A $3,000 Bodysuit to Shock Your Way to a Better Body

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Well, it's the jolt that tickles your muscles and suit it up in the Catalyst Jen for you might look a bit like one of the Avengers. It's pretty cool. It is all part of looking and feeling your best. As Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser writes about the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week with Pursuits devoted to the pursuit of wellness. Here with Morris Chris Rouser along with Brendan Kennedy, the CEO of Monte Mayer, it's the owner

Yeah, I'm a fitness person, I'm a wellness person. I'll try anything.

Once.

If you asked me to do a form of exercise with you, I will do it. So I've done everything, solid core, phyzeke fifty seven, zoomba, you name it, I've done it, hot yoga, hotter yoga.

And something in a chair yo.

Yes, yes, there was briefly a PILATEUS studio in Manhattan called Shaes twenty three because you did all the exercises in a chair and it was on twenty third Street. So at the beginning of the year, I just was thinking about how overwhelming wellness has gotten. There's endless podcasts, The Manisphere podcasts are just like telling you so many

I want to cheat, I want to cheat code.

I want an easy way out. I want to hack.

And so we got the whole pursuit seemed together to think to like go out and do research and figure out what like the hot wellness hacks right now that makes it easier for you because at the end of the day, what you really need to do is exercise. You need to sleep, you need to talk to people, and you need to eat. Well, that's basically all you need to do. So like, what are the things that can sort of hack your way into doing those more easily? And so as I was doing my research, I discovered

Okay, I know the guy who owns the company is sitting right here, but I'm still going to put you on the spot, Crisp, because I see technology like this and I'm like, yeah, does it actually work?

I have to tell you it actually works.

You're not just saying.

Muscles through my blazer, but you see, but it really totally works. I did it for six months after having a pair of injuries. I had foot surgery. You guys, remember I fractured my elbow. I was like out of the gym for months. I felt kind of bummed about it, and it really got me back going. Yeah, you really see a results that it helped my posture I lost to gain muscle.

All right, So Brendan, come on in. You are the owner of Catalyst. Talk to us about this device, kind of how it came to be, and tell us a little bit about the business.

Yeah.

So I joined EMS about four years ago, and I was a little skeptical at first too. My wife had used it about seven years ago.

EMS is electric electric electrical muscle stimulation exactly.

I'm just like a doctor or a physical therapist will put STEM on you to heal a muscle. It's the same time technology and doctors have been using it for six years. If you go to Europe, there are ms studios where there's thousands of them where people will go in and work out. I went in skeptically and tried it about four years ago during COVID and it's amazing for me. It compresses time. I can get two hour workout workout that would normally take me two hours in

And so it's amazing and.

It works, it's efficient, it's fast, it's safe, and it compresses time for me.

So you were a client, I was a class who became an investor, and now you're the owner.

Yes, it's something I'm really passionate about.

I use it three days a week, so twenty minutes each time, basically an hour a week. That little prep, a little cleanup, but compared to changing and driving to a gym and working out for two hours, I can do it in twenty minutes.

I can do it at home. I travel with it. It's spectacular, all right.

So what does it cost?

So the suit retails for three thousand dollars. There's an app, and there's trainers on the apps, so you pick I want to focus on strength. I want to focus on cardio. Maybe I'm going to focus on my old legs or my abs. I'm fifty years old. I've worked out in gyms for forty years. This is the first I've done Ironman. I've done marathons, I've done every kind of fitness activity you can do. I'm very active. This is the first time I've had abs at fifty three, right, It's never

Three thousand dollars.

You follow a trainer on the app and that person leads you through a twenty minute workout.

People might know you from your days in cannabis medical cannabis specifically. You were one of the co founders of Tilray. You led the company. It's publicly traded now you're no longer involved in cannabis. What was the process that got you to buying Catalyst and talk a little bit about the challenges the companies had before you came on board and what you're trying to do now to get it away from those challenges.

Absolutely so, I think cannabis.

You know, I started in cannabis back in twenty eleven, so fourteen years ago, and back then people thought it was crazy, right, is.

What is he doing?

He went to Yale, he has an MBA, Why is he going into cannabis?

And he's throwing away his whole career.

But I could see the future. I could see what was going to happen. I knew that country after country was going to legalize. In the US, States were going to legalize, and so I saw the opportunity. I saw what was going to happen. I see the same thing in EMS. If you go to Europe, there's these studios everywhere with people working out in suits. And I think five years from now, everyone in the US will be

Well, Christy, I mean, you do cover so much about wellness and fitness. We talk about it with you all the time. I mean, how do you slot this sin What are you hearing kind of from maybe the industry about maybe is this kind of.

A next way? Yeah?

I mean this is definitely We've done stories about EMS too before. Plastic surgeons in New York City offer it. There's some startups that offer sort of similar things where you go to a studio. For me, this really fit into my normal system of going to Berry's boot camp. You know, I'm a big Berries person and doing my normal weightlifts, and then I added this in, yeah, two or three times a week twenty minutes, and that's where

Brought it with me. So this is what it looks like. Is it quite big? It's not really.

So for those listening on radio, christs holding up of the best portion. But there's also that that sort of there's another portion.

That goes all the way down.

Yes, that's for you around your legs and legs.

There are armbands that go with it, and you have to get it wet for the stem pads to like really work.

But do you have to say with a heart rate monitor too. It's kind of the same thing.

Exactly, Okay, very similar.

So what do you see as your market. Is it a case of selling directly to consumers? Is it about setting up is like the Peloton model to some extent, where you could go and actually get on a peloton and be at a physical location. I mean Peloton kind of went back and forth. What's the model in terms of growing this business?

So right now there are thousands of consumers that own the suit and they work out at their homes or at the office or in their hotel rooms. Yeah, while they're traveling and they work out with the app. There are also maybe two to three hundred studios in the US that use a suit. Many of them use the Catalyst suit, And so you can go to an MS studio if you're mostly in a big city and try it.

What's the moat that you have here? Because if this is big in Europe, you're doing it here in the US. People might catch on, they might see.

That it's working.

Copycats could come in. What separates you hyper protect them?

I think I think there's two moats.

I think the first moat is Oddly, any MS suit is regulated like a toaster in Europe, and so so manufacturers can just make them and sell them here, it's regulated by the FDA, and so this suit is FDA cleared, and so we went through the FDA process in order to sell it to consumers.

That's that's one mote.

I think the second moat is the content. There's there's hundreds of workouts online that you can engage in.

The app.

Actually is what sends the impulse impulses to.

That's what's apps.

You yes, and so the app does it.

Family to get them to do other things just saying no, forgive me go ahead.

No.

I think it's the content and the FDA clearance really the two moats.

What about competition or just the wellness world at large, Like it feels like, you know, we go through these fads and waves and trends.

Yeah, you don't want this to end up in the same pile as the thigh master.

I think, hey, everybody should have a thigh master. No, I'm just kidding, but how do you make sure?

I think strength is important no matter what you do, right, And so I use my suit three day this week, twenty minutes I run so I have cardio. You can you work out on treadmill wearing the suit. People do that, but I think strength will always be there. Strength will always be important. It fixes your posture. Bone density for a lot of people is really important. People on GLP one drugs lose strength, and so this suit helps people of different demographics in.

Ages very quickly.

You can work out while you're wearing the suit, and also wear the suit independently while you're not working out, or you're always working out while you wear There are people.

That do freestyle workouts, which means the suit is charging impulsing and they're folding laundry or doing the dishes or walking on a treadmill.

I think you and I need these. You're still doing it real quickly.

Yes, yeah, oh yeah, I'm in.

I got to tell you.

I go to a doctor and they say it's all about strength and getting your muscles, building muscle strengths. So it totally makes sense. Gentlemen, Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Brendan Kennedy, chief executive Officer of Monte Maer, the owner of Catalysts, joining us here in studio alone with our own Chris Rouser. He's editor of Bloomberg Pursuit, so you can check out and read more about Chris's experience.