The Solin Story
— as told by Founder, Mathew Rosenburg
My brother, Michael, and I founded Solin back in 2019 — partially out of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and partially out of a shared incubator house with the rest of our team in Santa Monica, CA.
We had 2 gyms — one on the roof and one in the garage — but barely enough beds for everybody on the team (ok I must confess our Head of Design, Paul, actually slept on an air mattress for over a year).
We’ve always been incredibly passionate about fitness and we started Solin with one overarching mission — to make the world a happier, healthier, & more connected place.
In fact, the name Solin itself is an acronym…
S-O-L-I-N
…formed from the first letter of each of the 5 Blue Zones, a term coined by Dan Buettner referencing the five places in the world where people live the longest (source: BlueZones).
Those 5 places —
· Sardinia, Italy
· Okinawa, Japan
· Loma Linda, California
· Icaria, Greece
· Nicoya, Costa Rica
Three of the key reasons for this longer life expectancy are: (1) regular physical activity, (2) a healthy diet, and (3) a sense of community / belonging.
So what is Solin?
Solin is a marketplace where creators build & host digital products, most often related to training, nutrition, or cooking - though we're now working with creators in a number of other industries as well. All creators are the ‘CEOs’ of their businesses on Solin, and each creator gets the following:
1. Access to their own Solin strategy team & resources: our entire goal is to provide creators all the support they need to build more successful digital products & businesses in substantially less time.
2. Access to Solin Studio, a user-friendly platform for creators developed over the last 3 years. It has a digital products builder, templates, tools, analytics, & more. The Solin Studio is designed to help creators build more successful programs in substantially less time.
3. Their own site on Solin, where they can host their digital products and offer a directly integrated private community area for members (like a private Discord or a private Facebook group). If they already have a website, they can link their website to their Solin site.
Your Solin Resources & Team — Visualized
So how did we get here?
In 2019, we launched Solin. We initially launched ~15 custom mobile apps on the app store for big creators, professional athletes, & brands.
There were plenty of all-nighters the first two years at the house in Santa Monica getting those apps launched.
Amidst the delirium, we had one key learning: it would often take as long as 9–12 months, 3–5 team members, and cost tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars to launch a custom mobile app.
It worked, but we knew there had to be a better way. We had to provide creators access to the same opportunities in less time and with less investment.
We set an ambitious goal → create a platform that reduced 9–12 months to 15 minutes and tens / hundreds of thousands of dollars to $0.
15-minutes and $0 upfront to build a digital empire, that was the goal.
Sounds crazy, right?
Luckily, I focus on creator relationships at the company, so I was not in charge of overseeing that crazy platform build.
I left that to Michael and his product team (thanks guys!). And somehow — less than 6 months after setting out to build the platform — they delivered.
On May 2, 2021, we launched the current version of Solin. And we were excited. Very excited.
Why were we so excited?
Well, first off — Paul finally had his own bed. Or actually it was a couch but he was moving up.
But more importantly, we finally had a platform for creators to build world-class programs in 15 minutes with $0 invested — with the same flexibility as the most advanced custom mobile apps in the world, including:
1. Landing pages: custom landing pages for all creators & programs, ready in minutes with the help of our design team
2. Subscriptions: bundle multiple programs into a recurring subscription membership
3. Challenges: launch community based programs (called 'challenges') with a start & end date directly from your Solin Studio in 3 simple steps
4. Video library: upload videos into a video library
5. Digital products: sell e-books, guides, PDF document downloads, & other digital products
6. Community: add a community area / chat forum to any program with the click of a button
7. Livestreams: livestream to your members at any time
8. Pricing flexibility: set your own pricing
9. Discounts & trials: unlimited discount options & free trial periods
10. Email list: email all users directly from your phone at any time
With the new infrastructure — we freed up more resources to give every creator their own Solin strategy team to help with things like:
1. Graphic design: in-house design team for landing pages & content creation
2. Branding: in-house branding team
3. Sales funnels: optimized sales funnels, including SMS marketing (seeing ~10x better conversion vs. email marketing)
4. Data analytics: dynamic pricing strategies & data analytics based on millions of visitors
5. Business expansion: help creators secure brand deals & build other business lines like merch
So where do we go from here?
Everything revolves around our core mission — to make the world a happier, healthier, & more connected place.
How do we best position ourselves to do this?
Well, most importantly — we can’t do it alone.
We believe the best way to accomplish this mission is to empower creators like you.
You can connect with people better than anybody else in the world.
Your ability to relate, inspire, & motivate is a superpower. One that often cannot be replicated by brands or corporations.
And that’s why we must be creator-first in everything we do. If we can empower you, you can empower thousands, millions, even billions of people over time.
So for that reason, we have 3 key pillars we stand by for creators:
1. $0 upfront fees — we only earn when you earn
2. No long-term contracts — use Solin as you please, you’re never locked in
3. You own the content — we help you host & package content. You own it, not us
And a bonus. You set your own prices & keep the majority of sales through the platform (we just charge a platform fee as a % of all sales).
Whether you already sell digital products or are looking to launch your first one, we want to make it as easy as possible to get on Solin and see if it’s right for you.
It may not be — and that’s okay. But we always want to try to help as many people as we can — and we never want fees, restrictive contracts, or unfair content ownership stipulations to be the problem.
Here are a few types of creators we’ve partnered with in the past:
· Creators launching their first digital product
· Creators upgrading an existing digital product or launching a new one with the help of our team & infrastructure
· Creators launching a course or building a community to connect more deeply with their audience
· Creators bundling digital products together & launching a subscription — or an app with their own logo
· Creators launching a course or challenge
Whether it’s fitness, nutrition, cooking, mental health, or something else that improves people’s lives — our job is to save you time, make a better product, and reach as many people as possible.
It’s been a blast so far, and we can’t wait for what’s to come!
-Mathew
How to Get in Touch
If you’d be interested in partnering, please feel free to apply on our site: https://solin.stream/creators using referral code: BLOG. We have a waitlist but my team will automatically review any application that uses this code.
As always, if you have any questions or would like to get in touch more generally — feel free to reach us at creators@solinfitness.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Solin Website & Instagram
Website: https://solin.stream
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solinstream/