Shalom Meckenzie made a $1.4 billion fortune after merging his software company with DraftKings. He now believes his new fitness company, Amp, could be even bigger—just don’t remind him about Peloton. Or Mirror. Or...
Mekenzie isn’t the first one to think there’s a big business in at-home workouts: Amp’s business model is nearly identical to that of a slew of failed and struggling exercise companies like Tonal, Peloton and Mirror: Sell wealthy folks an expensive machine, hire a bunch of celebrity trainers, collect “data” and then pray you can make money by expanding into more profitable ancillary markets (personalized nutrition, subscriptions and apparel) before the customers get bored and move on. It hasn’t worked for anyone else, but that’s not stopping Meckenzie, who is largely self-financing the company for now.
A minimalist version of a cable crossover machine found at any gym, the wall-mounted Amp costs $2,000; accessing the trainers (both AI and human) through the app requires a $23 monthly subscription. Because Amp lacks a screen (users log in through their own devices), the upfront cost is about half of Tonal’s. Amp, which launched sales in January, has hired a dozen or so fitness influencers and minor celebrities as trainers, the most famous of whom is America’s Got Talent host Terry Crews, who has 14 million followers on Instagram.
All this skepticism only motivates Meckenzie. “When I started SBTech, many people came to me and said, ‘Shalom, you’re stupid, you’re using all the money you have and [money] you don’t have, and you’re going to get you and your family in trouble,’ ” he says. “When people offend me, that’s what keeps me going.”
Read the full story on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2025/03/27/sports-gambling-billionaire-shalom-meckenzie-interview-home-exercise-startup-amp-fitness/
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Mekenzie isn’t the first one to think there’s a big business in at-home workouts: Amp’s business model is nearly identical to that of a slew of failed and struggling exercise companies like Tonal, Peloton and Mirror: Sell wealthy folks an expensive machine, hire a bunch of celebrity trainers, collect “data” and then pray you can make money by expanding into more profitable ancillary markets (personalized nutrition, subscriptions and apparel) before the customers get bored and move on. It hasn’t worked for anyone else, but that’s not stopping Meckenzie, who is largely self-financing the company for now.
A minimalist version of a cable crossover machine found at any gym, the wall-mounted Amp costs $2,000; accessing the trainers (both AI and human) through the app requires a $23 monthly subscription. Because Amp lacks a screen (users log in through their own devices), the upfront cost is about half of Tonal’s. Amp, which launched sales in January, has hired a dozen or so fitness influencers and minor celebrities as trainers, the most famous of whom is America’s Got Talent host Terry Crews, who has 14 million followers on Instagram.
All this skepticism only motivates Meckenzie. “When I started SBTech, many people came to me and said, ‘Shalom, you’re stupid, you’re using all the money you have and [money] you don’t have, and you’re going to get you and your family in trouble,’ ” he says. “When people offend me, that’s what keeps me going.”
Read the full story on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2025/03/27/sports-gambling-billionaire-shalom-meckenzie-interview-home-exercise-startup-amp-fitness/
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Eventually, in life, everything is about risk management and odds.
00:05Like what's the probability of you being successful in what you're doing?
00:09And what's the probability of you making a certain investment and having a positive ROI?
00:14At the end of the day, everything is about probability.
00:19I lost my father when I was 18.
00:21And ever since I lost him, I was very much into fitness and wellness.
00:26And I didn't want my kids to go through what I went through in life.
00:29That's why I was always fit, made sure that I'm eating very healthy, and I researched the industry.
00:36And although my background is gaming, I was always working out and I knew that I wanted
00:40to have an impact and to have people live a longer and healthier life.
00:47Shalom McKenzie made his $1.4 billion fortune after merging his software company with DraftKings
00:53and going public via a SPAC.
00:55He believes his new startup, Amp, could be even bigger.
00:59But building a new company in the challenging, competitive, and highly saturated at-home
01:03fitness device market is not for the faint of heart.
01:06And the odds are stacked against him.
01:08Ever since I was a kid, I was very much into sports, statistics, and I was very good with numbers.
01:14So I used to place a lot of bets when I was a kid with my friends.
01:18I founded Tenbet in 2002 with a friend of mine.
01:21We were only five people in the company.
01:24And when we started, we didn't have money to market.
01:27So we offered the best odds on the market.
01:31We've made our software very sophisticated by detecting who's a sharp customer and who's recreational.
01:37And we knew how to manage the odds.
01:41And we saw that our strength is in technology.
01:44I founded SB Tech in 2007 because I saw that it has more potential for us because we can
01:50work with the biggest operators if they'll use our software.
01:54And we don't have to market to spend a lot of money on marketing.
01:57SB Tech eventually became the biggest software provider in the world for sports betting companies.
02:02In October 2020, McKenzie was playing poker with his employees on a 192-foot yacht off
02:07the coast of Greece, celebrating that SB Tech had merged with DraftKings and went public
02:12via a SPAC in a $975 million deal a few months earlier.
02:17We were playing poker every night, went to restaurants, did a lot of water sports, and
02:21had a very good time together.
02:24And one of the guys that worked with me is very close to me.
02:28And he was very fundamental for SB Tech.
02:31I was always trying to influence him to lose down on his weight.
02:34And I made a bet with him that if he's going to go below 100 kilos, which is 220 pounds,
02:40I'm going to take a very big yacht for him.
02:42And he's going to choose the people and the place that he's going to go with.
02:46So all the guys that heard about the bet, they went crazy and said, you must lose your
02:51weight.
02:52You're going to go into a regime.
02:54So he went back home, and they took out all of his living room away.
02:59And they put it at gym.
03:01And he was working out twice a day.
03:03He had a personal chef, a personal trainer.
03:07And happily, I lost the bet.
03:09He lost more than 25 kilos, which is more than 50 pounds.
03:13And because of that, it completely changed his life.
03:18That friendly wager became the motivation for Amp Fitness.
03:21Similar to other at-home workout equipment manufacturers, such as Tonal, Alter, and Mirror,
03:27the nearly $2,000 Amp is installed on a wall in a user's home.
03:30And remote trainers, both AI-generated and human, guide customers through exercises within
03:35the app, which requires a $23-a-month subscription.
03:41It's actually a digital crossover device with resistance up to 100 pounds.
03:47It has three angles.
03:49First angle, second angle, third angle.
03:54And then I'm pulling the knob.
03:55It can go down and up, also within a finger, because it has an electric magnet motor that
04:03controls the weight.
04:04And so it's also zero gravity.
04:06So it's very easy to pull up or pull down.
04:09The app uses no weights.
04:10Rather, a silent electromagnetic motor creates resistance, from 5 pounds to 100 pounds, which
04:16can be increased with the turn of a dial, similar to a Google Nest thermostat.
04:21Users then get personalized workouts.
04:22The amount of resistance will increase or decrease, and the duration and intensity will
04:26also fluctuate, depending on progress.
04:29One of the things that drove me crazy is that today you've got much more data on your mobile
04:35or on your car than you have on your own body.
04:37You know, what was your workout a month ago?
04:39How much did you bench press a year ago, and how much are you bench pressing now or
04:43a month ago?
04:44You know, you don't have this data.
04:46I wanted to come up with a device that will be your own personal trainer, will count your
04:52reps, calculate your progress, show you how you're improving, and also give you the right
04:59workouts and movements according to your goals.
05:02I wanted people to have fun while working out because, you know, it's a fun experience
05:11that they want to share with their friends.
05:13How do you motivate someone to overachieve, to break his record, to be motivated?
05:18Because sometimes you're not feeling like working out.
05:21We've done it in a social way that they can compete with other people.
05:24They're having fun.
05:25They know how they're making progress.
05:28The whole user journey is something that does not exist today on the market.
05:33McKenzie says he personally invested about $50 million to Seed Amp, and friends and family
05:38invested as well.
05:39I'm taking bets by investing into people that I'm recruiting and that I know that they can
05:45deliver, and investing in a product and technology that I believe in and I know that is going
05:55to revolutionize this space.
05:57I think that my background and being a second-time entrepreneur coming from the gaming industry
06:02with a lot of knowledge in technology and product and having the know-how how to make
06:08a product that is super engaging, fun, and simple plays out to our advantage.
06:15In order for me to leverage the success of Amp and to make sure that it's going to be
06:20the dominant player in this industry, I think that we would want to go public in the next
06:26three to four years.
06:27I don't see strength as the only vertical for Amp.
06:31It's the whole ecosystem of wellness, which is nutrition, supplements, sleep, strength,
06:37and how you are using this data in order for you to fulfill your potential and be stronger
06:42and healthier.
06:44There's no other product like this in the market.