F45 Had Their 'Unique' Idea Stolen and the Thief Got Away With It.
Nothing is special or sacred. It's all up for grabs.
I started a blog to document Tempo Training and share my fitness thoughts - @respectthetempo.
Since 2015, the content I've created has been to share my business musing and help microgym owners achieve their version of success.
And I can't imagine a day when I stop creating that type of content - so instead, I will add to it.
Something amazing happened after Urban MVMNT officially closed, and I settled into retirement and began working out as a member in someone else's gym... I fell back in love with fitness.
I've always loved fitness, but in the whirlwind of a multi-business career and fatherhood - fitness became more like hygiene.
You know how you don't always want to take a shower, but you know you need to? Yeah, like that.
I'd venture to guess that every gym owner can relate to the difficulty of trying to workout in your own spot. It's hard to turn off the business-owner brain and just selfishly focus on you. There was a significant period of time when I was lucky if I got in 3 workouts/week.
But since transitioning to this new phase of my life, I've found myself magnetically drawn back to my own fitness.
So, I've picked up a project that my Urban MVMNT head coach and I started working on - an individual Tempo Training (TT) model without the restraints of equipment and space that our group class TT model had been limited by.
Tempo Training is the name we gave to our unique belief in fitness. Tempo Training emphasizes longer, aerobic workouts and aims to create a significant amount of time under tension during resistance training.
Currently, I workout 8-10x per week, doing Tempo Training and incorporating a few CrossFit classes in which I still find ways to instill TT into the workouts as needed.
And I've never felt or looked better.
So I'll be using the @respectthetempo account to create content that shares my workouts, the methods, and ideas behind TT, and of course, comment on some of the fitness fuckery I see out in the wild.
I'd love it if you followed along.
Hopefully, it'll provide some inspiration for your own workouts or a fresh perspective on the "constantly varied, functional movements performed at high intensity" that we are all participating in, in one form or another.
xoxo
Stu
Worried about competitors stealing your idea? You should be.
While simultaneously not giving a shit…
Fitness empire F45 has lost a court case in Australia against rival gym Body Fit Training after suing over patent infringement on its electronic coaching system.
Remember reading about Body Fit Training, the Aussie functional training franchise, in a recent WTF Weekly article? If you don’t, take a peek back.
Well, essentially, F45 is accusing their competitor of being a copycat.
In court, F45 claimed the system produced tangible results for clients and, consequently, economic success for the franchise. F45 lawyers argued that Body Fit Training had copied the scheme by configuring their fitness studios from a central server.
F45's system uses a computer network to disseminate exercise routines to all of its studios, including more than 1,750 franchises in 45 countries.
However, the Federal Court thinks F45 may have been told "you're special" one too many times.
They served F45 a triple-whammy ruling that Body Fit did not infringe on F45 patents, the patent is invalid and should be revoked, and ordered F45 to pay Body Fit Training's legal expenses.
Justice John Nicholas said the business scheme was not patentable "merely because it is implemented using generic computing technology. It is the kind of scheme that has, historically, never been regarded as patentable subject matter."
When Body Fit's Training's co-executives were asked about the lawsuit, they said that they were not going to allow a big bully like F45 to push them out of the marketplace, adding "F45 was trying to assert invalid patents to try and hinder what we believe to be a superior business model and approach to fitness training".
What's next? F45 currently has a similar patent case before the courts in the United States and is hopeful that the different set of principles that apply in the US will result in a win.
MY TAKE
Of course, I have some thoughts on the lawsuit F45 served to Body Fit Training. Still, in My Take, I'm going to dive one step further, beyond the frivolous silly lawsuit, and address the idea of proprietary, personal Intellectual Property (IP).
Because I think there's something to recognize here regarding what we're stealing and differentiating in our business.
Let's break it down.
So first off, let's just address the topic of the article - F45's court case against rival gym Body Fit Training over patent infringement.
Who in the hell would ever think that having TVs mounted to a wall with streaming videos of exercises on them was sacred IP?
How in the world would anyone over at F45 think that basic ass technology like smart-TVs and steaming was something that they could own in perpetuity?
Remember, kids, everything we create that we believe is unique is always up for grabs.
The second we publish it…
The second we execute on it…
The second we install it in our classes…
Everything is up for grabs from our competitors.
We cannot directly outright own anything that we do within our classes, and we all need to accept that (including F45 apparently) and then expect it to become copied and ripped off by our competitors.
And while in this case, F45 was the company throwing a toddler tantrum over perceived stealing, what I don't understand is why Body Fit Training wanted to mimic F45 so severely.
Sure, I understand why they want to imitate F45; they obviously have a winning formula.
But IMO, they're grabbing too much of what F45 has, and it blurs the line of distinction between the two brands for the consumer, especially in Australia and additional locations where both of these brands are operating.
Now, moving past the litigation of stolen ideas between these two brands onto some thoughts regarding Body Fit Training.
In our previous issue, I was excited to see a new brand join the Xponential Fitness family, especially one that would add a new element to their portfolio - a more strength-based CrossFit-like group fitness model.
However, although Body Fit Training may have won in the eyes of the court, as the brand and business model has evolved, they are losing in my eyes in terms of creating enough differentiation from F45.
Right now, Body Fit Training is falling victim to only being different from an F45 by only a few small degrees. Meaning their unique sales proposition compared to their arch-nemesis won't be enough to differentiate themselves to the market.
Let’s say Sally has recently moved and is looking for a new gym. She is interested in interval-based, high-intensity training with a focus on building strength. 15-minutes from her new house are both Body Fit Training and F45. She then goes to social media to look at Body Fit's and F45's photos and videos.
But they each look so similar.
Then she pops over to their websites. The class structures, class times, building interiors, and amenities also look very similar. There is not a substantial enough difference for Sally to decide which brand will be the best fit.
Alexa, play Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke ft. TI and Pharrell.
Did Body Fit Training steal class flow, workout elements, studio layout, and design ideas from F45? They sure did.
But as we've acknowledged, stealing will happen. It is what you do with the stolen ideas that is impactful.
And unfortunately for Body Fit Training, all they did with the stolen F45 elements was sprinkle in some strength-training components and essentially keep the rest.
This brings us to the next problem I see - targeting the wrong client avatar.
I think BFT got so carried away trying to steal the 45-minute class model and pepper in some strength training that they completely missed the biggest differentiator they should have made… going after a different avatar.
F45 is a 'starter fitness' avatar program, meaning they target individuals looking to get started with fitness.
CrossFit, MADablic, and Urban MVMNT (RIP) are all examples of models targeting an 'evolve my fitness' avatar, i.e., people who are already in the fitness scene and are now looking to make their workouts more challenging or switch it up.
I believe BFT would have seen more success if they had targeted the 'evolve my fitness' avatar and positioned themselves as the program that the F45-goers graduate into when they've outgrown the elementary approach to fitness.
But ultimately, they got carried away and believed that if they stole an already proven successful class flow, operational capacity equation, and sprinkled in some barbell work, everybody would look at their program as superior. And unfortunately, I don't think that is what will happen.
YOUR TAKEAWAY
As I've repeated at nauseam for years now, "good artists borrow, great artists steal."
But no one can truly be a great artist unless they take what they've stolen from multiple sources, not just a singular one, and use it to create something new and exciting.
Stealing something without modifying it simply makes you a copycat and a lazy fuck.
In addition, remember, we also have to accept that everything can be stolen from us, and there's nothing you can do about it. And this goes way beyond just how you run your group fitness workouts or some of your unique group class ideas.
Here are two other examples of things that can be easily stolen from you (no matter how full-proof your lawyer documents are)...
Your Coaches and Staff
Non-competes may give you peace of mind, but in reality, these arbitrary pieces of paper, which we paid a lawyer to draft up, will not prevent a former employee from gaining employment at another facility.
It is silly to think so.
While non-competes for middle to large-sized companies are enforceable, for the average microgym, actually taking the legal steps to enforce a violated non-compete is far more money, time, and sanity than it is worth.
So instead, accept that it didn’t work out with your former employee and put your money, time, and energy into finding a fitting replacement.
Your Members
I don’t believe that members are actually stolen. They simply choose another service provider. For example, suppose you have a coach with whom your relationship deteriorates over time, and they go down the street and open up their own microgym. There's nothing you can do to stop your current customers from canceling and joining that individual's gym.
While your feelings are still raw, you might go ahead and call it member stealing. Everybody else, however, would just call it a fair market choice by the consumer. You can't call the cops or sue that individual because memberships are not something we tangibly own as microgym owners. They are commitments from customers that we temporarily retain. So if it was never yours to begin with, you can't claim that somebody stole it.
In summary, let's all learn from Body Fit Training and F45.
From F45, let's learn not to be whiny-ass-tittie-babies and complain when somebody steals something that wasn't actually ours to begin with or something that we can't actually protect or claim as our own.
And from Body Fit Training, let's learn if you are going to steal, make sure that what you're stealing allows you to develop your program or your brand into something more than just a few shades different from the organization you stole it from. Because all you're going to do is confuse the market and add saturation to the one sliver of the tiny niche sliver of fitness.
Instead, go out and create a whole new unique niche that only you can claim rights to. Well, for now, that is... until someone else comes along and steals that idea too.
