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Meet Kurt Nortman of Monolith in North Scottsdale

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Kurt Nortman.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My business partner, Adam Truszkowski and I have different backgrounds but similar aspirations. I am originally from Baltimore, Maryland and played sports my whole life. Adam is from Pittsburgh and was more into arts and computers. We met over four years ago at a weekend-long personal and professional growth seminar. From this seminar, the idea of our company, Monolith, was born. The question we were trying to answer was, “How do you get as many people as possible to believe that they can be anything or do anything just by changing the way they think?” We named the company Monolith because a monolith is a redoubtable structure that cannot be moved, which is how we want our clients to feel. Set yourself a goal and don’t let anyone or anything knock you off that path. We came up with the motto “Think Massive™”, so our clients would have a trigger when their feet hit the floor in the morning. You wake up, you “Think Massive™” and you go crush your day. The ultimate goal of the company is to change as many peoples lives as possible with one simple message, “If you Think Massive™ every day you can accomplish anything you want.” We are starting to see that message catch on as we meet more and more people who tell us how much that message means to them. When we started the company, it was just Adam and me, now we have athletes and ambassadors that represent our company around the country.

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?
Nothing worthwhile begins with a smooth road. We started a company in one of the noisiest niches in the business world. In the beginning, it was hard to get noticed in the fitness space. We found that most people want to look at pretty people on social media and buy what they were wearing. Our goal was to change that mindset to where people buy apparel that inspires them to keep moving forward. We also bootstrapped the start of the company, so we had to be very selective with how we spent our money. We couldn’t afford big ad campaigns or expensive ‘pay per click’ ads on Google. We used a grassroots effort on social media with a small group of ambassadors who believed in our message to help spread the word about Monolith. And, last but not least, testing and creating quality products to sell was a challenge. We only sell high-quality apparel, to ensure people get what they pay for.

Monolith – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Monolith is a fitness apparel company based in Scottsdale, Arizona, making high-quality fitness and athletic apparel for men and women. We have started to manufacture some of our products right here in Arizona, with the goal to be 100% American made. We love to partner with local businesses in Phoenix and Scottsdale and our products can be found at a couple of local nutritional stores. The company has recently partnered with a local gym in Scottsdale, Bishops Training Facility, to produce high-quality fitness videos for our website and Youtube page. The founder and owner of the gym, Emmett Bishop, shares our vision to create a quality product on the market – and this guy was already living Think Massive™ long before we met him. We are known for the quality of our products, but we might be better known for our motto “Think Massive™”. This motto gets the most attention on social media and at the fitness expos. Honestly, we are proud of our “why” and how our motto Think Massive™ continues to change people’s lives. We have met people at fitness expos that have come to our booth to tell us that the Think Massive™ message led them in a whole new direction in life. Those experiences have made everything we have gone through up to this point worth it. It energizes the whole team and keeps us ready to take on the next challenge.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
There is one situation that had the most impact on us as a company and as human beings. Before each Expo, we print Earned Not Bought (ENB) shirts to give to people who have a great story of overcoming difficulty or beating the odds that were stacked against them. At the Anaheim Fitness expo last year, we had a person come to the booth and ask who we were and what we were about. Obviously, we told him about our company and our message. The Think Massive™ message instantly resonated with this gentlemen. He bought a Think Massive shirt and wanted the ENB shirt. So we made a deal with him – if he lost the 80 lbs he said he was going to lose and sent us a picture we would send him a free ENB shirt. Fast forward four months to the Fitexpo Los Angeles. This man strode up to our booth with a big smile on his face and his sister by his side and gave us all a big hug. He had lost 110 lbs and said that when he met us four months earlier he was going to kill himself because he had lost all hope. His sister was crying and thanked us for giving her brother back. At this point, we were all crying because we had changed a man’s life simply by giving him a tee shirt with a message – if you Think Massive™, you can achieve anything. I really can’t express in words how that felt, but it was exactly why we started the company and we knew that we were accomplishing what we had started out to do in the first place – changing people’s lives through their mindset.

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