Brad Miles: Lever Movement Founder and CEO
Alright. Cool. Welcome to another episode of the Endurance Matters podcast. I'm your host, Justin Metzler. And today in studio, I have the CEO and cofounder of Lever, Brad Miles.
Justin Metzler:Welcome to the show.
Brad Miles:Awesome. Thanks for having me, Justin.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I started off the podcast with a hard hitting question. Your coworker, and one of your employees, Brian, he's a friend of mine. He's a former division one collegiate runner, and he has a mile p r of four zero one.
Justin Metzler:How many pounds would you have to take off on the lever in order to run a sub four zero one mile?
Brad Miles:Oh, that's a great question. So probably not much. Maybe like two pounds.
Justin Metzler:Two pounds?
Brad Miles:Like, honestly, that's probably it. So if you reduce 10% of your body weight, you can run thirty seconds per mile faster at the same heart rate. Okay. So I'm not thinking there's that much.
Justin Metzler:It increments. Increments. So how many what what type of miler do you think you are? Like, what kind of shape are you in right now then? Me?
Justin Metzler:Yeah. That's what I'm asking is how much do you have do I have to take off in order to run a four zero one?
Brad Miles:Oh, how much do I have to take off to run a four zero one? Like, Brian? Oh gosh. Thirty five pounds. Okay.
Brad Miles:Dude, I've got three kids now. I am yes. I still try to stay active, but it looks a lot different these days.
Justin Metzler:A %. Well, I definitely wanna get into that. But first and foremost, I definitely wanna talk about the product that you founded and created. So first, can you please tell me just how Lever started, how the idea came about?
Brad Miles:Yeah. It the idea came about pretty simply. I feel like a lot of, as most runners know, like your your brain just kind of goes on runs and like, at least for me it does. I love to think on runs. I was actually running with we moved to Boulder further back in 2018, and my one of my first runs that I had with my neighbor, who's now my co founder, was a trail run up in the mountains.
Brad Miles:And we were just talking about life and things like that, and this idea popped into our head of, you know, a lot of our friends were banged up and injured, and is there a way to bring like Alter G like functionality to the masses, to our friends? And so that's honestly the idea that kind of kicked things off. I had previous experience with the Alter G running in college, and so I knew the concept and knew the functionality and how incredible it was, but we really couldn't find anything that was out in the space that was affordable, accessible, and so that's kind of what kicked things off.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Very cool. When you were in college, what were the things that you liked about the Alter G and how'd you use it?
Brad Miles:Yeah. So thankfully, was never injured in college running, so I mainly used it for just offloading days. So a few recovery runs, We did use it for some performance runs. So tempo is on it, threshold runs on it, and that's kind of where some of the concepts like I just mentioned of the 10% weight reduction, thirty seconds per mile faster. So we were able to do over speed threshold runs on it, and we left feeling a lot fresher even though we ran faster for an eight mile threshold run.
Brad Miles:So, yeah, it was great. Like I said, thankfully, I did not have to use it for an injury recovery in college, but a lot of my teammates did. And so I also got to see kind of firsthand with our athletic trainers and our team of, you know, how to come back from Achilles injuries, how to come back from a stress fracture. I got to see the hands on experience of rehabbing also with Alderges, which was cool.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Very cool. So you guys are out on this trail run, you come up with the idea, what's the next step? How do you get home and actually put an idea into practice in creating something?
Brad Miles:Yeah, we spent a little bit of time just researching the space in general of like, you know, very rarely in this day and age, is there not a solution to a problem? And so we just started researching, is there an actual solution that we just didn't know about? And surprisingly, we just didn't find anything. And so we took some, like I said, probably a week or two of just deep research because we we didn't wanna waste our time either if there's already a solution out there. And we didn't find anything.
Brad Miles:And so first things first, so I'm more on marketing sales side. My co founder is an engineer. And so he we started putting the design together and we built it pretty simply out of flag holders, wooden poles, and honestly, anything that we could just make a a frame out to fit onto the arms of a treadmill. And surprisingly, which was really scary, it worked really well. And so we were like, okay, I think we're onto something here.
Brad Miles:Let's let's start going down this path a bit more. Sure.
Justin Metzler:Is this one of those things where it's like, okay, you get the idea to like maybe make beer at home. And you don't really think that the beer is gonna become something big, but it actually becomes a real product. Were you guys thinking at the time, okay, this is something legit that we're gonna pour time and money and energy into it? Or was it just like a passion project? Let's see if we can do something fun here.
Brad Miles:Yeah. Like I said, we were neighbors. Right? And I just moved to Boulder. He's been there for a couple years here for a couple years.
Brad Miles:And so at first, we were just like, alright. We know one friend in particular has this injury that we could probably help, so let's like build something and cost a few hundred bucks that we made for. And it really worked well. And so we were like, okay. Maybe there is something to this.
Brad Miles:We have never seen this type of product tested on, like, at scale though. And so, you know, fully committing to this as a company, you know, took a couple more months. But once we started getting feedback from a few initial athletes that we started using it with, we were like, okay. You know what? I think we owe it to the endurance market, the endurance population to bring something like this to fruition just because we saw that it was aiding our friends' recoveries, like, super well, like different injuries.
Brad Miles:And again, we're in a town like Boulder, is one of the endurance capitals of The US, and they could barely find time to get on an Altigy, you know, just because they're booked out, there's not many of them, all that stuff. And these are like Olympians. Right? These are high level athletes. And so when we just gave that to them, we're like, hey, use it as long as you want, use it for whatever, and then just give it back to us.
Brad Miles:And just seeing like the progression they made in the recovery, we're like, alright, I think we owe it to the population, at least the endurance market right now, to to come up with something that might work.
Justin Metzler:Sure. And what were you guys doing for like your real jobs at the time?
Brad Miles:Yeah. So my cofounder, like I say, he's engineer, but he also worked in, operations and logistics. I was in software, so I spent my whole kind of career eight to ten years enterprise software sales. And so the the sales side of it was always interesting to me. I went to college for marketing and sales, and so I always always want to start my own business too.
Brad Miles:And so this kind of was a really natural segue. I've had a lot of ideas in the past, but nothing I really wanted to commit to. And then I think it wasn't until we saw the the benefit we were making for our for our friends that we were like, this is something we wanna commit to.
Justin Metzler:Sure. With those initial designs, when you guys made it, you know, in the garage, was it an immediate moment? Like, oh, this thing works straight away, or were there iterations of this isn't really functional or there's this problem that we need to solve? What did that initial sort of, like, r and d process look like?
Brad Miles:Yeah. So I think most people are pretty surprised when we tell them that we've made probably the first five hundred out of my garage. So first five hundred units were out of my garage and, you know, looking back like, yeah, is that the most efficient way to build a product? Probably not. But we were able to be so hands on with our product that we could make iterations really quickly.
Brad Miles:So like we were able to get units out, test them, and then be like, okay, that didn't work. We need to go do something else. And not that it didn't work, but there's a better way to do this. And so we made really small iterations to the product, probably, I mean, I don't know how many, but a lot of iterations to the product in that first year of, you know and again, all the units worked. We just realized there was a better way to do it.
Brad Miles:And so from a strength with the frame, strength with the bungee cords, strength with the the shorts were the biggest one that we had to work on because that was that was a undertaking. But a lot of iterations in the first year, which is kind of fun. Again, like building out of your garage, you have the ability to adapt and make changes like super fast. Sure. Can we rewind a little
Justin Metzler:bit and can you just explain to the listeners who may not be familiar with the product, like exactly what it is, how it works, and how it's set up, like, to the best of your ability over a podcast Yeah. Scenario?
Brad Miles:Yeah. It's great. I wish I had one here with me. I could set it up right now. But no, it's so what it is is it's a treadmill attachment.
Brad Miles:So our frame attaches to the arms of a treadmill and within the frame, there is like a suspension system that reduces your body weight while you're exercising on the treadmill. So today we take up to 45 pounds of body weight. We can remove up to 45 pounds of body weight for the person exercising on the treadmill. But the nice thing about our frame is that it's, you know, weighs it's super lightweight, so it's less than 10 pounds. So if you don't have a treadmill at your house, can bring it to the gym.
Brad Miles:It sets up pretty quickly And it's just really mobile. And so yeah. So it's the other nice thing about it too, and this was actually a pretty big focus for us early on with my experience in in some of the other products that are out there is we did not want the user to be locked in to spay into the space. We wanted to have like free range of motion of the treadmill and make the running gait as natural as possible. And I think that's just with our design today, like we use pulleys and you can still move for plain planes of motion around the treadmill.
Brad Miles:And so that's mimics and almost enhances your gait while you're using the device, which is really cool.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. I think like, you know, the initial concept and idea, the genesis of it came from a place of let's help injured runners. And I think like maybe there's a perception that the lever is like a rehab tool.
Justin Metzler:Is that the marketing strategy that you guys employed trying to get it off the ground? Like, hey, you're an injured runner, you're an injury prone runner, use the lever because you can't get on on an Alter G, or was there a different sort of path in the initial phase?
Brad Miles:We mainly went to market with that use case of like, this is gonna help injured athletes get back to, you know, full body weight running as quickly as possible, and it's just a healthier way to do it, a more confident way to to helping you return to run. And so we really went after the overuse injuries. Right? So overuse injuries, plantar plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinopathy, stress fractures, and and shin splints, and then runner's knee. Right?
Brad Miles:So like those five are like the main overuse injuries that we were kind of going after and tackling. And yeah, we we did see that kind of transition a little bit once we started getting our units out there and like hearing things from our customers of like how they're implementing it when they're healthy. And that's what really changed our perception of like, we don't just have a rehab tool, we have a performance tool. And so now you see athletes like Laura Phillip and again, handful of athletes that are using it from a performance standpoint while while they're healthy and seeing incredible results from it. So, our our mindset has definitely shifted over the last few years.
Justin Metzler:Hundred percent. My personal anecdote with the lever is, you know, many of the listeners will know that just a couple months ago, had surgery on my Achilles, and I've been battling with my Achilles for three and a half years, and I've used the lever on and off, and I think I've always been resistant resistant to using it as a performance tool. Was kind of like, alright, use the lever to get back to full strength, and then run as much as I can, but then I'd have a setback. And I think like now, I'm realizing that the for the injury prone athlete, or the runner, and a lot of triathletes and runners will have an injury, an overuse injury of some sort, there maybe is this balance of like, okay, let's throw one lever speed session in a week or every other week Mhmm. To supplement the running.
Justin Metzler:So that's sort of where I'm at right now, like, in terms of today. Like, today, I was able to run on land almost an hour. Tomorrow, I'm gonna get on the lever and try and do a speed session. So definitely think there's there's something there. Sponsor of today's episode, Precision Fuel and Hydration.
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Justin Metzler:So if you want to try that for yourself, head on over to pfnh.com and use code bigmets twenty twenty five for 15% off. I'm curious to hear your perspective in terms of, like, all the case studies that you guys have researched and had access to professional athletes in terms of triathlon and running. What would you say is, like, the ideal performance way to use it as a performance tool for a professional triathlete who's maybe running like 50 to 60 miles a week and maybe a professional runner who's doing like a hundred miles a week?
Brad Miles:Yeah. That's a great question. I would say it's it's still fairly nuanced for the athlete. One of the things I'd say is like, it's a really great tool from from a recovery standpoint. And so like after a hard session, like being able to offload the next day and still have some type of quality, like again, being able to run at 85% body weight, get faster turnover in than like you would outdoors when you're exhausted and just like just barely trying to get through the miles.
Brad Miles:And I but I would say there's the the performance side of it is really interesting because what we're seeing amongst our customers is that they're using it to off to run more volume per week than they could only at full body weight. And so, you know, recent customer I talked to, he was stuck around 80 miles per week outside, he's a marathoner. So stuck at 80 miles per week outside, anytime he was like over 75, a niggle would come up. And so he ran a pretty good marathon like two thirty six, but he left with an Achilles injury after that. And so after he got a product to come back during the Achilles injury and that's when the light bulb went off, and now we hear that often, it's like when somebody's using it during a rehab process, that's when the light bulb goes off, like, oh no, I can use this when I'm healthy.
Brad Miles:So long story short, he incorporates it when he's healthy. He starts running a hundred and five miles a week because he's offloading 25% of his run volume and he just ran two twenty seven in Tokyo. And so that's the cool things that we're seeing of like and so he mainly used it to add double runs into his work, into his weekly volume and then he would offload for like a speed session too. Because like, hey, I know my my threshold runs really bang up my body for like the rest of the week and I I wanna hit my long runs hard, so I'm gonna offload the threshold runs that I can, like, keep the consistency. Right?
Justin Metzler:Yeah. %. I mean, I think that's that's huge, and I think that's the best definite application for it. I guess, like, another question, that's the elite perspective. But if you're an amateur athlete, like, you know, all the age group athletes that I coach, their max running volume is, like, 40 miles a week?
Justin Metzler:Mhmm. That's max. I mean, more so in the fifteen, twenty, 20 five. Like, if you're an amateur athlete running four days a week, where do you see the lever fitting in to someone like that?
Brad Miles:Yeah. And again, it's kinda similar customer stories. I feel like we're seeing from the that point to, hey, I just wanna run my first marathon to, like I mentioned, he's still an age grouper, but he's, like, running two twenty seven now, so he's, like, moving his way up. But he's 38 years old also. For for an athlete that's just running like twenty, twenty five miles a week, but wants to do marathons or run higher volume races, like we we do see them adding going from like, I can only run outside four days a week to usually running like five days a week and offloading two of the days.
Brad Miles:So now they're running three days outside, two days on the lever, and now they're running 30 ish miles a week, 35 miles a week. And so that's just making their marathon experience a little bit more enjoyable.
Justin Metzler:Yep. That's huge. I think my big perspective is consistency is everything, and I think like oftentimes if you're an athlete who's only doing 20 miles a week, like you kind of have to space your runs out. Like maybe you're gonna run Tuesday, Thursday. Maybe you do Saturday and Sunday if you're, you know, weekend warrior type guy
Brad Miles:Mhmm.
Justin Metzler:Or girl. And, you know, if you can sneak in an extra five k or an extra thirty minutes on the lever and still get that mileage up, I think it's only a good thing, you know?
Brad Miles:And a big way to incorporate it for athletes to have a difficult time with volume is to split the long run. And so that's what we see a lot too is like, hey, I know I need to do, let's say, close to 14 mile long run. Well, I'll do seven outside and then seven on lever. And so I still got to 14 today, but I offloaded to half of it. Yep.
Brad Miles:Leaves you feeling better.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. That's huge. I'm really curious to hear your guys' perspective and your specific perspective with your marketing and sales background about the marketing strategy behind Lever because we were talking about this off camera before we started recording, like, marketing is such an important part of growing a business, and it seems like you guys have really doubled down on your marketing strategy. So what is the, I guess, like, main mission right now 2025 from a marketing perspective for you guys?
Brad Miles:Yeah. I would say it's always been somewhat central and core to us, but we I need to do a way better job of it, and it is one of our it's one of our pillars for this year is education. And so just providing a ton more education on what we're doing, how people are using it, how they're, you know, using it to come back from injuries, but also when they're healthy. So education is is first and foremost is what's really leading this year with some of our content that's coming out. And this is gonna be more of like a kind of q two through end of the year push.
Brad Miles:But I think from kind of launching a company to date, what we've really been trying to do is just tell stories through different athletes. And so, you know, because we're one of the only companies in the space at our price point, we've had a lot of athletes reach out to us when they need help. And so my whole thing is I want to help as many people as I possibly can, like come back from their injuries so they can get healthy again, and again continue incorporating it so they don't get injured again. And so what we've seen though is like by offering a unit to like a pretty significant or house name in the endurance space, like they're willing to tell their story, you know, and like how they've used it. So we've done a lot of our education through athletes on social media so far, and that's gonna continue.
Brad Miles:But I think more of an internal push from the company from an education standpoint because we've got thousands of customers, hundreds of really good stories that we've been given. So it's it's on us to get that out there.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. That makes total sense. Think one thing that I've noticed from your guys' social media push is a lot of the content is triathlon centric or has been in the past. You focused on on sponsoring a lot of triathletes or at least handing out units to athletes like you guys, you know, kindly gave me one when I was struggling with my Achilles in the early stages, and I've always really tried to, you know, tell the world how I've been using it and how much it's helped me. But why do you see triathlon as a as a market to to play in?
Brad Miles:Yeah. You know, I think a lot of this really came from when we launched our company. So, like, we launched our company in 2019. Less than a year later, COVID hit. So literally everything shut down.
Brad Miles:Our sales I mean, really young company, like, weren't making too many sales in the first place. And COVID hit, so it really dried up. And races weren't happening, so people weren't too excited about getting back from an injury really quickly. So we didn't really see much action going on in the first year and a half, two years of the company. But then coming out of COVID, we noticed that triathlon's races were coming back faster than most races.
Brad Miles:And so I think just because of the athletes that reached out to us in those moments of like, you know, again, it was awesome, but we got to work with like Flora Duffy leading up into the Tokyo Olympics and then she won gold. So a few things like that really catapulted us into the triathlon space. Like Laura, like I said, I mentioned Laura Phillip already. She's one of our first customers, probably one of our first five customers. And so she was banged up at the time, and then coming back from her injury and she's been using it steadily and consistently ever since.
Brad Miles:So we've just seen like triathlon was our first kind of into the endurance market, but we're kinda we're seeing running pick pick up a good bit like the marathon, especially the major marathon athletes and age groupers. But but yeah. So that's where we're at today.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. So do you foresee in the future you guys trying to invest more in like specific athlete sponsorship? Or do think it'll be similar to what you've done in the past of like, okay, let's just supply athletes with units and let them organically tell the story because it's hard to I think that's a whole, you know, another rabbit hole that you can go down is like, alright, let's pay an athlete to endorse our product or just give them them the product for free. Like, what do you guys do you guys think that you'll continue to do it one way or the other?
Brad Miles:It's a good question. I don't know if I have a necessary answer for you at this point. You know, we were pretty bootstrapped to start this company, and so funding was fairly limited, so it's not like we had money to go out and just sponsor anybody that we wanted to. But I would say we absolutely see the the importance of working hand to hand and really closely with the, like, elite side of the sport. I think we learn a lot from that as well just because a lot of the elites are pushing the boundaries of their bodies, and so we get to kind of be along for that ride as well.
Brad Miles:And so I I definitely see us continuing to, like, stay close to the to the elite market. But, you know, I I also don't know if we're gonna be a the company that's sponsoring every com every athlete out there either. So Yeah. You know, I Yeah. I I don't know how to answer that one yet.
Brad Miles:I don't think we have a I don't think we have a direction on that at this point. I I think that the for the for right now, what we're seeing is like the athletes that want to work with us have been very, like, organically using it on their own for a while and then our relationship continues.
Justin Metzler:Sure.
Brad Miles:If that makes sense. Like, we don't start too many relationships off or any paid relationships off like right out of the gate. Like, hey, you've never used our product before. Let's get you a unit and let's pay you for it. It's been very organic from a relationship building standpoint.
Justin Metzler:Sure. I'm just curious from, I guess, like my personal perspective and sort of just being interested in sports marketing and and athlete sponsorship. Like, if you choose to work with a professional triathlete or a professional runner, like, how much of the ROI are you directly correlating to sales versus like, okay, I'm correlating my return on investment to using their likeness, to using their feedback, to innovating the product, like you said, pushing it to the boundaries? Like, is it an equal split fifty fifty, or do you exclusively care like, hey, we give x athlete five thousand dollars, we wanna make 5,001 back?
Brad Miles:Yeah. We have goals whenever we put money out there. I would say for us though, it's been it's really hard to measure that name image like likeness. It's very hard to measure that. And I think like a lot of running shoes like brands have that issue also because it's just, you know, you don't know how much a name image likeness is worth really for the company.
Brad Miles:But I would say whenever we work, you know, we do other marketing things like working with podcasts, newsletters, and again, we work through some discount codes and that. So that's a very easy way to see the return on ad spend. We've really just started advertising through like Meta, Facebook, Instagram, and that's very easy to see return on ad spend. I think the athlete piece of it, we're always gonna continue the partnerships in that space just because it's really important to support athletes. And so, you know, are we are we gonna have the same, you know, budget as a Adidas, Nike?
Brad Miles:Probably not, but I would love to do what we can to support athletes.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. That's very cool. One question that I have here in terms of marketing is I'm curious if you've seen, like, a reception from the triathlon market versus maybe the running market of something like Lever as a as a tool. Is do you have like an indication as to your total, like, purchasers? Like, how many are triathletes and how many are runners and, like, who's accepting the product more?
Brad Miles:Yeah. It's good. So we have about 60%. Well, I'll say it this way, about 85% of our customer base are individuals. The other 15% are split up between like physical therapists and collegiate coaches or collegiate athletic departments essentially.
Brad Miles:So the 85% are runners. That split is about fifty five fifty five thirty amongst like triathletes being fifty five thirty being runners. And so those are the stats. You know, they've changed over time, but actually, those are the stats for the last hundred orders. So that's fairly fresh data.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Sure. Totally. Yeah. Hundred is not like a massive data set of it.
Justin Metzler:Maybe if you looked at like total purchases of all time, it'd be a different number. Do you think there's a reason why maybe it skews a little bit higher in the triathlete in the triathletes? And is it just that runners are late adopters to something like this, or maybe they're old school and, you know, they have access collegiate programs typically have an Alter G or a Boost or something like that that they can get access to. So maybe if you're if you're in that environment, you just are trying to get on an Alter G. Like, do you do you have any indication as to why maybe the runners are adopting to it a bit later?
Brad Miles:I think just in general, runners are slower to adopt things than triathletes. I think triathletes have always been on the cutting edge of adopting new technology. Like I mentioned earlier, like early on in our company when races were coming back, triathlon was the main focus and they were coming back before some of the world major marathons. And so a lot of the athletes we partnered with or gave units to were professional athletes that were posting on our behalf for free and just like, you know, really helping us get the word out. And so we've we saw the uptick in triathlon in that space.
Brad Miles:We focused on Ironman Expos as well early on, and so did a lot more Ironman Expos versus like Marathon Expos. I mean, think just something that is just true to the sport as well is triathletes just are used to spending money on training tools. Whereas like runners, you know, carbon shoes are getting up there. But like runners, a hundred bucks for a pair of shoes was like the expense of the sport. And so again, we're seeing that shift a little bit right now as well.
Brad Miles:But I think triathlete triathletes like gadgets. And so, you know, thankfully, we are a product that is extremely beneficial and valuable. So it's it's a product that has really spread pretty well from a word-of-mouth standpoint. And since we anchored ourselves really early days in triathlon, like that word-of-mouth is just continuing.
Justin Metzler:Yep. Yep. Very cool. I guess, like, one of the things that you mentioned earlier was that the the growth of the company, you've you've seen really good growth in the last, you know, year, year and a half. What were some of the moves that you guys have made that have led to some of that growth?
Brad Miles:Yeah. I would say it's been a couple things. I think first and foremost well one, I should say, I know first and foremost just having a focus for the first time on meta ads has increased our sales. I mean, that's those just go hand in hand. So visibility, all that stuff has really helped.
Brad Miles:And over the last like year and a half, we've been really working on just partnering with whether it's podcast or a newsletter that's just really trusted in this space too. And so, you know, we're we sponsor some of the Cara and Des Nobody Asked Us podcasts. And so, you know, that's helped. And I think just getting more of our name out there, like we've been around coming up on six years now. And so I think just from a word-of-mouth standpoint, from getting education pushed out there, like we're not just like that tool you see anymore on social media that people are like, oh I'm so sorry you're injured.
Brad Miles:Like that's a bummer. Yeah. You know, like people now understand if they see somebody using it, like, no, they could just be using it from a performance standpoint and doing over speed work. Right? So I think just naturally, just the evolution of the education has gotten us into this place where we're just seeing compounded growth.
Justin Metzler:Sure. Have there been any decisions or dollars spent along the way that were bad moves in hindsight?
Brad Miles:Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, this is the first company I started, and so you you make tons of terrible mistakes when you're starting a company. I mean, I can share a few of them. One of them, we bought a Sprinter van thinking we were gonna be taking a treadmill in our unit to like all these expos across The US and then we realized how terrible of an idea that was.
Brad Miles:And so we sold the Sprinter van And that was that was probably one of the worst. But I mean, I'm not I'm gonna keep it from like a a material standpoint. Sprinter van was the worst. Okay.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a pretty solid investment. And also, like, lugging a treadmill in and out of a Sprinter van sounds pretty terrible.
Brad Miles:Yeah. You really have to commit to that strategy to do it. And thankfully, you know, I'm more of this, like, off the whim, let's go do things. And so I've got my cofounder just really bounces me out in a really healthy way. So, we've learned to work together really well.
Justin Metzler:That's cool. Are you guys both full time in the business now?
Brad Miles:Mhmm. Yep. Yep. So we've been both full time for the last, like, three years. And so at least half of the company's history.
Brad Miles:So Very cool. Very cool.
Justin Metzler:Sponsor of today's episode is Lever Movement. This is a really cool product. It allows you to get some body weight support on any treadmill. You pretty much put this device on there, you put on a pair of shorts, you use a cord to be able to take off up to 40 pounds of body weight. So many of you know I had Achilles tendon surgery surgery recently, and I've been using the lever over the course of the last 40 runs to work up to the point where I was able to run an hour on land today, so that was a big milestone for me.
Justin Metzler:Additionally, I've realized over the course of that process how important this could be for keeping me healthy and getting in some speed work without that pounding on the road, so I'm definitely gonna be using the lever over the course of the next months and years as I continue to get back fit, healthy, and ready to race. So if you're interested in trying a lever for yourself, head on over to levermovement.com and use code endurancematters20 for 20% off all devices. So I'm curious to hear more about the, like, the future of Lever. Do you plan to continue to innovate the current product like you have over the last six years, or are there new product or do you feel as though you've sort of, like, exhausted the the current innovation of what you guys have?
Brad Miles:Yeah. It's a good question. I mean, if we were under NDA with everybody listening to this podcast, I could share a bit more on that front. We are working on developing something that is gonna be really cool. So I'll leave it there.
Brad Miles:The other piece of it though is we are going to continue doubling down on the body weight support side instead of branching out into different products for a number of reasons. But I'd say like the first reason is there are I mean, just looking at people aside, like there's fifty million runners in The US and stats vary, but anywhere from like thirty five to seventy five percent of them are gonna get some type of injury every single year. And so the market is there to help people. And so like, again, if you just pick it at sixty percent, that's thirty million runners that are gonna get some type of injury in The US. And again, we're a global brand.
Brad Miles:We have products on every continent but Antarctica today. And so we're really just focusing on, okay, we have we're solving a really important issue for people that are usually in their lowest of their lows when they have an injury, and we've noticed time and time again, the word that everybody comes back to us to say thank you is like, I've had so much confidence in this return with you guys and I'm so thankful. And so like, I think since we bring that confidence back, we're gonna just continue doubling down and making sure our education reaches the 30,000,000 in The US, and you know, it's gonna be a lot more globally, people that are gonna be injured with some type of overuse injury. I think the other thing too is there's 8,000,000 treadmills that are produced every single year, and one of our goals is to be on a large percentage of the 8,000,000 treadmills that are produced every year. There's already 60,000,000 treadmills in The US, and so like the market is there for us to continue down this effort.
Brad Miles:There's we don't really have competition from that standpoint to like, challenge us right now, you know? Which is probably one of the things that hurts us too, is just not having competition.
Justin Metzler:Sure. Do you foresee anybody like, if you guys were to get on a treadmill in all of the Crunch Fitnesses or whatever, do you see a techno gym coming in and saying, oh, we're gonna make something just like that?
Brad Miles:You know, I'm I'm really confident in our patent protection. So we've that was one of the things that we did really early on before we started selling units was to protect the product. So I'm pretty confident in from that standpoint. I also think there's companies like maybe a Technogym or, you know, call it a Woodway. Like, we have relationships with them, and so I think partnering makes more sense with some of these companies than than anything else.
Brad Miles:And so, our ideal is to continue partnering in that in that approach.
Justin Metzler:Sure. Over the course of the last six years, I'm sure that you guys have had conversations and meetings and talking about innovation. Were there any ideas that just were too big or too crazy out there?
Brad Miles:Yes. Again, the way that I I go about things is I have a big vision for where we can go as a company. So I may have to just keep that yes.
Justin Metzler:I I don't know. Have to circle back in a year and see where the product's at, you know.
Brad Miles:Yeah. And I think it's just like, one, I've had to really limit my scope and thinking and just say, like, let's execute just really well today on what we're doing Sure. Because of all the reasons I just said. And so we don't have to go, like, chase down these rabbit trails of like, oh, let's go check out, you know, this new technology that's coming out or like this technology or like let's go make a running shoe that's really good for this. You know, there's an infinite amount of things that you can go chase after.
Brad Miles:And as a business owner, like I've had to have more of the I've had to restrict myself a little bit to say like, no. Like you owe it to essentially our market to double down, provide an education and the best possible product to continue innovating with to, yeah, to the consumer. Sure. So maybe not talking about product, because it's clear that you guys
Justin Metzler:are going to continue to innovate and there are big plans in the future from the product perspective. What's like the end goal for the company from a financial perspective or a business perspective? Like, do you guys have a ten year business plan laid out?
Brad Miles:Yeah. So I mean, as far as a ten year plan, to me so our ten year plan from our our business standpoint is to make a lever run as fundamental in training as a long run. Like, with everything we've seen, all the data we see, like, there's no reason why it won't be in ten years. So to us, that's just making sure our product's affordable and accessible and the best possible product for the consumers at large. Right?
Brad Miles:And so that's that's first and foremost, I'd say our ten year plan. A lot of education comes with that. I keep going back to education. And then there's other product stuff along the way, but yeah.
Justin Metzler:Cool. Alright. Well, sweet. I think that's all the questions that I have for Lever. If there's anything else that you think of, you can definitely chime in as as we go along.
Justin Metzler:But I I wanna get to know you a little bit more and sort of, like, what makes you tick, and I'm I'm curious to learn more about you know, on this podcast, I've had a lot of cyclists, triathletes, but I think, like, when it I say endurance matters, I think you can take that from, like, a CEO perspective as well. You know, it's a enduring road to be a business owner and own your own business. So I'm curious to hear from your perspective, like, your day in the life, like, walking me through what a day in the life looks like from sunrise to sunset, and, like, maybe first start off with what an ideal perfect day looks like and then maybe give me one that like everything goes to shit.
Brad Miles:Oh, man. Yeah. So my like I mentioned to kick off the podcast, I have three kids. So I'll start with a terrible day. So my the a terrible day for me is my kids wake up before me.
Brad Miles:If my kids wake up before me, that's usually not setting off the day like super well. Like I ideally like to have at least an hour, if not ninety ish minutes of just like quiet time before my kids wake up. And so that's my ideal like setup. So so that's first and foremost. And my kids are five three and one, so as you can kinda tell, like, our house is madness right now.
Brad Miles:And so if I don't get up before the kids just like have a fresh quiet start to my morning, like I'm just thrown into the wolves and like struggling to survive. My wife's awesome though, so she helps a ton. So keep going with the perfect day. I'm up early, spending time before the kids are awake, and then, you know, I'll go out for a run. Right now, I actually threw my back out, so stupid, but I threw my back out like four weeks ago.
Brad Miles:And so I'm like on my own like return to run progression right now. So I've been on my trainer a bunch with Zwift. And so I'm doing that like three to four days a week, and then running like two to three days a week. And so trying to manage like fitness with having kids is a huge priority for for me right now. And then, you know, get the workday started and we pretty much work, obviously normal, kinda normal business hours, and then there's always outside of hours stuff that comes up sometimes.
Brad Miles:But yeah, lunch with the kids if they're around, which is awesome, and then go back to work, and then dinner with the family, and just yeah. Debrief with my wife at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's good.
Brad Miles:We got a great office here with the guys in Boulder. I also split time right now in Texas because we've got some family there. So, yeah, it's it's an interesting one. But a terrible day. Yeah.
Brad Miles:Don't get a workout in. Kids are up before me. That's a pretty bad day.
Justin Metzler:So And are is your day ruined if you don't get some sort of exercise in the morning? Is that like an important part of your routine?
Brad Miles:Yeah. Oh, it's definitely an important part. I actually I really love this quote that I heard in a Theodore Roosevelt book and it was actually coming from his dad. His dad was telling Theodore when he was young, he's like he's like, you have the mind but not the body, and so you need to like equip the the body so that you can go accomplish everything you want to in life and yeah. So that's that's the majority of the quote, probably not exact.
Brad Miles:But he realized from a young age, like 12 years old or so, like he had to be physically fit in order to like pair like his his mind and his body to go accomplish what he wanted to in life. And I think for me that's that's as true as it was then as it is now. Like I think in order to accomplish what you wanna accomplish in life, like your body has to be as fit as your mind to go accomplish what you wanna go accomplish.
Justin Metzler:Sure. Yeah, I was doing a bit of research for the podcast and was chatting to one of your guys, and he said that you're a bit of a Swiss army knife when it comes to your athletic pursuits, you know, little bit of triathlon, a little bit of running, a little bit of high rocks. Like, you've mentioned throwing your back out. What's the what are you focusing on these days?
Brad Miles:These days so I was gonna do a trail race coming up here. So okay. I'll give you my quick backstory. So after I ran in college, I jumped into the triathlon world. I got my pro card in my first race that I attempted it at, which was awesome in Claremont.
Brad Miles:Florida, did some sprint stuff early on. I actually got injured in my first pro race, which was to my ribs that didn't allow me to like breathe well under five fifteen pace, which if you're doing a Olympic or a sprint,
Justin Metzler:you have to
Brad Miles:run sub five fifteen pace. And so that kind of like shot off like the pro side of things, at least in the the drafting world. And so, yeah, I kept doing triathlon though. Like I did, you know, worlds at Nice and then worlds in Saint George in 2022, then Ironman. So 70.3 is like my favorite distance.
Brad Miles:But I think once we started having kids and realizing I was spending a lot of time away, like during training, that's when I transitioned things after that to more trail running. And so I started trail running a bunch more, and, you know, you can get one to two hours in and have a great day. And then once we had our third kid, I realized like, man, I am getting sick before every single race. And this is just like, you know, running 80 ish miles a week, spending like three hour long runs out in the mountains, more four hours out in the mountains, and like training really well and like my body was responding really well. But you know, getting ready for like a big hundred k or I was even signed up for Leadville one hundred last year.
Brad Miles:It's like, I literally got sick the week of every race and I was like, you can't you can't perform at the level that you wanna perform at if you're getting sick. Yeah. So I put some of that stuff on hold. HYROX was just kind of for fun. Not really doing anything in that world seriously.
Brad Miles:So Sure.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. When you're preparing for like a trail race, are you popping on the lever like frequently to test the product or to put it through its paces or just use it as a training tool?
Brad Miles:Yeah. And I think what's really cool, so I've been really healthy my whole athletic career for the most part. I had one stress fracture in high school, but other than that, I was really a healthy athlete. I got a I got Jumper's Knee. This would have been about two years ago or so.
Brad Miles:I was gonna go do the Silver Rush fifty, which is part of the Leadville series. It's in Leadville. It's a 50 miler. And about two months before that, I got this some jumper's knee, so I had to take a little bit of time off. But six weeks before the race, I worked with Caitlin Alexander PT in town, she's awesome.
Brad Miles:She kinda helped me with this like return to run. So I did a lot of offloading runs leading up to Silver Rush and was surprisingly I found myself in just as good a shape as, you know, just running as if I was healthy. And so I actually won that race coming off of that, and it was awesome. It's kind of like a testament to what I for the first time saw like that injury to performance case study in my own life that our customers see. So that was really cool.
Brad Miles:When I'm not injured, I still use it to offload about two days a week. One of them this last year when I was getting ready for like some of the longer stuff, I was doing like double threshold. So threshold in the morning outdoors, a second threshold in the afternoon on the lever in the afternoon. That gets you in really great shape really quickly. And then another run I offloaded during the week for recovery.
Justin Metzler:Cool. It's good. Probably easy with the kids too, you know, like be able to
Brad Miles:Yeah. The treadmill is super helpful when you have kids. Right.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. %. One thing I definitely want to touch on here, I think we first maybe got connected in 2022. And for those that don't know, there was a big, like, forest fire here in Colorado called the Marshall fires, and it took out, like, I don't even know how many acres you might know. Acres, I'm not sure, 1,100 homes though.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. 1,100 homes and unfortunately, your home was one of those. So can you tell me a little bit about, like, that particular experience and then maybe, like, the aftermath from because you had a total loss on your home.
Brad Miles:Mhmm. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we lost everything.
Brad Miles:Yeah. Was December thirtieth thirtieth of twenty twenty one. So almost New Year's Eve. And so lost everything. House literally burned into the basement, which is wild to see a couple days later.
Brad Miles:We only had one kid at the time. We were about to have our second two months, three months later after the fire. So obviously, it's just like a a season where you really see your community rally around you, and I think that was at least one of our takeaways from that whole experience was like, man, community is so important. Like having people in your life that like love you, support you, and have your back, especially in a wild time like that, it's like absolutely critical. And so we had a huge community come around us.
Brad Miles:I mean, feel like your team was honestly one of the first ones that like rallied around us, like helped us get into a place like people know the area, like 1,100 homes and 1,100 families essentially trying to find a new place to live in this type of town. Like, it's kinda hard to find a new place. And so your team was super gracious in like getting stuff for us and like there was an empty house, which was wild. And so you guys let us live there for like six weeks or so, which was awesome just to get a little bit of footing underneath us in such a moment like that. And then, you know, we had our our second kid and then kinda moved into just apartment in town for a bit.
Brad Miles:But, yeah, it was definitely a wild season. I think, like I said, you really appreciate the community that's around you Sure. Anytime like that.
Justin Metzler:Did that experience, like, change your perspective in your business perspective, your personal perspective, like, your perspective when it comes to your family? Like, what was maybe the aftermath from that?
Brad Miles:I mean, personal perspective, honestly, I think we've gotten just, fairly radical from the standpoint of you don't need things. Like things don't really well one, they don't satisfy you, and then two, when they burn, you're not gonna be able to get them back. Right? Yeah. So like just having things for us, like we've lived fairly minimalist I would say since then, And just haven't put like an emphasis on on having stuff.
Brad Miles:And then also I think one of the things that we learned too in that process is we moved in the first first month after the fire, I think we moved about nine times. And so from there, and then that's only having one kid, but then over the two years period, we've moved like a handful more times after that. And so I think what we learned too is just like just being adaptable in life and just like being able to go with the flow and just yeah. Just being like open to wherever life's leading you, like, is super important. And so we yeah.
Brad Miles:I think it brought our marriage closer together, like our family closer together. Like, I wouldn't looking back now, I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything. Like, I I would have our now house burned down in a fire if we like hopefully not. I I don't know. Actually, I shouldn't have said that out loud.
Brad Miles:But I mean, the things that I can take away from that experience have left us as like different human beings. Yeah. Like, truthfully.
Justin Metzler:That's that's very cool. And I think that's like such a positive, yeah, way to look at it, the way to frame things, and I think a reflection of kind of who you are as a guy and sort of how you approach your life and your business. And so like, definitely excited to see what the future holds for, you know, you personally and and the business lever professionally. And so, yeah, like, obviously, I think sky's the limit. So before we wrap up the podcast, I got six rapid fire questions.
Brad Miles:Alright.
Justin Metzler:Ready to roll?
Brad Miles:Let's do it.
Justin Metzler:Alright. Number one, What's the longest lever run you're you're aware of someone doing? Oh. I think right
Brad Miles:now it's a marathon.
Justin Metzler:Full marathon.
Brad Miles:Full marathon.
Justin Metzler:Do you know the body weight off?
Brad Miles:Person was obviously healthy. So I think it was about 80 it was about 15% off, but 85%.
Justin Metzler:Nice. That's that's impressive. What's the most bizarre meeting that you've had since starting the company?
Brad Miles:Oh, you're gonna make me think a bit. Oh, bizarre meeting. We've had some in like investors reach out that have led to pretty bizarre meetings that we didn't move forward with. So yeah, gonna say that
Justin Metzler:as Investment world can be a cool world, but also weird weird place to dabble in. Yeah. Understandable. Who's your favorite Lever sponsored or, like, Lever adjacent sponsored athlete? Or if you don't wanna answer who, the best to work with.
Brad Miles:You know, I'm only gonna say this person's name because they've been with us literally from the beginning, and I keep I've said her name a couple of times, but Laura Phelp literally has been awesome. Like she's been with us, like like I said, first five customers, like she's one of our first five units. So her just belief in us has been awesome and and her husband Philip, who coaches her, provides awesome feedback too. So I would say them. I mean, they're the longest standing, so I would say It's cool.
Brad Miles:Has to be them.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. %. I I you know, she's like very good on social media as well and sort of telling her story and how she uses it, so unsurprising there, but very very cool. What keeps you up more at night? Owning and managing your own business or your kids?
Brad Miles:Oh, that's a good one. I would honestly say owning your own business keeps you up more at night. The first couple years of starting this company, I was up at 3AM every single morning just thinking about a ton of things. And kids, you know, first couple months maybe keep you up, but owning your own company was years, so Wow. That's yeah, that's crazy.
Justin Metzler:Alright. Best piece of advice for the injured runner using the lever to come back to full strength?
Brad Miles:I would say first and foremost, just work with a really good PT. Like, work with a PT who hopefully understands our system, but there's a lot of return to room protocols that are already built out there. You know, we we have a few of them on training peaks. So finding a protocol that really works for you, that your PT approves, and like using that to come back and just not getting ahead of yourself. Like, just yes, your body may feel great.
Brad Miles:You may have no pain, but don't get ahead of yourself. Follow like a protocol to come back.
Justin Metzler:Very smart. Last one here, and this is gonna be an indication as to maybe like the type of person that you are. How many emails are waiting in your inbox right now?
Brad Miles:Oh, that's not too bad. About three.
Justin Metzler:He's on it. I knew he was gonna say I could tell he was a three guy. Because I think you either get you either get 3,000 or three. Yeah. Three's impressive, though.
Justin Metzler:You're on it. That's that's no surprise, you know? You guys are growing and and you're on top of it, so I'd love to love to see Yeah.
Brad Miles:Awesome. Thank you very much.
Justin Metzler:Of course. Well, appreciate you coming on the podcast.
Brad Miles:Cool.
Justin Metzler:Great time.
Brad Miles:Yeah. This was great. Thank you, Justin.
Justin Metzler:Alright. Cheers. See you in the next episode. Peace.
