Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the jolt that tickles your muscles and suit
Speaker 2: it up in the Catalyst Jen for you might look
Speaker 2: a bit like one of the Avengers. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: It is all part of looking and feeling your best.
Speaker 2: As Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser writes about the new
Speaker 2: issue of Bloomberg Business Week with Pursuits devoted to the
Speaker 2: pursuit of wellness. Here with Morris Chris Rouser along with
Speaker 2: Brendan Kennedy, the CEO of Monte Mayer, it's the owner
Speaker 2: of Catalyst, and they both are here in our studio. Welcome, Welcome,
Speaker 2: a great Friday story. First of all, I got to
Speaker 2: start with you, Chris, How did this come on your radar?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know you are always kind of the
Speaker 2: king when it comes to things that you can try
Speaker 2: to feel better to look back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a fitness person, I'm a wellness person. I'll
Speaker 3: try anything.
Speaker 4: Once.
Speaker 3: If you asked me to do a form of exercise
Speaker 3: with you, I will do it. So I've done everything,
Speaker 3: solid core, phyzeke fifty seven, zoomba, you name it, I've
Speaker 3: done it, hot yoga, hotter yoga.
Speaker 1: And something in a chair yo.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, there was briefly a PILATEUS studio in Manhattan
Speaker 3: called Shaes twenty three because you did all the exercises
Speaker 3: in a chair and it was on twenty third Street.
Speaker 3: So at the beginning of the year, I just was
Speaker 3: thinking about how overwhelming wellness has gotten. There's endless podcasts,
Speaker 3: The Manisphere podcasts are just like telling you so many
Speaker 3: different things every week to do. There's businesses where you
Speaker 3: can spend like seven thousand dollars a month where you
Speaker 3: go and you get you know, go get tested for
Speaker 3: all this stuff every month and you get AI to
Speaker 3: tell you what to eat and what to exercise. Just
Speaker 3: feels very overwhelming. And I thought, Okay, what's the response
Speaker 3: to that. What is my response to that.
Speaker 1: I want to cheat, I want to cheat code.
Speaker 4: I want an easy way out. I want to hack.
Speaker 3: And so we got the whole pursuit seemed together to
Speaker 3: think to like go out and do research and figure
Speaker 3: out what like the hot wellness hacks right now that
Speaker 3: makes it easier for you because at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, what you really need to do is exercise.
Speaker 3: You need to sleep, you need to talk to people,
Speaker 3: and you need to eat. Well, that's basically all you
Speaker 3: need to do. So like, what are the things that
Speaker 3: can sort of hack your way into doing those more easily?
Speaker 3: And so as I was doing my research, I discovered
Speaker 3: the Catalyst suit, which is an EMS suit. It's a
Speaker 3: stimsuit like you like physical therapists use after you get
Speaker 3: an injury. They kind of zap your muscles with electricity
Speaker 3: and it encourages your muscles to work harder, more of
Speaker 3: it tenses up, and then it heals. It heals stronger.
Speaker 3: And so that technology is now a suit that you
Speaker 3: can wear and you can do workouts and it like
Speaker 3: supercharges your workouts.
Speaker 1: Okay, I know the guy who owns the company is
Speaker 1: sitting right here, but I'm still going to put you
Speaker 1: on the spot, Crisp, because I see technology like this
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yeah, does it actually work?
Speaker 4: I have to tell you it actually works.
Speaker 1: You're not just saying.
Speaker 3: Muscles through my blazer, but you see, but it really
Speaker 3: totally works. I did it for six months after having
Speaker 3: a pair of injuries. I had foot surgery. You guys,
Speaker 3: remember I fractured my elbow. I was like out of
Speaker 3: the gym for months. I felt kind of bummed about it,
Speaker 3: and it really got me back going. Yeah, you really
Speaker 3: see a results that it helped my posture I lost
Speaker 3: to gain muscle.
Speaker 2: All right, So Brendan, come on in. You are the
Speaker 2: owner of Catalyst. Talk to us about this device, kind
Speaker 2: of how it came to be, and tell us a
Speaker 2: little bit about the business.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I joined EMS about four years ago, and I
Speaker 5: was a little skeptical at first too. My wife had
Speaker 5: used it about seven years ago.
Speaker 1: EMS is electric electric electrical muscle stimulation exactly.
Speaker 5: I'm just like a doctor or a physical therapist will
Speaker 5: put STEM on you to heal a muscle. It's the
Speaker 5: same time technology and doctors have been using it for
Speaker 5: six years. If you go to Europe, there are ms
Speaker 5: studios where there's thousands of them where people will go
Speaker 5: in and work out. I went in skeptically and tried
Speaker 5: it about four years ago during COVID and it's amazing
Speaker 5: for me. It compresses time. I can get two hour
Speaker 5: workout workout that would normally take me two hours in
Speaker 5: a gym. I can do it in twenty minutes, and
Speaker 5: it's a whole body workout. It hits a little muscles
Speaker 5: in your back that you you might miss in a
Speaker 5: gym or skip leg day. Is your whole body, twenty
Speaker 5: six pads at once, and it stimulates your muscle. Just
Speaker 5: like your brain sends a signal to your muscle to contract,
Speaker 5: the suit sends the same muscles, the same signals, and
Speaker 5: it hits ninety percent of your muscles.
Speaker 4: And so it's amazing and.
Speaker 5: It works, it's efficient, it's fast, it's safe, and it
Speaker 5: compresses time for me.
Speaker 3: So you were a client, I was a class who
Speaker 3: became an investor, and now you're the owner.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's something I'm really passionate about.
Speaker 5: I use it three days a week, so twenty minutes
Speaker 5: each time, basically an hour a week. That little prep,
Speaker 5: a little cleanup, but compared to changing and driving to
Speaker 5: a gym and working out for two hours, I can
Speaker 5: do it in twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: I can do it at home. I travel with it.
Speaker 4: It's spectacular, all right.
Speaker 2: So what does it cost?
Speaker 5: So the suit retails for three thousand dollars. There's an app,
Speaker 5: and there's trainers on the apps, so you pick I
Speaker 5: want to focus on strength. I want to focus on cardio.
Speaker 5: Maybe I'm going to focus on my old legs or
Speaker 5: my abs. I'm fifty years old. I've worked out in
Speaker 5: gyms for forty years. This is the first I've done Ironman.
Speaker 5: I've done marathons, I've done every kind of fitness activity
Speaker 5: you can do. I'm very active. This is the first
Speaker 5: time I've had abs at fifty three, right, It's never
Speaker 5: happened before. It's all because of suit. I can turn
Speaker 5: up the abs and hit hit those muscles.
Speaker 4: Three thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: You follow a trainer on the app and that person
Speaker 5: leads you through a twenty minute workout.
Speaker 1: People might know you from your days in cannabis medical
Speaker 1: cannabis specifically. You were one of the co founders of Tilray.
Speaker 1: You led the company. It's publicly traded now you're no
Speaker 1: longer involved in cannabis. What was the process that got
Speaker 1: you to buying Catalyst and talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the challenges the companies had before you came on board
Speaker 1: and what you're trying to do now to get it
Speaker 1: away from those challenges.
Speaker 4: Absolutely so, I think cannabis.
Speaker 5: You know, I started in cannabis back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 5: so fourteen years ago, and back then people thought it
Speaker 5: was crazy, right, is.
Speaker 4: What is he doing?
Speaker 5: He went to Yale, he has an MBA, Why is
Speaker 5: he going into cannabis?
Speaker 4: And he's throwing away his whole career.
Speaker 5: But I could see the future. I could see what
Speaker 5: was going to happen. I knew that country after country
Speaker 5: was going to legalize. In the US, States were going
Speaker 5: to legalize, and so I saw the opportunity. I saw
Speaker 5: what was going to happen. I see the same thing
Speaker 5: in EMS. If you go to Europe, there's these studios
Speaker 5: everywhere with people working out in suits. And I think
Speaker 5: five years from now, everyone in the US will be
Speaker 5: familiar with MS. They'll either have a suit or they'll
Speaker 5: go to gym and work out in that suit, because
Speaker 5: it's the future of fitness.
Speaker 2: Well, Christy, I mean, you do cover so much about
Speaker 2: wellness and fitness. We talk about it with you all
Speaker 2: the time. I mean, how do you slot this sin
Speaker 2: What are you hearing kind of from maybe the industry
Speaker 2: about maybe is this kind of.
Speaker 4: A next way? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean this is definitely We've done stories about EMS
Speaker 3: too before. Plastic surgeons in New York City offer it.
Speaker 3: There's some startups that offer sort of similar things where
Speaker 3: you go to a studio. For me, this really fit
Speaker 3: into my normal system of going to Berry's boot camp.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a big Berries person and doing my
Speaker 3: normal weightlifts, and then I added this in, yeah, two
Speaker 3: or three times a week twenty minutes, and that's where
Speaker 3: I really supercharged everything else that I did. And especially
Speaker 3: on a day when you know, like Brendan said, if
Speaker 3: you're too busy or you're traveling or whatever, you can
Speaker 3: just kind of toss it in. And although I have
Speaker 3: not taken it on a plane before, so I.
Speaker 4: Brought it with me. So this is what it looks like.
Speaker 4: Is it quite big? It's not really.
Speaker 1: So for those listening on radio, christs holding up of
Speaker 1: the best portion. But there's also that that sort of
Speaker 1: there's another portion.
Speaker 2: That goes all the way down.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's for you around your legs and legs.
Speaker 3: There are armbands that go with it, and you have
Speaker 3: to get it wet for the stem pads to like
Speaker 3: really work.
Speaker 1: But do you have to say with a heart rate
Speaker 1: monitor too. It's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 4: Exactly, Okay, very similar.
Speaker 2: So what do you see as your market. Is it
Speaker 2: a case of selling directly to consumers? Is it about
Speaker 2: setting up is like the Peloton model to some extent,
Speaker 2: where you could go and actually get on a peloton
Speaker 2: and be at a physical location. I mean Peloton kind
Speaker 2: of went back and forth. What's the model in terms
Speaker 2: of growing this business?
Speaker 5: So right now there are thousands of consumers that own
Speaker 5: the suit and they work out at their homes or
Speaker 5: at the office or in their hotel rooms. Yeah, while
Speaker 5: they're traveling and they work out with the app. There
Speaker 5: are also maybe two to three hundred studios in the
Speaker 5: US that use a suit. Many of them use the
Speaker 5: Catalyst suit, And so you can go to an MS
Speaker 5: studio if you're mostly in a big city and try it.
Speaker 5: And so they use a Catalyst suit. And so it's
Speaker 5: both supplying to studios and we're seeing more and more
Speaker 5: of those open, and then also to consumers.
Speaker 1: What's the moat that you have here? Because if this
Speaker 1: is big in Europe, you're doing it here in the US.
Speaker 1: People might catch on, they might see.
Speaker 4: That it's working.
Speaker 1: Copycats could come in. What separates you hyper protect them?
Speaker 4: I think I think there's two moats.
Speaker 5: I think the first moat is Oddly, any MS suit
Speaker 5: is regulated like a toaster in Europe, and so so
Speaker 5: manufacturers can just make them and sell them here, it's
Speaker 5: regulated by the FDA, and so this suit is FDA cleared,
Speaker 5: and so we went through the FDA process in order
Speaker 5: to sell it to consumers.
Speaker 4: That's that's one mote.
Speaker 5: I think the second moat is the content. There's there's
Speaker 5: hundreds of workouts online that you can engage in.
Speaker 4: The app.
Speaker 5: Actually is what sends the impulse impulses to.
Speaker 4: That's what's apps.
Speaker 5: You yes, and so the app does it.
Speaker 2: Family to get them to do other things just saying no,
Speaker 2: forgive me go ahead.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 5: I think it's the content and the FDA clearance really
Speaker 5: the two moats.
Speaker 2: What about competition or just the wellness world at large,
Speaker 2: Like it feels like, you know, we go through these
Speaker 2: fads and waves and trends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want this to end up in the
Speaker 1: same pile as the thigh master.
Speaker 2: I think, hey, everybody should have a thigh master. No,
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding, but how do you make sure?
Speaker 5: I think strength is important no matter what you do, right,
Speaker 5: And so I use my suit three day this week,
Speaker 5: twenty minutes I run so I have cardio. You can
Speaker 5: you work out on treadmill wearing the suit. People do that,
Speaker 5: but I think strength will always be there. Strength will
Speaker 5: always be important. It fixes your posture. Bone density for
Speaker 5: a lot of people is really important. People on GLP
Speaker 5: one drugs lose strength, and so this suit helps people
Speaker 5: of different demographics in.
Speaker 4: Ages very quickly.
Speaker 1: You can work out while you're wearing the suit, and
Speaker 1: also wear the suit independently while you're not working out,
Speaker 1: or you're always working out while you wear There are people.
Speaker 5: That do freestyle workouts, which means the suit is charging
Speaker 5: impulsing and they're folding laundry or doing the dishes or
Speaker 5: walking on a treadmill.
Speaker 2: I think you and I need these. You're still doing
Speaker 2: it real quickly.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, oh yeah, I'm in.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you.
Speaker 2: I go to a doctor and they say it's all
Speaker 2: about strength and getting your muscles, building muscle strengths. So
Speaker 2: it totally makes sense. Gentlemen, Thank you so much, really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. Brendan Kennedy, chief executive Officer of Monte Maer,
Speaker 2: the owner of Catalysts, joining us here in studio alone
Speaker 2: with our own Chris Rouser. He's editor of Bloomberg Pursuit,
Speaker 2: so you can check out and read more about Chris's experience.
Speaker 2: It was a really fun read. It's in the new
Speaker 2: issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek in the Pursuit section.