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Meet Ira Latham of AmpedPro in Valley Wide

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Ira Latham.

Ira, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
It was about three years ago when my startup journey began. I went to a coach at my gym and asked him what products and service I could use to get more results, outside of my daily torture session… I mean “workouts.”

I was ready and willing to throw money at whatever solution my coach told me to. The advice he gave me was great, ‘eat healthy, try a meal prep company, find a clean supplement you like.’ Great advice, right? But I was an MBA student at the time, and I realized my coach needed a better solution to be able to point me (his customer) to.

Being an average American consumer, I wanted the solution to my problem now and I was ready and willing to spend my hard-earned money for it.

But alas, my coach had no easy way to make a sale and capitalize on my willingness to spend. My couch has spent countless hours working day after day with me, building a relationship with me, his client and I trusted his opinion.

So, the question that stuck with me was “how could my coach better serve me while monetizing his expertise more effectively?” This is what stuck with me after that interaction.

A little while later, I was in the last class of my MBA program. The final project was a group assignment. Our task was to come up with a new product or service in an existing industry. I had the idea for  a vending machine that offered single serving supplements in gyms. Luckily my group agreed to take this idea on for our group project.

While working on this project, one of my classmates and I (later he become my co-founder) looked at each other and thought, ‘this might be something!’ We got an “A” on the project! So my Co-founder and I started putting together a business plan for the idea of a vending machine concept for gyms.

After doing some market research and reaching out to gym owners, we quickly found that no one cared much about our vending machine idea…

Devastated, we went back to the drawing board, we knew there was gap in how the health and fitness market was being served. However, we weren’t sure how to best address this gap.

After looking over some of the feedback we got from some of the gym owners we spoke with, we saw the following bet of feedback: “What are you actually trying to do for the gym community I built?”

There it was! What was important was the value we added to the gym owner and their community.

It was from there that we focused on the value we could add to the small businesses, their clients and the community.

My co-founder and I both had a background in IT and business. So, we started to explore the idea of a Business to Business to Consumer platform (B2B2C).

It took many iterations, a lot of our personal savings and many sleepless nights. However, we now have an ecosystem of local businesses that can easily refer clients to each other. In addition to this ecosystem or referral network, our platform offer business tools that helps our small business partners operate and increase revenue.

We launched our beta test in 3 gym locations in late 2019. 4 months later, we added more locations and went from 3 to 19 locations.

We are now over 25 locations in Phoenix and Tucson and gearing up to scale the platform all over the state of Arizona.

We are partnering with small businesses, distributors and clients to build a Hyper-Local marketplace that helps to support our local business community. We work with gyms, chiropractor offices, cryotherapy businesses, massage therapist, nutritionist, local meal prep companies and almost any health and fitness business.

We have started in the health and fitness industry, but we are discovering a wide range of applications for the technology we have created.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I doubt there has ever been a start-up that has grown smoothly.

Not only was our first idea a swing and a miss, but we had to go through many iterations to convince businesses to try us out. Not an easy task.

Our vision is to empowers local small businesses, give them a fighting chance when competing against large platforms like Amazon. We also help these local small businesses to work and partner with other local businesses to serve their clients and community for effectively. We have a clear vision and direction. Now it all comes down to partnering with local business, distributors and serving our clients. A big challenge for sure but something we are ready and excited for.

AmpedPro – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are a Business to Business to Consumer commerce platform. What that means is we make it easy and beneficial for local businesses to connect and work together.

We help our business partners not only increase sales but offer a full range of services and products to their clients they haven’t been able to before. These businesses can also refer their clients to other businesses they trust and earn a small commission for it. On the flip side, these businesses can also receive new clients from other businesses on the platform.

Its like Word-of-Mouth marketing version 2.0

Here is how we do this:
We started in the health and fitness industry and by placing a touch screen kiosk/tablet in places like gyms, chiropractic offices, Massage therapist, cryotherapy, physical therapist and many other local businesses that customers frequent.

The kiosk tablet has many features useful to both the business and their clients. One feature is that it is a self-service point of sale system. Customers are able to purchase in location retail items that the business offers right from the kiosk. Our system has inventory management and a back-end marketplace for retailers and distributors.

Also available on the kiosk are services offered by partnering small businesses that the retail location (i.e., the gym, chiropractor or whoever hosts the kiosk) does not offer themselves. These service packages help to get new clients through the door. It’s a great marketing tool and helps businesses refer to each other and earn commissions.

Our online store on the kiosk, allows for the our partnering businesses to offer their clients products that they do not carry themselves, but that they can still earn a commission on. We utilize drop-shipping and the distributors fulfill the order.

Clients are also able to sign up for local events. This can be anything from a gym hosted event to signing up for 10k or community events.

A big part of health and fitness is nutrition, we partner with local meal prep companies to offer an easy way for clients to order weekly meal prep and have it delivered to the client’s home, or to the gym/pickup location. We can also work with the meal prep company and the retail location to offer a Grab-&-Go option for health meals on the go.

Lastly, our kiosk offers a great way to advertise for products, services or local events. In this way, we are helping local businesses and communities to connect.

I have been very proud of how our platform brings hardworking small business owners together. We are only getting started, and I am very excited about what’s next.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I had the opportunity to fulfill my lifelong dream, follow my fathers footsteps and become a United States Marine.

My father passed away about a year ago at the age of 72. He was a Vietnam veteran that was hit during the Tet offensive. The injuries he sustained left him totally blind and deaf in one ear. I never heard my father complain about having to serve or the effects of his services. I will forever be grateful for his example to me and his service to our country and his family.

I did not join the Marine corps until after I got married and started a family. To be honest, I thought it was too late for me to serve, but with the support of my wife Monica and my extended family, I was able to join the Marine corps at the age of 26. I was only months from being too old to join. I served as a Chemical Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense specialist in the 2nd Marine Division.

I am grateful for the opportunity I had to serve and humbled by those that have sacrificed so much more for our country. I am forever in their debt.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
businesses included in pictures include: Scratch culinary, CrossFit Four peaks, Core CrossFit, CrossFit URU, Rave Crossfit, Fitness 1 Gym, Shark Sports Fitness (Tucson), Staynaked Kitchen (Tucson) EastValley Crossfit, Elite U and CrossFit Upperlimites

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