Randy Hetrick is the Chairman and Founder of TRX. He is a former U.S. Navy SEAL who served for 14 years on both SEAL Team 1 and the legendary SEAL Team 6. Growing up, Randy was a competitive wrestler and then a college rower at University of Southern California. He graduated with an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and is a frequent guest lecturer there and at his undergraduate alma mater, USC. He is also the Founder and CEO of OutFit Training – a new, innovative franchise business in the fitness industry.
Walk us through your morning routine.
I typically wake up pretty early, if I haven’t already been up looking at the ceiling playing through the carousel of “to do’s” that is already in my head. I try to wake up by 6am, have a cup of coffee and then spend 10-15 minutes lightly meditating (I am still working on this and hope to get better over time). I also have my Alexa set up to play a variety of different news outlets so that I can get news from all different sources and weed out the biases. 3-4 days a week I then go and get in a 40-60 minute workout. The other three days will be some version of hijacking where I am taken hostage by my emails/texts/meetings.
What does your exercise routine look like?
In both of my houses I have the VersaClimber and a Concept2 rower. I also have a pretty awesome TechnoGym Skillrun — whch I love for sled pushes and parachute sprints in addition to normal runs and inclines. For a while I was heavily into cardio training. Now I am typically doing 30 minutes of high intensity cardio and then I’ll pair that with the TRX Suspension Trainer, YBells, and heavy rope. I used to love going out for 10k runs but I’ve migrated to shorter runs and more high-intensity cardio on the Versa Climber and Concept2.
Do you follow a specific diet?
A while ago I got interested in the Blood Type Diet and I found it to be spot on. For me, it said tons of leafy greens and lean meats, which is what I naturally gravitate towards. I do not have much of a sweet tooth — I will go get an ice cream with my kid, but it’s not what I crave. I have shifted most of my diet to eggs, greens, nuts, fish, chicken, or other lean meats — red meat is more of a treat now. I drink a ton of water each day and 2-3 glasses of wine per week.
TRX is a major success with millions of regular users and over 350,000 certified instructors – are there any customer stories that you have heard about that are super impressive?
There are millions of customers so I certainly do not know about every circumstance, but a few that stand out to me off the top of my head are:
- A woman used a TRX strap to deliver a baby using the Suspension Trainer to get in the proper position her doula requested. That was pretty incredible.
- During the war our products were used all of the time — I remember a photo of them using a Suspension Trainer to pull a hummer out of a bombed out pit. They have been used all over the world in military settings.
How has your background as a college rower and Navy SEAL impacted you as a business executive?
They are fundamental to the extent that I have had some success as an entrepreneur. Before college rowing, I was a high school wrestler. If you map these three activities — wrestling, rowing and being a Navy SEAL — the word masochist instantly comes to mind. Each of these have a high degree of quiet misery. If you apply that to the business context of being a bootstrap entrepreneur, there is a lot of overlap. The ability to suffer and get comfortable in uncomfortable circumstances in those sports typically determines your success, and the same absolutely goes for entrepreneurship. All of those early experiences as a college athlete and especially as a Navy SEAL certainly helped me for what I have done at TRX and what I am doing today at OutFit.
What is the most important takeaway from TRX that you are applying to your new business, OutFit?
The brands definitely have overlap. OutFit takes all of the best practices we learned at TRX over the years are applied directly to OutFit. The colors black and yellow for both brands is my thing. At the beginning, I even considered calling OutFit TRX Mobile, but ultimately decided they are unique enough businesses it would be better as a sister company. Also, we have certified over 350k TRX trainers, and all of those people are our first choice for franchise owners and instructors at OutFit. I consider both, TRX and OutFit, my babies.
One big lesson that I learned from TRX is the importance of creating recurring revenue streams within any business. At TRX, we make incredible equipment that lasts forever. This is a great thing for our customers but less great as a business model. That is why we’ve spent so much time and focus to develop professional education for trainers and a world-class training app full of amazing digital content to help TRX consumers achieve their goals. At OutFit, we deliver inspiring outdoor fitness classes to our members on a simple monthly subscription model. The more our members use the service, the cheaper each class is. On average, our members enjoy OutFit’s expertly coached, fresh-air fitness classes for less than $9 per class! The subscription business model is a win-win-win for our members, our franchise partners, and OutFit HQ.
Do you have any life mottos or principles you follow?
I am a big believer in the Power of Belief. You have to believe you can do it before you can actually do it. Henry Ford said it best: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.”
The other principle is around failure. Failure is almost always a key ingredient in the recipe of success. If you think about how often people pass up opportunities because they are afraid to fail, it is unfortunate because when you think about it, trial and error is a critical element of growth. Every single successful person in business or sports “fails” all of the time – meaning that their performance falls short of their own goals. In my opinion, the notion of “Failure” is an artificial construct of small minded people. Unless you surrender, quit, or die, there is no failure. Shortcomings are just an opportunity to learn and then you can take that lesson and do it better the next time you are up at the plate. If I was worried about failing, I definitely would have not accomplished some of my greatest achievements. It’s truly all about trying, working hard, and learning.
Is there anything that you haven’t done that you still want to do?
There are many things! Here are a few:
I want to get better at surfing. I’m a longboarder and I want to be better at 60 than I was at 40.
I want to pick up where I left off in my thirties and get back on the jiu jitsu mat. I’d love to work towards earning my black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu in my sixties.
There are also many places in the world that I’d still like to see.
And I want to become a truly great franchisor with OutFit, learn how to operate that business brilliantly, and help my partners — who are the franchise owners — generate real, durable net worth for themselves and their families.