Tell us just about the growth, the exit, and then we'll get to strong.

Yeah, so I'm a huge advocate for franchising.

I remember being 24, 25 years old in corporate.

I'm a marketer by trade.

I've always been a personal trainer.

But just not loving life.

I didn't have the financial freedom.

Could you take us through that chapter?

But when you're having these conversations with other franchisors, like, "Hey, I wanna open, you know, I want one of these Pilates," or, "I wanna open the, the McDonald's," or anything else, what are the questions that you ask other people to have? Like, what are the things that you want to ask other franchisors?

Yeah.

So I would, I would ask firstly, what, what is, what does your unit economics look like? So, you know, globally, and, and this, this cannot be argued with, the number one thing that will fix all franchises is unit economics.

So how well are they performing financially? So, so that is, that is the first thing that I'd be asking.

How, how well are you actually doing? And I'd be speaking to the top performers within that network, and I'd also be speaking to the bottom performers.

You know, there's always going to be high and low performers in a franchise.

You need to make the decision when you're looking to buy, is that low performer low performing because of maybe they're not invested, maybe they're not doing the work, or is it the franchise itself? So that's what you sort of need to figure out.

Mm

How do you kind of advertise and market to men to really kind of bring them into that space?

Yeah, so we did this huge brand discovery piece when we were building the brand out.

So we had a look at it and I was looking in Australia, I was looking at all the different Pilates brands that are in Australia and they were very, how do I put it? They were very, very fluffy.

And all the images are like 95% are female, there's a lot of pastel, there's a lot of...

And so the first thing was we need to build a strong brand.

So like, what are our colors? It's black, white, and just like a splash of light blue.

So we went for a very gender neutral look.

So it's like ideally you're avoiding that as much as possible, I assume.

How much does it cost to get a new location up?

Yeah, so our franchisees are paying, geez, anywhere from, I would say, $450,000 to $700,000, depending on where it is, the size of the location, what's required in the fit-out, all that kind of thing.

So that's an all-in expense.

We're seeing one in two of our studios in the U.S. are actually achieving a million dollars revenue before their first year is up.

So they're pre-selling very, very well and they're getting a very fast return on investment.

So, you know, I think enfranchising a return on investment within two to three years is very, very good.

And that should sort of be the gold standard.

How much room in the fitness industry is there? At some point, are we going to have a bloodbath with blood on the streets?

Give me an idea, what is the row former technology that combines Pilates with a rowing machine?

Yeah, so, I mean, if you know anything about Pilates, you know it's generally a reformer or a mat.

What we've done is we saw a very clear gap in the market where we know people need to lift heavy weights.

We know people need to do cardio for their heart health.

And we know Pilates is fantastic.

So we've effectively merged all three of these modalities into one concept.

And the reason that's important, like Pilates is now the number one genre globally for bookings in the fitness space.

How long does it take to set up a franchise and get it up and running?

Love to hear, you know, your response to any and all, um, of the points Jed just made.

Sure.

Well, yeah, penumbras and emanations, that is fighting words right there.

Uh, or, or at least if I thought they fit, they'd be fighting words.

But I, I just don't, and with all respect to, uh, Professor Curtis and some others who have made this argument, I, I just don't, I, I think it, it, it's sort of a, a, you know, u- using these words to, to describe a situation that, that is, is not the same.

Uh, we're-- The, the argument is not that, uh, it is going beyond the te- the...

My argument, or Justice Scalia's argument, Justice Roberts' argument, are not going beyond the text and seeking some kind of a, uh, an emanation.

But a final beat here on sort of text history and structure and, you know, Jed's, um, prompt asking for sort of what's the strongest argument here for an unconditional power of removal? And sort of any further thoughts on Jed and, and Gary Lawson's, uh, necessary and proper sort of, uh, g- gloss or, or, or, or reading on how to think about the removal power.

Uh, broadly, i- is this a new invocation of federal power, um, not requested by state authorities in, in cases where it's contested whether or not the law has broken down and where the states are not part of the problem? Or is this within the American tradition?

Well, the first thing I, I'd say is... on the Insurrection Act is that, uh, there...

the Insurrection has been used in various ways, um, over history.

But the Insurrection Act itself doesn't contain, uh, any of these limitations.

The Insurrection Act simply says, um, that the president can, uh, use federal forces, um, to enforce federal law.

And, and then again that, that just follows directly from the Constitution, uh, that has, uh, the president being, uh, the primary, uh, person responsible for enforcing federal law, uh, and the commander-in-chief, uh, of US forces.

Um, and, uh, and as to the Guard, as to the National Guard, as to the militia, um, being, uh, the commander-in-chief of the militia.

Um, w- is that where this might be heading if courts continue to give any pushback?

How do you efficiently innovate? What's your program?

It's primarily based off customer data and research.

And I would say almost all the innovations we've created to date are there to improve customer retention and increase average lifetime value of a customer.

So we want them trading with us for 10 years.

which is working.

We had 90 plus percent of our members said they felt stronger, 85% felt like they were more flexible.

And then it was really cool stat actually, 70% said they felt less discomfort.

or you go and get your beard shaved and you say, you know, would you be interested? And do you pay them? The micro-influencers? Yeah,