Interviewer: Hi. I'm here with Jeff Hyman, CEO of Retrofit. Jeff, please introduce your company.

Jeff: Thanks. I'm Jeff Hyman; I'm the CEO and the Founder of Retrofit. Retrofit is a weight loss program, the first one specifically designed for busy professionals. We're based in Chicago, but we work nationally. We've got outcomes that are unrivaled in the US weight loss industry.

Interviewer: What is the main difference, besides being built for the busy professional? What would you say the main difference is between you and other weight management programs?

Jeff: The leading weight loss programs are really designed to be a group lesson format, meaning you go to a retail location, you participate in a group lesson, and do that every week. While that's a wonderful way to change one's behavior, it's not something that many people are interested in. Retrofit is private lessons; one-on-one, delivered completely online. The client gets their own team of experts and some wireless devices that tie it all together, and it allows us to deliver outcomes that are just unrivaled in the industry.

Interviewer: Walk me through the process. If I were to sign up, what devices will I receive? How does everything work exactly?

Jeff: When a client joins Retrofit, there's two main components. This is a 12-month behavior change program. The first component is the team. The client gets their own team of 3 weight loss experts for an entire 12 months. That team includes a registered dietitian, who works with them on food and nutrition, a masters-level exercise physiologist who works with them on exercise and activity, and a behavior coach who works with them on the behavioral or psychological aspects of weight loss, which are frankly the most difficult. Again, masters degree, 10 year's experience; these are all Retrofit employees across the country.

The neat thing is you get to meet with them via Skype video conference. Just like we're doing today, these are one-on-one counseling sessions for 30 minutes each week. It's a very intimate and private but effective way to do it. In addition to the team, the client gets two wireless tracking devices. The first is a wireless scale that connects to their Wi-Fi network at home. The client steps on the scale and it instantly transmits their data to their Retrofit team, so we can hold them accountable, understand exactly where things stand, and change the program as it makes sense to do so. We also include a wireless activity tracker which is about this big. It goes in their pocket, and tracks how many steps they take per day, how many calories they burn per day, even how many hours of sleep they get, and it wirelessly sends us that data as well. Between the team and the tools, we're able to design a completely customized program for each one of our clients across the country. Like I said, the outcomes have just been fantastic.

Interviewer: Can you give me a use case of someone who's used your product and seen successful results?

Jeff: Sure. We have many, many hundreds of clients. One I'm thinking of right now is a CEO, actually, of a public company. He's very busy, he travels a lot, eats out a lot of meals, which is very difficult to lose weight when you're doing that; with wine, appetizers, and all those types of business meals. He exercises okay but he has to do it within the confines of hotel rooms. He is now down about 45 pounds with Retrofit over a relatively short period of time. His team designed a completely customized program, where they helped him figure out what restaurants to go to, what he was going to order when he gets there, so there's planning involved, and we do a lot of that work for him. We help with portion sizes, and most importantly, we helped to hold him accountable. Knowing that he can meet with us every week, and that he's ultimately going to have someone to answer to, I think has really helped keep him on track.

Interviewer: That's great. Jeff, what does your revenue model look like?

Jeff: The revenue model is primarily 2 sources, and it's about 50/50. The first is that consumers can join Retrofit. They go to the website, which is RetrofitMe.com, they sign up, they give us their credit card, and they can pay us monthly over the course of the program. That's about half our business. It's paid just by customers. The old fashioned way, I guess you'd say. The second part of the business is business-to-business, or working with employers. We help employers reduce their healthcare costs pretty substantially.

If you're an employer, every overweight employee that you have cost about $1,500 extra per year versus a healthy-weight employee. We help employers reduce their healthcare costs. Some of the employers actually pay for the program, some just pay for part of the program, some reimburse after the employee loses a certain amount of weight. We have a revenue stream from employers, as well.

Interviewer: Great. What are some tactics you use to reach your audience?

Jeff: In the weight loss field and in the healthcare field, word-of-mouth is vital, as it is in many fields. The nice thing about weight loss is you can physically see the difference. One of our clients will lose 20, 30, or 40, pounds, and everyone in that person's life will ask them, "How'd you do it?" That's first and foremost on our marketing strategy; it's just delivering great outcomes. 93% of Retrofit clients lose weight, so that obviously accelerates quickly with all those walking billboards out there.

We also acquire customers through television advertising, which has been very effective for us, as has online advertising. Those are the main ways, direct-to-consumer, and then like I said, we have a team of experts who meet with employers to get people that way.

Interviewer: Great. Jeff, I know you're busy, so I have one last question for you. How do you plan on growing business in the next year?

Jeff: It's a lot more of doing the same; doing more, better, faster. We now have 50 full-time employees. We've recently closed a Series A financing, so we're investing that into the product, trying to make the product as efficient, or effective as possible. The majority of our clients lose at least 10% of their weight. We actually guarantee that they'll lose 10%, and if they don't, they get to repeat the program at no additional cost. We're really just obsessed with outcomes under this belief that that's the best marketing we could possibly do. That's really what we're focused on this year.

Interviewer: Great. Jeff, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me.

Jeff: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Interviewer: If you're interested in learning more and connecting with Jeff Hyman, go to Fundology.com.