At JouleFit, 15 Minutes Is All It Takes to Train Smarter Not Harder
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, host Adam Torres interviews James Richey, CEO of JouleFit, live from the Newport Beach Investor Conference. James shares how JouleFit blends robotics, AI, and biomechanical data to deliver ultra-efficient, personalized workouts in just 15 minutes. From performance optimization to real estate scalability, James’ mission is to transform fitness into a fully immersive, tech-powered experience — with plans to open 10,000 locations in the next decade.
About James Richey
James Richey, the founding member of JouleFit, is a mechanical engineer and a visionary in the integration of technology and fitness. His diverse background includes roles as CFO and COO in a SaaS startup, expertise in robotic engineering, and a reputation as a turnaround specialist with a knack for efficient accounting system structuring. Richey’s passion for biohacking and wellness is evident in his experimentation with over 30 biometric devices, advocating a holistic approach to health that includes nutrition and various therapies.
About JouleFit
JouleFit is a destination gym powered by force-matching robotics and AI that simplifies and maximizes fitness.
Their system’s Artificial Intelligence matches the force of your muscles in real time. They monitor your results and show you how you’re comparing to your history and your community.
Watch Full Interview:
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I am at the Newport Beach Investor Conference, and let me tell you, this is one of my favorite conferences year over year, and I have the CEO of Jewel Fit James Richie, who is a return guest back in the show, man, James, it’s good to see you.
Great seeing you. Alright, how was, how was the trip in from Vegas? It’s long, but it’s always good to come here. Alright James, so I need some updates on what’s going on. I know you told me you have some openings, you have some other things in the mix. Maybe actually before we get into the updates for the audience that may didn’t catch our previous episodes talk a little bit about Jewel Fit first.
Dual Fit is a technology company. We’re using data, AI, and robotics to disrupt everything we thought we knew about fitness. Hmm. So we’re a destination. You’ll walk in the door, the robots adjust to you 10 and a half minutes later, you walk out the door with the best workout of your life. Yeah. And you haven’t even broken a sweat.
Oh, for everybody listening, lemme tell you. I went into Jewel Fit and I did a workout, and we’re gonna have, we’re gonna do some more on that, but if you wanna see that, go to my Instagram, ask Adam Torres, and you’ll see the, you’ll see the video of me doing the workout, which I’m not that good. But wanted, so I know a little bit more about this than the average person who hasn’t done the workout, the design, the original application.
You were an engineer, I believe, like, talk about that and what went into creating this. In my previous life, I was a mechanical engineer. I built assembly lines for probably 25 years. Yeah. I’m kind of dating myself there. I was always interested in controlling force and interacting a human with the robotic arm, and that’s kind of where all this started.
Yeah. Were the the mechanics of it. Can you explain that for the, for the audience of the, the pushing, the pulling and how that works and how it’s a constant? I don’t wanna mess up the words, but tension, is that what I call it? It’s, it’s not constant. What we’re doing is we’re using a robotic arm with the load cell.
Mm-hmm. I match your force in real time. Mm-hmm. So when you do chest press, if you can do a hundred at the chest, you can do 200 here and two 50 on the way back. Mm. I match you in real time. Hmm. And if you stop pushing, it doesn’t move. Hmm. So I can do more in 90 seconds by matching your force than you can do in five or 10 sets in the gym.
And one of the things that I noticed is what did you say? No, you, you mentioned you can’t beat the machine. How, what are your words for that? I forgot. If you beat the machine, you get a prize. Yeah. Whatever. No one’s even close. And we’ve got one gentleman who’s stronger than every single athlete we’ve had so far.
Wow. What, what was his background? Because you’ve had some big athletes in there. He was a former college football player. Wow. But he’s not the biggest guy by far. But you know, he’s got a six 50 free bench, if you know what that means. Stop. Yes. Wow. So he’s like he’s just. It’s in him. He’s way beyond all of us.
Where, where are you at right now with the company? Like I know you had last time we spoke maybe six months to a year ago, no, six months or so ago. Like where are you at the company? We’re still running the test facility that you were in in black fire. Mm-hmm. And. 60 to 90 days from now, we will be opening in a new location in Boca Park.
Oh man. What’s that like, planning for that and getting that going? There’s very few of us, so it’s a lot of work. Yeah. But it’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. So. What’s your, I’ll sleep later. What’s your your concept for rolling this out and scaling it? ’cause I know it’s an interesting part of the business model.
It’s very unique based on what I understand of the, the footprint it takes versus the actual amount of individuals that can go through the gym, the, the length of time of the workout leg. Let’s get a little bit nerdy on it, man. Gimme some of that. James. James, okay. Talk quickly about the workout. It’s 15 minutes, twice a week.
That’s all the human body. Can handle. Mm-hmm. It doesn’t matter if you are a professional athlete or you’ve never been in the gym. Yeah. It turns out to be the same. What we’re doing for scaling, we’re in the middle of a race. Mm-hmm. We’re, we’ve raised some this year, but we’re raising three to open two flagship locations, and then we’ll raise debt and we’ll raise a hundred million dollars over the next five years.
And our plan is to scale to 10,000 locations in 10 years. Wow. To do that. We are going into high-end class A strip malls. Mm-hmm. So we take two units, two to 3000 square feet. We put three circuits. Yeah, it’ll be an immersive environment. We’ll have 30 foot video walls with each circuit, so you, wow. You’re gonna work out on the beach.
You’re gonna work out in the mountains. Damn. Whatever you choose for that day by voting. Oh, that’s pretty cool. And, and I don’t know, I didn’t, I didn’t know. I don’t know why I never caught the fact that there’s gonna be these big video walls. ’cause even the current setup, like I thought it was pretty cool looking at the screen and seeing your numbers and seeing how you compare and everything else.
To me it was already pretty interactive. So to now have some video walls and everything else, that’s gonna be cool. Yes, we started out with the video walls. I’ve got you for 15 minutes. Yeah. So it not only has to be the best workout mm-hmm. It has to be the coolest workout. Mm-hmm. And then recently we’ve been contacted.
Everyone wants to put their advertising on those screens, so, oh, that makes sense. So it may be, it’s gonna turn into another revenue screen. Wow. Stream to advertise locations. Yeah. You know, resorts, we wanna put you on the beach. Why not put you on the beach? My podcast. My podcast? Come on. Absolutely. We can do that too.
Come on man. I need to QR code, need the podcast. I want them like pausing for a minute in the middle of their workout and saying, you have to scan this. QR code to continue this, this this workout was sponsored by Oh, that’s what I wanna do. I’ll sponsor some workouts, but, and gamify. Hold on. Gamify everything’s possible interaction that makes a lot of sense to me.
Go in and the workouts free. But you have to watch this ad. Absolutely. We’re actually gonna allow you to film your workout because it’s in a curve. You’re actually gonna put the camera in front of you or the phone on the wall. And be able to film yourself in real time. Wow, that’s gonna be cool. I’ve had so many requests for, everyone wants to film their workout now, so, oh, I think that’s a great opportunity.
That makes sense. And then we, a lot of good publicity and then integrating it into maybe the social platforms like and things like that. I feel like the content creators out out there. Well, and the content creators like to be able to like, you know, access it Maybe, maybe Instagram might be a bad example, but some of the other ones, TikTok, they’re pretty friendly in terms of being able to upload and things like that.
That’d be cool. Absolutely. Oh man. That’s good. So right now we are in we’re in what are we in June of 2025. You said you’re gonna go for the first two flagships locations this year, I believe. Yes. They won’t be open this year. We’re developing the second set. So from the close of this raise, the first one will be eight months after that.
Mm. That’s great. And how long have you been, how long have you been developing this and that? Like what’s the We’ve been working on this for quite a while. Yeah. About eight years. Mm-hmm. There’s a long story behind that. We started out with a set of equipment that was already out there and they got bought out.
Mm. So long story, we developed it from the ground up. Mm. But we’re much better because we have the best range of motion. Yeah. We have all the features we want. Mm-hmm. Technically we have the best rehab equipment in the world too, and that’s another story for another day. Yeah. Well, okay, so we’ve handled the dual fit from the standpoint of the person that’s gonna be using it and the gym goer.
Let’s talk about the investment opportunity a little bit. The other side of the coin, like what makes this an attractive space for investors that are watching this show? A lot of business owners, a lot of executives that watch this. What, what makes it an attractive opportunity for them? We are in a $3 million raise.
Mm-hmm. That’ll open up the two flagships, and this is the last equity we’ll give out. Mm. We’ve got private equity debt financing waiting. Mm. And once we raise the 3 million, prove the model, we’ll raise a hundred million dollars. Wow. And we’ll scale this as fast as we can. And that’s the scaling part that you mentioned.
The the 10,000 stores. So that’s not a, that’s not a number pulled out of a hat. There’s some other money behind it, but you need to get this other piece raised to get you to that point. Does that sound right? That’s right. And we’ve, we’ve developed the interior of the gym. We go into two units in any high-end strip mall.
Mm-hmm. It’s at a kit. We’ll build, install that kit and, and be up and running in less than two weeks in each location. Oh, wow. So, so we’re not only, we’re looking at how fast we can scale too. ’cause once the funds are there mm-hmm. And the models there, it’s just a matter of how fast can we open locations?
Dang, that’s exciting. So we’re just gonna be hearing it like the, like a McDonald’s way back in the day or whatever it was that was just popping up everywhere else. Now we’re gonna see all these jewel fits everywhere. Like what? They put one over here, they put one over there. What we’re, and you said these are going from mostly for strip malls, high-end strip malls, class A commercial.
Yeah. And, and why did you chose choose those type of locations? Like what’s the benefit of it? Initially, because it’s an easy space to get into. Mm-hmm. And if we have a kit, the entire interior of the gym is a kit, so we can install very quickly. Mm. And then the long-term play is a McDonald’s play. When we raise.
The private equity and do you know, a hundred million dollars? Yeah. We will start building the strip malls. Mm-hmm. So we’re, we plan to be the anchor and then next to us we’re gonna have the concierge medicine, all of your biohacking, red light therapy. Oh wow. Hyperbaric. So, and we may not own those other ones, but.
We wanna attract, but, but the real estate, right? The McDonald’s side of it, right? Yeah, the real estate part of it. And then bringing it, so then it kind of doesn’t matter what, ’cause the longevity space is gonna evolve, it’s gonna change, there’s gonna be new breakthroughs, something technologies that gonna come out out of fat, in and out of fat, but.
If you got the real estate, you got your core location working out and your and your technology, that’s not gonna change ab Absolutely. So that becomes interesting. Yeah. And we found that the, the workout is a gateway to everything else. Mm-hmm. As soon as someone starts to work out for three or four months mm-hmm.
A little plateau starts to happen. Mm-hmm. We change the workout, but now they’re asking what’s next. Hmm. There’s sleep, there’s nutrition. Yeah. There’s concierge medicine. Mm-hmm. Red light therapy. So all of those other features will be the gateway. To either send people to our locations Yeah. Or possibly, you know, partnerships.
And it seems like momentum, right? Like when somebody’s at home, they’re working, or when they go out, they’re working out something like momentum. So you start getting a little bit of things going well, your workouts going well, and especially in this case, just the time savings. So if all of those are in the same kind of area.
You can get that done. You can get a, if you had to go chiropractor or something else, get all the visits done and kind of like the same amount of time as just the workout. Absolutely. It’ll be a little longer on, of course, some of them. But yeah, no, that’s the absolute plan. Wow, that’s, that’s interesting.
So if people are watching this and if they wanna come to the current facility, like how does all that work? I know I got an invitation and I was shooting video and content, so I, I don’t know. How does that work for everyone that watches though and just wants to try it out? Go to Jewel Fit, J-O-U-L-E.
Mm-hmm. FI t.ai. Yep. And I will reach back to you. Yeah. And we’ll put, we’ll put you right on the schedule. Right now. We’re a free testing facility. Mm-hmm. We’re not open to the public, but anyone who reaches out to me. You’ve got to try this workout. Yeah, it’s awesome. Well, for everybody that’s watching, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes so that you can just click on the link and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way, your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And James, thanks again for coming on the show. Good to see you again. Always good to see you.
