Speaker 1: My name is Mike Boris, and I've teamed up with Stake,
Speaker 1: one of Australia's top investing platforms, to talk about going public.
Speaker 1: IPOs are exciting milestones that unlock new capital, draw more attention,
Speaker 1: and open up opportunities, but a lot happens before and
Speaker 1: after the trading bill rings, and it's not all glamour.
Speaker 1: Join me in Canada conversations with prominent business leaders as
Speaker 1: we reveal all the ups and downs of getting a
Speaker 1: private company listed. Hey guys, just before we start this podcast,
Speaker 1: I have to make a disclaimer. I, through one of
Speaker 1: my family companies, is an investor in the Train outa
Speaker 1: entity that is listed on the NYAC. So I am
Speaker 1: an investor, but it's not going to change the way
Speaker 1: I approach this. Nick Langton, welcome to a going public mate.
Speaker 1: Thank you Marcus and made its fantastic here because I
Speaker 1: sort of remember back in the mental days, how many
Speaker 1: years ago is a pre COVID that's for sure. Your business,
Speaker 1: which you and others founded, was called Whimp.
Speaker 2: To Warrior W two W a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, changed the name appropriately, I think to train Alta
Speaker 1: Alta you were, well, do you go back and tell me,
Speaker 1: how where the idea came from?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so how many years ago to this is going
Speaker 3: back a fair way. So you know, I got back
Speaker 3: involved training martial arts in my late thirties. I'd done
Speaker 3: it as a kid, came back to it. There was
Speaker 3: actually a program that was founded called Wimp to Warrior,
Speaker 3: and the whole idea was it was actually created originally
Speaker 3: as a potential reality TV platform. The idea that you
Speaker 3: take forty men and women have never trained before, trained
Speaker 3: them for six months and let them compete in amateur mma,
Speaker 3: and which is kind of a really bold and exciting
Speaker 3: and unique concept. But what I found going through the program,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: Was working at Perpetual.
Speaker 3: I was running a division of Perpetual at the time,
Speaker 3: and so had a kind of a young family and
Speaker 3: a white collar job.
Speaker 2: But I got back into the.
Speaker 3: Gym in the mornings and trained really hard. Obviously you
Speaker 3: have to in preparation for competing and for fighting. But
Speaker 3: what I found was how much I enjoyed being back
Speaker 3: in the gym, not just for the work you were doing.
Speaker 3: What I was learning about the sport, reconnecting with it.
Speaker 3: Having done a lot of judo as a kid and
Speaker 3: kind of kind of rediscovering how much fun I had
Speaker 3: role modeling for my three sons, who this is going
Speaker 3: back sort of over ten years ago, and they just
Speaker 3: started their jiu jitsu journey. So from my perspective, it
Speaker 3: was what it showed me was actually training in combat
Speaker 3: sports martial arts. I found it a lot stickier in
Speaker 3: terms of how much I wanted to do it. And
Speaker 3: I think we often talk about the fact that fitness
Speaker 3: is fad based, but sport is evergreen. If it's a
Speaker 3: practice or a past time, you know, it doesn't it's
Speaker 3: not like you churn through. You know, we all know
Speaker 3: there's all sorts of different fitness brands that come and go,
Speaker 3: and maybe they're on short cycles or long cycles, but
Speaker 3: ultimately they.
Speaker 2: Come and go. But sport is far more enduring.
Speaker 3: And I thought to myself, like the product inside a
Speaker 3: martial arts gym. You know that the care of the
Speaker 3: coach is technical instruction, the community of people you train with.
Speaker 3: It's a remarkable product, but maybe the wrapping paper isn't
Speaker 3: that great in terms of how it's presented to the market.
Speaker 2: And that was kind of an epiphany for me.
Speaker 3: So I invested in the original concept of the business,
Speaker 3: which you know at the time was programs and you know,
Speaker 3: potentially a nonscripted TV see is. But what it kind
Speaker 3: of morphed into and when I decided to leave my
Speaker 3: corporate life at the end of twenty sixteen was I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this actually has legs in terms of martial arts is
Speaker 3: growing massively in popularity. The growth of the UFC has
Speaker 3: been absolutely stunning. There's huge interest in how to get started,
Speaker 3: but there's no easy consumer on ramp in terms of
Speaker 3: how would I do that? And my epiphany was, Okay,
Speaker 3: if there's will now they say six hundred and forty
Speaker 3: million fans of MMA, how could we convert those fans
Speaker 3: to participants? And how could we leverage globally this wonderful
Speaker 3: inventory of coaches and gyms that already exist and funnel
Speaker 3: those customers into them to train and learn and do programs.
Speaker 3: And so that was the genesis of it back at
Speaker 3: the end of twenty sixteen early twenty seventeen, when I
Speaker 3: came out to do this full time, I kind of
Speaker 3: invested in the concept back in twenty third team, but
Speaker 3: when I decided, hang on, I'm going to take a
Speaker 3: big bet here and leave my corporate life. That was
Speaker 3: on the belief that there was a huge opportunity in
Speaker 3: this sports vertical around the transition from fandom to participation.
Speaker 2: And that's when it started.
Speaker 3: And I think maybe five months after I started that journey,
Speaker 3: I came in and had my first chat to you
Speaker 3: on the Mentor podcast in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: I was twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: It was that was the first time we we brought up.
Speaker 1: So at that time, who were your founding partners shoholders,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and sort of what was the structure we're
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we had there was originally me and another
Speaker 3: founder who was the guy who created the program. You know,
Speaker 3: really passionate, talented martial arts coach, but a guy who
Speaker 3: really was focused on the coaching element and enjoyed the
Speaker 3: transformation that could provide to people in their lives. I
Speaker 3: suppose I came in with a view number one that
Speaker 3: sort of the consumer lens going, this has really wide applications,
Speaker 3: but how could we scale this? How could this be
Speaker 3: something valuable? And then I think our big break was
Speaker 3: at the end of twenty sixteen early twenty seventeen, John Cavanaugh,
Speaker 3: who's conor McGregor's coach for a lot of years now.
Speaker 3: You know, John had run this program in his gym
Speaker 3: in Ireland and it had been really successful in terms
Speaker 3: of getting a very different type of member into his gym,
Speaker 3: typical middle class families who now wanted to found a
Speaker 3: pathway to train, as opposed to the next Conor MacGregor
Speaker 3: wanna bees who don't really want to pay their fees
Speaker 3: and whatever, and so so John came on board as
Speaker 3: a co founder, gave the business obviously enormous credibility from
Speaker 3: a standpoint of his profile, but importantly he started talking
Speaker 3: about what it did for him as a small business owner.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people assume just because
Speaker 3: he coaches Connor that he's got it made in the shade. Well,
Speaker 3: he's still got a business to run, you know, he's
Speaker 3: still got five six hundred members of a gym in Dublin. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's got a big pro fight team as well. But
Speaker 3: the profile team doesn't pay the bills. So it was
Speaker 3: really John getting out there and starting to tell the
Speaker 3: world with his platform about what we did. And then
Speaker 3: that was an opportunity to really look at fast tracking
Speaker 3: the business to say okay, so now we've got this notoriety,
Speaker 3: now people have.
Speaker 2: Heard about us.
Speaker 3: What we really focused on is the next phase of growth.
Speaker 3: You've got to do that through technology. So how do
Speaker 3: we scale this from IP and a brand and a
Speaker 3: payments platform, which is where we were at the start.
Speaker 3: How do you scale that into a sort of more
Speaker 3: enduring technology and an investment thesis that will get institutional
Speaker 3: investors to come on board. So in the early stages,
Speaker 3: I was raising money my network. Obviously, having twenty plus
Speaker 3: years in investments and financial services, I had a really
Speaker 3: good network.
Speaker 1: I should disclose that I was one of those early investors.
Speaker 1: So I should disclose let's call the conflict if there
Speaker 1: is such a thing in this discussion, But I was
Speaker 1: one of the early investors. So you raise some money
Speaker 1: is like your I don't know, first round. I don't
Speaker 1: know what they call it these days. Everyone's got a
Speaker 1: different terminology. But that was your sort of first round.
Speaker 1: But you need to raise money. You need capital to
Speaker 1: take it to the next strategic level and correct because
Speaker 1: ultimately you identified good brand, good concept, good thesis, rising tide.
Speaker 1: People around the world love MMA. BFC was a bigger
Speaker 1: part of that. But purpose you go train with a purpose. Correct,
Speaker 1: there's an outcome. But I think the really important thing
Speaker 1: that I like that you identified is this has got
Speaker 1: to be a technology play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's sport tech. I don't know what
Speaker 2: you want to call it. Is it a word for it?
Speaker 3: It's you know, I mean we kind of traverse a
Speaker 3: number of different elements there that there's obviously there's there's
Speaker 3: IP branding, there's marketing and promotion, so there's content publishing
Speaker 3: in that regard. Our payments architecture.
Speaker 2: Is at the core of it.
Speaker 3: Like you know, part of our value proposition to JIM
Speaker 3: owners was we'll bring in new customers and we'll also
Speaker 3: take care of it.
Speaker 1: Could you explain it? I think it's really important to
Speaker 1: make sure. So let's let's pick an example. What train
Speaker 1: El does today does a lot of things, but at
Speaker 1: that level, at the gym owner level. Yes, identify a
Speaker 1: JIM owner, Let's profile him or her a little bit
Speaker 1: and then tell me what your tech does and what
Speaker 1: training does for that gym owner and for the consumer
Speaker 1: who who subscribes to it.
Speaker 3: Ye. Of course, So from a gym owner's perspective, they've
Speaker 3: got the opportunity to sign a license with us so
Speaker 3: they can run an outer program. Our value proposition to
Speaker 3: them is to say, look, we're not going to charge
Speaker 3: you assent for the license up front. You know, you
Speaker 3: sign the t's and c's, you get access to the
Speaker 3: syllabus and the training. You're going to help us co
Speaker 3: promote your series, but we're gonna we're going to market
Speaker 3: to get a program on the mats in your gym.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the syllables. Yes, and that's your that's
Speaker 1: your IP. That's sort of what you transfer to them
Speaker 1: for that license. So what's your syllabus?
Speaker 3: So the syllabus I think I mean, obviously i'm the
Speaker 3: business guy and I'm the guy who's who's trained, so
Speaker 3: I'm not a coach. But if I talk about the
Speaker 3: nature of the syllabus, and what I think the business
Speaker 3: has done really well over a lot of years, is
Speaker 3: it's created a syllabus that makes the entry point to
Speaker 3: training in combat sports and mixed martial arts as gentle
Speaker 3: and easy as possible. Now that kind of sounds paradoxical,
Speaker 3: right because it's you're going into a fight gym and
Speaker 3: learning to train. But I think the genius in the
Speaker 3: program in terms of how it was originally created, and
Speaker 3: then the subsequent refinements have been that the syllables put
Speaker 3: together like none of the coaches, there's nothing in it
Speaker 3: they haven't taught a hundred times, right, whether they're teaching
Speaker 3: an armbar from mount, whether they're teaching footwork when you're striking,
Speaker 3: whether they're teaching takedown off the cage or whatever they're
Speaker 3: they've taught that stuff a million times. What you find,
Speaker 3: particularly with beginners and first time is it's all about
Speaker 3: the sequencing of the training so people don't feel overwhelmed
Speaker 3: on a learning basis, because the hardest thing learning something new.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like if you went in and took
Speaker 3: a guitar lesson and in the first lesson your guitar
Speaker 3: teacher was trying to teach you to play the guitar
Speaker 3: like Eric Clapton, I think you'd feel pretty deflated, overwhelmed, overwhelmed, deflated,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to get this.
Speaker 2: This ain't for me.
Speaker 3: That's about yeah, correct, that's attrition. And I think sometimes
Speaker 3: in certainly in this sector, and I think it's probably
Speaker 3: potentially most, but sometimes coaches feel that the utility for
Speaker 3: the customer comes from how much like what's the value exchange,
Speaker 3: I e. How much if I give you more. The
Speaker 3: more I give you, the more value I'm providing. Whereas
Speaker 3: the consumer might be feeling overwhelmed and I'm not getting it.
Speaker 2: I'm a bit embarrassed to ask.
Speaker 3: So I think the genius in the syllabus that we've
Speaker 3: built and you know, we've put close to ten thousand
Speaker 3: people into their first amateur MMA fight in the last
Speaker 3: sort of seven odd years. Right, nobody in the world
Speaker 3: has done what we've done in terms of bring beginners
Speaker 3: to you know what is a pretty sort of challenging
Speaker 3: sport and space. But I think the genius in the
Speaker 3: syllabus is that it gives the coaches a model that
Speaker 3: if they follow that to the letter and follow the
Speaker 3: bouncing ball, that what they're going to get is sticky customers.
Speaker 3: And that's what we want. We want people to start,
Speaker 3: we want people to go to the end and finish
Speaker 3: if they choose to compete, which most of them do.
Speaker 2: You know, we run those live events.
Speaker 3: But more importantly then we want the customer to keep
Speaker 3: going with their learning journey. Now, maybe they decided I
Speaker 3: liked boxing the best, or maybe they decided I liked
Speaker 3: Jiu jitsu the best or whatever. That's another beauty of
Speaker 3: combat sports and martial arts is that you can really
Speaker 3: you can focus on the areas you.
Speaker 2: Like the most.
Speaker 3: And so that's that lifelong learning journey. And that's where
Speaker 3: you know, if we talk in investment terms, that brings
Speaker 3: really sticky lifetime value of customer attributes to the gym,
Speaker 3: to the gym, to the sector, right participants. I always
Speaker 3: say to my investors, if you want a real life
Speaker 3: story and lifetime value of customer, you look at Nick Langton,
Speaker 3: who's paid I don't know, over thirty grand of fees
Speaker 3: to our local jiu jitsu academy while you know my
Speaker 3: boys and variously I have trained there over the last decade.
Speaker 3: Well to a small business owner, that's a lot of
Speaker 3: money from one family. So and why is that because,
Speaker 3: particularly in the case my boys, they started a sport
Speaker 3: that they trained and loved and competed in for a
Speaker 3: lot of years.
Speaker 2: And they had a bunch of mates at the gym.
Speaker 3: And so that's where I really that's what we love
Speaker 3: about this sector that once you get customers over the hurdle, right,
Speaker 3: once they realize what a great gym is and what
Speaker 3: a great coach is they become really sticky, and you
Speaker 3: know you know that from you know all the training
Speaker 3: you've done with Larry.
Speaker 2: Right, It's not necessarily the easiest place to walk into.
Speaker 2: You could look a bit dawning.
Speaker 3: You could walk in at the wrong time and see
Speaker 3: a sparring session thing hot shit like totally, But once
Speaker 3: you're immersed in the gym community and culture there, you're.
Speaker 2: Not going to leave that and go back to a
Speaker 2: boot camp in the park. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1: And so your thesis, Nick, is that it's much more
Speaker 1: complicated than this. Your thesis is that train aw to
Speaker 1: provides syllabus, it also provides assistance and or marketing content
Speaker 1: for the gym owner to recruit. I don't know, twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty people, train them up for how long is
Speaker 1: it a half year?
Speaker 3: It's twenty weeks, one hundred lessons for the primary program,
Speaker 3: which is our Warrior training program. Yes, and then for
Speaker 3: them to be stay members of ALTA and keep training
Speaker 3: in their gym.
Speaker 1: And pay fees program correctich they might not have had
Speaker 1: in the past. They might not have had any of
Speaker 1: these people in the past. It gives the MMA person
Speaker 1: in the in the gym a program to follow, so
Speaker 1: it's consistent. It's a consistent program, so it's not changing
Speaker 1: every week. He doesn't have to make a decision what
Speaker 1: he's going to do tomorrow morning. It's all set out
Speaker 1: for him or her. And then they take these people
Speaker 1: through and at the end of twenty weeks you put
Speaker 1: on an event trying to train. Alter puts on an
Speaker 1: event where these individuals have a choice if they wanted
Speaker 1: to compete or not, and someone goes as there must
Speaker 1: be a matchmaker in there. Someone says, well, you can
Speaker 1: fight this person, yeah, girl, girl, boy or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And they invite their friends and family and they all
Speaker 1: get up.
Speaker 2: There and have a time.
Speaker 3: Kind of a big sold our crowd, you know, last
Speaker 3: big one we had in Sydney Roundwick Race Course, a
Speaker 3: thousand people sitting at fine dining tables watching.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's the ultimate kind of white collar mma.
Speaker 3: It's kind of the ultimate sort of bucket list in
Speaker 3: style experience. And so that's the that's the trojan horse,
Speaker 3: that's the piece of friction that creates excitement around how
Speaker 3: to get involved in the sector. But what at the
Speaker 3: central to our value proposition is we're saying to gym's
Speaker 3: we're going to bring in new customers.
Speaker 2: We're going to help you with your marketing.
Speaker 3: We're going to bring payments infrastructure that makes you don't
Speaker 3: have to worry about collections.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 3: We do all of that and you pay them back
Speaker 3: to the gym. We keep our split repay to them,
Speaker 3: and you do the marketing correct in conjunction with them.
Speaker 3: So we leverage our content. We ask them to record content.
Speaker 3: They publish stuff on their socials, publish it on ours,
Speaker 3: We boost it where we need to. We build landing
Speaker 3: pages for them, all that kind of stuff to make
Speaker 3: sure we can capture and on board the members. Collect
Speaker 3: deposits and say, okay, day one of your program. Here's
Speaker 3: a cohort of people who want to come in and
Speaker 3: train with you for twenty weeks.
Speaker 2: Look after him.
Speaker 3: Here's the syllabus, and what you find in the sector.
Speaker 3: And again, you know, you know, in martial arts and
Speaker 3: combat sports it can sometimes it appears, you know, some
Speaker 3: of the owners, coaches, whatever, they can kind of appear
Speaker 3: a little bit like rough diamonds. In reality, it is
Speaker 3: one of the most nurturing and caring sectors.
Speaker 2: And so we know when we partner with a gym.
Speaker 3: They're going to look after the people we put on.
Speaker 1: Their mats and you and now to do all this,
Speaker 1: there's a big piece of technology sitting in the middle
Speaker 1: of it, which you know. To be honest with that,
Speaker 1: gim under doesn't really need to know about it, just
Speaker 1: as long as it works. But a big part of
Speaker 1: your business is technology. I mean, for me, I see
Speaker 1: your business as a tech business more than anything else business,
Speaker 1: and therefore you need to raise more money. So just
Speaker 1: take me through the rounds that you've been through. I
Speaker 1: think I've been through two rounds, so there's a couple.
Speaker 1: There's a few rounds involved. So just take our listeners
Speaker 1: through the process of how you as our next investment
Speaker 1: banker guy like you know this area backwards.
Speaker 2: And you know.
Speaker 1: You have some interesting names who are investors as well.
Speaker 1: To take me through the rounds. How to go through
Speaker 1: the rounds, and probably more importantly than just stop before
Speaker 1: we get to the listing on the New York Stock Exchange,
Speaker 1: which is unbelievable for an Australian ensity to do that.
Speaker 1: Not too many Australians do that. Proud, you should be proud.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal. It is, and it's an arduous course.
Speaker 1: I mean, my god, that's worse than fighting all the
Speaker 1: top UFC fighters one half the other.
Speaker 2: That's what I do. Like, I'm sure it did so
Speaker 2: over a number of years.
Speaker 1: But just on me through the early raises and then
Speaker 1: then just just just stop before we get to the NYC.
Speaker 3: Yeah sure, so Yeah, like all businesses, we scaled up,
Speaker 3: we wanted to obviously grow our revenues. We wanted to
Speaker 3: prove out our unit economics, we wanted to invest in growth.
Speaker 2: We also had.
Speaker 3: Because we had the opportunity to sign big names in
Speaker 3: other regions, you know, like John like Eugene Bhman coming
Speaker 3: on City Kickboxing.
Speaker 2: From New Zealand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know when we originally signed the guys at
Speaker 3: TriStar in Montreal, these were really big name gyms. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, a pure let's say, a consultant or accountants
Speaker 3: talking to us and saying, well, why are you now
Speaker 3: operating in multiple tax jurisdictions and why are you making
Speaker 3: multiple currencies and this is just making everything too complex,
Speaker 3: And I agree it certainly did when the business is subscale,
Speaker 3: but you have to take advantage of those opportunities when
Speaker 3: they arise, like those big names want to get involved,
Speaker 3: so you find a way, and so to that extent,
Speaker 3: then we're like, okay, we need to fund the growth.
Speaker 2: We've got some big names on board.
Speaker 3: I did an initial round, let's call it, in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: where I'd obviously invested a lot of my money, and
Speaker 3: also for the first several years, you know, I worked
Speaker 3: without any taking any money out of the business, which
Speaker 3: you have to do as a founder. You can't ask
Speaker 3: for investment money and then start saying, well, I'm going
Speaker 3: to take a commercial service, give it to It's bullshit,
Speaker 3: but they won't give it to nor should they, nor
Speaker 3: should they. So from our perspective, I raised the first year.
Speaker 3: So twenty seventeen was critical in that I needed to
Speaker 3: see that there was enough spark that we were going
Speaker 3: to get somewhere. So I kind of funded the business
Speaker 3: for the first twelve months completely, and then it was like,
Speaker 3: if I'm going to take money, I want to take
Speaker 3: it from trusted people in my circle, who are sophisticated investors,
Speaker 3: who can cut six figure checks, who know exactly what
Speaker 3: they're getting themselves into. They know the risks of investing
Speaker 3: in startups and private companies. And once I took that
Speaker 3: first check, you know, from a mate who again really
Speaker 3: sophisticated investor, and I'm not worried that if he lost
Speaker 3: that money he'd be on the bones of his ass
Speaker 3: or anything. But at the same time, it was almost
Speaker 3: worse than having my own money in And I think
Speaker 3: that was when I realized that, Okay, like we go
Speaker 3: until we either make it or it falls apart, and
Speaker 3: I've done everything with him a power because you know,
Speaker 3: I once heard a you know, somebody said that raising capital,
Speaker 3: raising capital is just creating obligations, and you know, from
Speaker 3: from my perspective, I felt those obligations, but I felt
Speaker 3: the benefit of them.
Speaker 2: Was it on the really tough days, I could look
Speaker 2: at the.
Speaker 3: People who'd invested in me and believed in what I
Speaker 3: thought I could do and pushed forward.
Speaker 2: So that was that was kind of easy. We went
Speaker 2: through through that phase.
Speaker 3: I was able to probably raise some bigger checks than
Speaker 3: if I look back on it now, I'm like, how
Speaker 3: the hell did I do that?
Speaker 2: But I had a core group of people who believed
Speaker 2: in me.
Speaker 3: So let's say that was kind of twelve investors who
Speaker 3: all cut six figure checks. And then the next step
Speaker 3: after that was in twenty nineteen, we were like, well,
Speaker 3: we've got a following and people know about us and
Speaker 3: all that. Could we leverage that for some money through
Speaker 3: through crowd equity, and so we actually raised some money
Speaker 3: through a platform called Burtual. I'd say that I originated
Speaker 3: the overwhelming majority of the money. But what it did
Speaker 3: was a couple of things. It enabled us to take
Speaker 3: on more investors than you typically can as a PTY
Speaker 3: limited so smaller checks. Yeah, so it gives you. It
Speaker 3: sort of gave us a framework to be able to
Speaker 3: do that. So we picked up some money there and
Speaker 3: got you know, obviously a bigger retail investor following, and
Speaker 3: then you go through phases like that literally happened in
Speaker 3: mid to late twenty nineteen, and the business then we'd
Speaker 3: done four years in a row of doubling our revenue,
Speaker 3: so so triple digit revenue growth year on year for
Speaker 3: four years in a row, and we were absolutely flying
Speaker 3: coming into March of twenty twenty and then we know
Speaker 3: what happened and the wa and Gym's closed, And that
Speaker 3: was when we did realize the utility of being a
Speaker 3: payment's hub, so we could we had all this money
Speaker 3: that people had prepaid for training.
Speaker 2: And no one knew back then, how long are we
Speaker 2: are we going to be stopped? You know what?
Speaker 3: They say, what was that bullshit? Two weeks to flatten
Speaker 3: the curve? You know, they're still telling us that shit
Speaker 3: two years later. So and I say that with a
Speaker 3: bit of passion because I spoke to so many small
Speaker 3: business owners during that period, and I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people don't understand how hard that period was for
Speaker 3: you know, for small business.
Speaker 2: Some flourished, but a lot of them did it.
Speaker 1: People facing businesses, Yep, did it really tough.
Speaker 3: So that happened, and then there was a case of Okay,
Speaker 3: we'd shown a lot of traction, We'd got our annual
Speaker 3: revenues to seven figures, we'd shown really good growth, the
Speaker 3: sector is booming now COVID's happened. And so then it
Speaker 3: was a case of going, Okay, we need to stabilize,
Speaker 3: we need to work out a pathway through. I'm going
Speaker 3: to have to do a recap you know later in
Speaker 3: the you know, in twenty twenty. Thankfully I was able
Speaker 3: to then, you know, do a round which i'd kind
Speaker 3: of call my series A.
Speaker 2: I get a bit caught up.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not as OFAI with all the noenclature
Speaker 3: as the young kids who know startups these days. But
Speaker 3: that was what we'd kind of call our Series A,
Speaker 3: which was the end of twenty twenty early twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: So we then kept building the business, investing in our tech,
Speaker 3: you know, really building scale so that you know, as
Speaker 3: soon as we could prove out the next phase of growth,
Speaker 3: then we could go for the big check. So the
Speaker 3: Series A which we raised about I think we raised
Speaker 3: about six million bucks ozzie or something like that.
Speaker 2: And then that was early twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: One, and then you know, we remember by mid twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, then Australia got shut down again for another
Speaker 3: you know, sort of six months in terms of businesses, gyms,
Speaker 3: what have you.
Speaker 2: And then you know, we went through a process.
Speaker 3: Of iterating, growing, continuing to grow our footprint, prove out
Speaker 3: our thesis, built out our unit economics. I think an
Speaker 3: advantage we had mark as a startup we were always
Speaker 3: selling something early we never had We never came from
Speaker 3: that startup ethos of give something away for free, get
Speaker 3: a huge mass of huge amount of users and then
Speaker 3: workout monetization. We started at the other end, we were
Speaker 3: charging for a premium product that we were licensing to
Speaker 3: gyms and putting in the gyms.
Speaker 1: But they needed it.
Speaker 2: They needed it, and I think a real advantage to us.
Speaker 3: At least we could always sit down with investors and
Speaker 3: show them an income statement.
Speaker 2: We had millions of dollars of revenue.
Speaker 3: Now, did we have losses, absolutely, as we invested in
Speaker 3: our tech to grow, But at least investors could always see, Okay,
Speaker 3: there's real union economics here. You know, these real customers
Speaker 3: paying good amounts of money for this.
Speaker 2: The gyms love it.
Speaker 3: Okay, we get to prove a concept, yeah, well and
Speaker 3: truly and proved it in multiple markets in North America,
Speaker 3: proved it in UK Island, proved it in Australia, New Zealand,
Speaker 3: so you know, over thousands and thousands of customers. So
Speaker 3: you go, okay, so this works. Now we want to
Speaker 3: get the capital to really scale it. And that's when
Speaker 3: we ran into the middle of twenty twenty two and
Speaker 3: private markets just froze. I remember being actually away. It
Speaker 3: was the June Long weekend in twenty twenty two. We'd
Speaker 3: shaken hands with a couple of investors who were going
Speaker 3: to basically close our round for us. These were material checks.
Speaker 3: I think totally about five to six million bucks. I
Speaker 3: was out at Orange for a state rugby championships with
Speaker 3: my youngest I'm out there going like I've just closed
Speaker 3: my around, so excited about the next phase of growth.
Speaker 3: The market's absolutely capitulated overnight on on the Monday in
Speaker 3: the US, and within two days those two investors pulled
Speaker 3: their investment. You know, they got call you know, they
Speaker 3: got margin calls from prime brokers, whatever the case may be,
Speaker 3: and we suddenly went old shit where we're really stuck
Speaker 3: here and like all like every startup that scarred their
Speaker 3: way to these they've all gone through it, right, it's
Speaker 3: not unique to us. It feels really unique in personal
Speaker 3: at the time. But you know you have to you
Speaker 3: have to battle on.
Speaker 2: And we did. We we you.
Speaker 3: Know, scraped and scratched, and all our key staff got
Speaker 3: in behind us and helped us with our cash burn
Speaker 3: and just could not have been more supportive because we
Speaker 3: were just so close. And then thankfully we found our
Speaker 3: partnership with some guys down in Melbourne from a group
Speaker 3: called Reach Markets, who are actually fantastic. They raised around
Speaker 3: for us at the end of twenty twenty two and
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two was brutal for raising money into private companies,
Speaker 3: So kudos to the guys at Reach Markets and that
Speaker 3: was literally the bit of money we needed to get
Speaker 3: to the next phase. And then we got introduced to
Speaker 3: our US investment bank, which is the start of the
Speaker 3: listing story.
Speaker 1: So you originally you were going to, as I recall,
Speaker 1: you're going to list on the NASDAK. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: at one stage anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was notionally we're going to list in the
Speaker 3: Obviously we're a microcap company, so we're going to list
Speaker 3: in the US. Technology companies are immediately associated with the NASDEK.
Speaker 3: But then you know, we're talking to our bankers and
Speaker 3: our lawyers and they said, you know, the NYC is
Speaker 3: really worth a look too, and so you kind of
Speaker 3: go through this pro s where you go and meet
Speaker 3: both of them, you take advice from your bankers, and
Speaker 3: you kind of work out which is the best fit
Speaker 3: for you. Obviously they're both incredible exchanges, and I suppose
Speaker 3: as well, part of the fact that you know, the
Speaker 3: ny C with all its history, it felt pretty special
Speaker 3: to sort of go there and meet those people. And
Speaker 3: then also knowing that that's where ultimately the UFC is
Speaker 3: a listed company through t KO on the on the
Speaker 3: n y C. So there's just a whole range of
Speaker 3: reasons that ended up bring them and which was great.
Speaker 1: So just teamed me through this part. You mentioned very
Speaker 1: quickly then your advisors, lawyers and bankers. How does you
Speaker 1: go about putting a team like that together to get
Speaker 1: set up on the NYC, the New York Stock Exchange?
Speaker 1: Did you look up the who to go to? I
Speaker 1: mean with your process, man, how did you find the
Speaker 1: bankers and the advisors?
Speaker 3: That all starts with having great investors here in Australia,
Speaker 3: So you've got you've got knockdowns.
Speaker 1: Someone said, go and see this person is that.
Speaker 3: We got introed in, and actually we got introed in.
Speaker 3: And then my chairman Vaughan Taylor, you know Vaughn Well,
Speaker 3: Vaughn then was on a trip for a company that
Speaker 3: he sits on the board of. He had the first
Speaker 3: chat with the bankers, a group in the US cooled
Speaker 3: think Equity, fantastic guys to work with. They were really
Speaker 3: interested in getting to know us a bit more. I
Speaker 3: jumped on a bunch of phone calls with them, and
Speaker 3: they're like they saw it straight.
Speaker 1: Away, like they saw the rising tide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they saw the thesis.
Speaker 3: They saw this incredible growth in combat sports, they saw
Speaker 3: the rampant success of the UFC, and they saw an
Speaker 3: opportunity to aggregate the sector at scale from it from
Speaker 3: a small company. So from us, listing is about this.
Speaker 3: I actually kind of I joked to my wife after
Speaker 3: we after we listed, I said, it took me seven
Speaker 3: years to get to the starting line, Like, this isn't
Speaker 3: a capital event for us. This is the start of
Speaker 3: what our real growth story will be, which is enormously exciting.
Speaker 3: But we were so lucky Mark that I've had great
Speaker 3: investors here in Australia who were always looking to and
Speaker 3: you've done it for me too, give me advice, make intros.
Speaker 3: And as a founder you have to lean on your.
Speaker 1: Investors unashamably too.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, if you're working your ass off, they know you're
Speaker 3: doing the absolute best to protect their capital.
Speaker 2: And good investors of.
Speaker 3: Which I've got a lot, have really opened a ton
Speaker 3: of doors. But as a founder you have to stay active.
Speaker 3: They're all ridiculously busy people. You're a particular example of that.
Speaker 3: But if you text them, and half I say, I'll
Speaker 3: come and see you. Can I buy your coffee if
Speaker 3: you've got fifteen minutes. It is a contact sport. You
Speaker 3: have to stay busy.
Speaker 2: Normally they'll say yes. They will say yes.
Speaker 1: Normally they'll say yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that was how we got introduced in And then
Speaker 3: you know, as I say, we started working with bankers
Speaker 3: who were kind of trusted and known to people within
Speaker 3: our close circle. And then they introduced us to some
Speaker 3: great securities lawyers who have been awesome to work with
Speaker 3: and get to know over the last twelve months. And
Speaker 3: you know, and then we had had our own team,
Speaker 3: our own staff here who had to work so incredibly
Speaker 3: hard to get through all the filings and all the
Speaker 3: iterations of the filings. And I mean, I'm the talking
Speaker 3: here who goes out and sells the vision, which I
Speaker 3: do passionately because I bloody love it and I'm super
Speaker 3: excited about where we're taking this company too. But what's
Speaker 3: not lost on me is there's an incredible team behind
Speaker 3: me who were doing a lot of the far less
Speaker 3: glamorous work right to get to get to listing.
Speaker 2: And so you do, you do.
Speaker 3: Nine months of work to uplift all your financials go
Speaker 3: through ridiculous levels of order, all the stuff that you.
Speaker 1: Have to otherwise called due diligence, because and your advisors
Speaker 1: have to do or help you participate in the due
Speaker 1: diligence alongside you, because they're sort of putting their name
Speaker 1: to it a little bit, because they're putting it out
Speaker 1: to other people to invest in the business. Correct, So
Speaker 1: could you maybe just give us a sense of how
Speaker 1: long did it take you to get this process up?
Speaker 1: Did you have to actually and importantly a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know this, but you have to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time in the US. Yes, it's not and
Speaker 1: you know it sort of means you're away from your family.
Speaker 1: You've got two sons at school. They're still a school,
Speaker 1: aren't they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, three boys at school.
Speaker 1: Three boys at school, right, and I know very close
Speaker 1: to me, and obviously your wife is here as well,
Speaker 1: and you ordinarily have pretty involved in what they do,
Speaker 1: the footy players and and all that stuff. That's a
Speaker 1: big sacrifice. I mean, I think that partner needs a
Speaker 1: big we need to talk about that league, that commitment
Speaker 1: to spend a lot of time overseas talking shop and
Speaker 1: then who runs an Australian deal, like who's actually doing
Speaker 1: BAU the business as usually?
Speaker 3: I mean I've got a great leadership team who they
Speaker 3: run it independent of me. I mean I sit on
Speaker 3: our most mornings, I sit on our morning whip where
Speaker 3: our exec team talks about our absolute priorities for the day,
Speaker 3: the week, whatever.
Speaker 2: From a management style basis.
Speaker 3: I've always been like, find great people, make sure they
Speaker 3: understand the goals in a really explicit way, but then
Speaker 3: how they go about executing that. If you found the
Speaker 3: right talent that they will find their way. They can
Speaker 3: come back to you if they want clarity or they
Speaker 3: want to understand something, so they do run They do
Speaker 3: run the business right Like my job obviously has been
Speaker 3: you know, corporatizing the can't me raising capital, finding great talent.
Speaker 3: You know, I've got a very you know, I've got
Speaker 3: a very passionate view on the investment thesis of the company,
Speaker 3: and I do get involved in you know kind of
Speaker 3: you know, decisions around strategy, even short term tactics, whatever
Speaker 3: the case may be. But it is the team in
Speaker 3: the offices running the business day today.
Speaker 1: And you're and you're you're how how do you go bad?
Speaker 1: Saying to your family. Listen, I've got to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time over the next fine months in the US.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's that process look like before we list.
Speaker 3: You say, do you like living in this house? Do
Speaker 3: you like going to the school you go to? No,
Speaker 3: it's one of those things that because I've been doing
Speaker 3: the startup thing since the beginning of end of twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: beginning of twenty seventeen. So my twin sons are about
Speaker 3: to turn eighteen, my youngest is about to turn sixteen,
Speaker 3: they only have really vague memories of when dad used
Speaker 3: to put on a suit and go to work five
Speaker 3: days a week in the CBD. They really they're they're
Speaker 3: enduring memories of me is a startup founder, hunched over
Speaker 3: a laptop at the kitchen table, probably more stress than
Speaker 3: he wants to appear. All those things so as an evolution,
Speaker 3: So they watched you evolve into this person des nearly like, oh,
Speaker 3: well that's the next step. Dad's got to go, and
Speaker 3: we expect that's what we sort of expect. Yeah, very
Speaker 3: much like I would say, it was massive excitement from
Speaker 3: the whole family that Okay, you've got to be away
Speaker 3: a lot, but you're pursuing something a pretty ambitious goal,
Speaker 3: a big dream.
Speaker 2: Can we get there?
Speaker 3: And to your earlier question, mark like, from the I
Speaker 3: think we did it about as quick as you.
Speaker 2: Can do it.
Speaker 3: From the moment we signed the mandate agreement with our
Speaker 3: investment bank to the day we listed, I think it
Speaker 3: was like just under maybe a couple of days under
Speaker 3: eleven months, so call it eleven months a bit less.
Speaker 2: And because at the start.
Speaker 3: I think when we sign the mandate later and we
Speaker 3: were like, okay, so how quick can this be done?
Speaker 3: And they see, well, we've seen it done in six months,
Speaker 3: But that's a push. I can honestly say now, I
Speaker 3: could not imagine we could have got it done any faster.
Speaker 3: And that is testament to our professional services firms we
Speaker 3: work with, but most importantly the staff, my staff who
Speaker 3: helped drive that process.
Speaker 1: So how important in the process of talking to your
Speaker 1: investment bankers, particularly before we get the mandate, But how
Speaker 1: important is it to sort of, you know, throw in
Speaker 1: those sexy things like yeah, you know Daniel Cormier, yep,
Speaker 1: Connor McGregor there. I mentioned his name at this on
Speaker 1: this podcast. Obviously we talked about Eugene earlier on and
Speaker 1: John Cavanaro as well. How important is it to throw
Speaker 1: those things around just a little bit a spice into
Speaker 1: the fire.
Speaker 2: Look, it is important.
Speaker 3: I mean if you if you're if you're working with
Speaker 3: the biggest names in the sport. If the biggest name
Speaker 3: in the history of the sport, Connor is an early
Speaker 3: stage investor in your business, yeah, of course, that's validation.
Speaker 1: What does it do?
Speaker 2: It is validation.
Speaker 1: But let's let's let's not assume that he's a great
Speaker 1: business person, although he's a good business person, but let's
Speaker 1: assume he's just like any other fighter who's got some money.
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: That's sizzil part. I mean, we always talk about sizzling stakers. However,
Speaker 1: that's that is important. So I think if you're running
Speaker 1: one of these programs, it doesn't matter where it is,
Speaker 1: but having some cred or people of cred gives you
Speaker 1: cred or gives a concept of thesis crede of course.
Speaker 3: So what does it do for the bankers, Well, it
Speaker 3: validates that when you say your partnered with the biggest
Speaker 3: names in the sport, that that is real. Right, When
Speaker 3: you say you run your programs with the best gyms
Speaker 3: in the world, that is real when you say you've
Speaker 3: demonstrated these unit economics over thousands of participants over a
Speaker 3: lot of years, and then it comes out in the
Speaker 3: financial statements that is real.
Speaker 2: Right, So that's the kind of.
Speaker 3: The d D they do at the start to go, okay,
Speaker 3: this is a listable business because all these elements are
Speaker 3: you know, are real. And of course then when bankers
Speaker 3: are thinking about how do I get cut through with
Speaker 3: a story, right, with a story about a growth company
Speaker 3: that's going to be a microcap that we feel investors
Speaker 3: will understand the thesis and then they want to get
Speaker 3: behind it. So I often say, how the investment thesis
Speaker 3: of the company is convert six hundred and forty million
Speaker 3: fans to participants. But I think another way to think
Speaker 3: about us, particularly now that we're in training in public markets,
Speaker 3: is I want to convert six hundred and forty million
Speaker 3: fans of MMA into people who want to own a
Speaker 3: share in the growth of this sector. Well, that's a
Speaker 3: that's a compelling proposition. So if you want to get
Speaker 3: the attention of retail investors, let's use Connor for an example.
Speaker 3: Alta is the only company that a retail investor can
Speaker 3: invest alongside Connor in the other companies are.
Speaker 2: All private proper twelve.
Speaker 3: You know that forged Irish Stout, you know, he's apparel
Speaker 3: Company's McGregor fast, all those things, they're all privately held.
Speaker 2: This is the deal.
Speaker 3: Whereas you go, okay, if we accept the fact that
Speaker 3: everything that guy touches turns to gold, which it does,
Speaker 3: then if you want to invest alongside him, well, come
Speaker 3: and invest in Alta. If you believe in the growth
Speaker 3: of MMA over the next decade, come and invest in Alta.
Speaker 3: So from a banker's standpoint, that's a compelling story to
Speaker 3: take to market. So investors, you know, get cut through
Speaker 3: and hey, I get that. That's a story I could
Speaker 3: get on board and follow. That's the I think that's
Speaker 3: one of the real advantages. And then people say to us, like,
Speaker 3: you know, you've gone public so early. Going public is
Speaker 3: really expensive, it's very owner for companies of your size.
Speaker 3: All this is true. I'm not disputing any of that.
Speaker 3: My answer to that is there's also more if you
Speaker 3: can get public. There are better pools of capital available
Speaker 3: in public markets. There are far deeper pes in the US,
Speaker 3: especially in the US, and investors have been favoring liquidity
Speaker 3: for the last few years, right, That's.
Speaker 1: What you mean by that, though, was investors that would
Speaker 1: rather invest in a list identity where they could buy
Speaker 1: and so whatever the price is, as opposed to investing
Speaker 1: in a private endy where they're sort of stuck a
Speaker 1: little bit r.
Speaker 2: Capital is locked up.
Speaker 3: And so for us, that was one of the big drivers.
Speaker 3: Having a great investment bank who've got a track record
Speaker 3: of scaling companies from our size to significantly larger them
Speaker 3: wanting to take us public that was.
Speaker 2: Another big reason. And then probably the other reason is.
Speaker 3: That I think when you're a company like ours that
Speaker 3: has so many big names involved and has a great
Speaker 3: global footprint and works with all these you know, these
Speaker 3: star gyms, coaches and athletes, you do have a story
Speaker 3: that resonates and cuts through for retail investors. So you
Speaker 3: could argue that you're going to realize a lot more
Speaker 3: value in your company, your.
Speaker 2: Brand, your notoriety when retail.
Speaker 3: Investors can invest in you and they can buy shees
Speaker 3: in your company on public markets than if it was
Speaker 3: closed and it was private. And yeah, it was minimum
Speaker 3: check size of fifty grand, and you've got to satisfy
Speaker 3: all sorts of wholesale investor provisions to be able to
Speaker 3: get access. So that's another reason why it made a
Speaker 3: lot of sense for us to go public.
Speaker 1: At the stage we did in terms of marketing, and
Speaker 1: I don't mean marketing to retail investors as such, but
Speaker 1: marketing it to the investment bankers who are going to
Speaker 1: support it so that it can go to retail investors.
Speaker 1: How important is it to Pepper or maybe a better
Speaker 1: word is to balance your front of house with female
Speaker 1: female talent. And I don't mean that in terms of
Speaker 1: technical talents technical talent. I do mean that, but I'm
Speaker 1: talking about at.
Speaker 2: The front end.
Speaker 1: Right you go, Conor McGregor, Daniel call me out, But
Speaker 1: like what about the front I mean, who did you
Speaker 1: go out after and how does that process work? How
Speaker 1: do you find these individuals? If you did find an
Speaker 1: individual a female to balance up the outlook?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean three years ago we signed we
Speaker 3: bought Laura Sanko into the business as one of our
Speaker 3: first big US brand ambassadors. Laura commentates on the UFC.
Speaker 3: In fact, she commentated on the UFC that you and
Speaker 3: I were together at in Sydney, one of the big
Speaker 3: pay per views. She's the first woman to have commented
Speaker 3: on a UFC pay per view in like, well over
Speaker 3: twenty five years or something like that. She's one of
Speaker 3: the UFC's top broadcaster as analysts. She's a former pro fighter,
Speaker 3: she's in a forty, she's a mom.
Speaker 1: How do you approach someone like that? I mean, how
Speaker 1: did you get her to come on board? So to speak?
Speaker 2: On the story? I mean look through our.
Speaker 3: Networks, right, so you know, classic example, one of our
Speaker 3: long term PR guys in la Zach Rosenfield, who's become
Speaker 3: a great mate over the years. Zach also happens to
Speaker 3: manage ate Nate Diaz legend. Yeah, and we've been so
Speaker 3: heavily tied into the sector at an elite level for
Speaker 3: a long time because we generated a lot of credibility
Speaker 3: through how we monetized gyms and so we were we were,
Speaker 3: we're we're a sector insider mark like that's and so
Speaker 3: how do we get to law Zach? Zach Newlawa's agent.
Speaker 3: He picked up the phone says, Hey, there's this company.
Speaker 3: They do really great things. They really want to, you know,
Speaker 3: focus on getting more and more women involved in training
Speaker 3: martial arts and combat sports. Her star was really on
Speaker 3: the rise, you know, three years ago, and we sat
Speaker 3: down and Zach Lawa and I had a conversation and
Speaker 3: then she told us a remarkable story about how her
Speaker 3: her training journey begins.
Speaker 2: She never intended to be a fighter. She she went to.
Speaker 3: Start training in the gym at a time she was
Speaker 3: kind of she'd come out of a bad breakup, she
Speaker 3: was lonely, she was just wasn't feeling herself, and she
Speaker 3: kind of just started training martial arts and somehow fell
Speaker 3: forward into ultimately being convinced to have an amateur fight
Speaker 3: that went on too, multiple amateur fights and ultimately some
Speaker 3: professional fights. So she said to me on our first conversation,
Speaker 3: Nick Olter, story is my story, Like this resonates with me,
Speaker 3: and I mean we've been working with her ever since.
Speaker 1: So the big the big deal and all this stuff too,
Speaker 1: by the way, is.
Speaker 2: All that stuff is good.
Speaker 1: Everyone's interested, everybody wants support. Of course, the valuation parts
Speaker 1: the big story, Lad, how do you arrive at evaluation
Speaker 1: for ALTA when you know you have to project forward
Speaker 1: what you wouldn't want to project forward? Your valuations they're
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, and the job of the
Speaker 1: bankers a lot of times is to sort of rs
Speaker 1: or you and get your price down or your value
Speaker 1: down or more respectable, more acceptable of the words, how
Speaker 1: do you go about that?
Speaker 2: How do you go about it? Yeah, so that's a
Speaker 2: that's a process you go through.
Speaker 3: I think ours was anchored in fundamentals, right, So if
Speaker 3: you look at two primary things that drives what we
Speaker 3: believe the valuation to be and why we looked Number one,
Speaker 3: some long term unit economics of producing millions of dollars
Speaker 3: of revenue and paying millions of dollars to gym owners
Speaker 3: around the world. So we had core unit economics that said,
Speaker 3: if we run out to programs in this number of gyms,
Speaker 3: this is gross revenue on a per gm basis. These
Speaker 3: are our margins on the customers that we that we
Speaker 3: bring on board. So we had kind of a really
Speaker 3: we had deep unit economics that said, Okay, as a banker,
Speaker 3: they go, okay, I get that. That's not You've done
Speaker 3: it in one or two locations, You've proven it broadly.
Speaker 3: So if we give you the fuel to grow, how
Speaker 3: quickly can you grow it? And then so then the
Speaker 3: other dimension in that is, well, what is your footprint?
Speaker 3: How many gyms have you got signed agreements with that
Speaker 3: they're ready to run your programs and take customers from you.
Speaker 3: And so then you get these kind of average unit
Speaker 3: economics with your gym footprint, and you get to us
Speaker 3: having an embedded revenue opportunity of fifty sixty million dollars,
Speaker 3: whatever the case may be. So then you go, Okay,
Speaker 3: if we don't sign another gym and we just execute
Speaker 3: on our plan, then there is a revenue opportunity of
Speaker 3: up to fifty sixty million dollars without growing your gym
Speaker 3: footprint anymore. Now, of course, we're going to continue to
Speaker 3: grow and do all these other things. So valuation was
Speaker 3: ultimately derivative of what is the opportunity as it exists today,
Speaker 3: and you know what proven unit economics of you guys displayed,
Speaker 3: and that ultimately, you know, then your factor in some
Speaker 3: some other factors, maybe you know, capital race today, valuation
Speaker 3: of previous rounds, that sort of all, you know, went
Speaker 3: up gently.
Speaker 2: You know, we raised you know that the.
Speaker 3: IPO was done at circa fifty million dollar valuation for
Speaker 3: the company. You know, the last time we raised money
Speaker 3: before that, the company was valued in the high thirties,
Speaker 3: early forties. So it was kind of just that kind
Speaker 3: of natural graduation as we proved out what we were doing.
Speaker 1: But you've got to keep fighting every every step of
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 2: You don't stop.
Speaker 1: And what is your ticker?
Speaker 2: It's the best ticky?
Speaker 1: What is it? M m m m.
Speaker 3: Well that's that's kudos to to one of our bankers
Speaker 3: in New York. We were talking about, you know, stock symbols,
Speaker 3: and I kind of naturally was, so, can we get
Speaker 3: ALTA or what could we I kind of just immediately
Speaker 3: went to something that was derivative of and he said,
Speaker 3: what about if we went for the sport mm A.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, I mean, surely that's been taken.
Speaker 3: He goes, well, it's worth a look. And so we
Speaker 3: went straight to our lawyers and then applied through the
Speaker 3: relevant channels and it came back clear, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: that's that's free.
Speaker 2: And then that was like the quickest response.
Speaker 3: Ever to an email now, and I will say a
Speaker 3: lot of investors and I was on investor calls early
Speaker 3: this morning in the US, like everyone says, my god,
Speaker 3: like that's stock ticker.
Speaker 2: That's just a killer.
Speaker 3: And again, when you think about us wanting to engage
Speaker 3: fans of m M A who love the way the
Speaker 3: sector is growing. Right, that's a pretty easy way is
Speaker 3: stock ticket get exposure. So so kudos to our to
Speaker 3: our bankers there.
Speaker 1: And with the capital that's raised, what did you tell
Speaker 1: your bankers et cetera what the purpose of the money
Speaker 1: is for? And a part of growth, I get it
Speaker 1: better acquisitions and have you done anything about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So, so use of funds was specifically around obviously investment
Speaker 3: in marketing and growth to fund revenue growth, activating in
Speaker 3: the business, our gym footprint that you making a handful
Speaker 3: of key highs. Obviously, you know people who work in
Speaker 3: in startups a special people. If if you can stay
Speaker 3: working in startup for a long time, you've got tremendous resilience.
Speaker 3: And so you know, hiring a few extra people in
Speaker 3: to help out the team, which is great. And then
Speaker 3: we've looked at acquisitions on a strategic basis, so if
Speaker 3: it makes sense, i e.
Speaker 2: Can it add to can it accelerate revenue growth? Right?
Speaker 3: So are we acquiring an asset that might have a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of users, It could be an adjacent business
Speaker 3: that is really easy to kind of monetize that user
Speaker 3: base into our world. That would be a reason we
Speaker 3: would we would look at an act position or the
Speaker 3: other one is could the acquisition provide a bunch of
Speaker 3: utility that we can deploy to fast track our technology platform.
Speaker 3: So we made an acquisition that we announced last week
Speaker 3: a business called Hype, which is this incredible mobile marketing platform,
Speaker 3: you know, sort of CRM, website builder, payments, but all
Speaker 3: built mobile centric by some really really smart guys in
Speaker 3: the US. And we started talking to them because we
Speaker 3: wanted to become a customer and get exclusivity in our
Speaker 3: sector around what they did. But before we want, before
Speaker 3: we went to build expensive integrations and what have you
Speaker 3: to embed it, we got into deeper conversations and we
Speaker 3: got to a position where it actually made a lot
Speaker 3: of sense for their manned US that we could acquire them.
Speaker 3: And you know, that's fast tracking our tech roadmap by
Speaker 3: minimum twenty months, probably twenty four months. It's going to
Speaker 3: as a fortune in in tech Capex and we've picked
Speaker 3: up like a world class engineering team.
Speaker 2: So it's just win win win.
Speaker 1: And you're how important I mean when you're listed, I
Speaker 1: mean you've got a lot of currency, So how important
Speaker 1: is it in acquisitions? For example, being able to use
Speaker 1: your own currency, that is your stock, issuing stock or
Speaker 1: part stock by cash, or it can be all cash
Speaker 1: of course, or all stock. How important is that flexibility
Speaker 1: from being listed on the MYC.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's it's huge when you can when
Speaker 3: the consideration for an acquisition can be your own stock.
Speaker 3: You know, cash is obviously precious at all times, and
Speaker 3: so we were fortunate Mark we were able to make
Speaker 3: We made some acquisitions late last year that were script
Speaker 3: based only, so just using our stock, no cash consideration,
Speaker 3: and made those acquisitions. Obviously those the people who sold
Speaker 3: had the hope that we would be successful in going public,
Speaker 3: which we were.
Speaker 2: So, Yeah, being able.
Speaker 3: To issue our own equity as consideration for those when
Speaker 3: it's a really highly aligned acquisition, it's enormously valuable.
Speaker 1: So how final question for it, mate, have you had
Speaker 1: a holiday since you started this journey in twenty forteen
Speaker 1: or whatever it was? I mean, and are you as
Speaker 1: excited today or are you more relieved as to are
Speaker 1: you as excited today as you were at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the journey or more relieved? Which one?
Speaker 2: It's gone through far?
Speaker 3: I am now as I sit here now, I am
Speaker 3: more excited than I've ever been. I did have a holiday,
Speaker 3: I did refresh, you know, I took sort of twelve
Speaker 3: days off.
Speaker 2: I would still I still thought about the business and
Speaker 2: what have you.
Speaker 3: But I said at the start mark, like for me,
Speaker 3: it feels like it took me seven years to get
Speaker 3: to the starting line, and this is just the beginning
Speaker 3: of what we're going to build in the incredible sports vertical,
Speaker 3: and so I feel more excited about where we're going.
Speaker 2: I do feel I do feel.
Speaker 3: Really relieved that we got there, and it was it
Speaker 3: was a really tough journey. But now yeah, like the
Speaker 3: rest of the team, we've finally got the resources we need.
Speaker 3: We're operating in a really big market again, the pools
Speaker 3: of capital in the US, it just it's just so
Speaker 3: much deeper. The sport has grown evolved and it's just
Speaker 3: so much more advanced there.
Speaker 2: So it really feels we've.
Speaker 3: Got the jet pack on now and yeah, that's that
Speaker 3: really makes it easy to get out of bed.
Speaker 2: In the morning.
Speaker 1: Nick Langton, CEO of AS it's still called Train Outer
Speaker 1: or it is just Outer now.
Speaker 2: Well, it's our global group.
Speaker 3: But the funny thing is that all our social handles
Speaker 3: are train Alter. Yeah, I see that, so everyone just
Speaker 3: calls es train outer.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say congratulations and well done.
Speaker 1: You know, I've made some investments, some things I've done
Speaker 1: so well, but this one I don't even looked at
Speaker 1: the share price. But just the fact that you got
Speaker 1: listened to the NYC and I was a small part
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: I feel so happy.
Speaker 1: It makes me really happy, and it makes me even
Speaker 1: happy to be able to talk to you many many
Speaker 1: years later on going public about the process of raising
Speaker 1: money and make you raise it at the ultimate place,
Speaker 1: the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker 2: Yes, congratulations mate, Thank you. Mark