Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Spettel.
Hi Matt, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I have always been drawn to building things, starting with coding my own video games and filming my own action movies in middle school. I grew up in Merrimack, NH and after graduating as valedictorian of my class, I went on to study electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon. While I was there I got pulled pretty quickly into the world of tech startups and entrepreneurship.
I founded Trainwell with my best friend Gabe Madonna when I was 20, mostly because I saw a problem I wanted to solve and was probably young enough not to fully appreciate how hard starting a company would be! What began as a small idea turned into the thing I have spent most of my adult life building.
Over the years, my role has changed constantly. I went from writing code and talking to early users to hiring teams, raising capital, managing a growing company, and trying to figure out what comes next. I have learned most of it by just jumping in and doing it.
Today, I am still based in Pittsburgh and still working on Trainwell. The company has grown to employ 100+ people and serve tens of thousands of subscribers around the world. I am incredibly proud of what we’ve built and the impact that it has in the world.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Definitely not. I think “smooth road” and “startup” are basically opposites.
We have had plenty of hard moments along the way, from product ideas that did not work, to periods where growth slowed, to having to make difficult decisions about where to focus the business. There were also a lot of times when the company was changing faster than we were, and we had to learn how to hire, manage, build systems, and make decisions at a much higher level than when we started.
One of the biggest challenges has been figuring out how to preserve the quality and personal nature of coaching while making it affordable and scalable. That sounds simple in a pitch deck and turns out to be much harder in real life.
There have definitely been moments where I wondered whether we were making the right decisions, or whether we were going to figure the next stage out. But I think that is also a big part of what makes building a company rewarding. Every few months, you are forced to learn something new and become a little better at your job.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Trainwell?
Trainwell is a remote personal training company. We pair each member with a real, full-time personal trainer who builds their workouts, keeps them accountable, tracks their progress, and helps adjust the plan as life inevitably gets in the way.
What makes us different is that we have always believed the human relationship is the most important part of fitness. There are thousands of workout apps that can tell you what exercises to do. The harder part is actually doing them consistently, knowing when to push harder, and having someone who notices when you disappear for a week.
We combine that human coaching with technology, including wearable integrations and motion analysis, to make personal training more accessible and scalable than the traditional model. That has allowed us to grow into an eight-figure revenue business serving thousands of members across the country and to work with major fitness brands like Peloton.
What I am most proud of is that Trainwell has never really been about selling workouts. It is about helping people build a lasting relationship with fitness. We have had members tell us they are stronger, healthier, more confident, or simply exercising consistently for the first time in their lives. That is the part of the business that is hardest to put on a spreadsheet, and probably the part that matters most.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
What I like most about Pittsburgh is the tech and startup community around Carnegie Mellon. There are an incredible number of smart, ambitious people here working on interesting problems, and I have met a lot of people through that community who have had a huge impact on me and on Trainwell.
What I like least is that we still lose too many of those people after college. Pittsburgh has a lot of the ingredients to build a much bigger tech ecosystem, but a huge number of talented graduates still leave for places like New York or San Francisco.
Pricing:
- $149/mo for unlimited personal training
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.trainwell.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jointrainwell/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jointrainwell/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/35432505
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jointrainwell
