IAM015 – Entrepreneur Brings the 1st Cryotherapy Company to the DMV

Brandon Yu is the owner of Thrive CryoStudio, the first cryotherapy company in the DMV (Washington DC, Maryland & Virginia area). Brandon left the corporate world to bring cryotherapy, a trending holistic health & wellness treatment to the DMV area. Since opening in 2016, Brandon has provided over 80,000 cryotherapy sessions for individuals who suffer from chronic pain to elite professional athletes. Brandon's passion is helping people thrive in a better state of being.

• CEO Hack: Gary Vaynerchuk podcasts “Go out and do ‘stuff'”
• CEO Nugget: Keep going and keep grinding / There is no right time. Just do it!
• CEO ReDefined: (1) Helping make a difference (2) Chase my goals and have a network of influence and learn

Website: http://www.thrivecryostudio.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/@Thrivecryostudio

Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a special guest on the show today, Brandy of Thrive CryoStudio. Brandon, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Brandon Yu 0:38

Gresh and thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

I have no problem. No problem. Well, what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Brandon so you get an idea of all the awesome things that he's doing. And Brandon is the owner of Thrive CryoStudio, the first cryotherapy Studio at the DMV. Brandon left the corporate world to bring cryotherapy, a trending holistic health and wellness treatment to the DMV area. Since opening in 2016, Brandon has provided over 80,000 cryotherapy sessions for individuals who are suffering from chronic pain to elite professional athletes. Brandon's passion is helping people thrive to a better state of being. Brandon, it's awesome to have you on the show. And are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Brandon Yu 1:21

I'm excited. Let's get started.

Gresham Harkless 1:22

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, the first thing that I do is just kind of give you the mic so to speak, to see if you can tell us anything additional about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

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Brandon Yu 1:32

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. And I think that in the back of my mind working in the corporate world, I've worked in the corporate world for about 10 years, I was always just looking for ideas like what is that idea? What is that thing that I can go ahead and start and make a difference in the world if you will? So I came across cryotherapy myself, kind of just as a user, I had injured my elbow pretty badly and saw this like trend of cryotherapy across the country, mostly on the West Coast. I travel a lot from my job and we're like, you know, Gresham, everything starts on the West Coast, right, and makes its way over to the East Coast.

And  I saw this trend of individuals, whether they be celebrities, professional athletes, or just your everyday individuals that were looking for what we call, body hacks where they won't have to take medications all the time or whatever, using this cryotherapy. So I think it was the right mix of timing, identifying that service or need me wanting to be able to kind of help individuals and then just kind of taking that risk and going out on my own.

Gresham Harkless 2:44

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah, I love the fact that you know, it's kind of like scratching your own itch, so to speak, where you find something that works well for you. And then you're like, hey, you know, this might be a business opportunity and seems like everything else kind of falls in from there. So could you talk I guess a little bit more about what cryotherapy is and the services that you provide to the people that come to your company?

Brandon Yu 3:03

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of people don't have heard about whole-body cryotherapy. When you bring up the word cryotherapy, a lot of people say oh, yeah, that's when you freeze dead people. I am not in the business of freezing dead people. I want everyone to be clear about that. Whole-body cryotherapy is a chamber that you step in your head above the chamber, and it basically gets down to negative 240 degrees Fahrenheit. I know what you're thinking, Gresham, how, like how, how could anyone survive in that? Well, it's completely dry nitrogen vapor that hits the body. And what it does is it just helps the overall body kind of shocks the body and helps it recover faster, helps it kind of treat chronic pain and inflammation helps athletes with their muscle recovery and muscle soreness helps their recovery time.

In fact, a lot of professional teams are actually installing cryotherapy chambers in their locker rooms and using that instead of IB, you know, age-old ice baths. You know, for our business, we offer whole-body cryotherapy services, we offer an infrared sauna service where it basically helps you detox at a lot faster rate. And then we're actually at the end of May, I'm super excited to be adding a device directly from Paris. That is a slimming and fat-burning device as well. So we help a lot with just kind of holistic health along with beauty side as well.

Gresham Harkless 4:22

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you're here. We're definitely reading my mind. I was like, how does that happen? But I've seen and heard like a lot of the, you know, the best professional athletes that go through kind of chambers like that. So um, it's awesome that you're bringing in so that anybody that's going through any pain can kind of alleviate that pain to some degree. So the next question I had was about, like, kind of like what you feel makes your organization or your company unique.

Brandon Yu 4:47

I think that's a no-brainer. It's my staff and our team. I'm a small business, you know. Gresham, I know you talked with a lot of CEOs, I don't know how many of them are like small, small businesses like mine. But I wear the hat that of every C suite, right like so, um, CEO, CMO CFO, everyone sees blank, oh, you could think of, and at times, it's tough. And I will be honest, you know, leaving my corporate job, I didn't realize how many aspects of the business I would be touching. But it's been, it's been a great experience. That being said, I wouldn't be able to do it without my staff. And my staff has been amazing, not only for me, but that's what makes us unique as well. I mean, we really take the time to get to know our customers to understand their pain points, and why they're even coming in to try cryotherapy to the customer service that we provide and the education that we provide. And that's really important to me, I always tell my staff, they're way overqualified to be working at Thrive CryoStudio, yet, I'm so fortunate to have them and I buy in four sets makes our organization unique.

Gresham Harkless 5:55

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think a lot of people forget, when you peel back the onion of businesses, you realize that it's people, it's a collection of people that are making everything move along and go along. So awesome job for you, and obviously, your team, and pulling together and doing some awesome things. So I know you kind of spoke a little bit about hacks you were talking to more about kind of hacks that athletes or people that are in fitness might have but I wanted to ask you for a CEO hack, which might be like a resource, or a book, or an app or something that you use on a regular everyday basis that you feel makes you more efficient.

Brandon Yu 6:26

Yeah, absolutely. I know. Because I'm I don't know if this answered your question. If it doesn't, you know, let me know. But I think I'm a big podcast listener. And I love Gary Vee. Gary Vaynerchuk. I don't know. Have you heard any of his stuff?

Gresham Harkless 6:39

More than enough.

Brandon Yu 6:40

Yeah!

Gresham Harkless 6:41

He he's awesome. Good. Okay.

Brandon Yu 6:43

The one thing that I like about him is it's just, you know, like, go out. And I don't know if I can cuss but he cusses a lot. It's just like, go out and do stuff, right, like, take action. And I think, you know, just me in the corporate world. And in me when I first started, like, I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted everything to be perfect before I even rolled something out, right? Whether that's like an email campaign to my clients, or whatever. But I think the biggest thing that I've learned, and I don't know if this is like a CEO hack, per se, but it's like, you just gotta go out and do it. And you're gonna learn from doing these things. Like you can't have everything tied up in a bow and present it because at the end of the day, like, you're, you're going to be holding yourself back and you're going to be holding the company back if you do that.

Gresham Harkless 7:30

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Gary Vee has a tremendous amount of content and information that he puts out, but definitely he is really good at motivating people to not let the perfect get in the way, though possible, as I usually try to say, and just kind of move on and get, you know, started moving towards action. And that's when things will start happening. So it that's an awesome CEO hack. Now, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for a CEO nugget, which might be like a word of wisdom or piece of advice that you might have for like entrepreneurs and business owners.

Brandon Yu 7:57

Yeah, I think it ties into the last question that you asked Gresham is, keep going just like keep grinding. There are days and it's funny because just since starting my business, I know a lot of individuals reach out to me and I network with a lot of CEOs and business owners. And I think the one thing for small business, in particular, is sometimes, at the top as a business owner, it can be a little lonely, and what I mean by a little lonely, it's like, you always have that constant thought process of,  am I doing the right thing? Am I making the right decision? Is this going to work out?

And you know, while I think every CEO and business owner has that grand goal that they want to achieve during the day-in and day-out grind of taking action, for example, some days, you're not going to have the perfect day or some days, you're going to have discouraging days. And I think ultimately, if you have better good days than bad days, then keep on kind of trekking towards your goal because being a CEO is not as mostly as the saying goes, the grass is not always greener on the other side, right? I have friends that always tell me oh, it must be nice to own your own business, you can do whatever you want, so and so but a lot of people don't understand it. And quite frankly, I don't think I understood the amount of work and the amount of level of effort that it took until I kind of engulfed myself in it.

Gresham Harkless 9:29

I mean you to my friend, he never really knows how much stuff you have to do and how many things you have to juggle until you actually start doing it. And you can read everything there is about you know, running your own business and starting your own business, but it's only when you're kind of in the trenches that you say that, hey, I really am doing a lot of work but you know, definitely, a lot of times it's you know, well worth the investment.

Brandon Yu 9:48

Yeah, absolutely. You know what, as well. Gresham

Gresham Harkless 9:51

Yes, So that is kind of the next question and we touched a little bit on this and I know you talked about you know being the CEO and basically anything that hasn't been seen in front of it. So what I wanted to do was just to ask you, how would you define being a CEO? What does that mean to you?

Brandon Yu 10:06

Yeah, I think I would define two ways one being the CEO of Thrive CryoStudio from a consumer standpoint, it means I'm helping make a difference in people's lives. We have individuals that come in each and every day that, you know, they'll come in and say,  I really needed this session today, or, my pain levels have gone down so much that I don't have to take my medication as much anymore. You know, I've weaned off the opioids that they were taking, or, you know, individuals that come in with psoriasis all over their skin, it's like, you know, I feel more confident about myself, because these aren't, these lesions aren't there anymore, right.

So I think from a CEO perspective, from a consumer-facing side, it makes me sleep well at night. And I'm helping people from a business side point, and just being a CEO in general, I'm just trying to chase my goals of, you know, being able, I'm not looking for anything fancy, right? A lot of people think like, oh, yeah, you're a big shot, you're CEO, I just wanna make a difference and be able to help individuals, other business owners, and having that network of influence as well to be able to encourage individuals that, may have gone through the same things. And I'm going and then from my stance, learning as much and being encouraged as well. And I think being a CEO has put me into that kind of network if you will because I would have never been in this network if I continued just in the corporate world,  if you will.

Gresham Harkless 11:29

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it's like a different way of thinking a different way of looking at things. So you know, that's super awesome that you approach it in that way. And it definitely sounds like it's paying dividends with what you're doing with Thrive CryoStudio. Yeah. So I'm super appreciative of you taking some time out of your schedule to kind of speak with us and give us some awesome words of wisdom. What I wanted to do is just kind of pass you the mic one more time, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional, you can kind of tell our readers and our listeners.

Brandon Yu 11:57

Yeah, absolutely. I think the first thing it, Gresham, should be a seamless plug. If anyone out there who's listening hasn't tried cryotherapy. I encourage everyone to at least try it once. The difference is that you'll feel that just like these individuals like Tony Robbins, and these celebrities that are doing it, and these athletes, there's a reason why they are doing it. And whether it's with thriving, or it's with the closest cryotherapy place to wherever you're located, I'd encourage you to come out and go out and try cryotherapy for yourselves. The only other thing I would say is,

I know a lot of people who are listening to this podcast are probably business owners, or CEOs themselves or thinking about the kind of starting their own business. Or maybe you know, they're thinking about doing something they've always wanted to do just, you know, the norms of everyday life are the tasks and duties of everyday life just are always there. And they're waiting for that right time.

The one thing that I had struggled with before I left the corporate world was like, when is the right time. And the short answer is there is no right time. And I think if you're passionate about it, and it's something that continues to just be top of mind for you. And I would say just take that risk and do it. I read a lot of books and listen to a lot of motivational kind of podcasts like we mentioned earlier, and a lot of people's biggest regret is just not taking action, right? No, you very, very rarely hear individuals say, man, I regret doing this, or I regret doing that. Right? From a business side or taking a risk side. But a lot of people do come back and say, man, I regret not leaving the corporate job to start my own business or I regret not taking this kind of risk. And I think with anything as long as it's calculated, it's well thought out. There's never going to be a right quote unquote, right time. Go out and take action.

Gresham Harkless 13:43

I love it. I love it. I love it. So Brandon, if somebody wants to take action and try out CryoStudio, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you and get in touch with you?

Brandon Yu 13:53

Yeah, absolutely. They can visit our website www.thrivecryostudio.com They can also just email me at brandon@thrivecryo studio.com whether they want to try cryotherapy or not, or if they have any questions or just want to connect, I'd love to chat with anyone out there who's willing to connect. That's how you can find us and then the phone number is 240-804-5188

Gresham Harkless 14:16

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Brandon, for you know all the awesome things that you're doing all the loads of information that you provided to us and then you know, I appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Brandon Yu 14:28

Thanks, Gresh

Outro 14:29

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless thank you for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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