[solidcore] and Boutique Fitness Survival | Nate Scott | The Owner Seat

Speaker A: Welcome back to the Owner Seed podcast where operators get the truth about what's coming next in fitness and wellness and what it means for growth, margins and survival. Today's guest is Nate Scott, Chief Financial officer of solidcore, one of my favorite brands. One of the most intense talked about boutique fitness brands in the United States. Nate is a strategic, operationally oriented CFO with 20 years over 20 years across finance, consulting and leadership roles including CFO and COO seats and high growth businesses. Before stepping into Solidcore. What makes this conversation different? We're not going into the Pilates, boo. Yes, it's hot. Everyone's talking about it and Solidcore is at the top of that list. We're going to talk shop, we're going to talk the real operators about what it takes to scale a premium boutique concept. While private equity is involved, expectations are higher and the unit economics have to hold up under scrutiny. Solidcore has been at the center of the investor spotlight. So the questions become, what do buyers actually pressure test in boutique fitness? What does scalable finance and ops infrastructure look like when you're building past 100 plus locations? And how do you keep the brand premium while protecting margin cash? That's Nate and I. That's our favorite. And execution. And for context, Solidcore's mission is to change people to seek their strongest self and their vision is to become a true category of one. Nate. Oh my goodness. I've been waiting for this moment. Welcome to the owner seat podcast, sir. Awesome.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, thank you, Albert, for having me on. Super excited for this conversation and looking forward to kind of diving into some of the details that we normally don't cover during other, uh, conversations. So, yeah, I really appreciate it.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I'm so glad you were able to jump on. I know you're a busy man. There's a lot going on. I mean, Solidcore, again, top of the list. You all are crushing it. And I wanted to take the opportunity for those that get to tune in and watch, or maybe they're listening while driving or working out, they get to hear a couple finance guys is talking shop. And so I thought I'd, uh, start a little bit going, just rewinding a little bit. You know, you've been a CFO and COO across multiple high growth businesses. What's the, what's the biggest scaling pattern you've seen repeat? No matter, no matter the industry?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. And I think, you know, over my career I've kind of put together my own playbook that I've done at, you know, various private equity firm, uh, private equity owned companies that I've come on board. And I think it really comes down to actually the basic three that, uh, we talk about. It's, it's people, it's process and it's technology. So it's about, you know, assessing the needs of the business and where it's going to be in two, three and five years, making sure that you have the right people on board before you need them, setting up your processes so that they will mature over time to where you're going and of course, making sure that you've got the right infrastructure and technology not for what you need today, but for where you're going to be in a couple years. And if you do those things, I think you'll, uh, ease a lot of friction points as you grow moving forward.

Speaker A: I love that ppt. I'm going to remember that. That's so good. You know, Solid core, as I mentioned, it's just, it's doing so well and you're doing, you and the team are doing such a great job. Looking back, what made solidcore worth the fight that you wanted to step into it back in 2021? It was. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. When I was looking at new kind of new opportunities, I'd been a CFO at, uh, a few different spots and had some successful exits. And so I knew what would kind of work and what wouldn't work. And so, you know, after talking to, you know, the Solid Core founder and Brian, our CEO, I really knew that they were focused on getting the right people on the. They were, you know, focused on finding the talent they needed to kind of be successful going forward and they weren't afraid to invest to get that talent. And so, you know, really after talking with Ann and after talking with Brian, I knew that they were kind of headed in the right direction. And, you know, this was a business that I wanted to be a part of. Uh, you know, on top of that, they had an amazing community, an amazing culture. And so when you combined all those things, you know, it was, you know, the right decision for me to come on board. So.

Speaker A: Good. And you know, as you're growing, sometimes people don't realize the more you grow and the faster you grow, as you're trying to scale, things tend to break. Some things that maybe we didn't plan for or get ahead of. So in your experience, what's the, what's the fastest way that you've seen Boutique Fitness breaks financially as it's scaling past, you know, multiple. Now you're getting into multiple dozens and dozens of studios.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think the biggest key is really around unit economics. You need to build a business, and you need to set up the structure of your business so that it works for good times and not so good times. You can't set things up where you've got to have 80% utilization, 90% utilization to be success. You need a business that's going to work even when you have 30% utilization or even 25% utilization and so that you're not bleeding out cash. And so I think the biggest mistake I see is that founders have had some success in a couple units units. And it's. And they build out based on that success. And the reality is you want to have a lot more margin of safety when you do things. So you want to take on, you know, less real estate than you really need. You want to, uh, make sure that, um, your staffing model is going to work even on. On lower volume. And so I think if you do those things, you're going to give yourself a lot more cushion, a lot more margin of safety as you grow. Because the reality is you can have the best plan, but it never goes exactly as planned. And things often take longer as you're figuring it out. And so you want to give yourself as much wiggle room there to get things right. So, yeah, so good.

Speaker A: I'm going to take that margin of safety. That's so good. What do you think? You know, that you've been a part of different organizations, massive organizations. What's the CFO job like? If you think about where you focus, where most operators underestimate, is that as you were mentioning the unit economics and getting that right, Is it the capital planning? Is it the reporting cadence? You know, is it the tech stack? Like, what, what, what do you find that, you know, most people don't realize, like in the CFO seat? This is the tough part.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think I probably have a different answer than for you, than. I think a lot of folks. I think a lot of the basics, like making sure your forecasting is good, making sure that you have a good, solid cash forecast, you understand kind of the economics of the business. Those are really kind of the table stakes. I think what the biggest separator for a CFO that can, uh, that's great for a growing company is can they attract talent? Can they hire the right people? As you grow, the reality is like, as you grow, it's all about getting the right people in the seat. And so you need to be a leader that people want to work for that people are going to trust. Um, because as you're growing, you want to bring on folks that are going to have to take a risk by coming on board with you. That's the kind of level of talent that you want to bring on. Bring, uh, on board. And so you want to be a leader that again, can bring on strong talent that people will trust. And I think that's probably the most underlooked kind of skill for a cfo, particularly for a growth company.

Speaker A: Well, that's your first p. As you're mentioning earlier, people, people, talent is the most important. Who you casting and uh, onboard it the correct way. You mentioned trust. And I always find it fascinating to see the dynamic between the CFO and the CEO. So you've been a part of multiple growth brands. What does that look like? You know, great CEO. What do great CEOs want from a CFO when you're in this type of ramping hot growth brand, what do they not want?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, the most important thing is you need to be a leader that's going to do what you say you're going to do, ah, that they can trust and that's going to point out their blind spots. You know, a great CEO and a good CEO is not going to want to have a CFO that's going to just tell them yes all the time. They're going to want a CFO that's going to point out, you know, where are the areas of risk and um, and what can they do to mitigate that risk. You know, a CFO that's not necessarily a, a roadblock to moving forward, but sees an issue and comes up with a solution about how to make, to move forward on that. And so I think that's one of the biggest things. The other thing, as a cfo, you really need to kind of guard your integrity really, really carefully. And the reality is like, integrity is one of those things that only you can give away. And so I always say as a cfo, you can never be scared of getting fired. Right. When, when you need to speak up, you have to speak up. You can't be someone that holds back and says, I don't know if I should say that. And so to kind of put it simply, I say to be a great cfo, you can't be afraid to get fired.

Speaker A: Man, that's awesome. That's a huge takeaway. I love that. So I want to switch gears. You talked unit economics and many of the Listeners and viewers that are on this, they, they're running studios, they're running maybe a single unit or a multi unit studio platform or portfolio. And they're trying to figure out what can I do to actually drive profit. And so we talk a lot about that on this show. And so from your perspective, what, what are the true drivers to studio level profitability in a premium boutique model? Is that pricing? Is that utilization, staffing structure? Is that the real estate and occupancy costs? Like what do you, what do you, I mean, what are your top three to five areas that you're looking for from a KPI or even pre, pre launch, pre opening of a studio? That's, that's typ. People mess up. They didn't get that right and now they're stuck with it. Speaking of occupancy costs.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, um, you know, it's a, it's a great, some great points there. And I think, you know, it initially starts with real estate, right? You only need as much real estate as you actually are going to use. And so you want to make sure that you're not taking on more space that, you know, only 5% of 10% of the customers are actually going to utilize. You're building out and you're sizing what you need based off of, you know, the 80% of clients that are becoming to see you. Um, by starting with that, you're going to already set yourself up for a lot more success because you're not paying extra rent, that you're not being utilized. You're not investing in amenities that the majority of your client actually doesn't care about or is not not worried about. And so I think by keeping things simple, starting with the real estate, that's going to help dramatically. I think another aspect that you have to utilize is earn the right to grow. Okay? So it's okay to have grand visions of people and the level of service that you want to provide when the studio's completely full. But you know, set up processes so that your studios can earn that right over time. They can earn the right for more staff at their particular location as they grow. I'd say another area that's really important is to incentivize your employees in studio. The reality is you want them to share in your success. And so, you know, when a studio is half full versus completely full, the level of work for your people in studio isn't just twice as hard, it's like exponentially harder to deal with. And so you want to make sure that they have A share in the upside. Whether that's, you know, commissions on the memberships that they sell or, you know, allowing them to earn more based off of, uh, the utilization of their class. Mhm.

Speaker A: That's good. Those are three great points. Not only earning the right to grow, but making sure your real estate and you got the occupancy costs all modeled in and in the correct fashion. Square footage is key. And then compensation plans, incentive structures, those are so important. Something sometimes we skip through. Those are so important. Probably the, as you're mentioning, not only the casting and onboarding and recruiting, but what is those incentive structures that are going to align with what you're trying to do, what the vision is to grow financially. Speaking of growing financially and keeping things healthy, walk me through, what's your thoughts around a healthy contribution margin for the studio world and what needs to be true operationally to hit that, in your opinion?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the realities in a boutique studio, uh, industry somewhere kind of north of 30% is probably a healthy contribution margin for a studio M. You know, we do, you know, much greater than that. Um, right. Again, I think, um, I think the key to that is, you know, one, uh, you know, making sure that you understand what price you can actually, uh, charge your clients. I think two, making sure that you can consistently deliver the value and the experience that the client expects from what they're paying there. Um, and then three, I think finally, um, we talked about it a little bit before, but just making sure that your, uh, employees share in your success. You want them to be just excited to grow as you are. And so I think that's an opportunity, an area where folks generally kind of miss it because, you know, the reality is as you expand, as you grow, you're not going to be able to be everywhere. Your employees are, the ones that are going to be there, the front, you know, the face of the brand, uh, to your clients and you want them just as excited to be part of that growth as you are.

Speaker A: You talked about pricing and sometimes when I'm working with franchisors or franchisees, they do the hey, what's going on across the street type of pricing, uh, competitive analysis in general. I don't want to give up the secrets of what Solidcore does, but any tools that you recommend or anything that you recommend to those listening and watching around, just pricing, choosing your price, pricing models, like, how can they go about and making sure they feel very confident that it's mathematically sound that they selected the right price other than the Basic supply and demand. I guess you'll figure it out as the uh, market will tell you. But leading into that, what would you recommend?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I think I would say don't be afraid to start higher and don't assume that you just have to match your competition. The reality is your competition may not be delivering the same experience that you are. They may not be delivering the same consistency that you are. They may not offer the same value and effectiveness of the workout that your uh, workout does. And so I think if you really focus on delivering the best value to the client. I always think of like price over value as like a framework I always have in my mind, what value are we getting and what value are we delivering based, uh, off of what we're either purchasing or providing. And so I think if you can focus on, you know, making sure that your clients are happy, the experience is absolutely effective for them. You have less to worry about on pricing. And so uh, you can charge that premium price because you're delivering a premium product.

Speaker A: I love that experience, Experience. It's so good value. So as a CFO of Solidcore, as you wake up and once you plug in, what are those three metrics that you're just thinking about or you're looking at? Like, what would you walk me through? Kind of let us see behind the scenes in your life as the cfo. What do you look at?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean that's a really important question. And I think there's a variety of different things that I look at every morning as my routine, as I kind of settle in the office with uh, my morning coffee to kind of see the state of the three of the ones that I look at first? The first thing I look at is visits. What were the visits like across our locations for our comp studios as well as our nsos? This, you know, gives me a great predictor of what our revenue is going to be that month. The next thing I look at, I look at is our cash sales. So what were our cash sales, uh, like, were they as expected? And that will vary for, particularly for membership based companies because you're going to have certain times of the month that are much more heavier, uh, for your membership renewals, typically like the end of the month, the beginning of the month, uh, but I look at our cash sales to make sure that that's in line with what I expect. And then finally I, I look at our memberships. How are our memberships growing? We want to be growing our memberships every single day, uh, across all our regions and so those are the first three KPIs that I look at every single morning, without a doubt. There's obviously more that I kind of dig into to see the health of the business, but those three are the ones that I really focus on.

Speaker A: Amazing. Thanks for sharing that. So good. I love to know what you're looking at and uh, I know many of us will now pivot and make sure we're following suit. That's so good. So I wanted to get into infrastructure and get your thoughts on that. You know, there's a lot of brands out there, unfortunately, and I won't name them, but there's some large franchise systems that were hot. I mean, they were doing great and they got into the public market and maybe oversold, maybe weren't doing the same things that they were doing earlier on in the process. It came down to a, ah, $2 stock and then they vanished type of thing. So as you're getting over and crossing over that hundred mark, 200 mark, you know what, what do you feel like break can break first? Is that reporting? Is that people, Is that the processes we were talking about earlier? Is that the tech stack? Maybe we're not evolving enough to drive growth.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, um, there's probably a few things across that area. So, you know, one, hopefully you do have the tech stack in place to support you whether you have, you know, 100, 200 units or 500 units. And that's something you want to build, you know, well, well in advance. Um, the other aspect is on the people front. And so the route is as you scale and you go from, let's, uh, say 50 units to 100 units, there's a process of you having to let go and you can no longer be everywhere that you want to be. You can no longer know everything that you want to know. And you really have to trust your people. And so in order to get to that spot and not have issues, you need to have kind of, you need to have built that talent early on, way ahead of the game of where you're at. And the reality is if you can add trusted people earlier on that are going to be there to help you scale and then you have the wherewithal to kind of let go and not micromanage them, you know, the process is going to unfold a lot, a lot better there. And then lastly on process, you know, process is something that constantly needs to mature. You know, what worked for you when you had 20 units versus 50 units versus 200 units is, will constantly evolve and you need to Be thinking about where are the new friction points that you have in place? And you need to be making sure that you're leveraging technology as much as possible to not just necessarily automate things, but to compress and reduce friction points. Utilizing, you know, tools like Alteryx or other technologies are gonna allow you to do things much, much faster than just one or two people kind of plowing through something.

Speaker A: I wanted to chat with you about that again, kind of pulling back the curtain a bit and just I'm always fascinated to see what is everyone doing with their finance back office. And so I get the opportunity to talk to the CFO in the, uh, fitness and wellness space, the boutique space. So can you walk us through? I mean, speaking of innovation, like, how are you all innovating? How are you creating that culture with your finance back office? And I'm think close process controls, governance, forecasting unit, reporting. Um, ah, is there anything that you all are looking to do or that you're currently using that you can share? Of course, that's making the finance department just pretty powerful for what you all are doing?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the things is we're never satisfied about where we're at. We're always looking for opportunities to improve, whether that's our close cycle, whether that's the precision of our forecasting, and we're not afraid to adopt new technologies that are going to help us get there. I think, you know, one mistake that folks can often make as you're growing quickly is get too locked into a particular process or too locked into, uh, a technology that's not going to allow you to evolve over time. And so you absolutely want something that's going to be flexible going forward. We're also implementing the use of AI, uh, as much as possible as far as, like, um, how can we get to the right data and the right answers faster so that we can make improved decisions on that front. So those are a few areas that we're really kind of focused on. But the reality is it's never being satisfied. It's always trying to improve. Whether it's again, your monthly close process, how you process invoices, uh, the efficiencies there, or your forecasting process, how can we always make that better? And I think encouraging that mindset of curiosity throughout your finance and accounting organization, when things don't go exactly as planned, you want them to be curious about why. And that's kind of a difficult thing to teach, but it's something that you want to continually encourage and that's going to Allow them to get better over time. Um, that's so good.

Speaker A: You know what, I'm um, curious on your approach and your team's approach around new studio pro formas. You know, you mentioned real estate and I'm thinking rent per square foot, your square footage in general. But what are the assumptions outside of that that are just for you, non negotiable? Like we have to get this down in order for this model to work?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think everyone's going to kind of be able to do a basic pro forma of where, uh, you think the business is going to go in a particular area. I think the biggest thing to get things right is to really understand what your potential visits will be in a location. Um, and I think everything starts with that. And to do that correctly, you really need to understand who your client is. Not just from a relational standpoint, but from a data standpoint. What are the psychographics, what are the demographics that your client particularly aligns to and what is that density of that particular client in an area that you're looking to build out at the studio? Uh, if you do that right, as well as some of the art of real estate and making sure that you have a good location, you got the right convenience and the right parking, uh, you're going to be successful and going to be able to, um, have a successful open. Um, but the reality is if you get that wrong, uh, everything else is going to fall apart from there. And so I think that's the key part of it. As you're building out the pro forma, that confidence in your visits that you expect at a particular location, you should also be modeling out. The reality is life isn't about one single decision that is successful. It's really about probabilities. And so understanding in your mind what are the probabilities that this unit is going to overperform and what are the probabilities that this unit could underperform and seeing where your risk tolerance is on that particular area. The reality is you don't want a location that you have to hit home runs every single day to be successful. You want a location that is going to be pushing success on its own, regardless of how well or perfectly you operate.

Speaker A: Yeah, you talked about that margin of safety earlier and I love that on the show we talk a lot about scenario based planning, making sure you have plan A through Z. You gotta think about it all. Cause you just never know what variable is just not gonna come to fruition that you had mapped out on a spreadsheet. I'm um, curious. So one thing that we haven't chatted about and actually I don't chat a lot about it on the show and I, I don't get a lot of CFOs on the show actually. It's always operators. So this is awesome that people get to see kind of behind the scenes from a finance lens. And your lens, sir, Resource, uh, management, capital allocation. So people don't realize like in the CFO seat, there's marketing asking for money, operations asking for money. You got it. Uh, asking for money. So just walk us through behind the scenes. Like how do you, as you're trying to protect cash and Cash Runway think. I mean, solid core is expanding. There's a ton of build out, so there's a lot of cash going out. How do you, how do you protect against that? But then how do you make sure you're teaching the team that, you know, dollar isn't the same everywhere? Looking at it from an ROI perspective.

Speaker B: Yeah, I know that's a really important question. Right. Because there's, your team is always going to want to m do more. They're always going to want to, uh, lean into ideas that come up particularly as you grow. And I think there's a few key areas that are particularly important for a growth company. One is you need to make sure that you have a rock solid cash forecast. You have to understand what cash you have at play and what cash you can invest in other areas of the business. I think the next area that you need to really be behind is making sure that your employees that, uh, we'll kind of talk a little bit of roi, but have an owner's mindset, they truly are thinking about their decisions and how it's going to be effective across the organization, not just their one particular silo. And so having that kind of owner's mindset is really, really critical. And then two, having being very disciplined about thinking through what the ROI is going to be for a particular investment. And there's going to be some decisions that, you know, it's, it's very kind of cut and dry. So let's say paid media, right. We, we have a clear visibility of good data on, you know, what our paid media spend can do and the ROI that it can generate for us. You're going to have other, you know, decisions that are going to be a little bit squishier. So maybe it's a, a brand build building event that you're looking to do or it's an investment in a, uh, you know, the HR team that you may not see directly impact the top line revenue, but thinking through and making sure that you've got a clear picture of what that ROI is going to do, uh, or what that investment is going to do for the organization across the board, and again, making sure that you have that clear kind of margin of safety. You don't want to be investing in things that, uh, particularly when you're in growth mode and there's so many different opportunities around, you don't want to be, you know, lose your discipline and invest in things that, you know, there's a, you know, maybe you're going to get a 1 or 2x return on it, or maybe you may not get a return on it at all. You want to make sure that you're constantly prioritizing, you know, the areas of investing. They're going to be generating those, you know, much larger impacts, uh, for you. I think if you have a, if you have a process of, you know, prioritizing those decisions and prioritizing those investments, you'll be well on your way. I think where most, most folks can kind of fall down, particularly as they grow, is that when you're, you're outperforming your budget, you're outperforming your plan, there's a tendency for the plan to go out the window and that you've got room to do X or you got room to do Y. But it really is kind of maintaining that discipline about decision making for your investments. So. Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh, that's so good. Ton of gems right there. Make sure to rewind that one, y'. All. That's so good. So Pilates is exploding. We see it everywhere and there's, it's coming in, it's different varieties, which is really exciting. Not only the equipment and the reformer, but strength and some are throwing cardio. I mean, there's dancing on the pla. On the, on the Pilates, uh, reformers. Now I'm seeing it. I'm seeing everything. It's awesome. What, what do you, where do you see that it's all going next? Like, what's the evolution look like? What do you, if you could predict in the next two, three, five years, like, where is this all going? Obviously, solid core leading the way, but how do you make sure that continues? And then what do you, what does that look like? What doors are opening?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, reality is there's a lot of competition coming into the market. You know, folks have seen the success that, you know, Salad Core's had. They've seen the success of other body studios and they want to be a part of it. The reality is if they don't take the time to really deliver the best experience, the most consistent experience, if they don't take the time to really understand their particular client, um, they may or may not be, they're more likely or not will not be successful. I think one of our keys to success is continually focused on the client experience, making sure that we deliver the most effective workout we consider on the planet. And that's a non negotiable for us as we grow. I think we've also leaned into growth. We'll, you know, open close to 40 studios in 2026, probably more than other, any other corporately owned, uh, boutique fitness concept out there. Um, that's the process that we've earned. You know, we built the team that's capable of doing that. It's not something that we, it's an expertise that we haven't done. You know, we just flip the switch on. It's an expertise that we built over years with our leadership team, with our studio development team, with our operations team. And so, um, you know, we're at a stage to do that. I think if we look at, you know, a couple years from now, you're going to see again more competition, but you're also going to see a lot more folks that didn't quite make it. And it's not because the concept wasn't a great concept. It wasn't because folks fell out of favor with strength training. It was because they didn't deliver the best client experience and they weren't laser focused on doing that.

Speaker A: So yeah, yeah, I'm curious about that because I was going to ask you, where do you think people are getting it wrong? And one of the things I keep reading about and it only makes sense because, well, look, solid core 40 plus a year. We have all these other brands that are popping in because they obviously saw, they smelled the profit in the water. Like, let's jump in. The one thing though that I know about Pilates is the certification processes is intensive. Especially if you want that great experience. You want the best people. Well, the certification process is tough. It's done, um, for a reason. So what I'm reading and I'm seeing, and it totally makes sense is there's potentially a shortage of Pilates performers. Solid. How is solidcore protecting against that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean the reality is we have our own, you know, proprietary machine that we manufacture. Um, but I think the biggest, uh, edge for us and really the magic of Solidcore is our coaches. And so we invest a lot of our coaches. I think we have probably the best pay in the industry, uh, for our coaches. Uh, we also probably have one of the lowest coach churn of any company in our industry and we're extremely proud of that. Um, you know, this week we're celebrating Coach appreciation Week, uh, for the thousands of coaches that we have across the country. And so we know without a shadow of a doubt we would not be where we're at today without our coaches. And we're going to continue to invest in them, we're going to continue to prioritize them. And so that's one of the secrets of success for us. The reality is like the boutique industry, I don't look at it as a, um, a, ah, finite scarcity market where only one of us can be successful. The reality is there's room for many of us to be successful and you know, the more success that we have, uh, it's kind of all boats rise in a rising tide. You know, this isn't kind of a zero sum game where, you know, we should be kind of worried about can only one of us make it in the market. The reality is our biggest competition is probably the, the couch. And so, you know, the boutique industry is unique and really I think one plus one can equal three and four. We can all have room for success and our clients could get healthier, our clients could get stronger. So, uh, yeah.

Speaker A: So good. Well, thanks for sharing that. Well, I've really appreciated your time. I've. I have one more question. I know you're super busy and thank you for being on the show, but if you had a message for every boutique owner, franchise, franchisor, franchisee, uh, multi unit operator that's listening and watching to this and they're just trying to figure out and carve it out, how do I scale this, how do I grow, how do I expand? What's your best advice to them this week, Practical thing that they can go do this week, this month to gain some momentum?

Speaker B: Um, there. Yeah, I think the biggest thing is don't be afraid to invest to get the right people on the boat or get the right people on the bus. The reality is if you can invest in talent that is good for you today, but has also been where you're going in the future as far as scale, as far as uh, level complexity of operations, you're going to avoid a lot of pitfalls because you're leveraging folks that have been there and seen things before. I'd also say don't be uh, discouraged or afraid of hiring folks from outside of the industry. The reality is if, you know, at Solid Core, we've done that. We've fired folks from all over the industry, all different industries. The restaurant industry, we've hired some folks, the boutique industry. I came from the tech world before coming over to Solidcore and we were all able to kind of cherry pick and find the best experiences from our past and allow them to work and help Solidcore be successful. And so again, that would be the biggest piece of advice I'd give to folks who are looking to scale. Invest in talent and don't be afraid to do that.

Speaker A: I Love it. Well, 40 plus in 2026 people, process and tech. Nate, this has been so good. I'm a huge fan of Solidcore. I need to jump back in, uh, get my workout in. Soaz needs it. I need it. It is a tough workout. You all do a great job. To your point, your coaches are phenomenal and always hearing great feedback from them on just how good the company culture is and how great they're taken care of. So great job. I could just totally tell you you're getting it from the finance exec. We're talking about people, people, people, talent, talent and taking care of your team member experience. Nate. We didn't even chat about it. For those that are interested in wanting to become a franchisee, how can they learn more about Sol and then how can they connect with you?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. If you want to look or learn more about Solidcore, feel free to just check us out on our website which is uh, Saladorcore co. I'm not as, uh, forward facing as our CEO so you can reach me traditionally just via LinkedIn. But yeah, I look forward to connecting with you all and happy uh, to answer any questions that you may have as a result of this conversation. So yeah, I love it.

Speaker A: And we talked a lot about ratios and unit economics and as if people are tuning in for the first time or those that have been around for a little while. You're. I know we're throwing stuff out there that you're constantly learning about. So any fitness or wellness operator who wants cash visibility, utilization modeling, we talked about scenario based modeling and that safety measure, that area where or wiggle room so that you can have different variables, you can see it in different ways. Pricing models and pricing structure, even capital planning. We talked resource allocation. Make sure to uh, uh, check me out@strategic.com or, or reach out to me on LinkedIn. This has been another episode of the Owner's Seat podcast. As always, I'm your host, Albert Ramos, and if this is your first time tuning in, we release episodes every Monday and Friday at 8am Central. So this has been so good. Nate. Thank you so much for your time and great job. Great job out there to your whole solidcore team. Very impressive.

Speaker B: Yep. Thank you very much for having me. It was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. So thank you, Albert.

Speaker A: Thank you, sir. Thanks, everybody. See you next time.