S1 EP 223 | Transforming IV Therapy Through Scalable Innovation with The DRIPBaR and 10X Health

Published Oct 18, 2024, 5:46 PM

In this episode, I sit down with Ben Crosbie, founder of The DRIPBaR, to discuss the rapidly expanding IV therapy industry. Ben shares his vision of franchising in the IV space, starting in 2019 with a goal of creating a scalable franchise model. Within just a few years, The DRIPBaR has grown to 100 locations, with projections to exceed 500 within the next 36 months. The franchise has revolutionized the market by offering IV therapy in non-traditional environments like health clubs, cruise ships, and medical offices. Our conversation highlights the immense potential in combining a strong franchise model with precision health technologies.

We dive into our partnership between The DRIPBaR, 10X Health, and REVIV, and how precision IV therapy, driven by genetic and blood testing, offers personalized health solutions to optimize human performance. This partnership is paving the way for the next level of IV therapy, ensuring safety, consistency, and scalability on a global scale.

It's Brandon Dawson here with Ten-x Health. And I'm sitting here with Ben, who is the founder of Drip Bar. And we're going to be having a discussion about the IV space, the innovation of the marketplace and the opportunities within the market. I think that this is one of the fastest growing segments in business right now. Definitely, definitely agree with you. Thank you for your time today, Brandon. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about what inspired you to be the first big mover in the IV therapy space? Sure, yeah. Back in 2019, I started the drip bar with the group, and I've always been in franchising. I've been in franchising probably for the past ten years. So I saw a huge blue ocean opportunity in the IV space. Been around for a while, you know, the IV industry itself, but there was really no strong franchise system. So I wanted to be one of the first movers in the IV space in order to franchise it and scale the business. And since 2019. So five years. How large have you grown? Yeah. So in September of 2019, we actually launched the first franchise agreement, the first FTD. Uh, it took about a year, started doing sales. We opened our first one in January of 2021 down in Atlanta. Uh, and since we've hit 100 locations in the US and we're growing at about a rate of 1 to 2 per week. Wow. For the foreseeable future. Those are great numbers. Yeah. And when you think about the next, the acceleration you're going through over the next 36 months, how many locations are you targeting? I'd love to be able to easily exceed 500. I think now that we've, uh, become one of the fastest growing IV companies as well as if you look at the franchise industry, very few franchises ever get to 100. Uh, about 3% of franchisors that launch actually get to 100 locations and it takes about 7 to 10 years. We've done it in about three years. So obviously our growth is is really compact, doing it in about 30% of the time. So now that I see such a high level of interest in the business, we've been able to set a very strong foundation and we're adding to it through Revive and Ten-x to have a very strong foundation to continue the growth. So when you think of who would be the perfect candidate for the drip bar, like who would be the perfect business owner, somebody that just wants to go start something from scratch? Or if I'm already a physician, or I already am a nurse practitioner or a healthcare provider, and I want to add, um, a more professional approach at doing at doing IVs versus versus just running around and doing them as a local provider. Yeah, definitely. Uh, so right now there's a couple of different layers to it, specifically in Drip Bar. Just as a straight franchise, there are huge opportunities to do just traditional sites. Uh, our franchise system doesn't require you to be a doctor or a nurse. We have a national medical director program that everybody can fall under in all 50 states if they choose to, to use that. Um, but also, we are looking to go into non-traditional environments inside doctor, dentist, chiropractic facilities, uh, health clubs, cruise ships, hotels. We're looking to go everywhere that really would benefit from a strong brand, strong brand recognition within the space. Uh, that that will just help leverage and grow the individual. And the, the other, uh, uh, side by side business. You know, I think for me, the first time I ever saw IVs as, like something that you would do at home or you'd you have done what you'd have done. There was two shows that I think caught my attention. One was billions. There was an episode in billions. I don't know if it was like in the 2000. Yeah. 17. One of the first two seasons. First two seasons. And and they had them all come to the office because everybody needed a pick me up. They had all been out the night before. Late. Yeah. And I thought to myself, that's an interesting business model. I wonder if that'll ever be a real business model. And then the other time, I think I saw it. I could be wrong here, but I think I saw it in hangover when they were in Vegas. Possibly. I don't remember. I don't remember either, for sure, but there was there was a couple movies where I saw it. Yeah. And I thought, I wonder if they really do that. I wonder if that's really a business. Yeah. And that shows how soon back this was forming as a business, because it wasn't mainstream just seven, eight years ago. It wasn't mainstream certainly wasn't. And my first introduction was actually because I was traveling to Vegas. I was traveling to Vegas. I was building another franchise business in the MMA space called Tapout Fitness. So I was taking an IV every time I would travel because I didn't want to be sick. I was still traveling four five hours to Vegas, so I wanted to be ready to go as soon as I landed there for various business or events or whatnot. But, uh, I remember I was at the MGM and my first introduction was seeing the brand revive down at the, uh, down at the entrance. And I was like, wow, they they really have them here. I didn't know that they were brick and mortars, because I always saw people coming to the hotel rooms and doing it reactively after a long night of partying and whatnot. So yeah, I always saw it there. But, uh, once I saw it in the retail space, I saw a huge opportunity. I mean, that's kind of where it was first brought to my attention. It was considered the Hangover. Yeah. If you had a hangover, you'd get an IV. You'd be ready to go the next day. Is that kind of where it became mainstream? Yeah, I always recognised it as a hangover cure. Um, but then as the industry and as bar has been evolving, less and less reliance on the hangover even exists. About less than 1% of our total revenue comes from clients that are doing hangover trips. And it still definitely happens. Uh, probably in more, more sites, in some sites more than others. Yeah I should. Like, it depends on what city you're in. Yeah, like Vegas and the vacation spots. But, uh, you know, me personally, I own one inside a health club. We don't do many hangovers inside a health club. Well, I mean, for me, the big introduction was during Covid. Definitely because I wanted to stay healthy. And I was traveling every week. Despite everything being shut down. I was with people, hundreds and hundreds of people. We just continued our business as usual, and I wanted to stay healthy and I didn't want to get sick. And as soon as I start to feel like I'm getting run down, I'd hit that IV and boom, I'd be right back. So to me, I was doing one every week, week and a half, just to keep myself optimized. And I think that's where a lot of people are like, I don't want to go in the hospitals. I don't want to go in the clinics. Can someone just come to me? And that's where I really saw that marketplace open up significantly enough to grab my attention to make the investment and launch to Next Health. Yeah. So when you think of when you think of being one of the largest or the largest network of IV centers in the United States, if I was listening to this video and I was in the healthcare profession, or I was an investor and and I'm like, you know, I want to start a cutting edge business where I can create a lot of value. I can maybe become an entrepreneur. I don't have to have a boss. I don't have to work for someone else. I can actually go build a business that's doing something phenomenal for people. Talk a little bit about what the opportunity is to own a full service IV center and then talk about how you assist, because it's one thing I'm in the entrepreneurial space. Yeah, there's millions and millions of entrepreneurs that try to start businesses every year. They don't understand how to start, how to grow, how to scale, how to how to put their operations in place, how to promote marketing, how to convert, what technology to use. You've completely simplified that. So if I want to be in this space and I just want a turnkey solution, and I want to be the best version of myself and execute, the drip bar will set you up for that. True, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we are a strong franchise system and it comes down to consistency. So being part of the drip bar, you have a consistent brand, consistent structure and strategy in order to grow the business. We start as soon as clients join. Once a franchisee joins we get started in real estate and in the real estate phase. We have a specific site development team that will help with real estate site selection, negotiating with landlords, uh, getting them all set up. We have a very out of the box solution for your furniture, fixtures, equipment, the design, the look, the feel. Uh, but then it gets into the operational consistency. You need to have the right staff trained in a consistent way, uh, ready to market and advertise the right way in order to bring in the customers. And then once the customers come in, you need to make sure that you have the appropriate conversions. And that all comes back into training and just staying ahead of the business. These are all the things you've built for people. Yep. Absolutely. So we have all the tools, uh, they come out of the box. But I always say a good franchise system is never 100% complete. You need to always be looking to the future. You need to be looking for better ways, better tools, better solutions and better offerings to really achieve the goal of the client, which is creating a healthier human. Yeah. And you figure this out as you get wider, right? With velocity and width, a lot of people are impatient. They want everything right now. But the truth is your your system is only as good as the partner on the ground is committed to making the business work. Absolutely. Yeah. And it does come into the to the franchisor helping those franchisees or recognizing the the gaps that the franchisees may have to be able to fill those gaps with either safety or operational efficiencies to help. At the end of the day, with sales and revenue generation. What's interesting is when I got into this space and started really developing it, I noticed that and I don't think the average consumer, the average patient, understands the randomity that happens when you just have a nurse, you just get an IV. You have no idea what's in the IV, you have no idea what the mixtures and configuration were, and if it was done right, you have no idea how that interacts with you as a human being. People tend to just go to a generic IV. Oh, I want Myers cocktail or something. But you still don't know what's being mixed in there where they got the materials from? Yeah. You don't know if the nurse knows how to facilitate it or the doctor. You don't know what happens in the rare case you have a reaction, what that process is. And I watched that. This is just like at the base level people just it's total randomity. Mhm. And because there hasn't been much in the way of people getting injured or hurt that they know about, um, there's really been no issues, but there's been a few cases where people are getting the wrong stuff at the wrong time, wrong mixtures, wrong concoctions, and, and bad things can happen. So one of the things I know, um, that you've been working on, because we both have partnered with the same partner, which is, uh, Revive Global. They're the only business that I've seen around the world that's spent so much money, so much time, energy and effort taking the friction out of what are the exact ives a specific human being should get, and how should it be administered and facilitated? We're both partners with revive. Talk a little bit about what drew your attention to what they were doing, and why. You see it as a fit for your business. Absolutely. So the drip bar and the entire retail industry, like you said, has been, uh, very focused on just standard drips, one size fits all. Uh, we've found that about 90% of our first time clients, they come in, they get full transparency on what the ingredients are on our menu. Uh, but once they get the IV, they still have no idea what they're getting. So we've set up a a process where the nurses proactively educate each client as to what's in the bag and then why we've made that concoction that makes that recipe. In order to create the therapeutic effect that we market as our various drips. But yeah, like you said, you know, not everybody knows and it's not specific. So when I met Sarah and Revive, I thought it was a beautiful opportunity to create not only a personalized but a precision IV. You know, being able to personalize an IV specific to a person's needs, but also their individuality, you know, their height, their weight, their health, history and such to create a drip specific for them for that day. But then being able to take it a step further with the genetic test to really align with one's DNA on what is best for them, how they methylate, how they metabolize. So now we've been able to take an offering for a client that a lot of times can be viewed as just a generic offering and really personalize it and create that precision effect that is just going to create a tremendous outcome for for our clients moving forward with the combination of revive the Drip Bar and Ten-x. What we've done is we've taken the best technological science on the planet, which is the personalize and the precision based based on genetic tests, blood work. However far that journey a client wants to go or a patient wants to go on, that data gets fed into our system, into our processes, and then we configure a precision based IV based on the individual human being or the next layer. Based on collecting data. We can do a personalized IV. And then of course, you still have your kind of generic IVs that people like. So where we're taking the business, the drip bar revive and Ten-x is to a Individual experience where we can assure them we are taking all the data from their human body, and we're then delivering something on a precise, as precise as possible basis directly into their system in order to optimize them. Yep. How long had you looked at that solution? And talk a little bit about what excites you to be a partner with revive and using the new state of the art revive X technology to do that? Yeah. So the decision didn't take long. It was, uh, amazing to see it. Uh, it was, uh, it looked like a natural course of the business, but I didn't know it was available now. So meeting with Ten-x, meeting with Sarah and Revive, I knew that it was an opportunity that needed to be brought to the market as quickly as possible. Uh, so, yeah, that that's really. It happened quick. And then talk about what the experience is, if I'm a consumer, what would be the process for me to get to a precision IV that would be built on site specifically for, to optimize my human self? Yeah. So, uh, the genetic test, I like to describe how I view it as you have the other genetic tests that show you where you can't, where you come from. This shows you where you're going. It also, uh, to me, it removes any type of fad or any guessing of how to live your best life. Um, by doing the genetic test, you'll know how your DNA metabolizes and and methylate certain vitamins and nutrients and what is best for you to really give you the most optimal, uh, precision I've. That's out there. How it works is somebody does a genetic test and they'll bring in their, uh, their book. Their individualized book, which has a QR code, will then read the QR code. It'll go into our medical record, um, to provide the exact ingredients that you need as a precision client to get a precision IV. And you can do that. You can not just the drip bar, not just the ten-x health, or not just to revive anybody that's in our global platform that's operating off of the revive X technology platform. Yeah. Uh, Dana White, for example, was going to Manchester for a UFC fight and I was just with him in Riyadh. And so I texted him saying, hey, if if you want to get an IV in Manchester, we have our precision platform there. He hit me back on the airplane saying, are you serious? I can in Manchester. I'm like, yeah. So he checked into the hotel, our team showed up, shot his QR code, boom. We delivered a precision IV to him. He posted, got my first ever precision IV right. And we see them a lot in Vegas. He's been a client. He's been a huge advocate of ten X health. But for him, he was just like, I can't believe you guys are all over the world now. And me as a human being can go to 46 countries and get what I know to be a certified precision I've delivered into my body to optimize me. Yeah, I think from a from a patient treatment plan. I've been in healthcare most of my life. It is a pain in the ass to go anywhere and and and to have anybody look up your records and not to have conflict between what one person tells you you need and another person, because the systems just aren't really there in the medical field to to get rid of that friction and, and, and get the information. But for us, we're operating on one system globally, which means as a human being, I can go in, you can tell me what what is best for me. You can serve me there. I can get precision IVs. So as a human, I can go anywhere I can get, take my QR code, get precision IVs. I can get my precision supplementation built for me and sent to me wherever I'm at as well, all over the world. And we're moving to precision food. So when I'm excited about and why I'm excited about the drip bar partnership through revive is we're all patient centric like we want we we want to be able to deliver to one person a solution that's precision for that person. Yes, it sounds great. It also is exceptionally complicated, certainly, and we want to give it to them in an IV. We want to give it to him with supplementation to augment the IVs. And then we want to give it to them with the food that they ingest, so that their body is constantly and consistently being optimized. When you think of that mission, the fact that we're actually talking about that, we can do it right now, right? Because when I before I met Sarah and Revive, I was thinking, this is a 5 or 10 year journey and you're on the forefront of this? Definitely. How exciting is that? Tremendously exciting. And Drip Bar has the ability to be the brick and mortar franchise system for that entire solution. So couldn't be more proud of, you know, where we started and where we're headed. But I see the drip bar with revive being the global brand for the brick and mortar stores, for the franchise system to be able to provide that level of safety and sophistication to its clients for decades to come. And we're constantly evolving. And I see the drip bar being because I specialize in building businesses. Yep. Um, and I see the drip bar as being the turnkey operating platform for how to start, how to grow, how to optimize, how to massively scale, and then eventually be part of a global brand that you can serve patients all over the world. And then with Ten-x health in the middle of that. It's bringing the optimize and precision, uh, supplementation, but also moving into precision food for an individual. And when I think about someone to be able to come into the drip bar, get an IV, do a few of the tests, the genetic tests, maybe even some blood work having us deliver to them a precision recipe. Mhm. I envision this, that they'll be able to walk into a restaurant at some point in time and say, here's my QR code. They'll shoot it and go, okay, we have the ingredients for you. I want this to be a global ecosystem where people know they can get trusted precision treatment for, to optimize their human body. Yeah. And we have a ton of athletes coming onto this platform right now. And when I think about the partnership with you revive the technology, revive X, it's kind of if you think of a triangle, you have ten-x health, the drip bar and revive. And in the middle of all that is revive X powered software to keep us all lined for one person that we want to serve one person at a time, but across the masses and across the globe. Definitely. So if I was a business owner or prospective business owner or a medical professional, I'm like, man, I'd like to add this to my practice. Yeah. What do they need to do to find you? Go to the. Yeah. Reach out to the drip bar. Com. Uh, my email Ben at the drip bar. Com as well. So I'm easy to find. And I'll tell you what. If you mention Ten-x in there, he'll even give you a little gift when he gets on the phone with you. Maybe we'll give you an IV. Absolutely, absolutely. So. So, look, I think from a business standpoint, we have the trifecta. Yes, we have the best operator for IVs. We have the best technology around the planet for individual, single user, single patient, single customer, single human ability to deliver around the world. And then we have Ten-x in the middle, which is a global marketing Engine that also has exploded with our genetic testing, blood work and supplementation process in the last 36 months, with over 150,000 patients that we crossed over two weeks ago, served and and then optimizing the human body with our peptides and all the other things that we do for our patients. But look, if you're a if you're a medical practice, if you're in functional medicine, if you're in, if you're in cosmetics, if you're in, um, uh, beauty and wellness, if you're in aesthetics, uh, any of these areas, if you have the proper licensed professionals and you want to augment your existing business with something that is going to change this planet and be on the very front end of this, you just need to hit this link here and you can find Ten-x health, revive X and the Drip bar all through this link. And you can have whatever conversation is important or significant to you. I'm so excited to be working with you and to be able to expand all of our brands, because at the end of the day, we're all on the same mission. How do we help an individual human being on this planet optimize their life so they can live longer, feel better, be healthier, and have aesthetics? Because the thing is, is people I know that are doing this on a consistent basis, they look better. Yeah, they look younger, they look better, and they feel amazing. Absolutely. So kudos to you to have the vision to start a business knowing this is the trend where the marketplace is going. And kudos for Sarah for investing for ten years to build a technological platform that can organize all this. And kudos for my partner, Grant Cardone, for having the vision to create a global ten X brand that people can trust doing business with. And I think the three of us together are just going to absolutely crush it and dominate. Look forward to it. Thank you very much. Thank you for being on the show. Absolutely. Yeah.