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In business, everyone has an opinion. It can be easy for founders to get swayed by the latest trends, customer chatter, or investor pressure. However, for Christian Toetzke, founder and CEO of the global fitness racing craze HYROX, staying true to his original vision has been key to the company’s explosive growth.
“You have to be very convinced about your product and the DNA of a product. And you have to stick to the game plan,” he says.
Toetzke appears this week on an episode of One Day with Jon Bier to talk about the power of persistence, the importance of retaining company equity, and other lessons he’s learned since launching his brand in 2017.
Staying the course
By any metrics, HYROX is a success. Competitors run 1 km during the races, followed by one functional workout station, repeated eight times. In 2024, 260,000 people are expected to participate in 60 global events in 65 countries. Sponsors include Red Bull, Puma and Centr.
Still, Toetzke says he’s frequently asked to tinker with the formula.
“In the last five years, I don’t know how many people told me what we have to do.”
The number one request he gets is to change the workouts, which are always the same and include the farmer’s carry, rowing, SkiErg, wall balls, burpee broad jumps, sandbag lunges, and sled push and pull. But Toetzke says he’s studied the most successful sports in the world—marathons, triathlons, golf, tennis, Olympic sports—and notes they never change the fundamental rules of the competition.
Sports are “built around principles and rules and history and heritage,” he says.
Moreover, constantly changing the competition makes it impossible to compare the results of past competitors.
“In traditional sports, you have world records, and that’s one of the strongest marking tools in the world of sports,” he says. “If someone breaks a world record in a hundred-meter run, he’s immediately a global superstar.”
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Being reliable
By maintaining consistency, Toetzke has built a strong brand identity for HYROX. He wants to make it the “marathon of fitness” — a gold standard event that remains consistent across locations.
He admits they still have work to do on this front. As HYROX expands globally, he personally attends events worldwide to ensure they meet brand standards. “I see one million things they did differently in Melbourne and Mexico City. And that’s what we have to change.”
He wants HYROX to be a consistent, reliable experience for participants worldwide.
“To control the brand that is exploding globally, everyone has to follow the same game plan. Everyone has to follow the brand DNA. That’s a difficult task and not easy to do because with more and more people involved, everyone has own ideas how to do it.”
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Innovating with constraints
This is not to say that HYROX isn’t in favor of innovation. Toetzke says that HYROX continually tries to evolve and improve without changing the fundamentals of the sport.
He uses the iPhone as an example. Since its inception, there have been 42 different models with different features, but the basic look has remained the same.
In that regard, Hyrox has made significant innovations in its technology, as well as practical innovations with its equipment. Recently, they introduced sensors so that counting during the wall ball competition is done digitally, taking the onus off the judges. Through their partnership with Centr, the Official Equipment Partner of HYROX, the competition kettlebells are now designed with a unique ‘octo’ shape to allow for better weight distribution and handling during the farmer’s carry.
Taking financial risk
In an era where many startups rush to secure venture capital, often at the cost of significant ownership dilution, Toetzke calls for a more measured approach.
“My biggest advice is if you really believe in your product, try to keep as many shares as possible as long as you can,” he says. “Don’t take the quick money; take the risk.”
He warns against being the “guy who drives the whole business, who’s running all the operations, while the investors are making all the money but do nothing for the business.”
Related: How to Fund Your Business With Venture Capital
Fostering community
Another factor in HYROX’s success has been its ability to build a strong, engaged community around the brand. Toetzke says that 60 to 80 percent of the HYROX community view fitness as integral to their social life.
“You’re not just going to a gym. It’s your group of people. It’s your community, and that is now happening in every gym around the world.”
Toetzke envisions gyms becoming modern-day clubhouses, similar to golf clubs, where members form strong social bonds.
You go together to a HYROX event where you compete together, and you represent your gym,” he says. “Suddenly it’s emotional, suddenly it’s become a community.”