All right. What’s up everyone? Welcome back to the fit to fat to fit experience podcast. I’m your host, drew Manning and I’m flying solo today. You guys. And today we have a special episode with the CFO of a company called dietbet.com and a diaper has been mentioned in the Tim Ferriss podcast. You might have heard about diet, but I’ve actually been promoting these guys for a good three years now. I was one of their first big promoters of their online platform, which basically is a really cool betting platform that you guys can, uh, be motivated to lose weight and win money at the same time. So I remember these guys reached out to me a few years ago and I was like, okay, this is something new, something interesting. Uh, no one had ever really done it before. And so I signed on and I did a diaper game is very successful and, uh, it became really popular.
And so since then, since I did my diabet game back in January of 2013, you know, Chris and Heidi Powell have done it. Shawn T, Tony Horton, Jillian Michaels. Uh, there’s been so many other celebrities like I’ve talked about that have, that have promoted these DietBet games because basically what it does is that it, uh, you know, it makes you accountable by you putting money where your mouth is, right? So when there’s money involved, you put, you know, X amount of dollars, like say 50 bucks into a pot and uh, you are betting on yourself that you will lose 4% of your body weight in four weeks. And if you do, you uh, get, uh, you get to split that pot with the other winners. So you get your money back and you win money and you lose weight at the same time. So it was kind of like a win, win situation.
Anyways, today I bring on Matt Daniel, who is the CFO and in charge of business development for this company and I’ve known him for years and I decided to have him on talk about the, you know, the history of diabetic, how it came about. And then since then, how it’s grown to now they have a new step back game and they have other games now that they’re implementing with new wearable technology. And so we kind of dive into all of that and the specifics and how it works and how you guys can be a part of it. And I’m also, um, the S the sponsor of this episode is diaper because I’m announcing I am doing another diet bet, um, very soon and I am doing a step back game first on August 15th, you guys. So this episode should air on August 9th. August 15th is the date of my step back game.
Now step, it is different. It’s a six week game. Has had a four weeks, uh, versus, which is what diabet is. It’s six week game. And basically, uh, there’s this algorithm they use that tracks your whatever device you use, whether it’s a Fitbit or an iPhone or a smartphone or a smart watch or whatever. It tracks your, I think last six months of data and determines a goal for you to achieve based on that. So it’s not just 10,000 steps for everybody. Let’s say somebody already gets 10,000 steps for them. That would be easy. So it takes their average and, and I don’t know the percentage they use, but they kind of bump it up and, and bump it up to somewhere where it’s challenging but still attainable for that person versus somebody that say that gets 3000 steps a day. You know, that person’s goals are going to be different than the person that’s really active.
So it’s kind of tailored to you and what your activity level is and still challenges you. Uh, but basically the way it works, you guys did the same thing. You put the money into the pot, you have six weeks. And what’s different about this game is you are, uh, you get eliminated week. There’s a weekly step counter, uh, that is synced to your device through an app. And basically it, um, determines how many steps you’ve taken. And if you don’t hit that weekly number of steps, then you drop out of the competition. And so each week you’re trying to have to hit that number again. And again and again, uh, to stay in the competition. And, um, the first week is a a practice week. So it’s a warmup week if you will. So the first week kinda everybody makes it past that first week, but after that you gotta put your money where your mouth is.
And so anyways, it starts August 15th, all the way through September 25th. And then I’m doing a twist you guys where I’m doing the stepback game and then three and a half weeks later, I’m starting a diet based game. So not only are we doing a competition based on steps, we’re also doing a weight loss competition, uh, which is why I’m doing diaper and step at the same time. So you can participate in both. There’ll be links to both of those in the show notes of this. Um, the, uh, but the, the first game is, is August 15th, you guys the step game and the URL for that is step.bet forward slash fit fret to fit, stepped up at four size fits, wet fit to sign up. So $30 buy in and um, you can invite your friends to compete against them and it’s, I’m going to be doing it to you guys.
I’m putting my money where my mouth is and I’m going to be stepping right along with you guys to make sure I hit my daily goals because sometimes I actually Slack on that depending on what I have going on in my life. So anyways, with that being said, check out all the links in the end in the show notes to be a part of this you guys, and invite your friends and family to join us. I think the step back game’s going to be fun and then all announce when the Diabate game is going to start. I think it’s going to be September 7th. I need to confirm that. And the URL for that is diabet.com forward slash fit to fat to fit. All right, let’s jump into this episode with Matt Daniel.
All right. What’s up, Matt? Daniel, welcome to the fit to fat to fit experience podcast. How are you doing today? Terrific truth. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. And you’re out there in New York, correct? Yes. On the steamy, humid confines of New York city. Awesome man. Well, it’s a, it’s a beautiful state and I appreciate you jumping on the podcast with me. Now, those of the, for those of you out there who don’t know who, Matt Daniel is, Matt, why don’t you go ahead and talk a little bit about what your role is with DietBet. I kind of intros you already, but tell us what you do for diabet specifically.
Sure. And I’m sure that’s the majority of your listeners who don’t know who I am. So, uh, yeah, I have two roles with the company, uh, which by the way, we have renamed way better as of last year. So we started as DietBet and now the company is called way better. My first role is to head up our business development team and our job on the business development team is to build and manage partnerships with hundreds of health and fitness influencers, including celebrities like you, drew Manning and Heidi and Chris Powell, Sean T, uh, autumn kalibrasi, Tony Horton, Jen weeder strum. And then a long tail of, of bloggers and other folks who may not be household names. And so that’s been a really fun part of the job, getting to know all these great influencers. And my second role is the CFO. Those are my two roles.
Gotcha. Yeah, I remember, uh, I think it was four years ago, uh, someone kind of connected me and you, and this is when you guys were just getting started. I believe you had been around for a little while and I was like, okay, this sounds really interesting. It’s new and no one’s really heard about it, you know, and there was no big name celebrities that had done a diabet before. And uh, I’m really glad that I did it and I’m really glad that I met you guys.
Well, it’s completely a mutual feeling over here. And yes, you were probably our first really big name, uh, game host. And I do remember back in January of 2013 I think it was, you hosted your first diabet game and at the time it was a record setting game. The pot was over $66,000. And that was a record that stood for a little while.
Yeah, I remember that. I remember breaking records cause you know, that was before the Chris powers and the Jillian Michaels and the Tony Horton’s. Right. And Sean T’s. That’s right.
And some of those folks you helped introduce us to. So we are forever grateful.
Yeah, no worries. But that’s what it was so cool is it was such a new concept, um, and it really took everybody by storm cause they’re like, wow. So you can win money and lose weight at the same time. So why don’t you kind of just briefly describe what, what way better is, or diabetic, whatever you want to call it, uh, is in a nutshell for the, for the few of my followers that have never heard of this.
Right. Well, hopefully it’s only a few. Yes. Uh, so yeah. So let me talk about a diet bet. Uh, so a diet bet is a game in which players invest in their own health and they support each other towards a weight loss goal. And so using our diabet app, uh, players actually bet on their own success. They join a supportive community, uh, that works, uh, and with each other so that each person can reach their individual weight loss goal. And diabet really provides a few things, uh, that make it effective. Accountability, motivation, competition, compassion from the community and fun. And in fact, you know, around our office, we like to say with our users that it’s the most fun you’ll ever have losing weight. And um, it, and a lot of our games, uh, like the ones you’ve hosted, uh, there’s the added benefit of having a host of the game to share all kinds of tips and words of encouragement and workouts and recipes and things like that. So as a player, you have this community that’s supporting you, you have this kind of coach and cheerleader who’s supporting you, and then you’ve got money on the line and all the accountability of the game and all those factors combined to make it pretty effective.
Yeah. And I think it’s, it’s, it’s been great and it originally started out as just a diaper. Right? I know you have all these other games now and we’ll get to that in a little bit. But the original idea was based around this diet where you invest the money and you, you get paid money if you meet the goal. And uh, that’s, that was the original idea. Correct?
That’s, that’s absolutely correct. And yeah, there was some great research we had found both in academic institutions and also from the Mayo clinic that talked about the power and effectiveness of financial incentives, you know, paying people to kind of change their habits and reach healthy goals, things like that. And so the, the research was encouraging, so we started testing it ourselves in 2012 and like you said, you know, giving people the chance to win money for losing weight was a pretty cool novel concept. And, uh, we learned a lot in 2012 we got some great feedback and were able to launch publicly in January of 2013.
Yeah. So let’s kind of back up and talk about that. The word of this original idea come from, was it, was it a born before the research was found? Or what, did you guys stumble upon the research first and then base the game off of that?
Yeah. Great. Great question. So our founder, his name is Jamie Rosen, he’s a guy I’ve known for a long time. I worked at another company with him in the past, uh, about six or seven years ago, he was visiting an office of former colleagues, uh, that he used to work with and that I used to work with as well. And he noticed they had organized this, you know, they didn’t call it a diet bet at the time, but that’s essentially what it was. This fun kind of weight loss challenge in their office. And they were doing all these kind of memorable things, whether it would be going for a run at lunch, which they normally wouldn’t do, or leaving a chocolate cookie on their coworkers desk to try and sabotage their chance of winning. Uh, and they were really having a lot of fun with it.
And Jamie witnessed that. And you know, this is really neat. I wonder if there’s a way we could turn this into kind of an online fund social game where people could play, you know, with not just their office mates but potentially strangers from all around the world. And so that was the impetus for the, for the idea. He incorporated DietBet the company in 2010 and then started looking up more of the research and doing some surveys with users and things. And eventually, uh, I joined the company beginning of 2012 at the, which is the time we launched our first beta version of the game. And, you know, fast forward now to present and we’ve had over 400,000 players play in diet bets. Uh, they’ve lost over 5 million pounds collectively and we’ve paid out over $23 million to the winners of those games. Wow.
That’s huge numbers. I was going to ask you to bring up those numbers at some point. So I’m glad you had those memorized already.
Well, they, they, uh, we, we keep very close track of all those key metrics, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what’s great is because I think, um, you know, you’ve been able to do what like these offices would do of, you know, having a few people join in these like, uh, you know, biggest loser competitions is what some people would call it, where people would put money into the pot and it would just be your office, which is cool. But to expand beyond that and create these social networks of people all over the world, um, being able to play in these games has just been really powerful. And I’ve been very impressed to see because here’s the thing, when I first started this, I’m like, okay, I’ll try this out, see how it goes. And man, it just caught like wildfire. And, um, it, it was really cool to see how many people jumped on board and were excited to do this type of a game where they were motivated not only to lose the weight, but also, you know, financially, which as you said, there’s statistics showing that when people are, uh, there’s an incentive for, uh, for, uh, finances, you know, monetary gain, uh, they’re more likely to succeed in their weight loss goals.
Yeah, totally. And that, it was interesting in the early days, we used to allow people to play with no money on the line and we just didn’t see the same. Not surprisingly, we did not see the same efficacy in those games when nobody had any skin in the, on the line and anything to lose. So we did start to implement, you know, minimum. Even if you have 10, 20, $30 in the line, no matter how wealthy you may be, like, it’s amazing that all of a sudden you’re going to take it seriously and you’re not going to just blow it off and it’s going to impact everything from what you choose to eat to what you buy. At the grocery store to whether you get up early and go for your workout in the morning, uh, to whether you decide to have that piece of, you know, birthday cake at the office. So it really does influence a lot of decisions in our lives.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s so true. Um, what, in the beginning, when diabet first started out, did you guys have to bring on investors and if, what was your guys’ feedback
when you first started pitching diet to, you know, I don’t know, potential investors or just just getting feedback originally?
Yeah, so the, in the early days, uh, you know, w like a lot of startups, I guess you, you have this, uh, dilemma that you face is that you, you need probably some, a little bit of money, if not a lot, uh, to, you know, test some of your ideas, to build some prototypes, uh, to hire some people to do some of the basic, you know, design work or build the apps, things like that. So, um, we did a little bit, uh, as much as we could on kind of a shoestring budget. But fortunately through some connections, uh, you know, largely of our FA founder, we were able to raise some money in 2011 that allowed us to hire the core team of four people and that, that team, I was part of that team. And, uh, the team did not expand for a couple of years.
It was just the four of us. And you know, you wear many hats and stuff and you know, the investors at that stage, the questions they ask are a little different than say today when we go out to investors because at that stage it’s like you don’t have much data to show them. Uh, so you have maybe, uh, the results of some surveys you’ve done, maybe a point to this research that says we think it’s going to work and hopefully you can point to some kind of prototype that you have ready. And they’re kind of investing in, you know, the management team and the market size and saying, you know, this, I think there’s something here. Um, then as you, as your business grows of course, and you start to have data, then the questions changed. Like, Oh, you know, well, can you grow it a hundred percent next year? And Oh, how can you, how much profit are you going to make off of this now? And what are your, what’s your year over year growth? And the nature of the questions, uh, definitely changes over time.
Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine just like any other startup business, but you guys have a have weather, the storm really well so far. So keep, keep up the good work. Um,
well facts. Yeah. That we can keep it going. But yeah, we’ve, we’ve really enjoyed the, uh, the, the journey so far and look forward to, uh, all kinds of exciting times ahead. And, but for us, you know, we get a lot of satisfaction out of just, there’s thousands of comments every day from our users who are playing in our games and what it’s doing to their life, how it’s helped them, how it’s helped motivate them, how, uh, you know, they’re able to do things that they weren’t able to do before. And that ranges from, you know, it’s not the pounds lost in the case of DietBet is just a means to another end. So whether they feel more confidence, their self esteem is higher, their clothes fit, they can keep up running around with their kids or grandkids, um, you know, they can go on a long hike and not have to stop and not finish it. So those are the, those are the stories that kind of keep us motivated every day.
Yeah. I think the, at the end of the day, like in the fitness industry for it’s, you
know, it’s finding that balance of, yeah, I do want to make a living and be able to pay my bills. But the same time, there’s so much fulfillment in helping people transform, not just physically, but transform mentally, emotionally. And that’s the most rewarding thing. Um, but I think you guys are definitely in the, you know, the fitness industry where you, you’re trying to find that balance, you know? Yeah, you do want to make a profit, but at the same time you’re changing people’s lives physically, mentally, and emotionally. So, um, and you’re doing it in a very unique way. I think in the fitness industry, it’s saturated with certain types of ways to lose weight. Right? And the fitness industry has been around for years and it’s a billion dollar industry, right? Multibillion dollar industry. And, uh, it’s hard to find new ways to motivate people. And I feel like that’s kinda what I had to do with fit to fat to fit was find a unique way to separate myself from, you know, all every other trainer, every other trainer out there. You just gotta find your niche. And I’m been very impressed with what you guys have done. So, so since DietBet Matt kind of brings us up to speed to, uh, what other games have evolved from then from there and what’s been successful and maybe what hasn’t been successful.
Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, w w w what we started to learn at, so the first version of DietBet, which is the one you led back in January of 2013 your first time is, you know, think of it as a short term, a weight loss challenge. We call it a Kickstarter. And that’s really what it is, is it’s probably not going to get you all the way to the end of your journey, but it’s going to get you maybe off the couch and starting to build some good habits and it’s a four week game and everybody tries to lose 4% of their starting weight. So as we got more and more people to participate in this game, what we heard from them is, Hey, we love this. We love the community, we love that we have money on the line, we love all the support, but you know, we have a lot of weight to lose.
We have to go at it at a kind of slow, gradual pace, can’t just come every single month and get into this 4%, you know, kind of spread. And so, um, along with a team of kind of, uh, health fitness medical advisors that we consult with, um, we designed a longer term format that we call the transformer and that’s been out now for uh, gosh, two and a half years or so. And that game is six months long where people are trying to lose 10% of their starting weight. And so, you know, you can imagine like by the end of that game, people have really, that the transformations are really amazing. The, the people who are reaching those goals are losing the, on average 25 pounds in six months. They’re moving from, you know, like overweight, a BMI for example, down to normal BMS. So I’m seeing some great stories.
They’ve made a ton of close friends that they’re going to stay friends with for life now cause they spent six months kind of in the trenches with them. And uh, that’s, that’s been a great addition. From there. We started to hear users say, well great, now I’ve finally reached a place where I’m comfortable, I’m at a comfortable weight, but I just don’t want to put the weight back on. And I’m sure drew in your line of business, you know that that’s even harder many times and losing the weight initially. Um, so we have been at work, you know, one of the things that I would say, you know, that’s been a much bigger challenge is how you design a game where the goal is just not to put on any weight because it’s just not the, it’s not as naturally fun as like watching the scale go down every week or every month.
Um, you’re not getting kind of that psychological like reinforcement, Oh great, my clothes fit even better this week. I look even better. People complimented me again because you’re just maintaining. So that game has taken us a while to design. We’ve, um, we’re actually in, uh, our 11th month of beta testing with some early users and we finally got to the point where we feel like we can launch something to the public, which we’re doing this month. So it’ll launch in August. Um, and uh, so that’s kind of our initial suite of weight loss games. And when we started to think about, you know, where do we turn next? What other healthy habits? You know, exercise was certainly a natural one. And I think we were just fortunate that there’s this expend, this explosion of all these wearables out there. Uh, as you know, people are buying up Fitbits and they’ve got their Apple watches and even just the smartphone in their pocket, you know, is tracking their activity.
So we started testing, you know, nine months ago or more, a concept that we now call step bet and which we’re excited to have launched publicly in June. And step at is we took all the elements of DietBet that our players told us that they love. So the financial incentives, the competition, the collaboration, the rewards, and we designed a new game that motivates players to reach a personalized daily step goal over the course of a six week challenge. So you know, it’s going to look at your history, the data on your device, going back a ways and decide what’s the right goal for drew Manning, which is the, you know, different goal than for Matt Daniel. Different goal than for Mary Smith. And it gives you your personalized goal and then you go and you know, if you can hit that go a certain number of days over six weeks, then you’re a winner and you’re going to win money at the end of that game.
And you know, what we’re finding is it’s breathing life and really so much needed fun into all that data that’s being collected by these devices out there that people are carrying around with them all the time. Interestingly. So they have to hit those metrics on a weekly basis. Right. Otherwise what? That’s right. So it’s a little bit like a survivor game. So you have a, you know, you have your goals each week and if you at, you get to the end of the week and we reconcile like okay, if you survive that we can hit your goals, then you move on to the next week. If you don’t, well then unfortunately you’ve been eliminated. And so everybody left standing at the end of the six weeks is declared a winner and splits the pot with the other winners.
Gotcha. Okay. So that makes it even more interesting cause the diabetic game is more of like, you know, you, you, if you don’t hit the goal then you lose your money. Whereas this one, it feels like there’s a little bit of a sense of urgency each week because if you go to bed that night without hitting that number that you’re supposed to hit to make that weekly goal, you’re, you know, you’re pretty much done for it. Right.
Yeah. It’s absolutely very astute. That’s a big difference of the DietBet is you kind of, you have your initial way in, you support each other throughout and then you have your way out at the end. But yeah, the step ahead is that there’s a little more pressure and I’ve got great stories of people, you know, going out for walks after dinner, pacing around their dining room, doing their folding their laundry and walking in between two rooms to do it. Just to get the steps they need by the end of the day.
What’s really cool is to see where this can go with a new technology and new wearables. Like right. For example, tracking steps is pretty common nowadays and most people have some type of device, whether it’s a Fitbit or it’s on their smartphone or their smartwatch or whatever. Um, but you know, who knows how much longer it’s going to be until we have a device that can track, you know, how many calories we burned throughout the day. That’s accurate, right? I mean, I know there’s things out there that, that you know, you input how much you eat, but I mean on a metabolic level, I think that would be really cool. So that’s what I think that’s what’s really exciting is the future of what we can do as technology changes, especially for you guys and your business structure. I mean, yeah, you’re probably just chomping on the bit for these new technologies to come out.
We, yeah, we are. I mean, we talk a lot about, you know, now that we’ve built step at and we’ve built the connections to the devices and some of the game mechanics and the rules and everything. It’s like, well, what other extensions of this could we build? So to your point, you could have a games that are centered around getting your heart rate up a certain number of minutes a day, burning a certain number of calories a day, getting a certain amount of sleep every day because a lot of these devices are now able to track your sleep. So there’s a lot of interesting, uh, extensions of this stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m sure you guys have some things in the works that you probably can’t announce yet, but I’m excited for this one coming in August. Um, uh, which you can’t say the name of that one, right?
Uh, well we can actually now, cause it’s, it’s, it’s soon enough. Uh, so we, we are the new game. Uh, I think that you’re referring to as the maintainer. And that is a game where, again, it’s all about, I’ve, I’ve reached a comfortable place. You know, it may be the, it may be my life time goal of my weight or just maybe a place I’m comfortable for right now, for the next six months. I just don’t want to go backwards and I’m going to join the maintainer. I’m going to put money on the line every month. I’m going to get the support of a community, I’m going to get a chance to win some fun prizes. And then of course if I can maintain weight over these months, then I’ll have a chance to win a share of the pot as well.
Yeah. And I think that’s smart cause you know, in the fitness industry there are a lot of people that struggled to keep the weight off once they’ve lost the weight. And I see that even, you know, with my TV show, biggest loser, extreme weight loss, it’s hard to maintain that weight loss. Not just because they don’t know how, it’s the mental, um, it’s, it’s the mental challenges that come with, you know, you’ve been overweight your whole life, for example, for a lot of these people. And then all of a sudden for, you know, three, four, five months, they’re going hardcore and losing the weight and yeah, they lost the weight, but mentally they haven’t really changed their perception of themselves. And so I think that’s what a lot of people struggle with. So having something like this where there’s accountability and a support system and the money is on the line, I think it’s really powerful to help them, uh, maintain that weight loss. Um, so I have to ask this, ma, what about, cause I’ve had people ask me, there’s this smaller group of people out there that have a tough time putting on weight and I’m talking about like ectomorphs that want to put on muscle mass. Right. Um, has there been any discussions about possibly having a diabet where people are trying to put on, you know, weight or lean muscle mass? I don’t know if that’s been something you guys explored before
there has. It’s, that’s a great question. When we actually bought a couple of URLs that, uh, we’ll, we’ll be able to launch once we have a product there. But, uh, so it’s been, it’s been on our radar for a while. So one of the biggest, I think the only challenge left on that type of game is the verification, verification, stuffing. We have to look at with every game. So for example, with diabet, uh, weight loss games, uh, you know, people can get on a scale, most people have access to a scale, they can take a series of photos and our referees can review them, uh, with the step at the data comes from the devices or your phone. So we can verify it that way. And so whenever we’ve talked about this kind of, you know, bulk up better, you know, lean muscle bet, um, you know, the best, ideally people would have access to a reliable, you know, accurate, um, body comp device, which as you probably know better than all of us, uh, they’re either super expensive or they’re, they’re just not very, uh, they’re not ubiquitous at all.
And so, um, the day that, uh, I’m sure there, I know there’s people working on stuff there that where you can get on, um, some type of scale or other monitor device that’s people have access to that we can then you have photos or maybe have the data sent to us automatically through wifi. You know, we’d love to launch that bet. Um, we’ve talked about could you do it with tape measures and measurements and, um, there are some people who run challenges like that, uh, be like a proxy for that. So we’re really waiting for just a, um, a way that we can reliably the body comp measurements, um, with a large audience.
Yeah. And that’s, that’s the challenge. And I see that as well in the industry. Cause the only, I mean there’s a few ways to get that measured. Um, and I recommend these to people all the time, but some people just don’t have access to them. Depending on where they live, they might not have access to, you know, a bod pod, which is some somewhat affordable. You’re looking at 25, 30 bucks, but at the same time, you know, you might have to drive an hour or two. So the convenience of using it isn’t always the best. Um, and same thing with like a DEXA scan, which is one of the most accurate ways of measuring body fat. So I think that that is a challenge and hopefully with, with uh, more technology coming out of, of measuring that type of data, there would be an easier way. But I know people are all all the time asking me, Hey, can’t you create a TV show where people have to put on muscle mass? I’m like, well it’s kinda hard to, it’s kinda hard cause you’re such a small group out there that wants to put on lean muscle mass. Your average American is just struggling to lose 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 a hundred pounds. You know, that’s the majority of us right now, unfortunately.
Yeah. And, you know, I could see though, the way you take an audience, obviously a big growing audience, like the CrossFit community and you know, what we’ve heard from some CrossFitters is that, you know, they, the workouts they’re doing, they don’t expect necessarily to lose weight or have the number on the scale go down, but they do expect to convert, you know, fat tissue to lean muscle. And so that’s a case where, gosh, if we could measure that, you could have some pretty fun bets for those folks.
That’s, that’s true. And, and I’ve done that on the local level. Matt, uh, you know, with certain boxes out here in Utah where everybody in the box has access to the same bod pod or DEXA scan that, and now a days there’s even mobile units that will come to you if you have X amount of people, 20 or 30 people, they’ll come to you and do everybody’s body composition. So kind of like how you guys started diabet with just the offices, you know, people doing biggest loser competitions in the offices. I seen that on the local level with certain gyms. Uh, especially CrossFit boxes, you know, hiring a local, you know, uh, body composition company to come in and measure everybody’s body composition. But to do that online, that would be hard. But the only thing I could see is possibly having everybody that signs up, they have to have access to some type of a measuring device, whether it’s a bod pod or a DEXA scan and, and that data is sent to you guys to verify it. Right. But if they don’t have access to it, then, you know, unfortunately you can’t really participate in the game. But yeah. Anyways, yeah,
look forward to being able to host some of those. Sure.
Yeah, that would be, that would be great. It’s really cool to see what, um, what you guys can come up with because you’ve already done a great job with what you have. And I think, uh, just and, and with the updates of technology, you guys have been able to kind of adjust to what’s available and make it fun and entertaining, which is why I actually signed on to do a step by step bet game with you guys. Cause I’m like, man, that, that right there, I’ve done the diabet thing, right. I’ve been doing it for three years. Maybe like once or twice a year I’ll do a diabetic game for my new followers. Um, but something exciting, like a step back, I think that’s why I joined on was because it’s, it’s something new and exciting for people to be a part of.
Well, we are totally stoked to have you as one of our longest running DietBet partners. Uh, host your first step at, uh, coming up here later this month.
Yeah, I’m excited. And, uh, after this call I have a few more people introduce you to that. I’ll send your way because I think the bigger we get this group of influencers out there, the more people that will be, you know, exposed to DietBet and the benefits of it. So remind me after this call to send you some contacts.
Well, I certainly, well, of course you’re always generous about that. We very much appreciate it.
Yeah. Yeah, no worries. Um, so really quick, uh, kinda just to wrap up here, Matt, um, at a couple of the questions and one was kind of funny cause as you know, my brand is fit tight fit of the TV show, uh, board trainers have to gain the weight and for four months, um, and this probably, I don’t know if it would take off, but doing a fit to fat to fit diabet where people have to gain unhealthy weight for X amount of time and then they lose the weight. I think that’d be a great business model. What do you think?
I think it sounds perfect for your show and I know just the person to host that.
Exactly. It has to be a small niche where it’s just a few trainers. Um, it, it’s, it’s definitely very, very, a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Right. I don’t think a lot of people would sign up for that. Although I do think a lot of people would sign up to watch that. Just like the TV show.
Exactly. I totally agree. It was, it was a brilliant marketing move on your part when you did it initially. And you know, I came out of the, uh, fitness industry, I’ve worked for over 10 years for a relatively big chain of fitness clubs. So I can relate, uh, very closely to what you’re talking about with, you know, a lot of trainers out there and many of them for, they’ve been doing the same thing for lots of years and how do you go out and create a brand for yourself and differentiate yourself from the masses. And I think it was a brilliant marketing move that you, that you, uh, did that
well, thanks. And just like you guys, you’ve had to find your own niche in this industry, which is huge and it’s, it’s a challenge that’s for sure. And it just stay relevant to stay, you know, um, to maintain that it’s, it’s, it is challenging. I haven’t noticed that. And you guys have probably noticed that too, whereas this, just like any business that takes off. Yeah, it’s really exciting in the beginning, but after a while people were like, Oh yeah, I’ve seen that. I’ve heard of that have done that and it’s like, okay, well how do I reinvent the wheel here to keep people coming back? You know? That’s
right. Yeah. What else do I have to keep? A, you have to delivering, you have to give them a new understood. You have to listen to them a lot is where all the best ideas are sitting most of the time with your customers or with your employees. So you just have to do a lot of listening. You kind of process out information. And then what we’ve tried to do is create a culture where we can like vet some ideas and then, and then test them relatively inexpensively because you know, if we went to build every idea for a new product we had, I mean we would, we would have been out of business a long time ago. We would have run out of money. So you have to be able to say, you know, these days there’s so many tools out there that are free, uh, from, from, you know, Google docs to Slack, to PayPal. There’s a lot of ways that you can, you know, set up tests and get in touch with people, recruit some users and just see if there’s any demand for these things. And then the ones that look, you know, like people enjoyed it and they’re willing to pay money for, then you can say, all right, we’re going to go build that one.
Exactly. And for me, I can only gain weight X amount. It’s so, you know, so many times before, you know, I’ve done it once. I don’t think I’ll ever do it again, but I can only, you know, do that, you know, recreate that once or twice. That’s why I have the TV show and other people are doing it now for me. So
yeah, I think your body is thankful for that.
Exactly. So, alright you guys, um, I, I’ll let you go, but before I go, just want to remind everyone. August 15th is the date my step bet game starts. Correct. Matt on August 15th
excited. So August 15th, Monday, August 15th it starts.
Yes, we always started on a Monday. And the cool thing about this is it’s six weeks. So the stepdad is six weeks and so I will be there every step of the way. Literally stepping along with you guys during this step at game cause I have my fitness tracker too and I’m going to see if I can do this too. I usually with the diet bets, I don’t really participate in them because I’m not trying to lose weight, but this one I think I’m really going to be a part of and hopefully I don’t get eliminated. So that’s why we expect you to step it up this time. There we go. I’ll do what I can and then I’ll go ahead.
Some good news, it is six weeks, but everybody should know that week one is a warmup week so no one will get eliminated at the end of week one so it’s a great first week for you to just see what your goals are, you know, figure out how you’re going to get those steps in under different days and everyone moves on to week two.
That is awesome. Okay. That’s good to know because I think it’s great to have that practice week to kind of get a feel for it and know, okay man, I got in 3000 steps and I’m supposed to get in 10,000 how am I going to do this? And it’s good to get a week of just kind of feeling it out because you don’t really know how many steps you can get. You’re capable of getting until you actually have a number to shoot for. Because I’ve had people that tell me, they’re like, drew, what’s a good goal? I’m like, well, why don’t you start out with 10,000 steps? They’re like, wow, I’ve only begin 5,000 but it’s amazing how many of them have gotten it consistently when they actually put forth the effort and they’re like, I have to get this number. And so I can see that the step at games really gonna motivate and challenge some people. Yeah,
that’s totally right. And what we’ve heard from and seen from the players is a in step bet is, you know, it’s very much under your control. I mean some, sometimes people get frustrated around weight loss cause they feel like they’re eating healthy, clean meals. You know, they’re staying away from the bad stuff. Maybe they’re exercising also and they’re just not seeing the number on the scale. Go down the way they expected. But you know, if you know how many steps you need to take, there’s no magic here. I mean, you can get up and you can just start walking and you can get your,
yeah, yeah. Or it’s a, that’s smart man. Um, so August 15th and the URL, the link will be in the show notes, you guys. And um, uh, and I’ll be announcing on social media for sure. Uh, Matt, where can people get in touch with you or you know, the way better community if they have questions, concerns or comments?
Yeah, sure. So feel free to check us out. Uh, our two, uh, games, you can go to dietbet.com, uh, and you can see all the games happening at that point. It’s including Drew’s game that’ll be coming up, uh, in September. Uh, you can go to step at.com as well. And that’ll tell you about how that game works. That’ll give you a chance to download the app from the, uh, iPhone for the app store from the Google play store. Um, and we also have a, uh, lighter site up@waybetter.com that you can see what our company’s all about. And, uh, you can always reach out to us, uh, support, uh, at way better.com. And one of our friendly support agents will get back to you promptly.
Yes. And they, and they listened to you guys. That’s one of their, their, uh, uh, philosophies is listening to you guys. So
yes, yes. We do have a great, uh, support team. In fact, most, I think it’s now a hundred percent of our support team comes from our community of users. So they were all played in diabetics, you know, really appreciated the value of the community and they ended up coming to work for us.
That’s, that’s so cool. That’s, those are the best ones to have cause they know they understand this system so. Well, thank you so much Matt, for coming on. I really appreciate it. And, uh, you know what, we still haven’t even met in person. So one of these days
I look forward to the opportunity. Drew, I know I have, I have a very good sense of what you look like so I’ll be able to pick you out of that to me.
Sounds good. Thanks for coming on Matt.
Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Thanks true.
[inaudible]
thank you guys so much for listening to today’s episode with Matt Daniel from dietbet.com hopefully you enjoyed it and learned something from it and hopefully you’ll participate in one of these debates in the near future, whether it’s my game or someone else’s game. I know Chris and Heidi Powell are always hosting games and Tony Horton and Sean T and a bunch of other influencers in the industry are jumping on this and I’m really excited about the step back game. Don’t forget, August 15th is when that one starts and the URL for that stepped up. Bet four slash fit to fat to fit $30 buy in. It’s a six week game. And um, uh, yeah, come join my, my team. It’s fit to fat to fit a summer step up challenge. You’ll see my picture on there and everything like that. And uh, and then don’t forget my diabet is going to start on September 7th, I believe.
And the name of that game has not been announced, but it’ll probably be, you know, fit, had to fit is cool, you know, something like that. Uh, but the URL for that is diabet.com forward slash fit to fat to fit that wants a $30 buy in as well. Let me know if you guys have questions. I’m excited to see you out there. I’ll be, um, giving, doing a lot of giveaways for this as well and trying to keep you motivated. So thank you guys for tuning in to today’s episode and hopefully you’ll join us back here next week on the fit to fat fit experience podcast. Don’t forget to follow me on social media. Subscribe to my newsletter. She kind of stay in the know of what’s going on and um, yeah, I’m excited for another great episode next week. You guys.
