Ian MacDonald: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to best in the biz, the pod talking business with college of the north Atlantic student and alumni entrepreneurs. I'm your host Ian McDonald. And today we're talking with Jacob von Trask owner and operator of Cryotherapy NL. Growing up in Grand Falls, Windsor, Jacob traveled to St.
John's where he went on to study business management, specializing in marketing at CNA. Two years after schooling, Jacob founded Cryotherapy NL in St. John's, which is an advanced recovery and aesthetic center. Thanks Jacob for taking the time to be with us today. How
Jacob Trask: are you? Good. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Yeah, I appreciate
Ian MacDonald: it. All right. To get started, uh, tell us a little bit [00:01:00] about your business and how it came about. It seems like a kind of a newer industry and a lot of people in Newfoundland and Labrador are not really familiar with it. So. Yeah.
Jacob Trask: So, uh, to make it kind of summing up a little bit, we're not here all day talking about it.
I came across cryotherapy probably five or six years ago. And it was, it's very popular in the U. S. It has been for years. It's been a very, uh, growing industry for a while. And I looked into it, uh, more so to curiosity, because obviously you think of freezing the body. I mean, that sounds kind of crazy and wacky.
You never heard of it here anyway. And long story short, I identified that it just didn't quite exist here at all in Newfoundland in particular, but in Canada it had only just kind of slowly made its way over. And so, fast forward to now, did all the training and certification, found the appropriate equipment to bring it over here, and we were the first cryo based clinic to open in Newfoundland.
And at the time when I opened, I was the youngest owner in the world. I don't know if I still am, if anyone younger than me has opened one somewhere else, but that was kind of a cool [00:02:00] side thing there. Yeah, that is cool. But yeah, basically we, uh, we spray dry ice on the body. That's called cryotherapy using, uh, extreme cold.
So at extreme temperatures, minus 77 Celsius to be specific, which sounds crazy, especially where we live in a cold area, but honestly, the cold wind outside feels colder than how it actually feels on the body when, when getting cryo done. But, uh, we service both pain management and, and cosmetics using.
Ian MacDonald: Okay, thanks for that explanation. So, uh, what kind of role did CNA play with respect
Jacob Trask: to your business? Yeah, so one thing I really liked about the program was that it kind of covered a variety just from the business management side of it. Uh, it gave you a, you know, a general idea of everything from accounting, finance, marketing, business law, uh, consumer behavior, sales, and so on.
So as an entrepreneur going into a new business venture, but having kind of a general idea of all these key parts of a business that that was, I mean, that was [00:03:00] crucial. And I wouldn't looking back now, I wouldn't want to enter a business without having a general idea of it. bare minimum accounting, right?
Of course, everything else is kind of a bonus to it. Uh, but that program was, was key in that. And after year two or three, I kind of noticed that I, I was better at the marketing and sales side of thing. And that's the path I decided to go with. And yeah, I mean, that was, without having that initial year or two of doing everything, I wouldn't, I was kind of lost in terms of what direction I wanted to go.
I knew it was business, but I didn't really know where. And that kind of opened, opened the book up for me to be like, okay, here's what I'm, here's what I'm good at. Here's what I enjoy doing. And here's what I want to pursue and, and, and go in that, that path.
Ian MacDonald: Right. Yeah, that's fantastic. It seems like the, uh, the program really helped.
Yeah. So, uh, it's, it's definitely a good foundation for a lot of
Jacob Trask: businesses. That's, and that's, that's the word there. It's the foundation and without it, I mean, there's, there's so many things that business and that kind of put it all in together and kind of gave you a general overview of everything. So that way it kind of, it made it less [00:04:00] complicated once you were actually in there and had an idea of all the different directions you can go with business.
Right. In terms of building a career out
Ian MacDonald: of it. That's right. Yeah, that's great. Okay. So, uh, next one here, what made you become an entrepreneur? So you did touch on. You know, the lack of, uh, the lack of industry here, we saw that as an opportunity, uh, was it that, or was there something else that really. drove you to become an
Jacob Trask: entrepreneur?
Uh, so for, for me personally, I kind of always knew even as a kid, like I knew eventually when that was, who knows, but I always knew that I wanted to do something on my own. Uh, it was, you know, I was, I wasn't a great student in school, like especially high school didn't like it. And I knew that if I could just get out of there and then move on from there, I would eventually be able to pursue something on my own.
What that was, no idea. When it would be no idea, but I just knew that I want to do something of my own. I wanted to have full control over everything and, and create a product or service that I could kind of have full control over. Right? So I feel like some people, you either have it or you don't, but at the same time, you can obviously self learn it [00:05:00] and develop into someone who eventually wants to be an entrepreneur.
But for me, I always knew, like I used to say to myself one day, I'll, I'll do something on my own. And this was just something that made a lot of sense. And I decided to just kind of go all in on. Here we are today. We're doing pretty good. That's awesome.
Ian MacDonald: That's really good to hear. And it seems like a lot of entrepreneurs have that mindset.
You know, they've known from a young age that, uh, that was their end goal to be an entrepreneur. So it, uh, it seems to be a common theme for sure. All right. Uh, what was the most successful small business moment you've had so far? So, uh, whether it was a small win, big win, what do you think the most successful moment was?
I
Jacob Trask: want to say like without giving like specific figures, but when we hit a particular revenue amount, um, like a five figure amount in a month, that was kind of a, a wake up moment of like, okay, this is real. Uh, this is a real business that it was, it kind of serves as a proof of concept, like the money side of it.
I mean, that had nothing to do with this more. So here's a proof of concept. We know this is a business that can actually grow and scale. And it was just a [00:06:00] huge learning moment because for the first six, seven, eight months. It was all learning curve, and so we were kind of just seeing what was working, how clients felt about it, learning different protocols that work best for particular types of people.
I mean, just strictly learning only. And then once we were able to hit, you know, bigger revenue goals, we were able to look back and go, Okay, here's what we did really, really well. Here's where we didn't do well. And then we were kind of able to shift efforts into, okay, here's a service that generated X amount of money.
Obviously we should focus more effort attention there or marking dollars there and so on. Right. And once you hit that goal in the first place, it just gets easier from there. Right? Like the first step is always. Hitting the big revenue number next time you do it, it's even easier. And it progressively gets easier.
Right. And that's the same thing for any business fund, any major entrepreneur will tell you, make it a million dollars at 10 times harder than making 10 million and so on. So it even works at a little smaller scale for small business. Right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. That was, once we did that once I was able to identify everything that we were doing wrong in the past eight months [00:07:00] within a couple hours of just kind of sitting down and looking at the numbers.
And from there, just smooth sailing. That's great.
Ian MacDonald: I think that's something that a lot of, uh, small business owners need to do. They kind of need to, uh, you know, once they're up and running and they realize that, you know, some things are more profitable than others, they transition quickly. And I think that's something you need to do as a small business owner to really be successful.
Jacob Trask: Yeah. And like I did something a little bit different. Uh, I was very patient in the beginning and I let it grow very slowly. And luckily I was in a position where I could, I could live off, not making a lot initially, but it, that allowed me to not. Quickly grow and expand too fast that we're, it kind of, it could screw things up and complicate things.
So we went really slow and then we could kind of see trends of, okay, here's the direction we need to start shifting towards. And eventually when you start hitting those, those bigger numbers, you go, okay, we were right. Now let's go all in on, on what's working and, and kind of shift less effort away from what wasn't working or what's not kind of impacting the business enough to, to warrant putting dollars there and putting time and effort into Yep.
Ian MacDonald: Right. Makes total sense. Yeah. [00:08:00] Good stuff.
Samantha Fitzpatrick: Want to learn more about business planning? Stream our pre recorded Business Planning Workshop Series on our website. www. cna. nl. ca slash entrepreneurship Ted Cadigan, Senior Business Consultant at the YMCA of Newfoundland and Labrador, outlines how to write your business plan, identify and engage your customer base, Establish a social media presence and more, explore more services@ymcanl.com.
Thank you Ted and Y M C A N L for your partnership.
Ian MacDonald: Okay. Uh, next question. What advice would you give an inspiring entrepreneur? Yeah,
Jacob Trask: advice. Uh, you know what I. I wanted to answer this in a way that looking back myself too, because I, you know, I did a key mistake in the beginning and I think a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs probably [00:09:00] do the same and that's over complicating the process of just starting something.
I think a lot of people, they kind of focus on being innovative and trying to build something new and create the newest thing. But in reality, like that's, it's a lot harder said than done. And it's not always the most effective way to do it. Like most successful people I know are, are generally boring businesses.
Like business isn't always sexy. Fact of the matter is it's not, and it doesn't have to be, to be successful. Uh, and understanding the concept of you can enter a crowded industry that has a lot of competition, but if you can find a way to serve a customer better. And beat the competition in one way or another, you'll have a successful business.
And do you want me to elaborate that for like my, I certainly can. Uh, so for me, someone who doesn't understand that concept of, of just entering a crowded space, but doing something better might look at my industry, let's say just the cosmetic world and medical spa world, for example. Like there's lots of those offered here in the Avalon.
And some looking down, they'd be like, well, that's a really crowded space. Why would you enter a competitive space like that? That has so much [00:10:00] competition. These places already have brands established. Their name is out there. They have all the advertising all over the news and media wise, they're covered tons of reviews everywhere.
Like it seems like a dangerous place to enter as a first time entrepreneur in a brick and mortar type space. Right. But for me, I looked at it as, okay, clearly all these places exist for a reason. There's clearly a demand for these types of services. What can I do to win over customers from there and bring them here?
So for, for me and my office, it was okay, let's find new technology that no one else here has. And that's the first thing we did. And because it was new technology, we were able to do three things better than competition, essentially, which was. Uh, one, it was safer and more effective, right? So from a health and safety perspective, we can take out and minimize risks associated with other services and competitors that exist it.
And for a lot of people, they'll prioritize the health and safety because when it comes to the body, exactly, that's priority. So people want, yeah, exactly. So you have to take that seriously. Uh, second thing was again, where it's new, we could do sessions much faster than competition. So you don't have to write [00:11:00] off an entire afternoon to come.
into the office, you know, in some cases I've had clients into the office in less than 10 minutes. Wow. It's that fast. So again, from a time perspective, we're saving you a whole bunch of time. That alone can win business, right? And then the third and final thing was, you know, with our device that we brought in specifically, we had no contract obligations where we had to set a minimum price.
A lot of the competitors, the manufacturers of their devices that they have tell them they have to charge X. They can't go below a specific price. Which essentially forces them to charge thousands and thousands of dollars. Right. For us, we didn't have that. I can charge as low or high as I want. So that gives us more price flexibility to compete on price.
Right. So we hit three major things, which was, uh, time of, of the device, the health and safety of it, and then the actual price of it, right. It's a no brainer. You can't compete. Exactly. And again. The other part of it too is like with the new technology, we're able to ensure that we had all the rights to it so no one else could come in and enter the same space, right?
So we know that any new competition that comes in, they're probably using, [00:12:00] um, you know, inferior devices and technology. Again, you're not going to compete there because people want to prioritize the health and safety of it in the first place, right? So it was, uh, for us, that's, that's what we focus on. And as a good, like for an entrepreneur, your biggest goal is just to, to find an industry that's working, that's growing and figure out how you can serve a better.
And so in the beginning, I used to just sit there and try and write all these crazy ideas and think that I had to be the next like Elon Musk and creating all these new things. But reality, that's not realistic. Find something that works and just do it better. And yeah, and that's what we
Ian MacDonald: did. That's some great advice.
I got to say, um, I like how you touched on the three big things there. Um, you know, like the time, the safety and the price. I mean, when you're looking for a service or a product. Those gotta be some of the three biggest things you're going to be looking for when you're buying something.
Jacob Trask: And again, honestly, most service based businesses in particular, if you can do one of those things better, you'll likely build a successful business, right?
I completely agree. If you can hit [00:13:00] even more than that, like, that's extra. Luckily, we were in a position with the technology we had that we could do those things. But, let me just say, if you can find one thing to do it better, you'll probably be just fine. Yeah,
Ian MacDonald: that's great. Um, to tie into the next couple of questions here, we have a couple of questions from Evan Miles, who's actually a business consultant at the YMCA of Newfoundland and Labrador, uh, one of our close project partners.
So it ties into kind of the technology. He has a couple of questions with, uh, cryotherapy. So the first one, in your experience, how effective is cryotherapy for people who have been experiencing pain for months and years versus people who are using it as a part of the injury recovery
Jacob Trask: process? Yeah. So, um, we'll just kind of separate the two first and kind of just go one at a time.
Uh, look, anything that's inflammation related, everyone knows cold works, right? I mean, it's not a new concept that, you know, if you, uh, if you bump up and break up your knee and you all of a sudden you have swelling and pain in your knee, a doctor's going to tell you continue to ice it, right? Cryotherapy is just taking [00:14:00] standard icing and taking it up a notch using technology, right?
So now instead of putting an ice pack on your knee, we can use localized cryo, which is not only much colder, uh, it. Effectiveness is like an ice pack times a thousand, right? So to make it really easy terms, we're basically just taking existing, uh, knowledge in terms of cold and ice therapy. And we're just using new technology to do that in a much greater way, right?
That's really interesting. So, you know, when I tell clients and they come in, they're asking questions about their pain, I say, look, if you have pain and inflammation there, you can do cryo safely, right? Now, of course, we have like a list of contraindications. We make sure clients are clear of, but as long as you don't have those.
What's great about cryo is that you can do it safely and it's not going to make things worse. It's only going to make things better, right? Worst case scenario, it's not an effective treatment for you. That's okay. You can walk out of the office. You're just fine. You're not going to go backwards, right? So, I mean, we've had people come in the office with dozens and dozens and dozens of different conditions.
Most common I see in the office is arthritis. And that was the first thing that stood out [00:15:00] when I was looking into the industry was clients and just case studies of clients using some form of cold therapy, whether it be Localized or like full body submersion for the goal of reducing inflammation caused by arthritis, right?
So that probably makes up 80 percent of the pain management related clients. We have come in the office. Oh Uh, best case scenario though, when someone's unsure if it's going to be effective for them, I say, look, speak to your, you know, your physio, your chiro, your massage therapist. They understand the benefits of icing.
If they would approve you to do icing on the, on the area, you'll be fine for cryo. Because again, it's just doing icing, but we're just, we're taking it up a notch and using it in a faster, more effective
Ian MacDonald: way. Perfect. I think that that definitely answers that question. You did have a follow up here. Uh, what parts of the body benefit the most from cryotherapy?
Is it more effective, you know, for the smaller muscle groups or the larger muscle groups?
Jacob Trask: At this point, I think I've almost treated probably 90% of the body. So, okay. Yeah. Literally from the neck down, we've treated every, I mean, even in the head, like we, we treat migraines and, and, and headaches with, [00:16:00] uh, with cryo as well.
But the most common, uh, areas that I see people getting treated and at least, and returning customers come back, 'cause obviously works for them, are probably the knees, shoulders, the elbows. So the, the main areas where, At least arthritis for the most part seems to set in and lower backs included in that as well.
Uh, but again, I've literally treated everything from the hands, the fingers, the wrists, uh, the elbows, the biceps. I mean, anywhere that, that has inflammation and you're, you're dealing with pain, cryo has been effective. I think the most, uh, effective area I've seen though, in terms of just strictly based on client feedback, being like, yep, I felt really good for X amount of time.
It's probably the knees. And it also seemed like that's the most common area where people actually get pain. Right? I mean, everyone complains when they're older, you hear guys complaining about, and women complaining about their knee pain, so it kind of goes hand in hand, right? But yeah, we've treated everywhere.
I've never had an area that was noticeably not effective. Uh, it's more so just, it's based on the condition itself that's causing the pain, and also the person. Like, people are all different. Right. And, and pain is all different. Even [00:17:00] if someone matches the same symptoms as someone else, there could be two completely different outliers that are causing it.
Right. So it's not our job to identify that. It's just simply to treat it. And if it works awesome, if not, then we'll just have to find a new, you know, something new to try. Right.
Ian MacDonald: Right. Okay. Good stuff. Okay. So that's it for the questions. Uh, thanks Jacob for answering those. And, uh, thanks Evan for submitting the questions.
Uh, so, uh, wanted to thank you again for being here today. Yeah. Uh, would you like to share your socials so the audience can get in touch?
Jacob Trask: Yeah, you can find us, uh, on both Facebook and Instagram at CryoNL, uh, website's www. cryonl. ca and you can email us directly at info at cryonl. ca and yeah, I think that covers everything.
That's where we're at, but I wouldn't go past Facebook and Instagram for the most part. Yeah.
Ian MacDonald: Fair enough. Uh, is there anything else you wanted to add to, uh, So the podcast today,
Jacob Trask: I'm happy to come in and kind of share a bit of value. I, I think my story is a little bit unique and in terms of, uh, building something that didn't exist here yet and kind of taking a risk on it.
But [00:18:00] it's, it's been a really cool, uh, learning curve, starting it from literally nothing and building into something now. And I look forward to employing more people and continue to expand and impact more people.
Ian MacDonald: Fantastic. I really appreciate that. All right, so that's a wrap for the episode today folks Uh, thank you for tuning in to best in the biz cna's entrepreneurship podcast Leave a review if you like today's episode and keep up to date with all new episodes on our website at www.
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