Just Move with Multi-Million Dollar Business Founder Kaisa Keranen Ep. 98

You can earn a hundred percent of 5 million a year, or you can earn 50% of a hundred million a year. Like what do you wanna do? And that always stuck with me, like I've always had a desire to have my message be loud and be heard around the world, and to be very financially successful.

Welcome to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS how do people end up becoming an entrepreneur? How do they scale and grow their businesses? How do they plan for profit? Are they in it for life? Are they building to exit? These in a myriad of other topics will be discussed to pull back the veil on the wizardry of successful and FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS. My book, relentless is now available everywhere books can be bought online, including Amazon and BarnesAndNoble.com. Try your local indie bookstore too, and if they don't have it, they can order it. Just ask them. The reviews are streaming in and I'm so thankful for the positive feedback as well as hearing from people that my memoir has impacted them positively. It is not enough to be resilient. You have to be RELENTLESS. You can go to the relentless book.com for more information. Thank you so much. Today I talked to Kaisa Keranen, the founder of the multimillion dollar business, Just Move. She was asked by Michelle Obama to be one of the go-to trainers for her. Let's Move Digital Campaign. We talk about how she decided to start this business with a co-founder, how she's building her team, and that she doesn't and will never sell weight loss or body transformation products. Now let's get right into it.

Just Move is a movement platform that is developed for anybody and everybody to have a safe space to come move. And it was really born in my idea that I wanted to get the world to move without the focus being on weight loss.

Well, that sums it up. I love it.

That sums up my life.

I like that very much Personally, I love movement for mental health, and for me that means a myriad of different things. And I think when you get posed with the question, how much do you exercise? It isn't how much do you exercise to feel good or to move your body or for mental health? It's kinda a shame filled question, right? Absolutely. And I mean, honestly, the health and

wellness industry is a trillion dollar industry because. We feed off of people's shame and guilt, and I think from a very early age, as a trainer, I recognized that and it was something that I wanted to always be the opposite voice of. Like a lot of that was my fuel and has always been my fuel to continue building what we've built and what has started, but will hopefully continue to grow.

So let's just put it right out there. You have at least a second seven figure business right now, right? Fitness business, but you don't sell or promote weight loss or body transformation, and why? Tell us.

Yeah, I mean, I come from a history of movement and that coincided with my depression. So as a young girl and then growing up as a college athlete, like I've dealt with depression my whole life and movement was one of my main tools to help work through those deep, dark times. And it's always been something that I've gone back to. And so movement to me has always means something more important than just a tool to change the way that that I looked. So when I got into the fitness industry and I know this sounds a little naive, but I was super excited to help people become more empowered in their body and stronger in their body. I never thought that 99% of the population that was coming to see me would be interested only in changing the way that they looked. And so it was a very rude awakening as a young trainer. And I had a really hard time selling training sessions because I never wanted to co-sign that message, which ultimately meant I wasn't meeting people where they were at, and I had no clients.

Do you refuse to weigh and measure them?

Absolutely. And I never

Do you have stats?

Yeah, and I never have, to this day, I've never weighed or measured a client. But what I realized early on was I have a belief that not a lot of clients believe in and not a lot of the industry speaks to. And so rather than assuming that someone needs to really understand where I'm coming from, it's my job in some sense, almost as their parent. To teach them, which means I need to meet them where they're at, and then encourage them along the way to keep exploring what their body was capable of doing rather than using movement as a punishment for what their body looked like. So it was just constantly the challenge for me of setting up environments that I could do this. And over the course of six years as a trainer, I had a very successful in-person training business, but I always had this deep desire to be able to affect more than the clients that I could in my day and my hours in my day are not growing any bigger. I mean, I moved to small group training so I could fit more people in, but I always had a desire to be able to affect more people and ultimately a desire to get the world moving. And so at that time, the only thing, because I'm 36 years old, social media was not really around or it was, it wasn't big. The only thing was Jillian Michaels on the Biggest Loser. So that was a TV show. Yes. That was.

What a horrible, anyway.

Yes, so we could go on tangents of that and so, but as a young trainer, I made a connection that there were platforms and at that time it was a TV show, but that there were platforms that I would be able to possibly, eventually use as microphones for my message. And so that's important because I had that as a little note inside of my pocket for many, many years before I put two and two it together with Instagram. So eventually when I started my own business, I was a personal trainer in person, and when Instagram came along, It just hit me over the head, like it was so obvious to me that this was the opportunity to have a microphone, to speak to more people and to really share the message that anything is better than nothing. We don't move as a form of punishment to change the way that our body looks. We move because we love our bodies. We should respect our bodies and living in these bodies is a miracle. We should wanna take care of them. And so really like that's where I started my messaging on Instagram and knowing all the while that if I grew this platform, I could eventually turn it into my own platform, which is now currently Just Move. So it's ultimately 15 years in the making, but we're here and I have now have that platform. It seems like you have to both educate and recalibrate. People, and even people that may

sign off now on movement is honoring your body. Seeing how strong it is. Also, it feels good. It can feel really good if you do it right.

Yeah.

Even if you, if it doesn't feel great at the moment, it can feel good eventually, but I still think that we are always. Nope, I won't say always. We as a people will always have, no matter how much you drill into it. But do I look better? Do I look smaller? And I'm not sure if that's ever gonna go away unless it becomes very popular to be rotunda or plump or curvy outside of the curviness that's accepted right now.

Absolutely, and honestly, Natasha, I don't ever have a false hope that it will go away. That's never my goal with my clients when I was training in person and then with the team that I have on Just Move. The goal is not that you don't have those thoughts. The goal is that those thoughts are short-lived in your brain and in your body, and then you move on. That is ultimately my goal because. I still have those thoughts. Someone who has spent their entire life knowing that I am more than my body and I don't wanna be defined by what my body looks like. I still have those thoughts every single day. It's just choosing to allow those thoughts to go in and then go out, or if they're sticking a little longer to replace them. With my conversation with myself, I have thoughts all the time. I have a really, really big arms. And then I just remind myself I have really muscular arms and that's why I can do 10 pullups and 20 pushups and like it's just this constant conversation with myself to try to change that narrative. So I don't have false beliefs, but I feel like the platform that I've created with Just Move keeps reinforcing that you are more than what your body looks like. Especially for women. We are told that message, we have been told. That message since we were children, and we are told that message every single day. When we walk into a room, we are summed up first and foremost by what we look like. That is our ultimate value, and my goal is to have everyone, but especially women, to start to understand and believe that, that's not their value. That what you look like isn't the most important thing about.

I wanna speak on that, women versus men. I found myself in a group with mostly men, maybe all men, and we were sharing our very inner, most sort of bottom 5% shares. And I was surprised at each one of them talking about their, the shame that they had as a kid of their body and how perhaps they grew out of it, worked themselves out of all these various things. And I was like, oh my God, they have it almost as bad as we do. And maybe worse because they can't talk about it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think for me, I always have wanted to create a space that feels safe for men and women and however you want to identify. I just know that I am a woman, and so that's always been where it's the easiest for me to speak on that. But of course, Just Move is made for everyone, like it is not just a female focused platform. So let's talk about what it is. What is the platform? Do you do in person? Do you do group? Is it just online? Give it all to me.

Yep. So it is just online. My whole goal was to be able to create an online studio. Many people would be familiar with the Pelotons of the world today, and this was my goal 15 years ago. It's still my goal today knowing that we are not selling weight loss, but we are focused on creating movement for every single level of a human being that is ready to start their movement journey, continue their movement journey, or advance their movement journey. I also am very aware that people would choose to move more if we weren't so narrow minded about what working out meant. So we have dance on our platform. We have all the traditional strength, cardio, yoga, and it's ever growing. But really the goal behind Just Move is to create movement for everybody and to really vary the types of movement we have without ever focusing on weight loss.

Let me ask you this, I'm a little bit new to this term, but I just interviewed a guy, David, who started Cross, oh boy, Crossrope, and he calls it a connected fitness. Is that a term that-

Yeah, I think probably because he has a device. If it's a tech device, then Connected Fitness would be Peloton.

It's a jump rope, so I need to do some more research there. But yes. So you don't have a device?

Nope. Our device is not, it is simply how you're viewing the workout. So whether it's your phone, it's your tv, it's your laptop, that would be the only device that's needed. We do have certain workouts that require dumbbells or specific equipment, but the entire goal of our platform is that you can do these movements at home with very minimal equipment. And honestly, something that I'm really proud of is that we do have movement for everyone. One of the biggest things that I have always known as a trainer is that beginner level fitness is not actually a true beginner level. And so I've created a level that I call Start Moving, and that is really for people who have never moved before or haven't moved in a long time and or are in pain, and I think that's a huge population or huge percentage of our population. Because if you think about it, the fitness industry is huge, but we really service about 10 to 15% of the population. That means there's about 85 to 90% that. Aren't moving. And that was always my goal and that's always been something I feel like I've really specialized in is how do I get somebody to get up off the couch and to start their movement journey? How do I meet them where they're at? That means creating really safe and accessible movement, requiring very little equipment and creating an environment that they feel very comfortable. So we have a lot of seated workouts in the start level, five minute workouts, zero equipment needed and that's always really been my goal.

And it's a subscription based product, correct?

Yes. We moved to a subscription based product because ultimately that was really the goal to create a sustainable company. We started off as a product base and ultimately that was because we were testing a lot. Of different things out at that time and creating a subscription without exactly knowing everything, just didn't seem like the smartest move. So we've tested out a lot of one-off products to figure out what people want, what they'll purchase, and now we've landed on Just Move, which is our subscription.

And how many subscribers do you have today on average?

We, yeah, so we're a little over a year old and we have 5,000 subscribers on Just Move. We have a handful of other products and companies. We had over a hundred thousand people that have purchased our mobility. Like we have a lot of products and a lot of success in products. We've also entered the market in a very saturated time and with a message that isn't exactly. What most people are looking for when they're ready to start their movement journey. So I am very aware that we are a mission driven company with huge goals, but that what's always been most important to us is that we are staying within alignment of our goals and our mission and what we believe in. And that's exactly what we're doing.

Have you ever thought that you should write a book, that you should write the story of your life to help other people learn from your experience? Please go to MemoirSherpa.com and learn how I can help you write, figure out your publishing path and market your story, your memoir, to a best seller status. What does your team look like for the business? You and you have a partner and talk about the partnership and the support team you have.

Yeah, so there's a total of nine of us right now, so I, me and my co-founder Craig, are the only employees of the company and everyone else is contractors. And we have incredible team. And I think for me, in the very beginning, I had been doing social media. I had always had this dream and goal of being able to start a platform, but I really felt like, and this was probably three and a half years ago, I felt like I had taken my company at the time as far as it could possibly go without. A partner, like I remember having this moment that I was like, I have gotten as far as I can, being the creative lead, attempting to behind the scenes, put programs together and sell them. My brother was managing me at the time, like I was very aware. I've gotten to my cap and I happened to be lucky enough to know someone that knew Craig and the two of us met. It was a match made in heaven. Craig is literally the yin to my yang. He drives the business behind the scenes, and he most importantly, really believed in my message of not selling weight loss. We could be far more financially successful right now if that's what we sold, and that was never the point. And so, let me just say the point is to be financially successful and we are, but it was never to sell out. So it really started with Craig and I and Mike, who is our head creative. He's our videographer. He creates all of the beautiful videos and ads in everything that you see. And then right away we brought on Taylor, who is. All of our design and branding, and she's really like head of operations with our team right now, and we slowly grew from there. So we have a web designer on our team. Customer service was always very important to us at the top of the list. So we have three customer service and the team just continues to grow from there.

Is customer service. My video won't play or I can't log.

Yeah, everything. I think for us as a brand, it was always important that people were getting the top level of customer service because you're using a product that is in a very saturated market, so if you have a difficult time using it or your questions aren't being answered or we're not there to help you, you're just gonna move on to the next one. And so for us, that was like one of the initial hires was to make sure that the clients that were coming in, the customers that were coming in were service perfection, and that's really what we do. Whether you have a question about which product, you have a question about what to use inside of it, how to use it like they are there, they're absolutely incredible. I feel like they're the foundation of the Just Move team and it's always been important to us.

So I'm wondering why you have contractors, but I'll give you the caveat of why I'm asking. I just interviewed a gal last week who has a 10 million company and she is the only W nine employee, and I think it, it feels like the world is trending that way, even with the AB five law that's happening in California, which maybe you don't have to deal with yet in Washington where a contractor. I mean, basically you can't hire contractors or you'll have a lawsuit. What made you decide to go with contractors rather than bring them on as full-time employees?

Yeah, that's a great question. I don't think I have the perfect answer, but for us, in the beginning it was. Not necessarily that our team wanted to be employees. They're all very successful in running their own companies and what they're doing. And it was important to Craig and I that we were working with the best of the best, and that's how that dynamic and relationship started. And it's proven to work really well for us. There are a handful of people on the team that also run their own companies still and work in other teams. So for us, that is what has worked best. I think there's a certain growth point where we will have employees and we will earn the right to get to that level, but for now it's been contractors and they're rational.

So if they're doing other things, then they're fractional. You are probably paying a premium for the hours that we're working, but you also don't have them full time. Yeah, it all makes sense and I'm asking this also because I have a new business outside of my core business that I'm starting and I think I'm gonna go that direction. It makes a lot of sense.

And honestly, there is a certain thing about when you're just getting started, you're not quite sure if it's going to be a great fit. You're, it's hard to fire people, honestly.

If don't even,

I can't even

firing

exactly.

Not fun.

Not fun.

I have to do it more often than I ever would want to. But one in three hires don't cut it. And it's really hard to tell in an interview in even in the first week, the second week, it's just kind of like dating, like you can be your best self for a good four months. And then the true self. Begins to reveal and it still could be good, but it may not be a fit for that company.

Absolutely. And I think that we were always aware of that. I do wanna reiterate, we do pay a premium to have our contractors and they are worth it. And I think for us in the beginning, Craig and I, we've done a lot of testing. We've done a lot of things that have failed. We've done a lot that have succeeded, and ultimately, at the end of the day, we weren't a hundred percent sure of like our monthly income. We weren't a hundred percent sure of what we could afford. We were really working on project bases with our contractors until we earn the right to essentially, like our head videographer who's head of creative, he is essentially an employee. We pay him a premium. He really works mainly with us and again, like we are gonna earn the right to have them all as employees one day hopefully.

And what was Craig's background in business acumen when you met?

Yeah, so Craig, I mean, he has started so many businesses. He is probably most notably known for Creative Live that was built here in Seattle. And so his expertise is really in online courses, creating and marketing online courses, which is perfection for what I needed. He is brilliant. He is a genius in Facebook marketing, and it was so perfect for what I needed and what I was like asking the world for at the time. But anytime I was having those conversations with people, it was always that it would be really easy. To make money and to sell our products. If I would switch around my marketing message. And I just, for the first time when I sat with Craig, felt like we really aligned on the fact that we wanted to make money. We wanted to be a very successful company, but we were not gonna sell out in our overall mission and message.

A question that's coming up is why didn't you hire him as a consultant or a COO and instead partner in the ownership of this business? What was that decision?

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm going to be honest and say more than anything, it was a gut feeling. I had been in a partnership previously. It was five years before that, that had gone really sour.

That's what I hear a lot.

Yep.

Just putting it out.

Yep. And so I was not very excited about going into partnership and giving up a large percentage of my company. And when I met Craig and we talked through things, it was a really detailed partnership in terms of we tested things out. We tested whether or not him and I would work as partners. We tested whether or not products we built together would be a good partnership. We really tested things out and along the way. I started to really trust that there is an ability for me to make a certain amount of money on my own and have a certain level of success on my own, but I felt very strongly that that would be 10 x with a partner like Craig and I stand by that belief. It was the best decision I've ever made. And speaking of Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser, it was actually I had met. One time and she is very an amazing woman in person. And she said to me like at one point in time, you'll get to a moment in your career where you realize you can make, you can earn a hundred percent of 5 million a year, or you can earn 50% of a hundred million a year. Like what do you wanna do? And that always stuck with me. Like I've always had a desire to have my message be loud and be heard around the world and to be very financially successful.

Do you have the larger share of equity or does he?

Yeah. That's a private conversation between Craig and I. We've kept that private.

Well, I'm asking because if you are the predominant owner, then you're eligible for a Women Owned Business Certification. And if you're not, you're not, and let me tell you, coming from having applied for that certification, it was like an FBI probe. It was incredible. And if you have a partner and it as a business and that partner is a male, you're gonna have so much red tape to cut through. So it was just really about that. And whether a women own business certificate would be meaningful for your business. It just, it kind of depends on how you would wanna use it. That's a whole nother conversation.

Yeah, no.

So what is the strategy you're focusing on for growth right now? What are you really focusing on and doubling down on?

Yeah, so I'm gonna be honest, it's a little confusing because we essentially have two separate brands now that are running. So we have Just Move. That is the platform we've been talking about, and then we branched out and actually created another platform for start moving. So that was the level of human beings that are just getting ready to start their movement journey. We started to realize really, that putting them inside of Just Move wasn't the right environment. And so we separated brands. I think that's something that we're just so good at doing is pivoting quickly and that's the luxury you have with a small company and a small team. So inside of Just Move, we're really focusing on getting people to commit, to monthly challenges. That's been an incredible success for us and varying those challenges and having them all goal oriented towards certain performances. Like we just are wrapping up a get strong challenge that's at home, feeling as strong as you possibly can. Our messaging is, fuck weight loss. Let's get strong. So we're very strong about our messaging and about the product that goes along with that, and that's been really successful. On the other side for start moving, we have been really testing out what will get that start mover. To start their movement journey. And I'm gonna be very honest in saying we don't have the answers. It is very difficult. We are leaning into more pain relief area and really understanding that if we're not gonna speak to their desire to lose weight, what are other results that they're looking for? And I think a lot of people that aren't moving are looking to get out of pain. And so we're really excited about that direction.

I find that movement. I never exercise for weight loss or weight shape or body shaping, but I find that moving after I've done like a walk or a hike or a bike ride or a kayaking session, I feel empowered, strong, and here's the big word, confident.

Yes.

And I feel more confident strong than before I started doing it. So it is, I guess it's what I'm telling myself, but it's also what my body's telling my brain, and I think that's important. And I just thought of something that maybe you already thought of. And if you hadn't, then you can just thank me in a year or two when that happens. So in California we have, what is it called? Not an HMA. Yeah, HMO called Kaiser. And I'm wondering if Kaiser. If something like Kaiser, any kind of health network would partner with you and pass along your program to their patients. Have you already thought of that.

Natasha we have, but it doesn't mean I welcome every idea and why that was thought about was because who has touch points with this demographic, who is this demographic listening to? And unfortunately it is probably doctors saying that you are really unhealthy and you have to start moving. It might be physical therapists, it might be insurance, it might be their workplace saying that they will,

What about nursing homes?

Nursing homes, absolutely. And I think the thing for us as a business, what this brings up is that we have to narrow in on our target demographic. And so, I am so excited about this opportunity that we have to go and explore and I'm, it constantly reconfirms that we did such an amazing job of pulling, start, moving out of Just Move. But that means it's a brand new brand and that means that we have a lot of work to do to get it off the ground and to really get it in front of.

How exciting is that? Like your new projects.

It's so exciting. It gives me, it fulfills me, it gives me so much energy. This is really what I love. Like it is wildly fortunate to have what you're so passionate about and what you, what I literally feel like I was put on this earth to do, be directly related to what I get to do every day for work. And I, that never ceases to amaze me and I'm so grateful and I welcome the challenges.

So you love this, it's your passion. But I'm gonna ask you a question that might challenge that, but it is, are you building this or these companies with an exit strategy in mind?

Yeah, no, that's a great question. Yes. When Craig and I first became partners, it was always very clear that we wanted to create something big and we wanted to have the opportunity to potentially sell. I think what is also. Very exciting about separating, Just Move and start moving is that one could sell and one doesn't need to sell. And the more mature that I become as an entrepreneur, the more I realize how much I enjoy. Working and I enjoy building something. And I think for me, if I could see into the future right now, my perfect situation would be that we build up, start moving to be this amazing company that we one day get to sell. And that Just Move remains something that I get to work on for the rest of my life. And I think that would be, in this very moment, that would be my perfect scenario.

For more information, go to the show notes where you're listening to this podcast. Wanna know more about me, go to my website OfficialNatashaMiller.com. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you loved the show. If you did, please subscribe. Also, if you haven't done so yet, please leave a review where you're listening to this podcast now. I'm Natasha Miller and you've been listening to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS.