34 min

Teambuildr & The Decentralization of Fitness - Hewitt Tomlin Future of Fitness

    • Fitness

Hewitt Tomlin is one of the Partners of TeamBuildr, a company that specializes in simplifying the program building and training regimes for coaches. He started his business in college with his roommates, and it was not an overnight success. They came across a problem that strength coaches had, and this was the fact that they were using Excel to train hundreds of athletes across the country, which was time-consuming for coaches. They eventually built a platform which made this process easier through their platform. 
Tell us about your product and what makes TeamBuildr unique? 
In the beginning, Tomlin thought that the key to his business would be to build an app that focuses on building good experiences for athletes electronically.  Soon they came to the realization that it is better to target their app to coaches who actually sit down and write these training programs, trying to ensure that coaches could save a couple of hours on writing training programs.  Tomlin placed an emphasis on building a platform that would make manual technical processes easier.  TeamBuildr will strive to always be a platform that is up to date and continuously improving their features.  What are your thoughts on the current status of things? How did the pandemic affect your business? 
The current pandemic has accelerated business in a few sectors and remote training tools such as ours, it is beneficial for tools that facilitate some sort of remote transaction.  This means that your competition will increase.  You are solving a piece of the equation by being a remote tool, but there are several aspects that are involved. Tomlin likes to use the example that the highest quality platform may not always be the best selling, it is all in how it is marketed.  If your marketing is not formatted for today's situation, you cannot acquire customers remotely.  Tomlins business is not just about talking about their platform, but it's about helping coaches holistically with their pain points.  What are some features that you find more relevant now than maybe six months ago that you are focusing on? 
A social media platform is important.  We have been working on a Team Feed which allows you to share your videos and images. This is important for coaches, they want to be notified of uploads. How do you see yourself fitting into the market? What makes TeamBuildr different? 
TeamBuildr has decided to stay true toward what they call the Strength and Conditioning professional.  This means that the programs that you are writing and the feedback that is given has to do with strength training.  They cater towards the market interested in the principle of progressive overload.  How big are the Strength and Conditioning professional market? How does TeamBuildr estimate? 
The market can very easily be estimated as it relates to Team Space, which includes high schools, colleges, professional teams, recreational teams, and so on - which is a market that is growing very nicely.  Strength and Conditioning have been growing in High Schools spaces due to the job stability it provides. CrossFit also affected the way Strength and Conditioning were seen, and it popularized it more.  This has been a big part of TeamBuildrs business, and it is getting bigger.  What has been one of your biggest challenges as an entrepreneur? 
When it came to building their business, Tomlin said they were unaware that they were building a software as a service.  A lot of the advice given to Tomlin was not as relevant as it would have been if a business was being built 20 years ago, which meant that they had to seek direction on their own.  Tomlin and his partner discovered that they could be self-sufficient and could make progress for their business, and Tomlin did not understand the concept of taking money to see if it would win or lose within a couple of years.  Have you taken on investors? Are you still bootstrapping? 
Tomlin says they never took on a

Hewitt Tomlin is one of the Partners of TeamBuildr, a company that specializes in simplifying the program building and training regimes for coaches. He started his business in college with his roommates, and it was not an overnight success. They came across a problem that strength coaches had, and this was the fact that they were using Excel to train hundreds of athletes across the country, which was time-consuming for coaches. They eventually built a platform which made this process easier through their platform. 
Tell us about your product and what makes TeamBuildr unique? 
In the beginning, Tomlin thought that the key to his business would be to build an app that focuses on building good experiences for athletes electronically.  Soon they came to the realization that it is better to target their app to coaches who actually sit down and write these training programs, trying to ensure that coaches could save a couple of hours on writing training programs.  Tomlin placed an emphasis on building a platform that would make manual technical processes easier.  TeamBuildr will strive to always be a platform that is up to date and continuously improving their features.  What are your thoughts on the current status of things? How did the pandemic affect your business? 
The current pandemic has accelerated business in a few sectors and remote training tools such as ours, it is beneficial for tools that facilitate some sort of remote transaction.  This means that your competition will increase.  You are solving a piece of the equation by being a remote tool, but there are several aspects that are involved. Tomlin likes to use the example that the highest quality platform may not always be the best selling, it is all in how it is marketed.  If your marketing is not formatted for today's situation, you cannot acquire customers remotely.  Tomlins business is not just about talking about their platform, but it's about helping coaches holistically with their pain points.  What are some features that you find more relevant now than maybe six months ago that you are focusing on? 
A social media platform is important.  We have been working on a Team Feed which allows you to share your videos and images. This is important for coaches, they want to be notified of uploads. How do you see yourself fitting into the market? What makes TeamBuildr different? 
TeamBuildr has decided to stay true toward what they call the Strength and Conditioning professional.  This means that the programs that you are writing and the feedback that is given has to do with strength training.  They cater towards the market interested in the principle of progressive overload.  How big are the Strength and Conditioning professional market? How does TeamBuildr estimate? 
The market can very easily be estimated as it relates to Team Space, which includes high schools, colleges, professional teams, recreational teams, and so on - which is a market that is growing very nicely.  Strength and Conditioning have been growing in High Schools spaces due to the job stability it provides. CrossFit also affected the way Strength and Conditioning were seen, and it popularized it more.  This has been a big part of TeamBuildrs business, and it is getting bigger.  What has been one of your biggest challenges as an entrepreneur? 
When it came to building their business, Tomlin said they were unaware that they were building a software as a service.  A lot of the advice given to Tomlin was not as relevant as it would have been if a business was being built 20 years ago, which meant that they had to seek direction on their own.  Tomlin and his partner discovered that they could be self-sufficient and could make progress for their business, and Tomlin did not understand the concept of taking money to see if it would win or lose within a couple of years.  Have you taken on investors? Are you still bootstrapping? 
Tomlin says they never took on a

34 min