FireFly Recovery: The Secret Weapon in Every NFL & MLB Training Room | As Seen on Shark Tank

[0:00] Kathy: Jason, you know, we keep talking about recovery and rest. We’ve gone over our favorite gadgets. You got anything extra?

Jason: Like what? I don’t know. Like, a secret weapon?

[0:09] Kathy: What have you seen in some of the division one training rooms?

Jason: Well, if I told you my secret weapon, would it really be a secret weapon anymore?

Kathy: Come on. I know you’re holding out on me.

Jason: Alright. Well, there’s one cutting edge device that comes to mind. And, honestly, the first time I saw it, I thought that there was no way that it would work. And I could tell you about it, but

Kathy: What do you mean but?

[0:28] Kathy: I need to hear about this secret weapon.

[0:31] Jason: I was gonna say I could tell you about it, but instead, I’ve invited the president of the company, who was on Shark Tank once

Kathy: Oh.

Jason: To talk to us about it.

Kathy: Yes. Okay. This is the pitch. What happens when a chiropractor and a physical therapist get together to make a health and wellness podcast? But chiropractors and physical therapists don’t like each other. Oh, think again. I’m doctor Kathy Lynch, physical therapist who likes to help people move and get stronger.

Jason: I’m doctor Jason Young, an evidence based chiropractor who uses humor just as much as adjustments to help people get better. Welcome to the pitch podcast. Remember, there’s no I in pitch.

[1:08] Jason: Alright, everybody. Welcome back to your favorite podcast

Kathy: Yes.

Jason: Which is The Pitch Podcast. I’m doctor Jason Young.

Kathy: And I’m doctor Kathy Lynch.

Jason: Yes. And we, Kathy, have a very special guest with us today.

Kathy: Super cool. So excited.

Jason: This is Anthony Kjenstad. Mhmm. He is the president of Firefly Recovery.

Kathy: Fire. So yes. And this this product is dope. Yeah. Love it. Love it. So welcome, Anthony. We’re so glad to have you.

Anthony: Thanks for having me, guys. I certainly appreciate you guys inviting me on.

Kathy: Yeah. Sweet. So,

[1:42] Jason: well, let me let me tell a story.

Kathy: Please.

Jason: I’ll I’ll finish the story that, that I started with, in the cold open there. The first time I saw the Firefly recovery device, which is the secret weapon.

Kathy: Yeah. Okay. It is the secret weapon.

Jason: Alright. It’s out there. People are googling as we speak. Right? Agentic AIs are firing up everywhere, ordering, firefly recovery, and rightfully so.

Kathy: Oh, yeah. Rightfully so. Great great product. Mhmm.

[2:15] Jason: But the first time I saw it, it was on an athlete at Oregon State, wide receiver, and he had it looked like a great big blue and white Band Aid on his leg. Mhmm. And I was like, bro, what did you hurt? And he didn’t even know what he was doing. He’s like, oh, yeah. This, recovery, but and I was like, what? And his leg was twitching. Oh. And I was like, what are we doing here? But, he loved it. He was like, oh, this thing really, really works. And so that’s how I got started, and that’s probably the weirdest way that I could describe your product and and what it does. So,

[2:48] Jason: that’s why we had you on because because you might be like, explain this thing to me. Yes. You might be able to do a little bit better. So our listeners, we have the full range. We have health care providers that listen. We have, weekend warriors. We have soccer moms that are listening and soccer dads too. The dads. Yeah. Definitely the soccer dads. So tell us about, like, what is a Firefly recovery device and, like and and what does it do?

[3:20] Anthony: What does it do? So Firefly, you know, recovery is everything now. Right? Everybody’s talking about recovery. It’s recovery drinks and potions and lotions. Firefly actually never intended to be a recovery technology. We actually started as a medical device. And what the company found, the, pneumatic compression is the standard of care in hospitals when it comes to preventing blood clots. So if you’re non ambulatory in a hospital bed, they put these little squeezers on your lower extremity to increase blood flow. Yeah. And we’re not company

Jason: You were talking about the compression boots and stuff like that.

Anthony: Pneumatic compression boots. Yeah. Alright. Exactly. So our company saw an unmet need there because if you are a patient in a hospital bed and you need to get up, you need to remove the boots, call the nurse in, and you need to get out of bed. And then when you get back in bed, they gotta put the boots back on you. So our company saw an unmet need in this space where we need to develop something where patients can actually get in and out of bed and not worry about taking on and off the boots. And so to your point, we look like one product, but we kind of function like another product. What we figured out is rather than squeezing the lower extremity with pneumatic compression,

[4:28] Anthony: you could stimulate the nervous system. So we took a modified muscle stem, found a nerve in the lower extremity called the peroneal nerve, and when you stimulate that nerve, you cause, as you said, that slight dorsiflexion of your foot or that foot pump. We call it the firefly flutter. That actually is That trademark? 2%. That trademark. Yes. Oh, yeah. We did trademark it, by the way. Wow. Okay. And, we actually found out that by stimulating the nervous system as opposed to squeezing the lower extremity, I’m gonna get very clinical here now, but we increase what’s called arterial and venous flow Mhmm. 32%

[5:06] Anthony: more effectively than pneumatic compression, but we also increase hip to toe microcirculation by 400%. Medical grade sequential compression’s about 117. So we’re three times more effective than pneumatic compression boots to deliver lower extremity microcirculation and push blood flow back to the heart, all by, doing this through this little wearable NMES device.

[5:32] Kathy: Cool. Can can you explain, to our listeners why it’s important to increase that circulation?

[5:40] Anthony: Sure. So your body does a great job of getting the blood down to your lower extremity, but depending on your health risks or if you’re not moving, etcetera, it takes a little bit more effort to get back to the heart. Mhmm. And so that’s why pneumatic compression is used to kind of, you know, especially when patients are non ambulatory. But in the medical world, we were developed to really prevent a blood clot. So if the patient’s not moving, they just had any type of, surgical interaction, their body’s more amped to to get a blood clot. So they want you in these devices to increase circulation, but there’s a lot of other components of circulation.

[6:17] Anthony: We’re finding on the surgical side reduced, postoperative edema or nonoperative edema. We’re actually healing diabetic wound ulcers three times faster in the lower extremity. That’s with our medical device called the gecko.

Jason: Gecko? What happened

Anthony: yeah. The gecko, g e k o, is the medical device. You can really only get that through doctor’s prescription or, through the hospital. So what happened is physical therapists, athletic trainers saw these medical devices, and they were like, we’re using pneumatic compression in the Athletic Training Room to help our athletes recover,

[6:53] Anthony: but they’re not portable. Our athletes have to sit in the corner plugged into the wall. This is a recovery tool. So they really told us, hey. You’re a recovery tool. We went out and researched kind of, okay. What is the increase of blood flow have on recovery and kinda did a lot of research. Then we rebranded the product, called it the Firefly, made it over the counter, and we started selling that into athletic training rooms in The US about ten years ago.

Kathy: Cool. Yeah. Well and it,

[7:22] Kathy: it does exactly that. And we’ve talked about this before. Like, blood blood flow is necessary.

[7:28] Kathy: Parts of your body that can get blood can heal. Yeah. It’s why, like, if you have a knee injury or a cartilage injury, those heal slowly because you don’t have blood flow. And so more blood equal better part, right, if I’m speaking apnea. Right? Shoulder shoulder impingement. Mhmm. You know? The thought used to be, hey. We gotta do these real specific exercises. What we’re finding out is that if you just get some blood flowing to that shoulder, it’s gonna fix itself. And so,

[8:01] Jason: it’s it’s huge. It’s a it’s a game changer. Can I can I give you a little story about my personal use of it? So, I, I’ve got I’ve got a tricky leg. Is that how old people say it? Yeah. Like, I’m somebody’s uncle. They’re like, oh, yeah. I’m uncle Jason. Is that a medical term?

[8:20] Anthony: Yeah.

[8:21] Jason: My uncle Jason, he’s got tricky leg. You know what I mean? Got he got his tricky leg. So no. I’ve got a tricky leg. Alright? I had a I had a trauma when I was a teenager, and so I got a ton of scar tissue in there. And so it’s just, like, if something’s gonna go wrong with me, it’s that leg. So I got cellulitis in that leg,

[8:41] Jason: and, it, darn near killed me according to my wife. I thought it was fine, but the fever and the sepsis said otherwise. That’ll get you. But, no, the leg swelled up, and it was it was really, really rough. And it just, we have the compression boots, and it wasn’t really comfortable to use. And the part that was especially bad was at night when I was trying to sleep, and you don’t wanna have compression boots on all night because then you can’t sleep.

[9:11] Jason: Wearing the Firefly, like, kept the inflammation, the swelling in the leg under control, And it was, like, the best my leg would feel. It was amazing. Like, you could wear it all night long, and and it was really good. And then, during that time, I was also, like, doing a lot of travel. And, if you are a person who has to wear, like, the compression Mhmm. Socks I do. Yeah. So yeah. So you’re old. Yeah. Official old person. Officially.

[9:43] Jason: Yeah. You do not need compression socks if you have this. Mhmm. Because I used to I used to wear those, and I’d put this on instead, and it does the trick perfectly. Just one leg? One leg, both leg. For me, it’s my tricky leg. Right.

[10:00] Anthony: But yeah. So We do recommend both legs. Okay. You know, if if, you know, if you’re wearing it for travel or recovery, you wanna kinda push from both sides. Right? Okay.

Jason: Are you just trying to sell more fireflies?

[10:14] Anthony: Yeah. No. No. Nope, though. We’re we’re doing we’re doing fine there. Okay. So I I do have to give the disclaimer. Yes. I know it worked extremely well for you on a medical condition. The Firefly, we don’t actually promote, medical applications for this. Even though behind the scenes in athletic training rooms, quite often, it’s used for ankle sprains and stuff like that. It’s not what we actually promote. We really do drive people to the medical side of the business, which is, again, called the GEICO, really because,

[10:45] Anthony: that is the clinical, side of it. But we do see again, we started as a DVT product on the medical side, ended up seeing that we effectively were healing diabetic wound ulcers three times faster by increasing circulation. Mhmm. In the athletic training room, we’re used four ways, priming or warm up Mhmm. General recovery. What we think about the firefly is not only are we moving more blood, but increasing blood flow for extended periods of time is much better. A lot of time when you slide into those boots, you’re only in them thirty to forty five minutes.

[11:18] Anthony: You really we call the optimal dose for firefly for general recovery to be two hours, and that’s clinically researched, with some papers that are on our website, and you you can actually look into those. So warm up, general recovery, travel, are really kind of the top three ways we’re used, and we’re constantly researching the product. Right now, we’re in almost every pro and college team in the country. We had a little side conversation before we got on here. We talked about other teams that may or may not be using the product. But in general I don’t know. Do you have any teams that you like, Kathy, that

[11:57] Anthony: that that that should be listening?

Kathy: I mean, Notre Dame football, really guys, I I know that you listen because, I mean, we are constantly fangirling for you here. Constantly. And so it’s like, get your act together. Like, if you’re wondering why you haven’t won a national championship recently It’s the fire fly. It’s the fire fly. It’s the fire fly. It’s definitely the fire fly. Firefly recovery. It’s getting close. Totally. Not close enough. They are just two legs away. I think so. One on each side.

[12:28] Kathy: Yeah. How Good. Shout. Anthony, how many extra touchdowns would you guess Oh. That Firefly Recovery is worth

Anthony: Insurmountable. I don’t even think yeah.

Kathy: Yeah. You know? Well and and we should just throw out the our disclaimer too. Yes. You wanna do the disclaimer? Gonna say that too. This is just entertainment purposes. Yeah. We’re just we’re just messing around. Medical advice. Don’t take any of this seriously. Please call your doctor. Yes.

[12:51] Anthony: Yes. Yes. Yes. So,

[12:55] Kathy: oh, okay. So here’s a question, and I’m sure you get this all the time.

[12:59] Kathy: Why can’t I just use my TENS unit to do this?

[13:03] Anthony: So as you know, and you probably know 10 times more than I know about electrical stem, but TENS is really a pain device. Right? It’s it’s almost, the the gate theory blocking. So our product does feel like a TENS unit or a a traditional EMS unit, but really, I always, talk about TENS is if your left thumb hurts but you hit your right thumb, you forget your left thumb hurts because now you’re right. So that’s really what TENS does. It it it

[13:29] Anthony: changes the pathway to your brain in regards to to pain, whereas Firefly really is a modified muscle stem. What we figured out, what our secret sauce is is we if you took a traditional NMES and you put it on the perineal nerve, it would be very painful. So we squared off the signal to comfortably make that, to stimulate that nerve. We get a couple things out of that. Number one, no competition. We have a patent around it.

Kathy: I see.

Anthony: But number two, it’s a non fatiguing stim. So your traditional stim, your Mark Pro, your Compaq’s units

Kathy: Yeah.

Anthony: You can only use those in small bursts of time because you get muscle fatigue.

Kathy: Mhmm.

Anthony: But because we’re stimulating the nerve first, but also getting this muscle fire, it’s non fatiguing. So there’s really nothing like Firefly on the market.

[14:15] Anthony: Other technologies will feel like ours, but they don’t do it. And we are only specific to really one, and I’ll give you a little secret sauce behind the scenes on the second placement. But, really, for the most part, we’re on the, fibular head, you know, right right below the knee. There’s a nerve that goes down to the foot up into the thigh called the peroneal nerve. And when you’re placing the firefly, you’re really putting that indicator line right on the fibular head because that nerve wraps around, the fibular head and goes down into your foot.

Kathy: And you guys do make it so easy to find that nerve. Like, I was I was really impressed by that because you do have to be specific with the placement.

Anthony: Right.

Kathy: And the instructions are spot on.

Anthony: That’s good. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. It’s, it as spot on as it is, we still get quite a bit of calls.

Kathy: Sure.

Anthony: And we’re Sure. We actually redesigned the bull’s eye. So it it literally is gonna have a crosshairs, like, put it

[15:08] Kathy: here. Put it here, dummy. Yeah.

[15:14] Anthony: We’re about to release, and we don’t have FDA approval for it yet, but, Major League Baseball has been using this. You know, when I started pitching this to MLB ten years ago, they were like, oh, great. Recovery. Put it on the legs. Can we put it on the elbow?

Kathy: Mhmm.

Anthony: You know, because they wanna put everything on the elbow. Well, there’s obviously some nerves in the elbow that are peripheral enough to stimulate, the ulnar nerve, which we hear about all the time, the radial nerve and the medial nerve median nerve.

[15:41] Anthony: We know that stimulating the median nerve, gives you the same microcirculatory blast that we get in the lower extremity. So we’re just about to come out and launch the product once we get FDA approval for upper extremity use. But we already have that being used behind the scenes in Major League Baseball, and quarterbacks are using it for priming and and recovery.

[16:04] Kathy: Yeah. So, if I just pretend I knew anatomy, like, where would I place that?

[16:13] Anthony: Just below the, if you if you lay your arm out in front of you with your hand extended, just below the crease of of your arm, you would lay the long end of the firefly right across that crease. Okay. There’s two electrodes on the long end, and you’re really just kinda placing the electrodes on either side of the nerve. The median nerve, which runs straight down the middle of the arm. That’s optimal placement. When you turn it on, you’ll feel that same sensation you see in your foot. You’ll feel it in your fingers. Finger.

[16:44] Anthony: And we know we’re getting this microcirculatory blast that we see in the lower extremity, in the upper extremity as well.

[16:52] Jason: Why did you guys pick the, peroneal nerve? Was it because it’s the easiest one to find?

[16:58] Anthony: It’s the most peripheral. Yeah. And, you know, everybody I think, you know, talking to the people who founded the product

Jason: Mhmm.

Anthony: Everybody always thought it would be and this is where my anatomy is gonna be off a little bit. They thought if we fired that, peroneal nerve, we would actually fire the belly of the calf muscle,

[17:16] Anthony: but it actually fires the two anterior, excuse me, muscles, which

Kathy: Yeah.

Anthony: Everybody thinks we gotta fire the big muscle

Kathy: Mhmm.

Anthony: To to get the blood flow. It’s actually those two anterior muscles that are squeezing that are giving us this increase in circulation. So they they found some mad scientist in a in a college in, in Europe, you know, stimulating the the nerves of their students, and seeing this increased blood flow. And then what they did is they

[17:46] Anthony: took the you know, took in his big box and

Kathy: Mhmm.

Anthony: His electrodes and converted it into this little, wearable technology.

[17:53] Kathy: This is so on brand for Eastern Europe. You we had we did a we did a whole episode on peptides and this Wolverine stack and everything. And I I think that would that probably happened in the same lab as they were doing the Right. The testing for the peptides. That’s what students are for. I have to get over to Easter. Can the podcast sponsor a trip for me to go to some former Soviet block Yeah. Country and yeah. We’ll we’ll just You know, boiling blood and transfusions

[18:22] Kathy: Yes. All the all the cool stuff so going on over there. I wanna see this lab. I wanna see it. Right? Oh my goodness. Cool. So, so this device, like, how would somebody get it? Because I know how I got mine. So I and it reminds me, I was gonna I was gonna get you one before, but, HomeMine are used up. I was like, oh, shoot. It’s time to order more. But, like so because you talked about this being an over the counter product.

[18:52] Kathy: Like, are people able to go into, like, CVS or Big five or something like that? Or, like, can you get it on Amazon? How how do people get the Firefly?

[19:03] Anthony: Yeah. The only place right now is either in your friendly neighborhood training room that might actually have it, like a d one, d two. We’ve got high schools now, you know, buying into Firefly. Outside of that, just on our website, quite honestly. You know, if you know anything about ecommerce, Amazon is the, you know, the way you can get it to people faster, but you literally make no money if you sell it on Amazon. So we we stay away from that. Yeah. We’ve talked to big box stores.

[19:31] Anthony: Honestly, our product’s still in its early venture. It’s not intuitive. You wouldn’t see a firefly on the shelf and go, oh, this is a pneumatic compression. It looks like a Band Aid. Use it. So we’re yeah. It looks like a Band Aid. So we’re not ready for that from a brand style, you know, side yet as far as, that goes. We’ve got chiropractic offices and PT offices that buy and resell to their patients. But for the most part, you just get it from us on our website is really the the quickest way to get it. We’re based out of SoCal, but we’ve got an East Coast and a West Coast warehouse. So pretty much anywhere in The US, if you go on our website, you can get it within two to three days.

Jason: That’s fireflyrecovery.com?

[20:10] Anthony: Yes. Yes. And I will, I memorized that before the

Jason: Good job.

[20:15] Anthony: My apologies. I should have sent product to you guys in advance, and I if you I happen to know somebody that can get you some product there. So, Kathy, if you wanna

Kathy: I would love that.

Anthony: Send me an email, I’m happy to drop you a little care package.

Kathy: I would love that because I’m already thinking of all the ways I could use it with patients,

[20:31] Anthony: to be honest.

[20:33] Kathy: So funny story about that. When I got mine, I was like, let’s experiment on some people with this. And so who did I experiment on?

Anthony: Of course. Your children.

Kathy: Children. Yes. Definitely children.

[20:46] Kathy: My children, children from, like, local sports teams and stuff like that. So when my boys are playing football, I was like, listen. Every day, you’re gonna go out there and for warm ups, I want you wearing this, like, while you warm up and then, you know, just put it on the sticky thing, put it back on the foil, whatever. And, so they did that, and I was like, look. You’re gonna have less delayed onset muscle soreness than than, everybody else that you’re playing with. And kids thought that they were weird, but it really is it’s nice. And,

[21:16] Kathy: I think one of the biggest things that you already mentioned is that you can live your life while you do recovery. Because literally everything else for recovery, whether it’s a, massage gun, compression boots, or cold plunge. You you can’t you can’t walk around with those things. There’s maybe only one other device that I could think of that we’re not gonna talk about on this show because this is all firefly all the time. Firefly. But, but that’s really unique about this. So, can we talk about Shark Tank, though?

Anthony: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That sounds amazing. Let’s do it.

Kathy: You were you were on freaking Shark Tank with this.

[21:54] Anthony: Yes. So, you might not know, but Shark Tank actually has their own producers. We didn’t actually try to be on Shark Tank. We got reached out to by by Shark Tank.

Kathy: Okay. And, they have their own They have reached out to us. No. Shoot. Yeah. Yep. You’re not saying anything. You’re not selling anything.

Anthony: Well, and so, it was about a year process, to to go through all the interviews and, you know, you have to give them all your information. They do background checks, obviously, etcetera. And then you have to build a pitch with them and their producers.

[22:28] Anthony: And, you know, and then they tell you you, you know, you you’re you’re gonna get an air you’re you’re gonna get a an opportunity to pitch to the sharks, which we did. And that was in August ‘25, ‘24, actually.

Kathy: Okay.

Anthony: And then once you pitch and you actually pitch to the Sharks

Kathy: Yeah.

Anthony: And you feel like, oh, this went pretty well, they said, well, you still might not air, actually. And they only give you three week notice before you air. So we literally were sitting around

Kathy: Wait.

Anthony: All last year in 2025

[22:59] Anthony: going, when are we gonna air? Are we gonna air? We got the call March 1, and we aired on March 21. And as you can probably understand, it was great for the business. It really created a we had a really good awareness in the athletic training room because that’s where we spent most of our time selling

Kathy: Mhmm.

Anthony: And in kind of that elite,

[23:19] Anthony: athlete environment. But, that Shark Tank really opened us up to the general public.

Kathy: Well and and one thing that you did that was really smart was you brought, like, one of your biggest customers with you.

[23:32] Kathy: Like, you brought you brought some some serious firepower to the show. Who’d you bring with you?

[23:41] Anthony: Carrie Walsh.

Kathy: Oh, gosh. A five time

Anthony: Yes. Five time Olympic.

Kathy: Yeah.

Anthony: What you guys didn’t see is we actually had, I mean, Carrie’s amazing.

Kathy: Yeah.

Anthony: You know, she she was an early adopter of Firefly. She actually really embraced me and helped me and because we live very close to each other. And early on in my journey, I was just trying to track down all these athletes, and she found me and ordered online. And I actually delivered it to her personally because I wanted to meet her.

Kathy: Yeah. Heck, yeah. That’s the right way to do it.

[24:13] Anthony: She’s just amazing, and, she did a lot of great things for us. But what you didn’t see on Shark Tank is we actually had about five or six other athletes that were pro, soccer players and and that they actually said gave us testimonials, but they didn’t actually air it on

Kathy: on, Shark Tank. But, yeah, we’ve got a really You were telling me that back in. You were telling me that, because, like, people can you can go look on YouTube, and you can find it’s an eleven minute segment of you guys on Shark Tank. But you were telling me that this was much more than eleven minutes

Anthony: Really?

Kathy: Which I didn’t realize.

[24:49] Anthony: Oh, yeah. We pitched to them for probably an hour, little over an hour.

Kathy: Oh, you can’t.

Anthony: Cut it up into, like, a six minute segment. So it’s exhausting. Yeah. It’s probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. The hardest part was the pitch. Just remembering as you guys probably know, you gotta remember

[25:08] Kathy: the lines before and We we know how hard the pitch is. Yeah. Yeah. That’s not we’re all about that.

[25:15] Anthony: Yeah. And then and then as you guys know doing a podcast, once you get the flow and the q and a and you know your product well and you know your your finances, all of that was really easy for myself and my business partner, Lauren, who’s on,

[25:28] Anthony: on Shark Tank. But, we got a deal.

Kathy: Yes. Who who did you get the deal with? End of the day?

Anthony: Cuban. So, Rashawn Williams was a guest shark at the time, and Laurie, ended up collabing together and doing the queen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which we didn’t think we thought Mark Cuban would be our guy because Yeah. We’re a sports team, and his team used us.

[25:52] Jason: But he was a little cranky that day. And, he He looked cranky. Since he was out watching, I was like, dude, I think Mark is maybe he’s got hemorrhoids or something. I don’t know. He just didn’t he looked like he was having a rough day.

[26:04] Anthony: I’ll give you the backstory. Okay. So Oh. The day that we filmed that, March 21 or excuse me. I don’t remember the day. I think it was, like, September 23 or something. Yeah. Mhmm. He just had sold the the Dallas Mavericks. They had just lost game five or six to Boston that night the night before. Mhmm. And he actually had to fly in from Boston just losing the championship and then be on the Shark Tank, set at nine in the morning in LA. Yeah. Mark, we appreciate you. Super tired. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mark. Super tired. Yeah. You’re a person too.

[26:40] Anthony: Yeah. Exactly. So I won’t I, you know, I won’t harp on him too much, but he did not see the vision for sure. Well, mister wonderful Right. Did not like the valuation.

[26:49] Jason: He’s like, this valuation. What? What? And he was out, but, it doesn’t seem like that. His job, I think, to never like the valuation. Yeah. Right?

[26:59] Anthony: But at the end of the day, we got the deal done, and,

[27:03] Anthony: and, yeah, it was a great experience.

Jason: That been a good boost for the brand?

[27:08] Anthony: Unbelievable.

[27:10] Anthony: You know, we probably did in the next four months a million and a half more in sales than we had done prior Wow. Just in really the consumer facing side. It didn’t affect us. I kinda look at our businesses, two businesses, consumer and athletic training room. Mhmm. And it didn’t really, I wanna say, help us that much in the athletic training room, but definitely on the consumer awareness side Mhmm. It definitely helped us. So I think a lot of people invest now in our product for their kids and themselves and, really, travel has become we do a exit survey on our consumer side, and I would bet 60 plus percent of people are buying Firefly for long haul travel.

[27:49] Anthony: So East Coast, West Coast or international travel, etcetera, is is really a big use case for for our product. Mhmm.

[27:57] Jason: Wow. You know, I I think it’s I think that it’s interesting that that you bring up that, you know, the training side, the consumer side. And the thought that came to my mind is, when you get things into a training room, it’s not because trainers want it. It’s because athletes want it. Right? So,

[28:20] Jason: you know, I I’m the first chiropractor to work with Oregon State, and, that whole process was not necessarily about those trainers being like, we’ve read the evidence on chiropractic. We must have a chiropractor. We gotta get we gotta get at least one in here. No. It is purely the demand Mhmm. From the student athletes. Right? And so it’s and it’s a recruiting tool too. Like, they want to know that, you know, they’re being taken care of. And so that’s a really interesting thing, and and I can see that that’s probably how you grow too is it’s the demand from the athletes,

[28:59] Jason: Just, and I know enough athletic trainers to know that sometimes they hear stuff from athletes and they just roll their eyes, and they’re like, you’re gonna get whatever you want. But, so but it’s a it’s a big endorsement to have people whose whose job and livelihood and and their legend and everything like that depends on how long they last. And so, helps them recover. That’s I think that’s pretty high praise. It’s pretty cool.

[29:26] Anthony: Yeah. You’re kind of, documenting our journey. When I first started, it was mostly athletic training, you know, athletic trainers, strength and conditioning, buying into the product, which is a really hard journey. Mhmm.

[29:38] Anthony: But what happened when NIL happened, it was actually kinda cool for us is because we got a bunch of athletes reaching out and wanting to do n I d IL deals with us. And we didn’t we don’t have the funds to do paid NIL, but we were like, hey. We got plenty of product and swag and hats. And if you want our product, we’ll we’ll we’ll trade for kind of awareness for product and talk about how you’re using it. So if you look at our Instagram, it’s mostly college athletes, that are talking about our product, and they’ve been very influential,

[30:09] Anthony: especially with all this movement of NIL athletes as well where they’re going to multiple schools in their career. If they go to an athletic training room now and they don’t have Firefly, it’s opened up a lot of doors for us. So it’s been very interesting journey to kinda hit it from both sides. But, yeah, the athletes are very influential now in in helping us grow, and create awareness.

[30:33] Jason: That is awesome.

[30:36] Kathy: So, let’s go back to the beginning kind of when the gecko started. I know that I know I have some friends who are PTs that listen, and

[30:49] Kathy: sometimes we get a little stuck and we get a little snobby about research. So don’t shake your head.

[30:58] Jason: I’m nodding. Yeah. Nod your head. He said research. I like research.

[31:02] Kathy: Talk about the studies that when you first started out, with the gecko and then kind of, looked at it more on the recovery side of things.

[31:14] Anthony: Yeah. So Gecko has piles and piles of research about, stimulating the nervous system to increase blood flow to prevent, blood clots. They’re obviously FDA approved for that, so you have to do a pile of research on a ton of patients to to to to push that through. And then we started getting adding indications for use as we saw more and more research come through and really feedback.

[31:37] Anthony: So reduce reduction of swelling on the gecko side. And now I don’t exactly know what their FDA approval is on the d v on the wound care side, but the the what I’ve seen from the research is dramatic in regards to reducing, you know, non healing diabetic wounds that now are healing in three to six months with eight hours a day of of wear time. The company, which is amazing about them because they’re such a clinical driven company, when they were told they’re a recovery product, they really wanted to understand how to roll this out. So they did their own

[32:11] Anthony: research with you know, if you look at our research, it all comes out of The UK. But they did a great research in rugby rugby athletes, mostly rugby and soccer, to really define not just is blood flow good. I think we all know that. But it’s like, what is optimal wear times for this? Yeah. You know, if you’re in boots for forty five minutes, is that enough? You know, what would if you had this other device that moves not only three times more blood, but if you could get into it four hours, six hours, eight hours, what what would how would it affect the athlete? And we’re actually seeing some incredible

[32:46] Anthony: statistics. Everybody sends us their, on social media, their WHOOP score or their Yeah. Aura score where they’re in the green because we know we have a positive effect on heart rate variability, which is a marker for recovery. We didn’t just measure, how does the athlete feel Monday to Friday during an OTA week. Right? We actually measured, like, from with with specific machines on what, you know, did did we have a heart rate variability effect? Were there markers in their bloodstream like creatine kinases?

[33:19] Anthony: That is a marker for recovery. We’ve got a really good study that I’ll share with you after the show. Yeah. And, again, it’s on our website where We’ll link it. We’ll link it in the show notes too. Yeah. Yeah. Where one of the universities did it on their OT athletes, and they had their running back through defensive, end players, in group a during OTAs. And group b, they nobody got a Firefly for recovery. And they measured all these outputs, speed, max max acceleration, etcetera. And what they showed is that the athletes who use Firefly consistently during the first week of OTAs OTAs

[33:55] Anthony: actually performed better on Friday than they did on Monday Wow. Versus the group that didn’t have it.

[34:02] Kathy: So it’s almost like they’re cheating.

[34:05] Anthony: Yeah. It’s it’s kinda crazy to have this simple product that when people come to us, I can imagine look. I think there’s a lot of fluff in recovery devices right now, and there’s not maybe as much research as there should be. And we probably don’t have as much as we should either. But we’re not afraid of research from our product because we know we increase circulation,

[34:29] Anthony: you know, about 62% of what you get from ambulation. So we know we’re having an effect. Yeah. Where we’re having these effects are becoming even, more eye opening for us. This recent study that came out with, the heart rate variability also showed, excuse me. I’m mixing up the studies. There was another study that we did internally that effectively showed that we have we’re increasing circulation about the level of a zone one exercise without actually exercising. So, again, this warm up concept,

[35:02] Anthony: where these athletes can have this priming effect, which is a big word. This year when I hit all the MLB teams during spring training, priming was the word this year. Every year seems to have a different, thing that they’re talking about. But, you know, simple, easy to use, $36. You’re gonna get about 15 treatments out of it. It’ll last you about a month as an athlete for recovery if you you use it every other day. They’re and to your guys’ point, mobile. You get it to use it when you’re eating dinner,

[35:35] Anthony: flying at home Mhmm. Hanging out with your mates, doing whatever you do. There’s really not another technology specific to our little window of recovery that that is more effective, in my opinion. And that’s not a sales pitch. It’s just kinda me ten years later going, this product is really, you know, doing what it says it does.

[35:55] Kathy: Yeah. Well and so you’ve discussed a little bit of the future in terms of, you know, the upper extremity product coming out and everything like that.

[36:06] Kathy: Where do you see from a technology and, like, a market standpoint, where do you see Firefly and and associated products, like, ten years from now? Give us give us a sneak peek. Tell us the stuff you’re not supposed to tell us.

[36:24] Anthony: For for our journey, even though people think they want a rechargeable unit, they don’t really because you’d still have to buy electrodes. Mhmm. But I think, eventually, we’ll come out with rechargeable because the consumer just wants it even if it’s gonna cost them more. Yeah. Give them able when they want. You know? So that’s, yeah,

[36:42] Anthony: that’s our journey. I just sat down with the, athletic trainer for the, Anaheim Ducks, and I asked them the same question. Like, what new technology are you seeing? What’s amazing out there? There’s a product called Immortal. I don’t know if you’ve seen this. This is like a light bed slash amp slash, you put cannulas in your nose and you get oxygen. Oh, it’s gross. Just crazy stuff. You know,

[37:13] Anthony: we just signed a deal with Fiji Airlines where Firefly is gonna be used, on the on the plane. Right now, they’re gonna roll it out to their first class customers, but eventually roll it out to everybody. I think if you just watch this fitness, health Mhmm. Wellness space grow, it’s it’s we’re all demanding, what what’s being used in these athletic training rooms behind the scenes is gonna become a part of our everyday I mean, to my right of me, I have a Pimpf mat, that I lay on every night. In my garage, I have an infrared sauna Mhmm. Because I’m around this all the time, and I read the data and the research

[37:51] Anthony: of living longer and feeling better, and I can’t get enough of this stuff. So I think the general pop is gonna make this more of a, you’re gonna make a a recovery room in your house is just what I see in the future. Yeah.

[38:06] Kathy: Like, everybody has a mudroom. Like, do you have a recovery room? Recovery room. You need a recovery. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It used to be a cinema room cinema room. Cin oh, yes. Uh-huh. You know, the big screen TV and the yeah. With the projection TV.

[38:23] Jason: Absolutely.

[38:25] Kathy: And now it’s You could do dual mode recovery cinema room. There we go. Mix them together. I like that idea. Like, bundle it. I liked it. So when can we get the, projection TV cinema recovery room, on fireflyrecovery.com? Is is is that is that coming soon? Is that gonna be $20.36?

[38:49] Anthony: I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll turn into a big, conglomerate like that, but, it’d be interesting. Our journey is I see a ton of new tech coming out. I I get to see a lot of opportunity.

[38:59] Anthony: Mhmm. We’ve been very successful in our launch in the athletic training room. Probably one of the most successful launches that I’ve been around in regards to other companies, and I see their journey and how hard it is. We wanna kinda take that connectivity we have to the athletic training rooms and and bring new opportunity into them. So I do think we’ll actually expand our product line at some point because there is just so much new stuff out there. I’m sure you see it as well-being at,

[39:29] Anthony: in in the the athletic training room and just seeing this new technology, everything from the pods to the beds to the, you know, light therapy in the nose or the ear for concussion. I mean, there’s just a lot of cool stuff. I’m a salesman, so I I believe everything everybody tells me. Right? And to your point, when you saw Firefly and at first, you’re like, does this little Band Aid really do what it says it does? I was skeptical. I go in I go in full force with all of this stuff, and I I love it.

[40:01] Anthony: And I I think it’s just there’s a lot of new innovation coming out, and I think it’s it’s just it’s just it’s neat. And and for practitioners like you, I think there’s just so much many more tools to make the journey, of an athlete. You know, I was just reading this thing about Pat Mahomes coming back from his ACL Yeah. In, what, like, five months. And I’m sure, Kathy, you have athletes coming in. Well, why can’t I be a Patrick Mahomes? And you’re like, well, he gets Patrick Mahomes a day. Patrick Mahomes.

[40:32] Anthony: Yeah. But but it’s not about his, you know, healing faster. It’s that he gets Kathy Kathy and you seven days a week. Yep. He gets all these modalities. He gets, you know, the compression chambers. He gets firefly. He gets Yep. You know, every modality under the sun. And and, yeah, you can come back that quick if you have all that. Who knows if that ligament is actually healed in there, but the muscle is not yet around it. It’s pretty good. Yes.

[41:00] Kathy: Yeah. Yeah. So That’ll be interesting.

[41:03] Kathy: Yeah. Yeah. Hey. Are you in the are you in the WNBA yet? That’s that’s my where my heart is.

[41:09] Anthony: We are. We are. We, the I would say the female athlete for us is probably the best athlete Yeah. Because they’re the most in tune with their body. Mhmm. So we do very, very well, and we are very sticky inside the, you know, when we will we we work with female athletes. They just Firefly has a very positive effect. It’s very quick, and and and the female athlete is more intuitive to how they feel. So we do really well. I think probably

[41:39] Anthony: 90% of all WNBA teams use us. The Aces are one of our best, teams. They obviously, you know, won, a couple championships in a row, I believe. So I’m not saying Firefly did that, but, we always like to correlate that. You know, I’ll say it. Firefly did that. They did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll say it. Definitely. It wasn’t Asian. No. Just fire Just firefly. Come on. No. Yeah. So and we love we also did the three on three, if you look at the name of the,

[42:12] Anthony: in Miami, they did Unrivaled? Unrivaled. Yeah. Wow. Unrivaled was we were a part of Unrivaled. That’s a big deal. Yeah. Susan Borchardt is the head of performance there, and she brought our product in last year when they first started that league, and we’ve been a big component to that league. Mhmm. And now she’s over with, where did Paige go? She’s in Dallas? What she’s in Dallas? Dallas. She’s been to Dallas. We just got a big order from Dallas, because of Susan. Yeah. But Dallas has actually always been a a customer for us.

[42:47] Anthony: Golden States, Valkyries.

[42:50] Kathy: How about Portland The Sparks. That’s our team. Fire. That’s our new team. That’s the I have season tickets. Come on, Portland fire.

[42:58] Anthony: Lie to us. You know, off the top of my head, I’ll have to say I don’t know.

[43:03] Jason: Well, they listen to this podcast. They exclusively listen to this podcast. Opportunity. I’ll drive drive some up there for you. Exactly. We’re gonna get you in there. Please.

[43:11] Anthony: I will I will send you some extras. We’re gonna kick down that door. Nice. This the WNBA has been great for us. The NBA has been great for us.

[43:19] Anthony: Collegiate, basketball, both sides of the court both sides, women and men, has been great for us. So, no, we’re very thankful.

[43:26] Jason: Yeah. But I am going to warn you if you’re listening to this and you’re associated with the team, Anthony does not cheer for you if you don’t use if you don’t use Vibe. He gives you thumbs down. Yeah. Yeah. Boom. Yeah. Hey. Well, Anthony, we got a little tradition here. We play a game with every guest, and, I think it might be game time, my friend. It is. Are you ready? Alright. I’ve warned you. I think I’ve warned you. Yes.

[43:53] Jason: We’re calling this game best foot forward. Okay? And this is a it’s a trivia game. I think you’ll do well. These aren’t too terribly hard. I I say that, and then, like, I set people up because then they’re like, I don’t know the answer, and they’re like, he said it’s not hard. And so I feel stupid. But no. If you’re struggling, just get on your PMF, Matt, and you’ll be fine. Get a little red light going. So, so here’s what it is. We’re gonna do a variety of questions, and the answers are just things that involve the word well, we’ll do we’ll do some rounds. The first round is gonna be the answers involve the word foot

[44:30] Jason: in it. Okay? Like, I’ll give you an example. A a note printed at the bottom of the page is a

[44:37] Anthony: footnote.

[44:38] Jason: Footnote. Very good. Yes. Very good. Alright. So let’s, let’s get into a couple of these. So the first round is foot. The next round is leg, and then, and then we’re gonna do a gotcha round. Okay? And I’ll explain that. So, what about this? The mark that a shoe leaves in the mud or the snow?

[44:57] Anthony: Footprint?

[44:58] Jason: Very good. A 1984

[45:00] Jason: Kevin Bacon movie about a town that banned dancing.

[45:05] Anthony: Footloose. Very good.

[45:07] Jason: The low ground at the base of a mountain. Foot. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I don’t know that one. I can’t think of it either. It’s a foothill. Oh, I did. Rahul Hill. Know it. Yes. How about recorded video, especially the raw unedited kind?

[45:31] Anthony: Foot skate. I wanna say footage.

[45:34] Jason: Footage. Footage. Yes. Very good. Alright. We’re on to the leg round. Very good. Never skip that day. Here we go. Skip leg leg day. The space for your legs on an airplane or in a car, very appropriate for this one. Leg room? Leg room is correct. Stretchy pants worn snug to the leg.

[45:53] Kathy: Leggings.

[45:54] Jason: Very good. An illegally made or, or sold copy of a recording.

[46:01] Kathy: Leg. I know this one. This is why is this not popping in my head?

[46:08] Jason: Pass. Bootleg is what we’re Bootleg. Yes. How about this one? A sharp bend in a golf hole’s fairway.

[46:19] Kathy: I’m not a golfer. Sorry.

[46:21] Jason: Raul’s over there mouthing it. It is a dogleg.

[46:24] Kathy: K. Dogleg. Yes. I I I just heard the master’s dogleg left. That’s right. Exactly.

[46:30] Jason: Exactly.

[46:31] Jason: Alright. Okay. So this is the, this is the the final round, the championship round. These are tricky. These are called the gotchas.

[46:39] Jason: Now these have the word leg in it, but it’s not necessarily pronounced in there. I’ll give you an example. Okay? So, if something is permitted by law, it is legal, which has LEG in it. Okay? So Got it. Got it. We’re gonna give you three of these. If you if you hit one of them, we’re gonna send you a pitch podcast T shirt. Okay?

[47:00] Kathy: Nice. Alright.

[47:02] Jason: Let’s see. Graceful, refined, and stylish.

[47:10] Anthony: Elegant?

Jason: Oh, there we go. Alright. Wow. He just hits it right away. Let’s go for two in a row here. A famous story or a heroic figure.

[47:22] Anthony: Legend?

[47:23] Jason: Very good. Alright. We’ll do one more, where lots of students head after high school. The bar? I’m sorry. College. We will accept the bar. College. It is college.

[47:43] Jason: Oh, that was wonderful. Alright, Anthony. This is the part where we do, takeaways. So, Kathy, you wanna start?

[47:51] Kathy: I was really impressed with the fact that this started as a medical device and that, the gecko on the medical side, is shown to help, you know, heal wounds quicker. I love that idea. And then to turn it over to the consumer side, on the recovery side is fantastic. Like I said, I’ve already thought of,

[48:15] Kathy: you know, many different people I could use this with with my patients. So Yeah. Super cool. Excellent. Then my takeaway

[48:22] Jason: is, like, when I was getting ready for this, I discovered that I am out, and it’s time for me to reorder, because I love the product. And so I’m going to go to fireflyrecovery.com and get me some. And, anybody can do the same too. You don’t need you don’t need to, like, go talk to your doctor, even your your doctor of physical therapy No. Or your doctor of chiropractic. No. And just go

[48:49] Jason: to fireflyrecovery.com. Mhmm. And, Anthony, any any takeaways for you? Any take home messages?

[48:58] Anthony: No. Just wanna say I appreciate the opportunity. You guys have a great banter, and I’ve enjoyed watching your shows. And, I will now you have a new fan, so I will Yes. Like, subscribe, and do all that stuff you need to do. And, I’m looking forward to my T shirt. Yes. I will send you out some sample What what what size are you? What size are you for the shirt? I’m an XL. Okay. Got you. And then I’ll I’ll I’ll send you some Firefly swag as well. So in the, when we respond back and forth, send me your address. I’ll send you out some swag. We’ve got some we’ve got some cool

[49:31] Anthony: firefly list with the bands. Very cool. Get some products sent out to you. But, no, very nice meeting you guys. Yes. I’m actually gonna be up in Oregon, for the NCAA, next week for the, track and field. Oh, excellent. Excellent. Are you guys gonna be out there?

[49:48] Jason: I will not. Oh, you’re not gonna go this year? No. Ah, bummer. Yeah. I don’t know if I’m allowed to. I gotta ask my wife. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. No. I might I might try I might try and take my son down there, though, because, he’s a discus thrower. Mhmm. So Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. We have a ton of athletes using the products, so we’re gonna go out there and meet a lot of the coaches and kinda just continue to carry the flag for the brand. So it should be nice. Yeah. Well, hopefully, I love you, man. Yes. Alright. Great. Yeah. Nice to meet you, guys. Yeah. Yes. Thank you, Anthony. And I guess there is one more thing that we have to get to, and that’s there’s no I in pitch.