Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh Brown.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Josh. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
After graduating college at Virginia Tech in 2009, I worked as a banker and a paralegal for a couple of years. Not feeling fulfilled in what I was doing and feeling a calling to join the military, I joined the Washington D.C. Army National Guard in 2011. Through military training, I developed a strong work ethic, attention to detail, and a confidence in myself I never had before then. I left training feeling highly motivated to find success.
Still looking for my calling I moved back to Texas in 2012, where I am originally from. My first job back to Texas I was simply looking for income and settled working as a Locum Tenens Agent where I helped doctors, physicians, PA’s, RN’s, etc. find temporary work with hospitals, ER’s, family practice centers, etc.
It was the worst job I ever had. I sat at a desk all day making phone calls to doctors trying to convince them to take work that over 85% of doctors won’t even consider, let alone take. Meanwhile I helped and witnessed a friend who had absolutely no business background go from working as a full time esthetician making decent money to owning her own her business that did quite well despite her not really applying herself fully and paying attention to important business related details.
Convinced I could do the same if I followed my passion and combined it with my work-ethic, I decided to pursue what I was passionate about from a young age-health and fitness. Back In college, I wanted to get a degree in nutrition and personal training but I was dissuaded by my father as he thought it was a bad decision due to a “low financial glass ceiling”.
While I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do in the health and fitness industry, I decided to start with getting my personal training certification from NASM so that I could be a legitimate personal trainer and do that on the side for extra income. Shortly after getting my personal training certification in 2013, I met a man in his 50’s who had recently started his small company, “Fit N Fresh To Go”, a health business that sold pre-made nutritious healthy meals.
I convinced him to bring me aboard to help run and expand his business into personal training, nutrition counseling and more. We formed our own company called NEATO Health in 2013 and we were 50/50 partners. I did a lot of the leg work from creating the website, to prepping meals, to setting up merchant accounts, etc. It was a valuable experience.
While NEATO Health had gained some traction, it was still far from being a profitable business, let alone enough to live off. After working with my partner for close to a year, I still had not personally made 1 cent as every penny was used to pay off business debt and reinvest in the business. By early spring of 2014 I had spent through all of my savings to help get the business going and was personally living off of my credit cards and racking up debt, despite my frugal personal life, to the point that my credit cards were maxed out-something had to change fast.
Not long prior to that I was at our shop for NEATO Health trying to set up an online vendor account with a partner company for our nutritious meals. The lady on the phone told me that she didn’t think our meals would be a good fit for her company but she told me about another business featured on her site that was selling very well-this new phenomenon called Cryotherapy. After giving me a brief explanation about Cryotherapy the conversation ended and I was left feeling very intrigued. I researched Cryotherapy extensively online and was led to a distributor of the Cryotherapy machines out of Dallas, TX.
At the time, I was figuring out how we could incorporate Cryotherapy into our business NEATO Health. The Cryotherapy units weren’t cheap (about $50,000) at the time and the location we were at was not logistically able to facilitate a Cryotherapy and the nitrogen tanks needed to run them. To make matters worse my partner and I had no money left to make the necessary investments to buy a unit or move business locations without taking on a huge loan with my business partner.
By early spring of 2014 taking a loan with my business partner was not an option either as our relation had soured. He was much older than me and didn’t respect or trust me with tough decisions as a business partner and in general was just a very negative person at the time as the business debt had taken an even harder toll on him as he was trying to provide for not only himself but his family. While current day we are still friends, the chance of an ongoing business relationship ended.
I told my business partner in early 2014 that I could no longer continue in our quest with NEATO Health as my financial situation was dire and that I was forced to either go find a salary job or try something else on my own. After having no luck on securing a business loan I was very close to abandoning my dreams of starting my own health-related business and going back to a 9-5 conventional job. However, my father convinced me to take one more shot at it and agreed to co-sign on a lease for my first Cryotherapy machine if I could secure a business location.
Since having moved back to Texas in late 2012, I was living with my uncle in his house in Colleyville, Texas. He was gracious enough to take in me, his 27-year-old nephew at the time, who had just decided to up and leave Virginia to return to Texas to find his own path.
My uncle, Dr. Kelly Brown, also happens to be one of the best Chiropractors in the state of Texas, having owned his own practice for over thirty years, all in Grapevine, Texas. Despite years of prior success, his practice was struggling to meet the high overhead requirements mainly associated with his state of the art facility he built 15 years prior that is beautifully designed but expensive. To compound matters, at that same time-frame that I was looking for a potential business location in early 2014, the tenants renting out a significant amount of office space at Dr. Brown’s office bailed out of their lease early as they went out of business.
This turned out to be the blessing we both needed as I was able to fill the void left by the previous tenants and take over the lease and start my baby “Cryofit 360” in April of 2014, which would then be renamed a few months later to our present day name, “Cryo Nation”.
Cryo Nation started off very small as we had no liquid capital starting off. I didn’t hire my first full-time employ for well over a year. This meant manning the store for all hours of operation and literally doing everything that needed to be done for the business myself.
Every month starting off was a struggle to meet overhead and just survive. I literally ate, slept, and breathed just about every moment at Cryo Nation-I was all in. By this point, my uncle was trying to sell his house and I had to move out. I literally was living out of the office at Cryo Nation for nearly the first two years of the business. I kept all my possessions in one tiny closet including my cot from the Army I used to sleep in at the end of the nights in one of our Cryotherapy rooms at the office.
I didn’t mind, in fact I loved every moment of it because I was building my dream.
Over the course of three years we experienced amazing, organic growth and have since added many other services, products, and employees to become much more than just a Cryotherapy Center but a Wellness Center based around Cryotherapy. In fact, we are the busiest nitrogen based Cryotherapy Center in the U.S. today (I don’t know any other locations routinely “freezing” over 100 customers per day).
We create a WOW experience for the customers that exceeds their expectations by offering so much value for what they pay and combining that with our outstanding customer service that we pride ourselves on. The business has a great positive energy that leaves a lasting impression on customers, gets them results for pain issues, weight loss, recovery, sleep, energy, skin issues, etc. We have a wide range of customers, from child athletes, to professional athletes, to my 90 something year old grandparents.
I have recently Franchised our business model and while we have not yet opened our first Franchisee yet, our rapid growth has continued and we have been using this time to our advantage to continue to perfect our model while still evolving and getting further ahead of the competition.
For all of the success we have experienced so far as a company, I am most excited for the future. With some of the new things we are just now starting to incorporate into the business, along with our projected growth and the perfect timing in regards to the health movement taking place in America now, I believe we are in prime position to become a Nationally known brand in the few years.
People in large numbers are starting to look for alternative options to expensive prescription medicine that deals with symptoms and not causes. People are starting to demand natural, holistic products and services that are pro-active in hopes of avoiding going to a doctor in need of medication or surgery. While there is undoubtedly a place for doctors and medicine, people are starting to realize the best medicine is no medicine, if possible.
Long ago, Thomas Edison predicted this movement when he said, “The doctors of the future will give no drugs but instead interest his patients in the care of the human frame, nutrition, and the cause and prevention of disease.”
Anyone who knows me, knows that everything I do in regards to both the business and my personal life (which have essentially been intertwined) is based around this quote and everything we offer as a business in terms of services and products I personally believe in and use myself on a daily basis.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
To be great at anything, you have to be willing to be awful at many things.
In addition to some of the challenges already mentioned, I have made many sacrifices to get the business where it is today. I have no free time, no time for hobbies, no vacations or much of any personal life since starting the business over three years ago.
I have lived very frugal for over 5 years. I have lost many friendships and even lost close contact with some of my own family. My girlfriend of over two years struggles with the lack of time I have for her.
We are open six days per week and I had been there for every hour of every day. I didn’t miss my first day until April of this year when I got a stomach virus and lost 30 pounds in a week.
The more we grow, the more the business demands, so I have to continue to become more efficient with my time and delegate out more duties to keep up with the growing list of demands.
Despite some of these challenges, I consider myself blessed and thankful to be where I am today.
Please tell us about Cryo Nation.
Cryotherapy is our main service. The primary purpose of Cryotherapy is to reduce inflammation. The literal translation of “inflammation” from Greek is “fire”. “Cryo” the literal translation from Greek is “cold”-we are essentially using the cold to put out fires in the body!
But as opposed to a wet cold, like ice that penetrates skin and freezes muscle tissue restricting circulation like ice or ice cold water, Cryotherapy is a dry cold that simply cools the skin temperature down to near 30 degrees, giving the body the illusion it is freezing.
The result is a faster, easier, more efficient process that works better than ice. Each session is only three minutes long, has no down time, and leaves the customers feeling great. This has many benefits from pain issues, weight loss, promoting better sleep, energy and more. What separates us from the other Cryotherapy centers is that we offer much more than just Cryotherapy and do it at a much better price and we have three machines instead of only one so we can offer walk-in availability and very short wait times making it very convenient.
When customers come in for Cryotherapy they also get access to traction tables, restorative neck-stretching devices and alkaline water at no extra cost. Customers who buy 10 packs, or monthly memberships also have access to compression therapy, high-tech body composition scales, oxygen bar, localized Cryotherapy for specific areas and more. In addition to that we perform other services such as Vitamin B-12 shots, Ozone therapy and more. We have recently partnered with a couple of other prominent companies in their respective fields to offer both blood wellness testing through insurance and IV’s for hydration and general wellness to our customers.
We have a beautiful office, great energy at the office and people love spending a short amount of their day with us-many of loyal customers do so six days per week ongoing! Most importantly, people get results for what it is they are coming in for by dealing with the causes of their issues in a smart way geared towards longevity.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Nothing. I have made MANY mistakes but all of them have been valuable learning lessons and have helped me get to where I am today.
Pricing:
- Most of our regulars pay $15 or less for Cryotherapy but no one pays more than $20 per Cryo Session (our single session rate)!
- We provide B-12 shots for only $15.
Contact Info:
- Address: 800 Ira E Woods Ave, Suite 101
- Website: www.cryo-nation.com
- Phone: 817 421 6075
- Email: cryonation1@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cryonation/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cryonation/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryoNation
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cryo-nation-grapevine
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