In business, everyone has one opinion. It can be easy for founders to get swayed by the latest trends, customer chatter or investor pressure. However, for Christian Toetzke, founder and CEO of global fitness racing mania HYROXstaying true to his original vision has been key to the company's explosive growth.

“You have to be very confident about your product and the DNA of a product. And you have to stick to the game plan,” he says.

Toetzke appears this week in an episode of A day with Jon Bier to talk about the power of persistence, the importance of holding company capital, and other lessons he's learned since starting his brand in 2017.

Staying the course

By any metric, HYROX is a success. Competitors run 1 km during the races, followed by a functional training station, repeated eight times. In 2024, 260,000 people are expected to participate in 60 global events in 65 countries. Sponsors include Red Bull, Puma and Centr.

However, Toetzke says he is often asked to tinker with the formula.

“In the last five years, I don't know how many people have told me what we should do.”

The number one request he gets is to change up the workouts, which are always the same and include the farmer's carry, rowing, SkiErg, wall balls, burpee broad jumps, sandbag throws, and sled pushes and pulls. But Toetzke says he has studied the world's most successful sports — marathons, triathlons, golf, tennis, Olympic sports — and notes that they never change the basic rules of competition.

Sports are “built around principles and rules, history and legacy,” he says.

Furthermore, the constant change of competition makes it impossible to compare the results of past competitors.

“In traditional sports, you have world records and that's one of the strongest scoring tools in the world of sport,” he says. “If someone breaks a world record in a hundred meters, they are immediately a global superstar.”

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Being reliable

By maintaining consistency, Toetzke has built a strong brand identity for HYROX. He wants to make it the “marathon of fitness” – a gold standard event that remains consistent across countries.

He admits they still have work to do on that front. As HYROX expands globally, he personally attends events around the world to ensure they meet brand standards. “I see a million things they did differently in Melbourne and Mexico City. And that's what we have to change.”

He wants HYROX to be a consistent and reliable experience for participants worldwide.

“To control the brand that is exploding globally, everyone has to follow the same game plan. Everyone has to follow the DNA of the brand. This is a difficult and not easy task to do because with ever the more people involved, everyone has their own ideas about how to do it.”

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Innovation with limitations

This does not mean that HYROX is not in favor of innovation. Toetzke says HYROX constantly strives to evolve and improve without changing the fundamentals of the sport.

He uses the iPhone as an example. Since its inception, there have been 42 different models with different features, but the basic look has remained the same.

In this regard, Hyrox has made significant innovations in its technology as well as practical innovations with its devices. Recently, they introduced sensors so that the counting during the wall ball competition is done digitally, taking the burden off the referees. Through their partnership with Centr, HYROX's Official Equipment Partner, competition kettlebells are now designed with a unique 'octo' shape to allow for better weight distribution and handling when carried by the farmer.

Taking financial risk

In an era where many startups rush to secure venture capital, often at the cost of significantly diluting ownership, Toetzke calls for a more measured approach.

“My biggest piece of advice is if you really believe in your product, try to hold onto as much stock for as long as you can,” he says. “Don't take the quick buck, take the risk.”

He warns against being “the guy who runs the whole business, who runs all the operations, while the investors are making all the money but doing nothing for the business.”

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Fostering community

Another factor in HYROX's success has been its ability to build a strong and engaged community around the brand. Toetzke says 60 to 80 percent of the HYROX community sees fitness as an integral part of their social life.

“You're not just going to a gym. It's your group of people. It's your community, and it's happening now in every gym around the world.”

Toetzke envisions gyms becoming modern clubhouses, similar to golf clubs, where members form strong social bonds.

You go to a HYROX event together where you compete together and represent your gym, he says. “Suddenly it's emotional, suddenly it's become a community.”