. In the franchise agreement we also set up vendor relations across the board. So whether it's a cryo chamber or a technology piece or you name it, any, anything inside the building, whether it's a T shirt, a pencil or a massive, you know, red light bed, we Make a rebate or some type of a franchisor on everything that we provide. And it's just standard. Just like if you were to open up a, uh, McDonald's, um, you're going to buy the fryers from their vendor of choice, and McDonald's is going to make a rebate on those fryers as you buy them. So essentially anything in that business, there's usually a vendor relationship established. They're bulk buying or bulk committing up front. So the pricing is going to be, should be better than if they could get it on their own. And then there's usually some type of a corporate, uh, rebate or profit margin built into that.

Speaker A: Awesome. And I'm curious, right? I've always felt like there's this balance of business development and getting franchise, uh, agreements signed, and then this tension between, all right, we got to sign, like, let's get this bad boy open. We need to recognize the revenue, obviously, collect cash. How did you balance that? Because you guys grew fast. How did you do that? Like, what are those, you know, leadership conversations sound like, uh, when you were on that end of the table?

Speaker B: Yeah. I will tell you, it was tough early on. You know, we didn't have a massive private equity firm or a family office or a huge bank loan going into this. I mean, we, we bootstrapped it from day one. So I'll never forget in 2019, uh, I remember looking at the bank account month over month over month, and it's like, man, I don't know if we're going to make it. Like, this could be our last month in business. We had been marketing, going to trade shows, putting tons of money into Google advertising and Meta for two years and barely anything. And then all of a sudden, in 2019, the first dam broke. We had, I think we sold like 80 locations in about three or four months. I mean, it was just like all the work that we had put in the last two years, it finally hit, right, that, that first, that first bucket for us hit really hard in 2019, and we started to develop locations. The interesting part of the timing is a few months later is 2020 and Covid hits. And so we didn't have any of our locations get shut down permanently through Covid. We got deemed essentially, um, because we were offering medical services. We had just launched the medical model. We actually grew as a company in 2020, 2021 and 2022 through Covid, which many businesses couldn't say that in Covid. So exciting to see not only our business survive, but thrive through Covid. It was an exciting experience.

Speaker A: You had an opportunity to sit across from a ton of candidates that were passionate and were very interested. And most of them, I'm sure, got an opportunity to invest in your brand that you, you, you started. Did you have you come up with a trend like for those that are, ended up being successful as a franchisee? Did you start it, did you start to notice some trends around just skill set or mindset? Uh, what did you notice as a franchise or. I know a lot of franchise franchisors listening to this, want to get this right, crack the code and sometimes not sometimes, but picking, picking the right people to invest in your brand is far more important than just having people invest in your brand.

Speaker B: Yep. So it's interesting and people are going to probably watch this and say, I don't know about that, but I can, I can tell you we've gone through the trials and tribulations, but the best franchisees are not, are not entrepreneurs. The best franchisees are operators. There's a difference. Entrepreneurs, myself included. I'll throw my, I'll throw myself under the bus in this conversation. Entrepreneurs like to create things and change things and always think their way is the best way. You do not want that in a franchise model. You want a, a militant mindset. You want somebody that understands you have a structure in place. Here's the plan, here's the business model. Go execute. Now. The reason why I say you need an operator is a lot of people will buy into a franchise thinking it's a business model in a box. And all I have to do is invest the money, open the doors, the people are going to come the app.

Speaker A: That's the call. Correct.

Speaker B: And that's where, that's where franchise locations go to die. Is a absentee owner. The best franchisees are operators and they are invested physically and from a timing perspective in their business. So they're working in and on the business at the same time because it requires that they're not treating this as a secondary priority to maybe a main career that they have. This is their full focus and it's something where they are, they're an operator mentality.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: It's not a passive income, mailbox, money style investment. It's something where you need to be hands on, you need to be boots on the ground. And having that militant, you know, structured. I bought into a model mentality is m crucial. There's a lot of, a lot of franchisors and franchisees that get in legal battles together because they're fighting over, you know, the systems or does this work or does that work? And 99% of the time, you know, both sides are out of compliance in some way. There. There's never a time that I've seen where a franchisee is 100% in compliance or the franchisor is 100% in compliance. So they get in this battle, um, and it becomes the, uh, you know, the natural approach of who's right and who's wrong. And at the end of the day, people forget you're representing the same brand, you're in the same ecosystem. So the moment that you stop being right and start working together, that's the moment you go over that hump and really start to create something significant. And for me, that's where you get operators involved. Because the moment you put a bunch of entrepreneurs in a room, you get seven different points of feedback. Uh, and you never. You never get to the finish line,

Speaker A: get a hundred emails about how your tech stack should be different. So I got a couple questions before I get into private equity or. I was looking forward to asking you about this just because you always keep it so real. So as we're going through the franchisor, the lens of a franchisor, as you look back, what do you. What did you get wrong about the franchisor? Cedar, what are some of the decisions that you feel like if you can go back, it's like, you know, I, um, probably would have pivoted on that one or done something a little bit different.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think from the beginning, we. We pigeonholed ourselves with the name. You know, the first thing we brought on board was Cryotherapy, which is where the name came from. I cry not knowing that we would dig so far into the wellness space. So I think if anybody's looking to start a business, don't start it with the idea that you are going to provide one service for the life of that business because your industry changes. And so you need to future proof your name. It needs to be a name that if the industry pivots or moves, your name will always stay consistent. And that's one of the reasons why, when I look back, we were. We were raising funds to do a rebrand. I wanted to rename the company, Rebrand the company. When you saw the words I cryo, uh, the name, you naturally thought cryotherapy. You didn't think about all the other services that we offer, which at the end of my tenure at ICRYO, a cryotherapy was maybe one of 30 services that we offered. So Just really understanding from a branding positioning perspective. Make sure you're future proofing your name and your taglines and all the trademarks

Speaker A: that go along with it.

Speaker B: The second thing I probably would have done differently is, and I hear this a lot now, didn't back then when I was younger, starting the business, but always be overfunded, uh, at the end of the day, being bootstrapped. The stress of being bootstrapped. If you think. If you think you need a million, go get 2 million. If you think you need 5 million, go get 10. Uh, there's a reason why I've heard, you know, billionaires speak about, like, Elon Musk. He says it all the times on interviews. People ask him, why are you still raising funds? You have access to so much cash. Why are you still taking loans? Why are you still, you know, selling shares in the company? It's because he knows, at the end of the day, I'd rather be overfunded than underfunded. I'd rather have the cash and not eat it. Thank you. Need the cash and not have it. Right. So that's another thing I wish we could have done probably differently from the jump, is maybe go after more capital than what we thought we needed, um, and be a little bit more prepared on that side of things. Outside of that, I mean, we did a great job as far as creating a business model that hadn't been created. You know, we were. We were coming from nothing. We were going off of a blank slate. So maneuvering through the space as fast as we could and being, you know, very decisive as fast as we could. Um, I think we did that very well. We had some great, talented corporate employees. We had some great, talented franchisees over the years. Every business is going to have their bad eggs of employees and franchisees. It's just the name of the game. Um, but for the most part, we had incredible franchisees. We had incredible investors and shareholders. We had incredible vendor relations, we had incredible corporate team members. I mean, just all around, um, there was so much culture, so much love going around. And, you know, at the end of the day, I think that's what I kind of pride ourself on to begin with. There are not many businesses in this space that even make it to a second location or a third. Um, there are very few franchises in the longevity space.

Speaker A: No, absolutely. And people try and it's difficult. Curious. Just so those franchisees listening, what are some of the things, you know, you being a franchisor and even some. Those colleagues that you know of that are in the franchisor seat. What are some of the things that franchisees just don't see? Maybe they don't understand or they don't see the hustle and grind and they don't need to see it. Right. It's just, that's why it's hq. What are some of the things that come to mind when you think of, you know, this is what we're doing if they own you?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think most of my franchisees knew that I work 247 around the clock. Um, I think the thing they didn't know is that I do have a life outside of my cryo. So, you know, I was, I was very notorious. And for me, when I invest my time into something, it truly is 24 7. You know, whether it's Sunday morning at 4am or Tuesday night at 11:30 at night. I mean, shoot, I remember I would take meetings on Christmas Day. You know, I'd have. Whether it's an investor, a franchisee, a vendor, it was 365 days, 24 hours, seven days a week for me. So I think knowing that everybody had that kind of access to me, it was kind of abused at times. But for me, I enjoyed it. You know, I wanted to pour as much of my time, energy and effort and value that I could into every single person in the organization. Um, but yeah, I think the fact that we didn't have a cloning device, like I couldn't clone myself, you know, I think people didn't realize that. And so, um, you know, I think I gave so much of my time that it was abused in a little bit of a fashion. But I don't regret it one bit. You know, at the end of the day, I'm here to help and solve, serve, you know, the people that were in the organization and you, um, know, trying to, trying to make everything successful. I will say, you know, being on both sides of the fence, being a franchisee and a franchisor, the one thing that I think a lot of franchisees don't understand, or you do at some point in time, you do realize it. Like an entrepreneur, when you have an idea in a single location business, uh, you can usually implement that very fast, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, you're a single business owner, you have one location, you're not in a franchise, you have an idea about marketing collateral or a Christmas promotion or how you gain leads from a marketing company, you can usually pivot on a dime pretty fast. When you're a part of a, of an organization, of an ecosystem with dozens or Hundreds of locations that has to sing, sing the same song and beat to the same drum. I mean, there's an entire scope, I mean, an entire SOP that has to be written for making sure we're checking all the boxes for compliance. Whether it's legally, whether it's fundamentally, whether it's operationally, we have to make sure that we're checking our boxes. Because as big the bigger you get, the more you have a bullseye on your back, whether it's from the fda, whether it's from the government, you know, any entities that's regulating your interest industry, you definitely have to make sure you're checking all the boxes. And with business owners, we're open seven days a week. You want this done yesterday, right? So you're constantly thinking, uh, why isn't this moving faster? Right. Is the corporate office even working today? Right. It's like they're moving so slow. So I think one of the things, if you're going to join a franchise or if you're a part of one and you haven't experienced this already, the corporate team is working. It's just they can only move as fast as they can move, right? There's so many boxes that you have to check before it's actually actioned in the field. I usually tell people, if we have an idea in January, you probably won't even see it in the field till Q3, even if it's something small. Because what you also can't do is you can't roll out a bunch of little things throughout the year. Uh, you usually have one or two big releases that harness dozens of changes in the system, and everybody moves to those changes at the exact same time. So, um, it's rare that you'll see small little releases. And most people think, hey, it's just something small. Why can't we change that? What's the big deal? And it's like, this is a ripple effect. It could affect other things. So that's another thing I've always explained is normally before you change something on the model, usually test it. You'll test it at three or four locations in different markets, make sure it works. Make sure, uh, there's proof in an ROI there before you roll it out the system. So, yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker A: So I recently interviewed Jim Donley from Human Not Health and Restore Hyper Wellness. And we got into this topic of private equity, and he's like, look, you either want to spend time with, uh, bunnies or you're spending time with wolves. And if you want to spend Time with private equity just from the get go. Understand you're spending time with wolves. And so I'm going to switch gears here te private equity. And by the way, I'm saying that you're not saying that, but let's talk about the wolves. Right. So I'm curious. A lot of those listening and watching are, are either prepping for, they're currently in conversations, uh, with private equity or family office. And I feel like when you get into that time of conversations with private equity and raising capital, it just moves so fast. Right. So we don't get necessarily so many and plus it's confidential but you don't get necessarily so many opportunities to talk to sounding boards of those that have gone through it. And so I wanted to take the opportunity for someone like you who has gone through it to share best practices and things that worked and, and maybe things as you look back, didn't work. But before we do that, can you take us back to like when did you know that you wanted outside capital as you were bootstrapping for quite some time? When was that pivot point to say, you know what, we need some outside capital and what were you trying to solve for? What would the money be used for?

Speaker B: Yeah. So for us there was three different milestones that uh, we found out in franchising. It's locations 1 through 25 are usually some of the most difficult. You're setting the foundation of the franchise and what the franchise looks like. Locations 25 to 50 is kind of like your second hump. Right. It legitimizes your company to another level. You have created the structure, you've created the systems, you've majority proven out everything and now you're considered an emerging franchise. Locations, uh, 50 to 100. That's what separates the 1 percenters. They say less than 1% of franchises that start make it to a hundred plus locations. So it's difficult to get to a hundred. After a hundred, um, you're not considered an emerging franchise anymore. You just become a different caliber of a beast. And it takes funding to get there. We realized that those three phases are usually kind of where you would take some injection of capital. Um, that's kind of how you see franchising. Inject big chunks of capital. Usually it's an upfront investment to get the franchise off the ground. You'll sell units to get to the roughly about 25, uh, open locations. Around that point in time, your corporate team gets bigger, your payroll gets bigger, your systems and software start to beef up because you're scaling you're going across multiple states. Normally you've at least exceeded, uh, a handful of states, um, you know, open locations. And you're just becoming more of a behemoth, right from that standpoint, you'll see another injection usually come around location 50 ish, somewhere between 40 and 60. Some locations can make, or some franchises can make it to 60, 70 locations for that next injection. But normally about the 50 open location mark, you need some other capital infusion. Once again, you're growing the corporate team, you're growing the infrastructure, your systems and software and technology is growing. Things are getting more expensive, things are getting more robust. And that's where we were. We saw um, you know, we wanted to see an injection around 50 locations. We were at 52 locations when we were looking to strike a deal. And then with, with Jim and the guys at Restore, I think they did something very similar. They had two smaller injections under 10 million. And then when they got to like 110, 120 locations, they did their big private equity deal with General Atlantic. Um, but that's usually where you see it, 25, 50 and 100 locations roughly. Uh, you'll see tiers of injections and sometimes it's the founders re injecting capital because they have the expendable income to do it. Sometimes, usually at locations 25 and 50, you'll have a minority private equity partner. Will they take less than 50%? Normally when you get to that a hundred unit mark and you're in your teaming up with a big private equity firm, nine times out of ten you're, you're selling majority interest of the company to do that, you know, which is what I think or store might have did. I don't know the deal a hundred percent. But uh, but yeah, that's, that's how you would normally tier it. The money doesn't always have to come from outside capital or you know, from private equity groups. I would say the thing that I learned talking to private equity over the years, which I've talked to dozens, if not hundreds of them. One, make sure it's a firm that understands your space. You know, don't get in bed with a private equity firm or a VC group or a family office that doesn't understand the space that you play in.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You're already setting up or recipe for disaster. Number two, make sure you guys have the same core values. I mean I always tell people, I don't do business with you, I do life with you. So if we don't have core values that mesh, um, we're never going to be able to see eye to eye on really anything. So I think Core Value Mesh is number two and then number three, really setting clear expectations up front. Are you selling a minority stake in the company? Are you selling a majority stake in the company? What is your non negotiables? Um, I think is the biggest thing if you had to create a list of here's the perfect deal structure for me. Okay. Out of that list, which we don't live in a perfect world, what are the non negotiables on that list? And you have to make sure that that group or the groups that you talk to understand your non negotiables for day one. Because the last thing you want to do is waste their time or your time.

Speaker A: Yeah. Two part question. If you can go back, would you still do a uh, private equity deal? And second, if you were to still do a private equity deal, would you do it with the partners that you selected for icryo?

Speaker B: So we actually never had private equity come to the table in icryo. It was all internal, all internal cash flow. We ended up uh, during our Chapter 11 process just recently. I think a uh, family office was going to come in. But yeah, we never had private equity inject any capital into the company. I think if I were to do it different, we were a little hard headed on a few deals early on that I think could have catapulted the company a little bit further, a little bit faster. We just didn't want to give up as much equity as they were asking for. So it's, it's tough. That's why I say, you know, understanding how much equity you want to give up and how much cash they can bring to the table is crucial. I probably would have sold a good chunk of the equity back then in hindsight, you know, just to get the company moving a little bit more fluid, a little bit more powerful. But you know, at the end of the day we had something special and we didn't want to give up that much equity. So that's the decision we made.

Speaker A: Yeah. So 14 years then June of this month you decided um, that it was time to hang up the cleats at icryo. And it's, it was. I remember the day that I found out, I was saying, man, the good looking guy, the big bicep, the nice suits, I mean, I cry. I was trying to get you on this show. I was, I was calling you out. You probably don't even know, man, you're so busy. How did you make that decision, I mean, it's your baby. You started it. You then, uh, co founded the franchise with your pops, right? Uh, who's a finance whiz, by the way. I want to make sure I give him the shout out. How did you. How did you make that decision? It must have been tough.

Speaker B: It was. It was tough. You know, it's. It's my entire. It was my entire professional career. It was all I ever known, you know. You know, thinking of it as the firstborn child, it is just that, man. I was emotionally, personally, financially, uh, just attached in every way possible. I mean, it was even to the point where, you know, I thought it was kind of my identity. I thought icryo was who I was to my core. And it took a few mentors and, you know, close friends, friends around me to really get through to me and say, hey, Kyle, this company does not define you. You know, this is not your identity. This is just a business. And so I really had to understand what that meant. Um, you know, in order to go. To go a separate way, do I think. We built an incredible company, an incredible brand, with amazing people involved in it from every facet of life, thousand percent. We had great days. We had horrible days. We had days of success and days of sadness. We had, uh, just so many. I mean, I feel like I could write a book and start a Netflix series with icry.

Speaker A: So many.

Speaker B: So many incredible things that happened, and I don't regret really any of it. Did we make mistakes? Of course we did. Did we do amazing things? Of course we did. Did I establish great relationships with people I'm still friends with today? Of course we did. But at the end of the day, you know, life moves on. Like they say, nothing's forever. And, uh, you know, it was time for me to kind of pack bags, separate. And, uh, the. The owners of the company right now that. That acquired us out of chapter 11, they'll keep running it, pushing it forward, and I hope I see, you know, nothing but success for all the franchise owners. But for me, God had a different plan. You know, I think it was my time to, uh, do something different right now. Still a free agent, I told myself I'd take, you know, two or three months off. And whether it was consulting, advising, adding value to other companies, or, you know, trying to team up with organizations that I felt I could contribute something to, that's been my goal over the last 90 days. You know, I'm sure I'll plant my roots somewhere and call somewhere home soon. Definitely do not like the Job hopping mentality. So getting a job for three months or six months just isn't how I'm wired. You know, finding somewhere where I feel like my core values align, you know, my professionalism and what I bring to the table and the value that I can add, it goes concrete somewhere. So yeah, it was a difficult pill to swallow, man. It's almost like, and I don't have any kids, but it's almost like sending your kid off to college that you know, is not going to come back and live in your house. It's like they're building a career, they're building a family for their own and they're detached, they're, they're no longer with you. So yeah, I cry will always hold a special place in my heart. And everybody that was a part of

Speaker A: the organization, you were the name of the brand and the face of the brand. And I know I've spent a lot of time chatting actually had a franchisee uh, on this show who you know really well, Magnuson, uh, and that guy's nuts by the way. I love that guy. He's, he's a good spirit.

Speaker B: Matt is incredible. He, he is, he is the epitome of our, of our uh, industry. I mean his transformation, his story, story's nuts. And he, man he is a guy that busts his ass when you talk about an owner operator. Him and his wife Rachel, they, they've been with us from, they were one of the OG franchisees. I mean they were with us almost from the beginning and yeah, they, they both bust their ass out there in Wichita, uh, Kansas and yeah, been out there several times and you know, I hope, hope all the best and hope everything is going out well for him. But yeah, his story is incredible, man.

Speaker A: Man, love it. Well you're, you're the name of the brand and you're the face of the brand. Then you decided to go. So who is Kyle Jones? The Monday after you made the decision.

Speaker B: Well, who is Kyle Jones? First of all he's a man of God, man of faith. That is, that is number one. I have found that out of ah, the last six months or really eight months of this year, just going through everything we've gone through and transitioning out of the company. Got to have my faith first. Everything falls secondary to that. You know, for me I'm a family man. I don't have a family of myself but, but you know, finding the right person, having kids in my future, that, that is a non negotiable for me. So uh, for me it's always family or it's always faith and family and fitness in that direct order. Fitness is, is a lot of health. You know, obviously I'm a very health conscious person and I hold my health to a very, very high standard. I usually plan my day around my health. So whether it's gym, exercise, sauna, uh, eating right, my schedule is built around my health health. I mean, at the end of the day, if I don't have my health, I can't give, I can't give my 100%. Right? I'm running on fumes. So, so yeah, that, that's who Kyle is today. Kyle is God. First faith all, all day long. Second to that is my family. Sometimes family isn't blood. Sometimes it's family of choice. I've, uh, got, uh, people that I consider family that, that aren't blood relatives. And so for me, I, I love pouring into all sorts of definitions of what family can mean. And you know, it's, it's not really reinventing myself, but it's bringing out the new version of myself. And that's what I've been focused on the last few months is bringing, bringing forward what is Kyle 2.0 and making sure it's the best version of myself that I can give and it's better than the one before.

Speaker A: Well, I love that I get to do this so that other people get an opportunity. For those that don't know you, right, There's a lot that you can see on social media and I think you can. When you spend time with someone, you get to dig in and see, wow, this person is amazing. I'm so blessed that I get an opportunity to spend time. And that's how I felt when I met you. And this year your birthday was a little bit different. Right. And I know for those that do know you, they know birthdays is a big thing for you. And, uh, this year you had an opportunity. And, um, I don't want to get emotional about this, but I thought it's a cool story. As you go through some of your trials and you go through some of this identity stuff. You had an opportunity to get baptized and, uh, I just know how powerful the moment was for you. We were texting back and forth. I saw some photos as well, and you were with other men. And not that this is only for men, but I do want to say many men tend to isolate. Even when you see others and you think, man, they must have it all together. We're all going through something. And the fact that you took the opportunity to set Aside any pride, ego, or even fears, you got out there and you spent time with other men who were building a relationship with Jesus and you took the step to be like you. Walk us through that experience. Yeah.

Speaker B: Oh, man, that was an emotional roller coaster for sure. Uh, and yeah, anybody that knows me and is part of my inner circle knows that I'm a big birthday person. It's not a birth, it's not a birthday, it's a birth month. So, yeah, my birthday being July 27th, when July 1st hits, it's, it's on, man. We're gonna have some fun. I, uh, mean, shoot. Whether it's, you know, Vegas or Miami or some international trip, Dubai, I mean, you name it, I'm, I'm always doing something big for my birthday, so. So this year was different. You know, I remember thinking about, um, you know, I, I need to turn the chapter in my life. I need to shed the skin of what is Kyle and become that next version of Kyle. And um, you know, making big commitments to myself, making big commitments to the man upstairs of, of whose I wanted to be and not who I wanted to be. You know, those are things that I, I told myself that I would, that I would make and, and commit to and move forward with. And so one of the things that I've always talked about as a young man is, you know, my faith and you know, putting that in a public sett, know, I would consider what I used to do is what most Christians do. You kind of check the boxes of, uh, I'm going to church on Sunday. I'm, um, you know, praying for this, I'm praying for that. And you know, not really digging into what faith is and what, you know, following down your walk in the path that the Lord has set for you, really embracing that. And I'll be, I'll admittedly say I was that for the longest time, you know, just kind of checking the boxes of what the world said a Christian is supposed to do and how you go to heaven. For me, digging into my faith the last few months has been such a wild, emotional roller coaster pouring back into men in my life that have been in my life for years that I've not really understood what they've been telling me for the last 10, 20 years of our friendship around, you know, being a man of faith and what that truly means. And I just remember a couple months ago I reached out to a buddy of mine in, in Florida. Um, he had me a part of his men's faith based group, you know, five, six years ago. And I said, I hit him up. I said, man, are you still doing that men's retreat? And, you know, back then there was maybe, like, maybe eight or ten of us. And, um, he said, oh, yeah, but it's way bigger now. There's like a hundred something people involved. And I was like, oh, dang. And, uh, I said, when is it? I need to get plugged back in. I need to go to the next one. He said, man, it's the weekend of July 25th. And I was like, dude, that's my birthday, man. I said, that's a, that's a, that's a sign.

Speaker A: Like, yeah. Ah.

Speaker B: You know. And so it's funny, I had people reaching out to me, friends like, hey, where are we going this year? What are we doing? Where are we booking? Whatever? And I said, no, I'm doing it different this year. I'm focusing on reinventing myself. I'm focusing on getting my soul right, getting my mind right and being and going on the right track. And so, yeah, I booked that trip out to Miami. We did a men's faith based retreat. A couple weeks later, I get on the phone with my buddy and I said, ma', am, I'm thinking about getting baptized this year. And I didn't even say, like the day. I said, I just think about getting baptized this year, man. I need to really take the next steps into my faith. And, uh, he goes, dude, done. Why don't we do it Saturday on the beach during, uh, the redeemed weekend? And I was just like, what? And he said, he said, yeah. And I just was like, man, this weekend is meant for me for sure. Like, I'm definitely excited about that. So, yeah, um, took the next step. Spent my birthday weekend with about 65 guys, all faith based retreat. We did some health and wellness based activities, beach workouts, um, you know, healthy meals prepared by chef, all the things. And we just man, dug into scripture and bonded as men. And dude, it was just a, it was just a magical weekend for me. It was a life changing weekend.

Speaker A: So. Cool. Well, you've been made like new. What a blessing. Thank God. And you're now, as you mentioned, a free agent, clean slate. What's next?

Speaker B: Yes, sir. Yeah, wiped the slate clean of, uh, pretty much everything in my life. And, uh, starting on this fresh version, I. I consider it a clean slate. Um, you know, at the end of the day, we all make mistakes as you know, whether it's business, professionals, as fathers, as brothers, as sons, as human beings, as friends, we make mistakes every single day. Of our lives. But, um, the moment that you start realizing that you're going to continue to make mistakes and just owning them and taking that ownership and admitting to the fault and um, you know, moving forward in a positive way and not dwelling on that negativity and not letting the world break you down, which is what I see happens to people all the time, is we let the world just eat us up, spit us out and chew us up again. And so the moment that we can stay positive, understand that we are put on this earth for great things, for a great purpose. It's just figuring out what that purpose is and whose purpose you're doing that for. Just walking the line that you're, that you were set out to.

Speaker A: Well, there's a lot of franchisors, C suite founders that listen to this, watch this. What are you looking for as far as the next, the next big role? Is that a board seat? Is that, I mean, I don't want to pigeonhole you today, but what does that look like? Like what industry does that look like? Where, where are you, where are you searching right now?

Speaker B: So definitely has got to remain in health and wellness. This is my, this is my life's work. This is my passion. I mean I live health and wellness, I breathe it. It's, it's who I am. You know, whether it's franchising or not, whether it's a products based business or retail concept or an online concept, um, you know, I'm, I'm open to opportunity for me is I just have to mesh with the vision of the company. I have to mesh with the overall. Whether it's the product or the service or the um, it's got to be, I got to be a product of the product. I'll never represent something I personally don't do or take myself. And then you know, basically something where I know I've got concrete stability to exercise the next 10, 15, 20 years of my professional career. So you know, something, something that's uh, I think is exciting are companies that are innovating right now. So like I said, whether it's equipment, a product, a software, a uh, service, you know, I love innovation. I love being on the ground, ground floor. But at the end of the day it's being a part of a family, being a part of a good culture, uh, being a part of a good founder led company that has a vision to do amazing things. I think that goes a long way. I think it goes a lot more than what am I getting paid, right? It's uh, do I feel appreciated where I'm at. Am I, uh, a part of a company that I agree with? The vision, the mission, do I agree with the executive team and the CEO and the direction that the company's going to? And do I feel like I'm at home? Does it truly feel like I'm a place that I can call home? I always tell people I would rather feel like I'm in a good place than look at my dollars in the bank account and think I'm in good place.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's so good. Well, it's been a pleasure having you on. As I mentioned, I really appreciate the authenticity. You're a big, genuine guy, man. So thank you for sharing your story. And I know God's with you, and it's the. The rest. The best is yet to come. It's. I'm excited for you. For those that want to reach out to you, chat with you, be mentored by you, talk about different opportunities, or just get to learn from you, where's the best place to reach out to you?

Speaker B: Yeah, I usually tell people, just shoot me right on Instagram. I'm very, uh, very active on social media. I don't have Facebook. Got rid of that years ago. But you can, uh, connect with me on LinkedIn, Il Jones, or on, uh, Instagram, Yilliam Jones. Um, you know, very responsive on there. Love to connect with people around the world, not just the United States. And, you know, at the end of the day, if I can add value to anything that anybody is doing, I'm always there as a supporting army.