Ashley Mills and Mark Mullett share what keeps them moving, and it's about to get cosmic

"Community is at the center of everything we do." In You've Got This this week, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of obé Fitness Mark Mullett and Ashley Mills discussed the poetic inspiration behind their company name, what it's like to create live content during coronavirus, and why community is such a vital aspect of fitness. Read on for their answers - and be sure to join us for our next surprise guest, an award-winning film producer, director, author, and lecturer that I look forward to sharing with you next week!

Victoria: "Your name, obé, stands for Our Body Electric. What does that mean to you?"

Mark: "We decided on the name Our Body Electric because we were inspired by the Walt Whitman poem, “I Sing the Body Electric,” about the wonders of the human form, written in 1855. The funny thing is our studio in Dumbo is five minutes away from Walt Whitman Park, which we didn’t realize when we settled on our HQ location. It was meant to be. obé stands for connected fitness-- our community, our bodies, and our vibe. We wanted to create something that looked and felt different than any other platform out there."

Victoria: "How did your personal fitness experiences inspire your company?"

Mark: "Ashley and I grew up in the 1980s watching our moms sweat it out with Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons. We associated accessible at-home fitness with fun, joy and self-improvement from a really early age. Flash forward 25 years – we found ourselves working as talent agents at CA in Los Angeles. We spent our careers representing on-camera talent and packaging media properties for broadcast, cable and OTT platforms – bringing great content, diverse points of view and culture-informing experiences to global audiences at home. As colleagues and wellness fanatics, Ashley and I were always chatting about our favorite fitness experiences and instructors.

One day we asked, “Why can’t we do what we do best and democratize great fitness experiences across a greater, global community?” 

In retrospect, we didn’t leave the entertainment business – we brought entertainment to the wellness business."

Victoria: "When you started obé in 2018, you were predicting a virtual fitness future. Now that virtual fitness has become a vital part of so many people's experience, what do you see as next for the space?"

Mark: "I love this question, because we certainly didn’t invent the idea of working out from home. We recognized a huge demographic of people across the US were being underserved in the fitness category, and they wanted access to varied, premium content that didn’t come with a Park Avenue zip code or price tag. In a pre-COVID world, we always knew you could have a special, community driven experience from your living room-- and we also recognized the way to get people to stick to a consistent routine meant keeping them entertained and having fun. We coined the term “entertrainment” to define our programming – daily live classes, themed classes, challenges, tutorials and topical interviews with industry leaders. Now that people have to stay home, we are proud to continue to be of service to our members, and know that obé will remain an important part of people’s lives in a post-COVID-19 world."

Victoria: "Are your instructors still filming live classes? What adjustments have you made around coronavirus?"

Mark: "When New York State issued shelter in place orders in March, we were deemed an essential business four days later by the Governor’s Office. We quickly made adjustments to keep our talent and production teams safe and distanced. We take this responsibility very seriously, and believe it’s an honor to stay live every day to serve our unique, diverse community. Our members are like family, and the obé team wanted to make sure we stepped up to keep them safe, strong and sane during an unprecedented moment in our lifetime. We’ve always been a platform that was built and shaped by its members, so we asked them what they needed most. We launched programming for kids and seniors, and offered free memberships to frontline workers. We’re about to launch weeknight programming, along with a few other evening activities like virtual Spa Night. We want to turn your house into a place of growth, happiness and levity, where there’s something for everyone."

Victoria: "How is community a part of the virtual fitness experience?"

Ashley: "Community is at the center of everything we do. That was part of our initial thesis - it’s what makes a boutique fitness class great. We air 14 live classes a day, 7 days a week, in addition to our library of 4,000+ on-demand workouts.

"During our live classes, instructors shout out members’ names who are tuning in at home. It allows people at home to connect with an instructor, and at the end of class we ask people to share their “sweaty selfie” in our Facebook group or on Instagram. These aren’t fancy selfies- you have a red tomato face or messy makeup from working out. It’s the great equalizer!"

We engage with members everyday, responding to them and reposting their photos. In our Facebook group, when people post their “sweaty selfie,” other members will comment on their photo letting them know they recognized their names from the shout outs in class. Pre-COVID-19, we had 60 members fly in from 41 cities across the country for a retreat in New York City. We were wondering what it was going to be like, and when everyone walked in it was like a high school reunion. People who saw each other virtually every day felt like they were old friends reuniting, and they were crying and embracing. At the heart of it, community is what governs what we do. We take a lot of cues from the community. For the longest time, members were asking us for trampoline classes. I wasn’t a trampoline class goer myself, but sure enough, we put those classes on our platform, and they’ve done well. We’re here to be a support system to our members."

Victoria: "How do you decide what classes to offer?"

Ashley: "When we launched in March 2018, we knew that people identified with one of two things: they either wanted creative movement and sequencing, or they wanted functional movement. We launched with cardio, strength and sculpting. From there, we looked to our audience for feedback, quickly introducing Power, Pilates, Barre, Yoga, and several variations of yoga. We have 12 different class types and are constantly adding more. All the workouts, with the exception of the trampoline classes, can be done with no or limited equipment. The content is for everybody, and you can level up by adding lightweight resistance bands. We come from the talent world, and our job as agents was identifying talent that had a strong point of view, then building them and developing them. We’re constantly researching and we want to know everybody in this world. At the end of the day, it’s about finding incredible talent that our audience can relate to."

 Mark: "We love fitness professionals who have something to say to the world. The people who not only know how to program a killer workout, but who are also performers at heart, they make you think, laugh, smile, and cry, depending on what we’re doing. Our view has always been that there are a lot of places to learn how to do a plank or squat series in our digital world, but we focus on premium daily experiences, a connected community ready to take on the challenge with you, and having some fun in the process. To get in touch, reach out to VIP@obefitness.com."

Follow Ashley and Mark on LinkedIn.

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Be sure to join us for our surprise guest next week - until then, thank you for reading and remember: You've Got This!