What happens when you mix a SEAL Team Squadron Commander/Stanford MBA turned fitness visionary with a team of industry innovators who have decades of experience and a common goal to revolutionize the landscape of fitness? You Get Out and You Get Fit. You get OutFit®: The world’s most innovative outdoor mobile fitness franchise.
Randy Hetrick is the founder of OutFit and has a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Navy SEAL, Stanford MBA, bootstrap entrepreneur who spent 15 years building TRX® -- one of the best loved and most recognized global brands in fitness. For OutFit, Hetrick assembled a team of “true avengers”, as he affectionately refers to them. Chief Operating Officer, Darren Jacobson, was a senior executive at world famous Zumba Fitness. Prior to that, Darren oversaw Fitness and Product for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin health club chain, Virgin Active. President of Franchise Operations, Jeff Rosga, spent the better part of two decades as an executive at Lifetime Fitness, building the Lifetime Academy and helping Lifetime grow to over 1.3 million members and almost $400 million in annual sales. Quincy Carroll, a classmate of Randy’s at Stanford Business School in 2003, joined OutFit as Chief Technology Officer after a legendary career building cutting edge consumer technology platforms at Apple, Ebay, and CrunchyRoll. Apropos to OutFit’s business model, Quincy even did a stint in Europe building a ride share service that was acquired by BlaBla Car, the main European competitor to Uber. Anil Shetty, the Chief Financial Officer, and Fraser Quelch, the Head of Education & Training, each joined OutFit after spending more than a decade with Hetrick building the world-famous fitness brand, TRX, which Hetrick sold to private equity and exited in late 2020 on the heels of the company’s best year ever – having delivered $87m in revenue and $21m in EBITDA -- to found OutFit.
This high performing team has its sights set on dominating the outdoor fitness category, coalescing around Randy’s vision for OutFit. Hetrick’s early years were spent in the beach communities of Southern California. He attended the University of Southern California, where he rowed Crew and became inspired by the idea of serving the country. After graduating in 1987, he attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a Naval officer prior to attending BUD/S Class 157 and becoming a US Navy SEAL.
Hetrick served the country for more than 14 years -- with multiple operational deployments at SEAL Team One and, later as both a Troop Commander and Squadron Commander at the SEAL’s famed counter-terror unit. As a SEAL, Hetrick deployed on missions around the world, where access to physical training equipment was extremely limited. On a counter-piracy operation in SouthEast Asia, he cobbled together an ingenious harness made of nylon webbing and a jiujitsu belt which had accidentally made it into his kit bag. He secured the harness to a door, leaned back against it, and lifted his body against gravity. Viola! The ancestor to what would later become the TRX Suspension Trainer® was born. Upon returning to base, Hetrick began making his harnesses for other members of his squadron, and the popularity of his “gizmo” began to spread across the members of his unit.
After retiring from military service in 2001, Hetrick earned an MBA from Stanford University. In 2003, he founded TRX -- the company that would ultimately produce the TRX Suspension Trainer and transform it into one of the most famous and recognized exercise systems on the planet. Over the next 18 years, TRX expanded its equipment line and its black & yellow training products have become ubiquitous in gyms around the world. The company won multiple placements on the Inc 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies Roster, Outside Magazine’s Best Places To Work, and was selected as the 2017 IHRSA Company of the Year – in no small part due to Hetrick’s ingenuity and unflagging perseverance.
Hetrick left TRX at the end of 2020 to bring to life a new concept that he had been planning for more than a decade. Way back in 2011-2012 he had conceived a unique brand activation called “TRX-on-Tour”. The company customized a “tricked out a Sprinter Van” and spent two years driving it around the country -- supporting key account openings, attending outdoor festivals, and exhibiting at regional conferences and athletic events – to show the world what TRX Group Fitness Classes looked like in the great outdoors. Although the technologies like geolocation and online registration and billing had not yet evolved to make such a business scalable, the experiences that the TRX-on-Tour Team delivered were universally acclaimed as “the best and most fun workouts available anywhere”. Hetrick became convinced that the concept for a network of outdoor mobile fitness service providers was a winner. It was only a matter of time until the technology required to scale such a service would be developed. During the next ten years, companies like Uber (geolocation); Mindbody (online registration & billing); and Instagram (efficient social media channels for affinity group communication) all became realities. By 2020, Hetrick believed the time for his revolutionary business concept had arrived. He wrote a business plan, formed a company, and registered the trademark for its new name: OutFit. The concept for a franchise that would change the landscape of fitness was born.
In early 2021, Hetrick raised some money and began assembling a team of industry rockstars, along with some eager newbies, to build all the assets they would need to test the concept. Jeff Rosga began developing the concept for OutFit’s innovative and ergonomic van designs. Quincy Carroll assembled a crack team of developers to build OutFit’s cutting-edge technology platform -- which includes all the geolocation features and registration/billing functionalities of a company like Uber, plus a content delivery system and a state-of-the-art class management platform, along with business intelligence and management systems. And Fraser Quelch recruited a bevy of outstanding coaches and began developing the first two years’ worth of preprogrammed exercise content, along with the staff education systems to support an eventual franchise. By the end of the year, the company had developed and validated all its systems and had opened a pilot location in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to begin delivering its service to paying customers.
In January 2022, OutFit began the second phase of its development – launching and growing its own corporate market. Darren Jacobson joined the team, charged with building and growing the company’s corporate market. And grow it he did. During the next 12-months, OutFit launched four more corporate units and its member base more than tripled – growing net subscriptions by an average of 5% per month in every month since launch. Simultaneously, the OutFit team began working on the backend technology systems, operations and training manuals, digital education systems, and documentation that would be required to commence franchise sales. In March of 2023, OutFit officially launched franchise sales, on schedule and as planned. To learn more about becoming an OutFit franchisee, visit
www.OutFitFranchise.com.
So What is OutFit?
OutFit is a technology-enabled, outdoor mobile fitness service. It is monetized with a subscription model and built to scale as a franchise network. The franchised fleet of world class gyms-on-wheels are owned and operated by local TRX-certified coaches, called “OIC’s” (OutFitters-In-Charge), and are networked via a state-of-the-art technology platform and member app. OutFit takes workouts outside -- where everyone feels their best! Energized by sunshine, blue skies, fresh air -- and by an incredible community of likeminded friends from the neighborhood.
OutFit has a simple goal: To change the world of fitness forever. The company believes that EVERYONE should have access to affordable, convenient, expertly coached fitness experiences. OutFit thinks that fitness shouldn’t be confined to virtual reality or the closed walls of gyms that less than 20% of Americans will ever join. OutFit delivers actual reality with affordably priced, expertly led “boutique” fitness delivered directly into the inspiring public spaces that surround us in our neighborhoods every day. The service also delivers personal and small group private training directly to the cul-de-sacs and driveways of people who cannot or do not care to drive to a crowded, sweaty brick & mortar health club filled with fluorescent lighting and recycled air.
Outdoor exercise is not a new concept – you get outside, you run, you bike, you do yoga. What makes OutFit a “world changing idea” is its synchronized network of owner-operators, each delivering their services under a single premium-brand experience. Together, these providers service an interconnected community of members (a.k.a. Outfitters) – who are all brought together by a high-tech platform & mobile app that combines geolocation, registration, booking, payment and a host of nifty user features to keep members connected to each other and motivated to achieve their fitness goals.
Independent coffee shops have existed since the time of the Romans…then along came Starbucks and the coffee game changed forever. OutFit proposes to accomplish no less in the outdoor fitness landscape, except that their mobile gyms will be owned by the very small business entrepreneurs who operate them within the neighborhoods in which they live. OutFit not only elevates heart rates, it elevates spirits; and its network grows, it will empower an army of individual small business owners to live rewarding professional lives while delivering the gift of health and fitness into neighborhoods all across the country.
OutFit has created a first-of-its kind subscription service that is similar to a ride sharing or a meal delivery service, except that it delivers large group fitness experiences on permitted public spaces, undeveloped public lands, parking lots, schools, business parks, and to residential cul-de-sacs and driveways. Hence the metaphor members often use to describe OutFit’s service: the “Uber® of Fitness”.
The technology suite that powers OutFit and coordinates its network of members, vans, and coaches is perhaps the company’s most unique and defendable feature. Built by a longtime Silicon Valley tech wizard and his amazing team of developers, there is no technology in fitness like OutFit’s. It combines the capabilities of Uber®, Mindbody® and Classpass® into a single proprietary platform. Open the app on your phone, instantly find any of the upcoming outdoor workouts near you on the map, view the schedule and book your spot for the class and coach you want -- all in seconds! You aren’t limited to a particular type or number of classes each month because OutFit gives you unlimited monthly classes for under $100. You can also invite other app users, connect profiles with your friends, help track and motivate each other’s workouts, and create private exercise groups in the locations of your choosing with the coach you want. Technology is the hub of OutFit, and the company’s slickly customized “gyms-on-wheels” are the spokes. OutFitters also enjoy access to any OutFit location, at home or when traveling to other OutFit service areas.
OutFit’s franchise model has the industry’s lowest cost of entry. For less than $95k you can have your own tricked out transit van packed full of TRX equipment, operating systems, and preprogrammed class content – and be operating your business within 90 days! OutFit also offers extraordinary business ownership opportunities to female, veteran, and minority entrepreneurs who might otherwise avoid costly mainstream corporate franchises. OutFit’s low-cost/low-overhead/high-revenue model also allows trainers across the country to fulfill their dreams of business ownership (rather than giving 50-70% of their training dollars to a brick & mortar gym) and to build profitable careers with a clear path to generating real net worth for their families.
OutFit’s philanthropic efforts are as important as the health and fitness it delivers to its members. To take care of those who serve us all, OutFit proudly provides FREE Unlimited Open Family Memberships (a $129/mo. Value) to all active-duty municipal 1st Responders (Police, Fire and EMTs).
For more information on investing in an OutFit franchise go to www.outfitfranchise.com.