Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Hansen.
Hi Mike, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Twenty-two years ago, I began my fitness career with 24 Hour Fitness. There, I built my foundation, holding literally every operational role, but I wondered, “Do I want to wear sweatpants for the rest of my life”? I switched from fitness to finance and garnered a Hedge Fund job. It was then that I discovered I had left my true passion and I pivoted back to fitness. When I came back into the industry, I committed myself to solving its biggest problem. Fitness should be fun, and it wasn’t. In 2005 (pre-Nintendo Wii) I co-founded one of the first enterprise companies to introduce the use of video games to get people fit. We built one of the largest active gaming companies and achieved the status of Top 100 by Entrepreneur magazine in 2010. Checking that off my list, I exited that business, moved to Florida and began a family. Since that time, I have injected media and tech back to the fitness industry by developing incubator models. In 2019 we were retained by Mindbody, the largest boutique studio fitness software company, to develop their fitness strategy. As a part of that work, we identified a colossal gap in the market around service. The industry was going through a format shift, and an Omni channel strategy was needed, but the greatest area of opportunity was educating and stewarding clubs into the digital era as the business model of in-club vs online was posturing. A very similar dynamic to when retail first started morphing to ecommerce. There were many companies at that time that helped fitness companies move into that world and often ran that part of their business. We followed a similar path but elevated by being a fully integrated service agency sitting in the horizontal position. The current market had a bunch of vertical service providers and no one was specializing in fitness streaming—digital strategy, branding content and production. As such Endorphinz was born to fill the gap in the marketplace. In 2019 I said, “we have no idea who is going to find the gold during this gold rush, but somebody is going to have to sell picks and hammers to everybody and help them prospect.” So that is what we did. We built the largest fitness streaming agency to move fitness brands online, help instructors produce better content and work with the fast-growing market of digital fitness apps and connected fitness to improve their content and operations. Ultimately, what we produce is branded content, and artists for the fitness industry with a mission to connect fitness brands and creators to the world. For our clients we solve the big pain points. We focus on ops and technical so they can focus on customers and content. In the last two years we have elevated more than 50 brands, and positioned them to drive revenue by streaming fitness content.
Digging a bit deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We have had success during COVID by helping studios and gyms that have really been hit hard. We stepped back, pivoted, and fine-tuned to be able to service customers in a virtual landscape. In some instances we never met our clients in person. And, we didn’t charge anybody for the first 30 days. I told the team don’t worry about asking for money, do the right thing and the goodwill will pay off—pay it forward. We focused on delivering content to the market as the experts and answered everybody’s call. That is always a tough situation as that is not a sustainable business model, and we used that time to fine-tune our offerings. The biggest obstacle was the unknown of how this impacts our studio/gym clients and the focus we should have with products within various segments as we’ve basically gone through one of the fastest product-market fits in an evolving market I’ve ever experienced. As we grow a business that is “people first” focused we’ve had to go through the process of building a culture and finding the right fit with the team while also building new offerings that have never existed.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Endorphinz?
We are the first fitness streaming agency to produce fitness brands, content, and artists. We do so by building, managing and growing fitness streaming businesses. We follow a simple 7 step approach which includes strategy planning, talent placement and training, content creation and production, platform and tool integration and then once the business is in the market, we focus on something we call a content flywheel – create content, promote content to gain followers, marketing to acquire customers and engagement to retain them. We solve three core value propositions for our customers:
- We develop and launch fitness streaming businesses for our clients
- We produce and level up fitness content with awesome production.
- We apply best practices to gain followers and grow revenues.
We have a team of just under 20 people totally focused on fitness streaming. Our brand position is:
Our Resources, Your Objectives all operated as a Team of One.
We can do any/everything for the customer or fill their gaps in experience or resources.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
I am very fortunate to have had many great influencers. My family fully supports my passion so that’s the first and primary. Throughout my ventures I’ve continued to have the support of Rick Caro, who is the co-founder of IHRSA. He is one of the most respected influencers in our market. I met him in 2014, and since that time, he has been a mentor and advisor as I continue to keep him updated in the world of fitness and technology. I’ve also had a number partners in my career, and I continue to have a strong network who I call to bounce ideas off and gain external assessment. Lastly, I sit on the board of a few industry organizations and through that participation I continue to gain new perspective. .
Contact Info:
- Email: mikeh@endorphinz.net
- Website: https://endorphinz.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotendorphinz/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GotEndorphinz
Image Credits
Endorphinz, LLC
