With $50K Left and a 40% Failure Rate, How FightCamp Rebuilt After the COVID Boom and Bust

 For us because of the nature of what we wanted to build we had to make electronics in Asia whenever you have a business that has
 Physical goods in it it took me a long time to figure out how harder it is to actually build a business like that because it just requires a lot of money to
 Transform that money into physical things. I have to be made and shipped from anywhere that you're gonna make them
 Most business advice is wrong built on opinions echoed by people who've never done it
 But the truth it's simpler and harder
 You don't win by following the playbook you win by rewriting it
 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real no theory no fluff no shortcuts
 This is right about now with Ryan Alford
 a
 Lot of people talk about startups like his strategy and growth and nothing else
 But really it's survival of the fittest today's guest has lived just that building a company through all of it
 The high is the lows raising capital and somehow coming out on the other side
 Khalil Zahar is the founder and chief operating officer of fight camp
 He's been punched in the face more than once, but he is here right about now
 What's up Khalil welcome to write about now? What's up? What's up, Ryan? How are you?
 I'm great man. I know you've had success
 But it probably didn't come exactly the way you thought it ever does everybody thinks it's glamorous or at least they used to
 Maybe we're catching everybody up now with all the content
 It actually sucks to be an entrepreneur because we were in that era what five six years ago
 It was just a flashy hey the lambo's and all the funds that hey, I'm an entrepreneur
 It might be have gone 180 degrees the other direction. It sucks. You have to work really hard
 500 hours do not do it unless you want to kill yourself, but hey try to be an entrepreneur
 The bitch is less compelling than maybe 10 years ago, but it's still worthwhile
 I told you beforehand just punching people in the face every day being an entrepreneur that goes all the way around
 You're training people to punch bags typically and I'm actually used your product
 It's really cool the tracker and all that stuff. I was pumped another pun intended
 But literally I was amazed how it worked my arms. Sorry
 It'll be a little bit of an infomercial people because I like this product a lot. It's actually cool shit
 But I do want to pick Cleel's brain a little bit on the journey story
 We're really trying to get underneath now our premise Cleel is most at businesses advice is wrong
 We're bringing on the real builders makers that are actually building the shit to talk about it
 Just maybe in your own words that journey what's it been like how long we met at this in my boxing basically
 I started the company 12 years ago
 Assemble a group of five like-minded individuals which became my co-founders helped us shape this vision over 12 years
 We all kind of started out of college really
 It was an interesting trajectory because we didn't have a lot of industry experience
 We didn't have a lot of processes. We were just young hungry kids with a dream
 The origin story of why boxing is for me I discovered boxing when I was pretty late in my life to be competitive at a sport
 I was 20 when I discovered boxing
 I played a lot of soccer growing up at 14 years old that discovered
 B-boying breakdancing which is actually how I met two of my co-founders
 I was just heavy into that until basically I was 20 and then at 20 years old
 I've completely fell in love with boxing
 It was this art form that was pretty intimidating to me at first going to the boxing gym for the first time
 I was like I don't know if I'm just gonna get my ass kicked
 I don't know if I even fit in in there and I found a beautiful community in Toronto
 Basically all I was doing it lined up with me moving
 I had finished my mechanical engineering degree
 I was going to school in Toronto because I just didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life yet
 I wanted to continue to compete in B-boying and join where the best people are
 Toronto also was a great place to develop my English because I didn't speak English for shit honestly
 I went there discovered boxing and about two years later man
 I have no idea if I'm continuing to progress here or I'm just plateauing and this is the cap
 And this is where I was like this is crazy that in this sport we're not measuring anything
 You're measuring things here and there but it's very old school
 It's very kind of craft warrior minded would just put your head down and just trust the process
 And then you'll fill it in the ring me having a little bit of experience with other sports
 I was like man there's technology everywhere
 This is how I kind of put what I was studying and that sport together
 That got us our start literally in 2014
 The measurement thing is interesting
 My grandfather who passed away when I was pretty young probably 15
 But at age 10 I would sit in his lap and watch boxing
 I would age myself late 80s
 It's hard to find boxing on TV a ton but they had it on ESPN
 They playback my grandfather would get out of chair and do the rope of dope
 Jav and stuff and taught me how to throw the combinations just barely
 Not really teaching me to fight
 They used to just like showing me like what it is
 My fondest members are growing up were with my grandfather
 And to this day I love watching boxing
 The sports guy in the little wacky
 It's interesting I did see people train in the classic like you said the gym
 You're throwing the right form but there was never a way to really track it
 Because you didn't have sort of the biometrics
 To do what we can do now with these fitness trackers
 In anything we say what gets tracked
 Gets measured what gets measured gets improved
 That's why I loved about this product
 It nailed it as far as boxing goes
 Kind of the endless jabs and throw a punches around
 But not knowing what energy did I exert
 How far was I going was I improving
 Was my form improving
 That's always been a very hard thing in technical form sports
 The most scientific people back then were using clickers on their athletes
 And these are like the most advanced coaches
 Olympic level coaches professional athletes
 They're just recreating punch volume
 Which punch volume is only one metric
 And that's not necessarily the best metric
 But that's how archaic it was
 If I'm not hitting hard
 There's not exertion right
 Exactly that's just looking at it from a conditioning standpoint
 You have all this other aspect which is
 How is your tactical how is your tactics changing
 As you actually go within a fight and you get tired
 And you stop using certain punches you should be using
 And so for it the sport is so dynamic
 That there's just nothing ready to help enhance it
 That's the problem solved
 We talked about why we got you into the boxing
 Why you started the company
 But we've been 12 years
 What didn't you expect?
 What did you expect?
 How did you turn the corner
 So now you had a few moments of doubt
 When I got into it the first things like
 Hey I found something that there's a need for it in the market
 And we're talking to it in the mid 2010s
 This is at a time where like Google was buying companies left and right
 Where becoming a founder was
 Within four years, five years
 You build a company, you work really hard
 And then you sell the company five years later
 If you do well you can make a lot of money
 Four or five years I'll hit it hard
 And then I can buy seven other companies
 That I really want to do
 And rob my Lambo all around Miami
 Yeah yeah exactly
 I was reading a stat yesterday on Instagram
 The average length of exit
 And tech companies has went from basically four years to 13
 Now when you look at the journey
 And you're like I'm going to spend maybe more than a decade
 Working on this basically for me
 I spend all of my thirties
 Late twenties and thirties on it
 You start to look at the journey a little differently
 Because like you only have one thirties
 You're not going to relive them
 So this idea that you're just going to clock in
 70 hours a week for 12 years
 And basically do all these sacrifices
 Now it has to be reframed a little bit
 And you have to find your
 Well-being and happiness throughout you the whole journey
 This isn't a get-rich quick type scheme
 Like there's some people that do it
 But it's really not the norm
 The raw and realness of what you just said
 Google is actually really interesting
 Be giving up your thirties
 People come in to things
 Unless you're a trust fund maybe
 Come for money or just you want the lottery or something
 We all work to live
 Certainly if it's worked at pays well
 It's probably typically not easy
 Working for someone else and clocking out
 And having that job that pays well
 But doesn't have necessarily the upside
 Or the pressures
 So the positive and the negative
 Of entrepreneurship
 Is a different experience
 Than being an entrepreneur in your thirties
 You said that prime time
 Peak performer
 Most energy in your life probably
 Thirties are like this combination of energy
 And just enough wisdom
 You twit ease your stupid
 You got all the energy in the world
 You're dumbass
 Thirties
 Hey, I still got the energy
 I still look like I'm 20
 Something
 And I got a little wisdom
 Mahami
 Ooh, I'm real dangerous now
 Yeah, I agree
 We're speaking a lot about the negative side
 But I would never give it back
 No
 Yeah, it's just reality
 Fulfilling
 If I would have to like say what surprised me the most
 Is the stuff that I thought was hard
 Is actually not the stuff that is hard
 The real hard part was elsewhere
 I thought the hard part was actually getting
 People to buy your stuff and then make a good product
 Probably actually at the beginning
 I thought making a good product was the hard part
 Turns out at the beginning
 Selling it as much harder than just making it
 And then you start to get some success
 And then the hard part is
 Leadership and assembling and running a team
 In a way that it stays cohesive
 Does what it's supposed to do
 Which sounds weirdly easy when you start like
 Yeah, like I'll have just like these
 25-30 people working for me
 I'm just gonna tell them what to do
 It's actually much harder to get them to do
 What you think they should do
 And for them to understand
 What they need to do and why they're doing it
 While also being all very happy to work together
 Yeah, it's one thing to be a really great donut maker
 Man, that recipe is awesome
 You make a great donut
 It's a whole another thing to build a factory
 And what it takes to run the factory
 It's hard to be an entrepreneur
 It's hard to grow a business
 It's hard to do these things
 But those were rewarding
 Khalil, talk to me about what if you learned
 Someone like yourself, you've got a successful company
 What's the biggest thing other than
 Things that were hard and very easy
 But we'll unlock something
 I want to stay away from all the generic stuff
 That people say that still applies
 But still is a little bit known
 A principle that still to this day is very true
 We have the chance to be funded by
 Y Combinator early on in our journey
 Then one of their principles is such a simple principle
 But I think still ultimately can get forgotten a little bit
 Is growth solves 80% of your problems
 Basically whenever you have a growing company
 The business is performing
 It's really a cheat code
 It's like you can get away with so much stuff
 You can afford better people's performance
 It's a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy
 Where now every person you collaborate with
 From partners, external brands
 All the way to your investors
 Everyone becomes a higher quality
 Which then kind of feeds into the whole circle
 There's really something about
 Trying to position yourself as part of that loop
 Really make the most out of it
 Because whenever your business is not growing much
 Everything is harder
 From convincing someone to join your company
 There's obviously there's a fundamental
 Probably reason your customers are probably not that happy about your product
 Because you're not growing
 The whole job of doing a good job as an entrepreneur
 Then starts to get a lot harder
 Sometimes in the midst of having 1700 different challenges
 I find that a little bit of clarity
 And just focusing on
 What can I really do to grow?
 Most likely this is probably the best thing I can spend time on
 That's one learning
 Would we define growth as sales?
 Could be sales but it could be retention
 I would say just growing in terms of revenue
 If you keep more people, keep more revenue
 If your revenue is growing
 Without just like burning a bunch of capital
 But let's say you're growing
 You still will have a much easier time being successful
 That's good
 I'm writing a book called Lifetime Loss
 Because you've heard a Lifetime value
 Lifetime loss
 In a world obsessed with sales
 Don't ever forget about your customers now
 It's too much cheaper to keep a happy customer
 Than to find a new one
 If sales is the lifeblood
 Customers are the oxygen
 Equally important
 Growth and brand and perception are reality
 People want to attach to a winner
 People buy winners
 People join winners
 It's real hard to enact change
 To get momentum
 Or get a loan from the bank
 Or do anything from a place of negative energy
 Negative growth
 Just sort of downward slides
 And it's like it's combination of brand
 If you believe in the cosmic universe
 Of positive and negative energy
 There's nothing more true in business
 Than if something's positive man
 Oh everything
 Everything
 And when it's negative man
 It is the exact opposite
 Everything else is harder
 You nailed it
 Speak to that a little bit more
 Early on we just developed a tech
 That is a tracker you put on your wrist
 But we transformed the business in 2018
 To be an online platform
 To train and learn boxing in martial arts
 You use the tech to make the workouts interactive
 When COVID hit us in 2020
 We were perfectly positioned
 At a very unique place
 It was very bad for the world
 But very good for us
 Where the company grew
 In a way that I don't think I'll ever see this again
 In my lifetime
 It's crazy amount of growth at scale
 That just didn't stop
 At that point
 It felt everything was possible
 Like it felt like literally like
 I couldn't go wrong
 Every strategy
 Every tactic
 Every person that we speak to
 That is an A-plus talent
 Everything was lining up
 To be very easy to win
 And then COVID ended
 But a year and a half later
 From where it started
 And things started to get very very hard
 And momentum was declining
 Literally it was the longest hangover of my life really
 For four years straight between 2021 to 2025
 The business kept losing scale
 Because we had grown so much during COVID
 Then all the gyms reopened
 You basically five extra competitions suddenly
 You go from not having gyms to go to
 And home being the only place where people trained
 Suddenly home fitness is only 20%
 Of the market
 This was super hard
 Morely and momentum wise
 Even for the team internally
 It only literally took us
 This is like the first year
 Beginning of 2025
 I'll do it today
 Where momentum is up into the right again
 One of the lessons that I had for me
 Was at some point
 Surrounding yourself too much
 By negative momentum
 Is going to be judgmental
 Even though the people are skilled
 Because like for us we had to cut down
 The company multiple times
 That's extremely hard
 From a team member standpoint
 You don't know if you're going to be next
 You don't really have as in the decision
 You're just there
 And you can feel a little bit powerless
 We really kept the team
 Tried to keep as many people as we can the whole time
 The last reduction in force that we did
 We went from 50 people
 Given take to about third of that
 We really like cut pretty deep
 And one of the selection criteria
 To decide if we want to keep someone or not
 Is there just own motivation
 Are they a momentum giver
 Or they are a momentum taker
 We made that decision because previously
 We kept some people that were very skilled
 And very good at their job
 But ultimately if there's an energy around them
 That felt like it was just things
 We're just getting harder
 And they wouldn't do their best work
 Since we did that
 And we only kept people that were motivated
 And really wanted to actually see this through
 The company has actually recovered really well
 We're super lean
 But actually feels like we're faster than ever
 Managing people is hard
 And I've seen this
 You really nailed the like the three bucket
 Of employees or team members
 You've got the plus, the adders
 They don't have to be perfect
 But they're adding value
 They're in it
 They're energies are there
 You know where they're at
 You've got the neutrals
 They're probably skilled
 Aren't hurting you
 But also aren't maybe probably pushing you up
 And you need some of those
 Not everyone's gonna be plus
 And you got the detractors
 And they might be highly skilled
 Might even be successful
 But if they are pulling the whole boat down
 And maybe they're the only ones doing well
 They're a salesperson
 Their sales are really good individually
 But they kind of have a negative cheat
 On the whole business
 And the energy
 And what they say behind everyone's back
 That's the snake in the grass too
 That's the ones that get you
 You don't even know they're there
 Like dang man
 Numbers look good
 Momentum is a real thing
 Not later than a couple weeks
 I got just like spoke to my co-founders
 And I was like listen guys
 I need some of your energy
 And optimism
 In some case
 Because I feel like I'm carrying the optimism
 Obviously they responded super well
 With that they're experienced by now
 But it's a thing that affects the founders
 Directly too
 You should never run out of optimism
 Because if you do
 The company is gonna die
 Yeah you've always got to believe
 You're the chief belief officer
 I mean that's what it is
 If there's any doubt that the chief believes
 Oh you're done so
 Khalil I had my notes
 There was an overseas decision
 That might have helped save the company
 Well as that
 Early on we chose an interesting business
 Nowadays being a founder
 This day and age of software
 Is amazing
 Especially now that you have AI
 Literally like three people companies
 Can make a hell lot of money
 And build like pretty complex products
 Even when I started
 Making software
 If you had the team
 That can't build software
 It's the cheapest products to make
 Basically you're making ones in zeros
 For us because of the nature of what we wanted to build
 We had to make electronics in Asia
 Whenever you have a business that has physical goods in it
 It took me a long time to figure out how harder it is
 To actually build a business like that
 Because it just requires a lot of money
 To transform that money into physical things
 And have to be made and shipped from anywhere
 That you're gonna make them
 We were able to get away with very little money
 Because we had a lot of knowledge inside of our co-founding team
 My co-founder Alex
 And my other co-founder Alex
 Were both electrical and software engineers
 So they were able to make the devices
 But it was super risky
 We got to the stage
 That we call the Valley of Death
 For hardware startups
 Which is
 When you basically know you can
 You have customers
 And they can buy your product
 But you don't not have necessarily enough money to produce it
 You've done all the hard part
 You validated that what you're gonna build is great
 That there's a market for it
 You might even done back in the kickstarter
 To fund the first batch
 But then making the first batch took longer than they had expected
 So now they don't have the money to deliver the product
 This little moment
 Wipes out 90% of the hardware startup
 We were able to get to a first batch of 3000 units
 And it's in Hong Kong
 And it's about to get shipped
 And we have customers sending us hate mail
 Because they've been waiting longer than they expected to get their product
 And we're like, yeah, it's coming out, it's coming out
 And we get a batch of 10 pairs
 That we test in our super small office in Irvine
 In California
 4 out of 10 don't work
 This is like 7 p.m.
 And we're all excited
 Because we're finally gonna test the batch
 And like we grab the box
 It looks great
 Some guys are like opening beers
 And it's like
 Awesome
 We're gonna ship this
 And this is in 2017
 My co-founder, Alex comes to me
 And he's like
 Hey man, can I speak to you for a second
 Yeah, what's up
 We kind of have a 40% failure rate right here
 And I'm not sure why
 This is during Chinese New Year too
 So we can't speak to the China team
 Because they're out on vacation
 And he was like
 I think we're done guys
 This is it
 We started thinking about what to do
 We had all these guys that were waiting for their units
 That helped us fund the whole thing
 We had like $50,000 in the bank
 Which sounds like a lot of money maybe for early founders
 But this is basically a month and a half of salaries
 And expenses just to run the business
 I think we all need to go to China
 And figure this out
 That's just the only thing that we have to do
 That flights to go there
 They were like $18,000
 From the $50,000 we had
 We start having conversations
 And then we call our partners
 If we can get a hold of them
 Turns out six of us
 At the time there was a there was a seventh
 That was there too but couldn't make it
 Six of us we grabbed literally a flight next day
 During Chinese New Year
 We get on the flight
 Literally everyone is Taiwanese or Chinese
 We're the wide guys going
 To Asia
 My partner Alex is like
 Hey I found a way to isolate the bug
 I think we can reprogram these trackers
 By buying a bunch of iPods
 And all scattering in the room
 And we just reprogram them
 During three days
 And this was like 12 hour days for three days
 We had calculated that we can reprogram the batch of 3,000 pairs
 The main reason was because we needed
 Basically a Bluetooth device
 That was cheap enough for us to buy it
 And communicate with the trackers to flash the firmware
 Four days later we went from like 40% failure rate
 To 8%
 We were able to get through the valley
 A death of heart or a sudden
 Ingenuity
 And resourcefulness
 That was a very symbolic trip
 Through our trajectory
 We called even some of our investors
 They were kind of throwing their hands
 And they're like listen
 These things happen
 You can try to ship them
 I don't really think the company will survive
 And we just kind of really took a bet on ourselves
 To like figure this out
 Without a lot of assurance
 And everyone was kind of caught of guard
 But it felt like a story that unified us
 As long as we have each other
 And we just jump into the challenge
 Head on
 We can figure out anything
 To jump figure this out on the plane ride
 Or literally when you got there
 Somebody told you
 I couldn't help because this was all electrical engineering
 And firmware engineering
 Two of the six really worked on this
 One guy organized the flights
 The other guy tried to get a hold of the partner
 To get access to the stuff
 So we had to pay a security guy
 To open the door for us
 At the fulfillment center
 So we can stay there
 And we paid him like triple the rate
 Because it was Chinese New Year
 The fourth guy was just honestly ordering pizza and beer
 Just being like let me know what you need
 The two engineers
 Found what they thought was the root cause
 But didn't have a solution yet
 But that was like okay I think we at least know it's solvable
 On the plane
 Alex our CTO
 Build a solution and tested it
 He didn't sleep
 He's the only one that didn't sleep on the plane
 When you got it
 China did you just have fun in Chinese New Year
 Not for the first four days
 Cause the first four days we were super jet lagged
 And the job was all right
 Everyone has these iPods
 And we're all gonna spread out in the factory
 And he had taught us the reprogramming procedure
 For 12 hours straight
 We're just reprogramming the electronic devices
 Not speaking to anybody
 After we were done
 Not everyone stayed
 But I stayed with a couple of our partners
 And we celebrated properly
 Tell me what fight camp is
 Who it's for
 What people can expect
 Hit all those key points for me
 Fight camp the number one platform
 To learn and or train
 With boxing or martial arts from home
 We basically have the deepest curriculum
 That you can find online
 On how to
 A get started if that's where you're starting
 All the way to just
 I know my foundation
 And I'm just trying to
 Train with a quality instructor from home
 This is not your table
 This is not some choreography
 Music and do's like
 This is actually real martial arts training
 But it's made to be engaging
 We have different track
 We have boxing
 We have kickboxing
 We have a multi-program
 We have MMA basics
 With Steven Wunderborg, Thompson
 Etc. Etc. Etc.
 What makes this product special
 Is we are using
 Our technology that we initially developed
 For professional athletes
 To track your progress
 And engage you during your workout
 Because that's one of the biggest problems
 With training at home
 Is very little motivation
 To just push yourself
 Outside of your own motivation
 And this actually keeps you accountable
 And engages you to really push
 Past the normal point that you would probably be giving up on
 If you just didn't have anything
 The last piece is we make equipment
 That is specifically designed for your own
 Our freestanding bag
 Is literally the only freestanding bag
 That you can really hit hard
 Without it just knocking it down
 Without all the hassle of putting a hanging bag
 And one of your support beings with the chains
 And all that
 You can move it around
 We even designed the sound sleeve
 If you want to train in early in the morning
 Last night
 Not bother your family or neighbors
 That's fight camp
 We're expanding actually this month
 And we're reviving the initial product that we launched with
 Which is made for professional athletes
 For the first time in eight years
 We actually are launching a product
 That is aimed for people that already go to the gym
 And wants to challenge themselves
 Money to their progress
 See how they perform in benchmark against others
 Without having the whole content
 Classes on top of it
 It's a lower price subscription
 Think of it as like Strava
 But for boxing and martial arts
 Nice
 Very cool and you can have
 A friendly competition board
 I am
 With big dude
 I've got one of these at home
 I'm going to be a little bit of the salesperson here for Khalil
 Number one
 The hardware and software is premium
 It's the only bag I've ever had that I can hit
 I'm 65275
 And it can take everything I can throw at it
 And it doesn't move
 Got a water base
 Premium quality gloves
 And these trackers that you put in the wrist bands
 That literally you've got a tv screen
 If you choose to do the monitoring
 You can choose the trainer type
 Literally it's interactive with you
 It feels
 But literally they're talking to you
 They're giving your feedback
 It feels like a real live experience
 Literally every hit is being tracked on the screen
 Plus in the gloves
 It's really cool
 There's a whole sequencing with it
 That feels very natural
 And also motivating
 It'll kick your ass
 If you do it
 I love the product man
 It's cool
 Awesome
 Thanks Ryan
 I'm happy you like the product
 It's premium man
 And it's cool
 Those trackers
 They've got these little rechargeable sensors
 They go in the gloves
 If you hit that bag
 It registers on the screen
 It's all connected
 It's legit
 I really love your authenticity
 And realness here
 Give some deeds on social web
 All that stuff
 For a little more about Fightcam
 What you're up to
 You can find everything about our product
 And content
 A library
 And so forth on Fightcam.com
 In one word
 Then you can follow us
 At Fightcam on Instagram
 We are also on TikTok
 We have a huge YouTube channel
 With lots of videos
 And tutorials
 On breaking down techniques
 Our whole voice
 And role
 And purpose on YouTube
 Is to make this super
 Deep protected knowledge accessible
 To everybody
 When it comes to boxing and martial arts
 If you're just curious
 You can go on there
 And find a lot of breakdowns
 A lot of onboarding
 And beginner techniques on there
 If you want to get started
 On my end
 You can follow me
 On Instagram
 I am Atalil Zahar
 K-H-A-L-I-L
 Last name Zahar
 Z-A-H-A-G-R
 And I'm actually trying to
 Post a little more on there
 But you can reach out to me
 And super happy to connect with you guys
 Cool
 It's been fun man
 I really appreciate you coming on
 Like us and thanks a lot for having me
 Hey guys
 You're gonna find us
 Ryan is right
 Thatcom
 Find all the highlight clips
 You'll find all those links
 That Clil just mentioned
 And I'm telling you
 You need to get fight camp
 If you're bored
 But you're routine
 It will mix it up
 If you're a little curious about boxing
 But aren't sure how to do it
 It feels like the most natural at home training
 You will get without actually a person there
 Go check out fight camp
 And look
 In business
 And in life
 We're all getting punched in the face
 But just remember
 It's not about how
 You punch
 It's about how you get up
 How you respond
 And you get after it
 We'll see you next time
 All right about now
 Here's the truth
 Information doesn't change your life
 Execution does
 So don't just listen to this episode
 And move on
 Take the idea
 Make the call
 Launch the thing
 Fix the problem
 Build what you keep talking about building
 For more
 Follow Ryan Ulford on Instagram
 At Ryan Ulford
 And watch or listen to every episode
 At RyanIsRight.com
 This is right about now
 Now quit waiting
 Go win