#62: Sohail Shariff - How a Broken Hip Inspired a Massive Career Change

So, Hale, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for coming on. It's been a couple of years since we chatted last. And the last time we were having a video call, I didn't have a podcast. Yeah, it's been a while. What has it been two years? It's been two years. It was June of 2024. I had just started my physical therapy business and you reached out to me about MoveMate. And you wanted to see if I wanted to try the product, kind of give feedback, talk about, you know, I think an ambassador or something like that. And yeah, I've had it and I've used it for multiple years. But before we get into that, I would love for people to just know a little bit more about you and your story behind MoveMate. For sure. Yeah. So, this story begins, well, the move made journey begins four years ago. This is our fourth year in business, so we launched this in August of 2021. But my journey that connects to MoveMate goes back to 2018. And so, you know, I ended up breaking my hip-plank soccer and went through a really difficult rehabilitation process, which I'm sure we're going to talk a little bit more about. And I had nothing to do with the original invention of this product. It was actually my co-founder Ali, who developed it for his thesis in design school. And he won a lot of awards for it. It was the end of the year and there's a whole exhibition and did really well. And then this prototype of this, what we now know as the MoveMate board today just sort of lived in his living room and was catching dust pretty much. And it was in 2020 December, you know, fast forwarding through my rehabilitation process where I was weight bearing and one of my challenges was just sitting at a desk all day and just feeling really tight and stiff and uncomfortable. And I was hanging out with him at his place. We grew up together in Kenya. We've been in the same class in second grade and now we both live in Toronto. And we're just hanging out and he's like, hey, this is that board that I made. And I'm like, cool, I've heard about this. Let me get on. And so I got on for about 30, 40 minutes. It's very, very easy to use and he's explaining to me that, hey, you know, this is for people who are stuck at a desk all day that want to find a way to move more and feel better and he hadn't done anything with it. But I immediately connected with this idea of it. I had a standing desk. I had used a balance board at my standing desk. I had a walking pad. I was doing things actively to figure out how to get more movement into my day. And so it connected with me. I said, okay, I'm going to try this. I'll give you some feedback and I used it for a couple of months and it really was beneficial to me. And I began to sort of look into why does this not exist? Did some research and you know, went back to him and said, hey, there's something here. I gave it to my physiotherapist at the time. I was still going for physiosessions. Less often though. And I'd asked her to sort of keep it. Her name is Katcha. She's awesome. And use it and give me some feedback because I began to get interested. But I wanted to understand from a different perspective. I remember going back to her a week later and she's like, where did you find this? This is incredible. And began almost selling me on why I should use it. And that kind of just sparked it. And I called up Ali and I said, hey, you're sitting on something incredible here. And we come from different backgrounds. I come from a business education. He comes from a product background. We have complimentary skillsets and I said, let's do something with this. And we've known each other for so long. And then it took us a year from having that prototype to actually get it into market, which was an incredibly difficult journey we almost gave up on. And then yeah, we launched and since then we've grown tremendously, but in the grand scheme of things, we still feel very young and still feels like there's so much ahead. So we have complimentary skillsets. And I said, hey, let's come together and do something with this. And then it took us a year from that point on to actually get it into the market. And then it was a very challenging process to do that. I was very naive. I thought it would be very easy and like, okay, we have a prototype. This is wood. Take it to a wood shop. Tell them to make it. But I realized, you know, there's so many details that you need to consider when you're getting a product like this out into the market and being able to make it repeatedly. And we almost gave up on it actually. And last minute, we got like a lifeline from an angel, Emily is her name and she's someone who we had sent an initial prototype to to test and she gave us a contact with someone who makes it in Toronto or makes furniture in Toronto who was willing to work with us. And we worked with them to figure it out. Still the person who produces, move made today, which is insane. So, and then we launched August 2021 and here we are. Okay. So, in the past five years, how has the business growth been for you? Has it been what you expected? Has it been more or less? Yeah. I would say the first year was very difficult. It was difficult because we are making this product in Toronto where we were based. It is largely hand crafted. There's a lot of labor and time that goes into it. So the cost of production is very high. And therefore, the product cost that we set or the price we set is also relatively high. And so it was really difficult as a new product that hasn't existed before to convince people that it was worth that cost, especially because we didn't have a lot of proof or social proof. And we hadn't been in the market until the first year was a real struggle. And then we had this lucky moment in the second year and in January of the second year, we had this video that we put out on Instagram that just went viral. And it was a simple video. It was a couple of people trying or like using move made. It was like a six second video and it just got millions of views. And from that point, we began to really grow our sales. And so I would say the first year was a struggle. The second year we caught a break and we were able to get a lot of people using the board and all around the world. So we shipped globally right from the onset. And that then I think snowballed into a lot of positive word of mouth. And we continued our marketing and advocacy of it. And so the third year was second year was okay, this is established as a thing. The third year was triple the second year and now we're looking to quadriple that year. And so that's so exciting. Yeah, so it's been difficult and with time, the more you grow, the more you produce with a physical product business like this, the more there's a strain on cash flows and managing that has been a challenge. But we've seen positive growth for sure. Kind of a random question, but with a physical product like this, have you ever considered going on Shark Tank? We have, we do have you have. And I think any a lot of entrepreneurs who start something like this have that thought. In our case, actually, we were reached out to the producers of Dragonsden, which is the Canadian version of Shark Tank. I believe Shark Tank is the US. And we just weren't ready for it. This was pretty early on, early days. We actually had no idea what this company would be valued. We actually had no idea what we would use the capital for. And so we decided not to pursue that. And we've also taken on a very conservative approach to growing business. This is fully bootstrapped. We've never raised any outside capital. And so we've grown very slowly in a sense deliberately. And we were just sort of afraid of that, I think. And we decided. We haven't gotten around to consider it again, but I can totally see this being a really entertaining episode. Yeah, I could too. I was just picturing you inside the Shark Tank, standing on your move, making your presentation at the same time. Could be a hit you never know. Yeah, yeah, I think it would. I couldn't see all the sharks having a good time playing on the boards. Playing with kids again. Yeah, I'll give you five million, but I need 15%. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe in the future. I do want to go back to the early days of when you had the original injury and then you were facing all of this kind of work related discomfort and some bumps maybe in your rehab just because of the positioning that you were in. First off, what kind of break did you have in the hip? Do you remember? Yeah. How can I forget? Yeah. You ended up, it was a fracture and dislocation of the right hip. So it was an internal dislocation and so it popped inwards and then my, the cup was fractured in the process and it was quite crazy. Like, I don't know how this happened. Like everyone I tell this to that I was playing soccer and I broke my hips or like, what do you mean? How did that happen? But I have no idea it was really a freak accident ultimately, but even the doctors didn't, like the people in the ambulance were looking for some sign of dislocation, exterior dislocation and they couldn't feel anything. But my leg was definitely not in the right position. And then I remember going into emergency in the doctor again was just couldn't believe it could be a dislocation of the hip and they asked me to take my shorts off as a test and I was in so much pain. I was like, I just couldn't and they were like, what's going on here? Maybe there is a dislocation. So then they took me into X-ray and I was like, I just couldn't. I remember then bringing back that sheet and putting it up against the white board. And it just looked at my hip. And I have an image of this, but it was just like completely out of place. And I was just in shock. And then they had to rush me in to get it relocated. Like five doctors surrounding me, holding my hips, like I get a shot of ketamine. The doctor says, okay, picture, what's your happy place? I'm like, definitely not this. And then I'm picturing a beach in Kenya where I grew up and I get ketamine into my system and it feels great. And I'm just looking at all these doctors, like trying to relocate my hip. And then from there, I had to sort of wait 10 days to actually get the surgery because in the Canadian system, it's sort of priority-based. And I had to wait a little bit, which was really, really tough. Imagine waiting 10 days just like on a bed looking up. Yeah, I mean, could you wait there at all through that leg? No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I was zero mobile, zero mobility. And I could barely turn. And so for 10 days, I was just waiting for surgery in this weird position. And then finally, there was a slot that opened up and went in for the surgery. Wow. I mean, from a rehab perspective, I'm thinking, what did 10 days of immobility do to your recovery outcomes? Had you been admitted into emergency surgery right away, been operated on, and then been in rehab the next day or that morning, what would things have looked like for you? I mean, maybe not markedly different, but that is crazy to think that you had to spend 10 days immobile. And they told me that. You know, they said that to be honest, with every day that goes by that you don't get this surgery, that directly affects the outcomes, but they also didn't have a choice because the system is overwhelmed. And in fact, I was bumped up because of the severity of it, but I still had to wait. And this is a true story on day seven. I remember the doctor coming up to me and saying, okay, so we have two options. Option number one is we get you the surgery done like right now in this hospital, but the doctor was going to do that. The surgeon was going to do that one. Doesn't fully specialize in this surgery. And it just won't let you know that. And then option number two is you wait. Could be a couple more days. We don't really know. And you can go to sunny broke hospital, which is a great hospital in Toronto. And you'll get this surgeon who is incredible at this surgery. The choice is yours. And so I'm like, with my life on the line, I'm going to wait. Yeah, yeah. This is me going under the knife. I think I'm going to sit just one out. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to just, yeah. Yeah, I'll wait three days and then three days later, they came there like, okay, the spots opened up. We got to go wow. So then you were an athlete. This was a huge operation, a huge injury. Had you experienced any other similar type of injury before or were you ever put out for this long of a period of time? Never broken anything. Wow. I don't think I've even sprained anything. Like I was good and I played a lot of soccer. Soccer was a huge part of my identity. And my childhood and growing up, I played for a couple of clubs in Kenya, went to the World Youth Cup in Sweden in 2008. You know, this was so big for me. I played in university. So and I was good. I was actually good the whole time until it was almost like a, an accumulation of all of that non injury just came all together into this one massive injury. Right. Right. The universe was like, oh, you thought you were going to come out and scaved, but now we have something for you. How old were you when this happened as 22 or 22? Okay. So you were still playing regularly, but also probably thinking maybe about the future in terms of what the career is going to look like. And then so you have the surgery, you go through rehab. I want to know what the rehab process looks like. And then also what were you doing for work at that time that led you to this decision that I need something better for my sitting/standing desk job? Yeah. So I was working in sales actually. And it was inside sales at a biotechnology company. And I was sitting a lot, I was pretty stationary. So logging a lot of notes, taking calls, replying to emails. And so that was the context of my job when I got injured. And actually I hadn't played soccer in, I want to say, six or eight months prior to that injury. And then I played one weekend and broke my hip. And so there was this long period of not playing soccer after playing soccer a lot. And then this happened. So the recovery process, it took a while before I actually went back into the office or even got back to my job. But I would say the first call it eight months was the total recovery or the total rehabilitation process. And I would say the recovery continues to this day. But at the start it was very light. Very, as you can imagine, light movements stretching like really, really basic. And then physical therapy four times a week, three, four times a week about a month in maybe maybe a month and a half, two months in my timelines are a bit wavy right now. But then I'm weight bearing. I take my first steps. I go from moving around in the wheelchair to two crutches and then one crotch. And the rehab sessions are very much working through stretching and then certain exercises and then getting a set of exercises to go into at home, which I really struggled with honestly. That was really difficult. - They're doing them at home part. - Yeah. - Why is that? - I think initially I was a lot more steadfast at doing what I was told to do at home because I was in so much pain. And I realized that I had such a long way to go in this journey. But then as soon as I began to get better, I found that I just wasn't sticking to the plant. And I would go back to my rehab sessions. I'm sure you've experienced this with your patients a lot. - I used to be nodding my head like this. - Yeah, yeah. And so I would have this set of protocols and we have this online platform that I could log in to see the exercises that my physical therapist had put in there for me and every session I would go to, you're like, "God, did you do these exercises?" And I'll be like, "I just got busy." - Oh, yeah. - I tried to and then I didn't. But next week I'll do it. Next week I'll do it. And I found the more I got better, the less I sort of stuck to the plan. - I see this a lot in the clinic. It's like people come to you at their worst and you give them things to do and it works. And then as they start to feel better, it's almost like they have amnesia and they forget how they got there. And so then they stop doing the exercises and then, yeah, we have to have the conversation. Like, okay, you're feeling better, but you're still coming to me. So like, what's the missing piece? Did you, are you not doing the things that I told you to do? - Okay, sure. Yeah, we gotta get back there. But it is, it's a tough one. Mentally, when you're feeling almost no symptoms or you're feeling almost back to 100%, like, why do I still have to do this homework? So I get it. - Yeah, and I would say like, there's just so many things that happen once you get out of the clinic in real life that, because the clinic is very structured, you know? I loved going in for those sessions, because it was very predictable. It was my fix for the week or for the next couple of days. You have supervision. You are told exactly what to do. You get stretched out, massaged. And it's so predictable and it's an event, essentially. And then you go back to life and then for me, again, coming back to that being at a desk all day, there's that and then there's your motivation changes, you know? Your low energy one day, your high energy, your motivation goes down. Things happen, you go through personal issues. And there's just so many variables in real life. And that's where you spend 98% of your time and then 2% in the clinic, let's say. So I think there's a really good game plan when you're in the clinic. And then that game plan then sort of falls or begins to become really challenging once you get into real life. And it becomes more of a behavior lifestyle problem that needs to be solved. Hence why you guys created movement, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's interesting that you mentioned this point about how the clinic is structured. And it's an event for an hour or two hours out of your week. And then the rest of life happens. And that's where things can get kind of muddy because the episode that I released literally this morning was talking about how to have difficult conversations with patients who aren't improving and also how to look at their case in a more holistic way. Instead of just the exercises and the stretching or the manual interventions, what is going on outside of the clinic that you can potentially impact? So it's just, I guess, really great alignment that you're here now when we're talking about this now because what movemate does is, address some of the prolonged posturing that we're doing when we're not in clinic. So for your case, standing at a desk, sitting at a desk. So why does it help people? I think ultimately what it comes down to is if we think about behavior and I think a lot of behavior is driven by the way that we set up our environment. For me personally, I would say if I go back to when I realized this was a game changer for me when I was testing it, what I realized is I did care about my recovery and I did care about feeling better. It wasn't that I didn't care about those things. The problem was that the way my life was structured, the fact that I had to be at a job all day, at a desk job all day and all of the other issues in my life, whatever was going on, it was creating conditions that just led me to not be able to move enough. And so fundamentally, what movement is doing and what I realized was, okay, this is what it's doing for me is it's reducing the friction to be able to begin to get into a state of movement. Number one, and number two, it's making it practical to be able to continue that habit of movement. So not only is it something is very small and compact and just sits on against the leg of your table or underneath your desk and you look at it and it's a cue to get on and the time it takes to put the board and step on and the effort level is just so low so it encourages that speed of getting to that point of starting. But then once you're on it, you continue working and it's not taking your attention away and so you're just shifting your weight naturally and playing with it as you're on a meeting, as you're working through a spreadsheet or writing emails. And that is really what made it something that predictably helped me to move more. And then in the process of that, you're feeling better because when you're moving and you're engaging your your body, you're getting out of that stock position even if it's 10 or 15 minutes every two hours or three hours, it still gives you that break, you're getting the blood flowing, the muscles stimulated and you just feel better and that's what movement does. And so ultimately I think that's the benefit is to help with the behavior and then provide access to the benefits of movement and do it in a way that's predictable and built into life. You mentioned that you had a walking pad, a balance board. How is this different or in your opinion? I'm assuming you think also better. So one thing I just want to say is I don't think it's better. Okay. I don't think it's better and I don't think that it competes with any of these things. And my reason for saying that is we just completed a survey with 200 of our customers, over 200 of our customers. And one question we actually asked was what other tools they use? And how it benefits them and what we really what we learned is that a majority of our customers actually have multiple tools. They have a balancing, they have a one foot leg challenge thing, they have a walking pad came up a lot. And so I think there's a place for those tools and that is completely fine. And I think what movement does is it adds variety to that mix and it provides a different experience. But if we're talking specifically about what is different, you know, you have a walking pad is just and these are the things where I realized as I was doing my research where there is a need for something like this. So one is just a size. You know, a walking pad is big and it is a it's something you need to actually roll in and set up. Number two is it's cumbersome and it's electronic. Then you have to charge it or connect it and the battery can can die and it honestly doesn't look good. Yeah, it can be a little clunky. And it really looks like a piece of gym equipment, you know, that's kind of forced into this environment. And so that's the second thing is the aesthetics. And that matters because if you part of making something accessible that you're going to use is like it's there and you want it to be there and you want it to live in your space. And then the third was this idea that you're able to get more movement options like you can flex, you can rock, you can twist, you can tilt, you can wiggle your toes, that variety is missing, but also you're in control. And that's where it also differentiates of course from a balance board which you're which which is great as as a tool 100% but in comparison, you're balancing and you're fighting the board to maintain balance. Whereas with the movement, you're you're moving with it. And so that's the difference I would say and anyone who has a balance board or has a walking pad, I applaud that because at the end of the day, if you're using that and it's helping you to move, that's amazing. And you don't necessarily need a movement, but movement does bring these different dimensions. Yeah, and I think I'll add a number four, it's fun. I think it's more fun than a treadmill or a balance board because you can spin. You can kind of like, I don't know. I think it plays with people's minds and it almost makes it feel like it's toy, you know? So I think it's more fun than any of the other options too. Yeah, it's honestly fun and play is I used to think that play Ali is big on play. Ali is big on play. And in his thesis book, the word play appears over and over again. And initially I was like, what do you mean play? Like, this is this is movement and it's, why does play come into this? You know, we're not this is not a joke, but we really I've really personally come to like graduate in my understanding of play and how that is so critical in all of all of this whole process and in what we're trying to accomplish. Very cool. Yeah. And I back to what I was saying earlier about the episode that I released today and talking about having difficult conversations with patients. A lot of what I find myself harping on as a PT is variety of movement as well because even if you're walking every day and then you're sitting at your desk or standing at your desk and then you're going to the gym and you're training, but you're training in like the sagittal plane. You're doing a squat, a bench press, a deadlift. There's no rotation or side to side or like this kind of fun wave emotion that the movement does. That's just all of that input that you're not getting into the system that you're not training for. And therefore, in my opinion, can leave you a little bit more susceptible to injury too. So if it's like if we're not training into the movement, the likelihood of us finding failure in those movement patterns could be higher. So I mean, I'm not saying that if you stand on the movement every day, you're not going to get injured, but I do think it's a fun way for your body to remember that it does move this way. And to build on that going back to I was labeled a weak end warrior by my physical therapist. That was the first time I'd heard of that when she had told me that that's what I was. And I went from being very active to a long stretch of being inactive when I entered the workforce and then working at a desk for so long and that kind of became my lifestyle. And then I went hard one weekend and broke my hip. Now I'm not saying that that's the that's the reason I broke my hip. But if you spend so much time in fixed shortened positions and you lose strength and you lose mobility as a result of that lifestyle, then you're less prepared. Yes, 100%. I used to work at the front desk of this physical therapy clinic and the clinic director. I would always hear him telling his patients one hour at the gym will not offset eight hours of sitting at a desk. So even if you go to the gym every single day, if you're spending the rest of the day sitting in your car at your desk, at home watching TV, you're doing yourself a huge disservice. And I think a lot of people, that's old news. I think everybody knows that now and hence why all these products are popping up. But it's still worth mentioning because even if you go to the gym for an hour, that's not enough. Like I think I often find myself telling patients, set a 20 minute timer, set okay fine if that's too often set a 45 minute an hour long timer every hour. It goes off. You stand up. You got to do something. You have to move. Made. Yeah, absolutely. That was one of my realizations that really opened things up for me. I would say in my early research was I came across this article or the study that was done by I think it was the American, America Council for Exercise, I believe. Ace and that study was focused on how can you counter the effects of on the body, physically and physiologically, of not not moving enough. How do you counter that? And can you counter it with exercise or is there another solution? And they talked about this trying low impact low intensity movements, but done often done frequently and they measured the impact on that on subjective feelings of pain, discomfort, but also on things like your glucose levels and your fat level, I think it's your lipid. markers, and it was kind of eye opening because, and there's been multiple studies around this topic, that if you interrupt, and it makes a huge impact physiologically. So if you interrupt long periods of inactivity with short bouts of movement, doesn't have to be aggressive, could literally be you getting up and waving your arms and just doing some light motions, it makes a big impact and that was eye opening because a lot of what we see is this idea of like fitness and hard core being at the gym and going hard in cardio and there's a place for that. Absolutely, of course, but I'm like there needs to be more of a conversation around movement, around just regular basic, easy movement and that's actually where the where the name movement came from. It was that realization and I just wrote the word movement in big on a piece of paper and I was just like sitting there and I'm like, if we were to name this thing, they would have to be something as close as possible to just movement and I just switched up a word, a letter and I saw movement and it was this idea of like your friend in motion and your partner in a companion and and then I called up Ali and I'm like, we got to do this and I have a name, it's movement and he was like, that's an amazing name. So that's actually where it came from was this contrast between like you can't erase the impact on the body by going to the gym, but there is a really simple solution, but if only if that solution can be made accessible and that is the fundamental basis of this product. Right, it has to be accessible and baked into whatever you're doing and for many, many people that is a stagnant workplace environment, which honestly as we're sitting here talking about this, I'm thinking, isn't it wild? Like 100 years ago, humans probably we had no idea that one of our main issues was going to be that we're not moving enough. Like we as the species, we've always been in motion, you know, for the majority, however many hundreds of thousands of years that we've been around and now just in the last century, it's like all of these businesses are popping up and there's an entire market for people that are too sedentary. It's just like a wild flip. Right. It's so insane to think about, but this started a really long time ago. Like one of the pieces I came across, one of the facts I came across was I think it was in 2022 and we're going to have to fact check this in terms of the exact date, but it was like early long time ago where the World Health Organization had listed sedentary behavior as the fourth leading cause of early mortality. That is 2002. It was way back and then there was the study, of course, that the study that was done at the Mayo Clinic that then popularized sitting as the new smoking. Yes. You know, that was that was also a while ago. I think it was 2007 maybe maybe something around there was a while ago. So this is a problem like you said, this existed for so long. We were so aware of it. Everyone knows that they need to move. Right. It's not an awareness problem. Yeah, it's just this is like the first time in human history where we haven't had to move. You know, everyone's everyone's careers, not everyone's, but many, many people's careers are done like this through a screen where motion is not necessary. It's just, you know, over the past century, our lifestyles have changed and therefore the market has changed and an attempt to try to combat all of the things that have changed health wise because of it. It is wild. But anyways, I do want to talk a little bit about the business side of things. What is it like being in business with a friend? I've heard you should never go into business with your friends. I've just that's just something that I've heard as I was growing up. I don't necessarily believe that's true, but I want to know from your perspective. What is that like? Let's take a brief moment to pause this episode so I can talk to you about Jane. Jane is my clinical management software that I have been using for the past two years. Before I started using Jane, I was a one woman show trying to run the ship with horrible systems. I was taking payments with the square app. I was scheduling people via Google Calendar. I was documenting in one place and then I was texting people to remind them of their appointments. Everything was scrambled, including my head. And then when I got Jane, it was like everything fell into place. I started to feel more like a legitimate business. Patients were getting automated reminders for their appointments. They were filling out their paperwork online before their initial evaluation. They were saving their card on file. They were uploading medical documents as needed. And then on my side of things, I am now able to use AI scribe for documentation to give me more time with my patients. I can run reports every month to see how the business is doing. Using Jane is like having a coworker with you 24/7. And lucky for you guys, if you are interested in Jane and want to try it out for two months, you can do that for free using my code Ronnie PT2MO. All right, let's get back to the show. You know, I actually do share that opinion as well. And personally, I don't like the idea of business with friends and I don't like the idea of business with family. Because it just gets too close and it's hard to be objective sometimes. Things get a bit too personal. So I fully actually understand that. I think what made it work in this case with Ali is just an intense level of trust and chemistry going back since grade two. And we've grown up literally throughout all the way till university and that's sort of where we split up and I went into business and he went into design in Malaysia. I came to Canada and then he did two years in Malaysia and then and then came to Canada. But we just had this chemistry always. Since we were kids, like we would be able to work well together and and be silly together. And it was just such a close and fun relationship. And so that was the basis of was trust and chemistry. And then critically, like he actually brings to the table something that I just cannot do. And he is really good at it. He is really good at design. He's really good at product and logistics of manufacturing. Like he's so good at that stuff. I just it's amazing. And I'm not very good at any of that. And the things that I do, he absolutely sucks at. You know, like he when it comes to marketing or like speaking or working on finance stuff, he hates it and he doesn't want to do it. And so we really compliment each other. And I think this project, this business has been so personal to us. For me, it's been literally the toughest thing I've ever gone through in my life. And this came out of that. And so in a sense, it saved me. And I don't think any of this would have happened if I did not break my hip and go through that traumatic experience. And for Ali, he put who years into this and his thesis and he is extremely passionate about movement. He's huge into body weight training calisthenics. He's a nerd with that stuff. And movement is so important and he cannot sit still and he needs to have motion. And so this is personal. And it's also all we have, you know, and so we have individually a lot of incentive. And then we work well together and we pull together different skills. And we have boundaries. You know, I there's a lot of friction that happens all the time in business. You know, like we're always going back and forth on decisions and who's right about something and what way we should go because it's just a bunch of decisions. But we have boundaries to understand who takes who has the final call. You know, and we respect that. And if he says that something product designed related needs to go, I'll put in my opinion, but we have this understanding that we must share opinions. We must be vocal about that and do it respectfully. But then if he really believes that his approach is the right approach, I'm going to be like, that's your call. Like you own that. And same with marketing or finance on my side. So we have those boundaries. And honestly, we get upset at each other every now and then. And then we both have it in us to reflect and come back to the table and be like, all right, I'm sorry, man, that I was kind of silly of me. And we have that humility. And it's an ongoing process. Yeah. Well, being friends for as long as you have, but I think plays a big part in it too, because it's not like you met somebody while you were at university and then decided like, hey, let's get into business together. He's probably more like a brother. I don't want to put words into your mouth. But when you've known each other for so, when yeah, when you've known each other for so long, there is a level of familiarity that lends itself to you can have more difficult conversations. And you might not be so afraid of crossing boundaries or hurting someone's feelings because you know at the end of the day, like, I know who you are almost at your core. And like, I know we're going to get past this. I'm just thinking of my friends. And I have a friend like that who I've known for so long. And I agree, like getting mixing business with family and friends could be tough, but in her case, I genuinely think we could get past anything. And it's not for everybody, but I do think in certain cases, like you and all these, it's a special relationship that just works. - It does. It really does. Yeah, I'm so fortunate. - Do you think that when you were working your sales job and you were doing move made at the same time that this would ever become your full time get? - No, not at all, not at all. I mean, there's some nuance in that story. And that is that I actually was let go of my job in February of, this is before I came across move made. So I was let go of my job at the biotech company where I was doing sales in March of 2020, right when COVID hit. And then I had this Euro trip planned and I went for one week and then had to come back. And then I got another job. And again, it was in sales, but it a medical data thing. And I was pretty committed to that. And I was really enjoying my work there. You know, I was still struggling with the desk job and all of those things stayed the same 'cause I was still at a desk, but I had no idea that this was just so impactful for me. And I've grown up in a business oriented family. You know, my family's been in business forever. That's just kind of what they do. And I've always known that I wanted to do something with Penorial. And this just happened to connect with me personally. And I was only maybe only a year into that next job. And then I left it to pursue this. Yeah, but I tried to do it. I tried to do move mates alongside that job for a month. And it just wasn't working. I was just too tired to like really focus on this. And then I remember having a conversation with HR at that company. And they knew I was using this product. And I was showing it to people around the office who would come in. And so they knew about this. I'd said that I was doing research for Ali and giving him feedback. And it was true. That's what I was doing. But obviously I started to think about what the possibilities could be. I remember having a conversation with HR when I told my boss that I may want to leave and get into this. And we were on a call. And I think she was supposed to convince me to stay. And I explained to her the whole situation. And she's like, her dad told her that if you're ever going to accomplish something and do well in something, you have to really focus and go all in. And so the conversation that was supposed to be her converting me to think rationally about things and stay actually ended up being like, you should do it. You should definitely do it. And so I really respect her for that. And yeah. And then I quit. And we had no idea how this was going to work. So that was scary. But-- That's the beauty. And I think when you are comfortable with options and a salary and benefits and all the other bells and whistles that come with a full-time job, and then you're doing a side gig, that's a start. But when the fire is fully lit under your ass and you have nothing to fall back on, you're also forced to be a little bit more productive. And you have more time and space to dedicate to it as well. Constraints. Yeah. Exactly. Constraints is the most critical thing to be able to really push you, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, 100%. So you mentioned that you grew up in a business oriented family. What's something that you believed about business early on back in-- when did you say you started? 2021. 2021. You believed back then that's completely changed now. It's done a full 180 in 2026. Wow, that is a really good question. I think control, the idea of control, is something that I've struggled with that-- I grew up in the family business. We-- I was my dad and his brothers and the wives, and everyone was working together in a supermarket grocery store situation. And everything was always kept within the family. And everything was controlled very tightly. Finances were controlled very tightly. And visibility was only with specific individuals, and it was like there was not a lot of delegation. And control was just always like you got to always be in full control. And so I think that is played out in the way that I've started and run this business is we've controlled so closely the narrative. We've controlled so closely the design. We've controlled the finances so closely. It took us a while to hire our first person because we ended up wanting to control so much, even the content. And even our production, the first 1,000 units we made, all of you and I made it ourselves in a wood shop. Wow. By hand, the one that you have, all of you and I made, by hand. And so that is a fact. And we wanted to control it all. And there was good reason for it too, because we wanted to make sure the quality was right and all of that. But I think what I've learned is if you're going to be able to grow, you need to be able to leverage other people and other partners and organizations. And you need to be comfortable with letting go some of that control. Of course, do it well, do it in a way that that transition is successful. But we've hired a couple of people. And we've let go of some of the things that we were so closely controlling, like the content direction and what we shoot and how we message things. And so that has been a big struggle for me, I think, that it was so ingrained since I was a kid. And also, I think it comes from just my childhood and the way I grew up, frankly, living away from my parents since I was pretty much in second grade, which is a whole other story, probably for another topic or podcast. Is that normal? When Kenya is that normal, like, you go to school and-- No, definitely not a normal situation. It's my family came from or was working in the northwestern part of Kenya. And there was no good school there. And so from a very young age, I was basically living in Nairobi, which is the capital. It's about a six hour drive away. And so living with my uncle and aunt and cousins. And so I would see my parents once every three months. And at most, since I was very young. And so also that, of course, has led me to, I think, want to really control the situation because I didn't have a lot of control back then, but also made me very independent. I was going to say, also, probably, there's lots of independence. And at the same time, that element of control, I like to believe, means that you also care a lot about the product. Like, yes, maybe some perfectionistic tendencies. But also, if you want your hands in every single pot and you want to be in control of all the little facets of the business, you also care a lot. And it's, you know, it's you and Ali's baby. So it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a baby, absolutely. And you know about that. I do. I get it. I've talked about it on the podcast before. Like, people have asked me, what's one thing that you've learned or that you're working on? I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm still working on it. But being able to relinquish some control, it's tough, especially when it's everything that you work on and everything that you care about. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. But that's been a great learning, you know, personally, and a great unlock for the business as well. Yeah, I think it also opens up opportunities to grow, obviously, when you can stop doing so much yourself and hire people. So with that, I'm curious then what was one move that you made, either with hiring or even just like a business move with move made that felt risky at the time, but now has brought great return. That's an easy one. Keeping production in Toronto, Canada. Okay. Yeah, that was that was a move that a lot of people were like, you guys are absolutely nuts to be making this product in Canada, because it's so expensive to make and you need to make this in China and you need to make 10,000 pieces and make it for really cheap and then sell it across the world and make a lot of money. And I can understand that thinking, of course, you know, that's very valid. But we decided to keep production in Canada simply because it was convenient for us. That's part of the honest answer as it was convenient to do that. It helped with our cash flows. We could be close to production to maintain quality and maintain control, coming back to the top of control. And made in Canada that that was obviously an added bonus, but it wasn't the main driver of that decision. And we thought we were making a mistake, but we also were like, we don't really have a choice because if we went overseas and made the product overseas, we would have to spend a lot of money to make a huge amount and there will be a huge room. that we're taking and holding a lot of inventory and what if the product comes back and it's not, you know, to spec and anything is wrong, you're pretty much done. And so we were making very small batches, controlled, very involved in the process and made in Canada. And that has been such a blessing because it's allowed us not only to scale our production step by step gradually, but it's allowed us to really maintain quality and and put our name behind it and feel proud that this is a Canadian invention out of a Canadian school project. And it is still made in Canada to this day. And it is something that not a lot of people can say. So that is that is something we're really, really proud about that seemed like maybe a bad decision to some degree early on, but then it's turned out to be really positive for us. I like that. I can say as a consumer, Fitz says, you know, made in the USA, made in Canada, I'm like, ooh, okay, it's like a little extra special. You know what I mean? It is, it is, it is, because it's less often. It just not doesn't happen as much nowadays. Right. It feels like a unique token. I'm like, oh my gosh, this was made right here in my backyard. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Question for you, so Hale, is today your birthday? It is my birthday. It is my birthday. What did I thought? How old are you turning? Can you say? Do you want to say? I'm turning 32. Okay. Into your early 30s now. All right. So if you could go back and tell your 25 year old self, anything at all, what would it be? I think it would be, everyone is just making it up as they go. Yes. I think that's what I would say, because there's a lot of at that time, there's a lot of fear in making decisions and in making moves. And you overcomplicate things and you think that for some reason, you're not able to do this because you don't have such and such background or such and such resources, but really you can do it and you surprise yourself. So, and by the way, when I say that everyone's just making it up, that's not, I don't believe like everyone is literally just doesn't know what they're doing, but I think that everyone has these moments very frequently even people who are very senior and have been in their space and their field for so long, they have moments of doubt and they have moments that they question whether what they're doing is the right thing to do or if this is the best way to do something. But then I think what separates those people is that they go through the analysis, then go through the thinking, but then they accept that there is a level of uncertainty and there's a level of not knowing something. And then you just get confident enough to like make a move and to go for it. You be open to like the learnings that come along the way and you adjust and it's okay. It's okay. You got this, you know, like, yeah. I like that. It makes me think of something my husband said last week. He was teaching a class at his work for the first time. Now, he's taught classes before, but this was a next level up. And he was feeling a little nervous and I was asking him, I think on like day four, I'm like, how is it going? And he said, today, I crushed it. I was like, why? And he said, well, I'm standing there at the front of the room and I was feeling a little not confident. And I just talked to myself, if I can be not confident for no reason, how about I just be confident for no reason? And I was like, what a, what a mental twist. Yeah. He's like, nobody else knows what I know. I mean, maybe they don't know, but I don't know what I don't know. But why don't I just be confident for no reason? And he's like, I crushed it. I did so well. That's awesome. I love that. I know. I think that separates people, the doers from the people who sit around and wait for the perfect moment. Like at some point, like you were saying, you just have a certain level of confidence where you're like, this will work itself out or I'll figure it out. Yeah. Now, if I may ask you, what, when you went from, it's two years now that you've had your click, you do listen to the podcast. Are you do follow me? Yes. It's been two. I do. I do. I do. So what was that moment for you? And how was that? How did you run through that equation in your mind to say, okay, I'm going to do this? Well, I like you was sort of put into a position where I didn't have too much of a choice. I mean, I guess I had a choice, but it was a similar kind of conversation with HR where they were like, Hey, we see you working here 40 hours a week, but we also see what you're doing over here on the side. And I think you're going to have to make a choice. And I knew at that point, I had put enough time and energy and just dreams into thinking I could probably do this by myself. I'm not going to not risk it at this point. So I was kind of forced into a position where I had to choose. And then once I had to choose that and I didn't have the the salary to cushion me, and I really had to kind of kickstart it and just go, but even in that moment, in those moments, in those first weeks and months, in the clinic that was just me, I was still terrified, but I also knew I know more than any patient coming into see me. So I can still help people, even if I don't feel confident in the business yet, I have what it takes. Does that answer your question? It does. It does. And what you were doing on the side was creating the content was well, I was creating content about how I was also treating people on the side inside of this gym space at the time. And they were like, Hey, we think that that might violate our non-compete. And I was like, all right, all right. But then you know what they brought that up to you, though, I know. And that it makes for great content too. So it was it all worked out. Yeah, they gave you ammo and all kinds of ammo. Yeah. These are to ammo, emotional ammo. It was all good. But even I think it's easy to look like you have it all figured out online. And like I just kind of easily mesh into this new life where I own my own business. But yeah, fake it till you make it. No one really knows what they're doing. They just have a certain level of confidence that things will work out. And you can't really consider it a failure until you've completely quit. So just don't quit. Don't quit. Yeah. 100%. Okay. So last question. What is next for movement? Anything happening in the near future? So many things are happening. Cool. We in terms of like what what we're excited about immediately is we're going to be in Chicago in two weeks from now or we're leaving next week. We're going there for for a trade show. It's called the Barefoot shoe expo. I don't know when this episode is going to launch, but we are basically exhibiting and we're going to have a bunch of movement boards and Oli and I are going to be there and we're going to be giving people in-person demos and that's going to be super exciting. That happens May I think is 15th to 16th or 1617 something like that. It's a Saturday Sunday. But we are going a week and a half early Oli and I and we have a bunch of meeting scheduled and episodes booked for our onboard series podcast, which we also do. And we're going to just have fun meeting people and learning from other practitioners from different areas of movement. You know, we're from from dance therapists to somatic therapists to physical therapists. We're trying to bring the different perspectives of movement in and so that's super exciting. That's cool. But I think one thing that is really that we've done recently that's almost opened our eyes, quite significantly to what the future of this could look like is the survey that I was talking about we did with two or over 200 customers. It was quite a lengthy 30 question endeavor. And we've learned so much about who our people are and why they're getting movement and what they're looking to accomplish and how they're using it and that's really opened up our eyes to the possibilities of what future products could look like. And one of the exciting things that has come out of that is the understanding of how movement is being applied in non-workday environments. And really interesting. So like a stat that just kind of blew my mind was a third of people who buy movement do not buy it to use at their desk and we do not market it really for non desk situations. So what are they buying it for? They're buying it for helping with as a standalone movement mobility device. So typically the older segment of our of our users and even a lot of retired people have this and they just sort of step on and move on it and play with it you know for 10 15 minutes like maybe once a day while they're watching TV. Some people have it as more of a structured mobility practice where they're going through different movements and certain reps and really cool. We need to create content around these different protocols and movements that you could do. And then we're also learning that it's being used in more clinical environments, especially in neurological situations where someone has been through something that really affects their balance. like a stroke event as an example and they need something that's going to be fairly easy Compared to a balanced board, but still encourage and challenge movement a little bit and with support of course different levels there But we're seeing we're hearing of its use in clinic, but we're also hearing of its use in more athletic environments as a Warm-up tool like an explorative warm-up tool. So we have a couple of Elite sports teams in the NBA in the NHL using movements to warm up the feet and get some sensation in Yeah, I can see that Like like just explorative playful not directive, you know like you just hop on and play around and move and twist and warm up So we're learning that and we're seeing it Play out we're also understanding how It's being used in more recovery type situations even for people who find themselves at a desk where let's say runners using it as part of That ongoing recovery that sort of lifestyle integrated So it's really open our eyes. It's probably the best thing we've done was to do this survey and I would encourage anyone who whether you're doing a product business or a service business is to really think through this and leverage your community to understand How they think of you how they interact with your service to the product and who they are And what they're looking for because not only will you get an understanding of how do you improve what you do? But then you also understand more of who these individuals are and how to better serve them So that has been super exciting and we have a couple of new products that we're working on we just launched a floor mat Which is really cool To complement the board It's like an aesthetic decorative We have a floor mat. It's really beautiful and we have a couple of other tools lined up so Again, hopefully we know what we're doing But one step at a time one move at a time Right, okay, I like it. Well, I'm gonna link the move mate in the show notes like Sahil was saying it is very aesthetically pleasing. I think it's it's a really cool tool. I've used it as a clinician, but I've also right now It's not in my stomach anymore my brother. I gave it to him for like a little trial to see what he thinks about it He suffers from chronic low back pain. He's a Computer programmer super smart guy lives in Atlanta sits at a desk all day So I brought it down to him to trial for a little bit and he's been loving it. So Yes, that lean multi use I can I can attest to that That's awesome. Thank you for doing that Of course spreading the good word of course Well, thank you so much for coming on enjoy Chicago. That's my favorite city and then what would you recommend we do in Chicago? Have you guys been before? I've been once a long time ago. Ali's never been What's like one thing we have to do so I feel like my opinions very biased because I grew up going to Lake Michigan I'm like and then Chicago was always a day trip we would take so I mean I've gone many times in my adult life too But I would say if you can get out and kind of walk alongside the lake and you have a nice beautiful view of the city I'm sure you guys kind of enjoy the outdoors and it's gonna be pretty good weather up there at this point especially nice Yeah, they've got great food a really good just kind of like Scene along the river they do. I don't know. Maybe Ali would like this They have like an architectural tour. You can do on a boat. There's a lot of really cool stuff to do. I can send you a whole list Okay, perfect. So when Ali asks me what we're gonna do I'm gonna send him a link to this podcast episode and say listen to the end Listen to the end listen to the whole thing. Well, listen to the whole thing and then right the end is gonna be a 30 second bit That will answer your question. Right exactly. Okay. Well cool. Well, thank you again for coming on. I really appreciate your time Thank you for having me. This has been this has been very very fun and very insightful Appreciate it. I'm so glad. All right. Well until next time