Carl Daikeler: The Businessman Behing Beachbody

If you’re in the habit of following the biggest movers and shakers in the business world, if he is not already, Carl Daikeler should be among them.  For those not familiar with Daikeler, he is the businessman behind 8-Minute Abs and Beachbody.  To understand how these businesses revolutionized at-home fitness, we should familiarize ourselves with the history of both of them first.  In 1995, Carl Daikeler co-founded 8-Minute Abs with business partner Jaime Brenkus.  And because social media was nonexistent in the 1990s, Daikeler decided to promote the home-based body transformation routine on a series of infomercials.

Thanks to those infomercials, along with a lucrative partnership with Sports Illustrated, 8-Minute Abs made an astonishing $20 million in DVD and VHS sales that taught celebrities and everyday people alike how to get into the best shape of their lives. By the way, these sales occurred within only 18 months of the company’s official launch.

What You Should Know About Carl Daikeler and Beachbody

Having earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in corporate organizational media from Ithaca College in 1986 and finding a great deal of success with 8-Minute Abs, Daikeler saw that there was yet another untapped market in the at-home fitness space. This realization led to him launching Beachbody in 1998. Based in Santa Monica, CA, the company’s chief objective, says Daikeler, is to help everyday people achieve their goals while simultaneously enjoying a healthy and fulfilling life. Thanks to on-demand streaming fitness content, proprietary health shakes, and a team of nutritionists and personal trainers, Beachbody has become wildly successful over the years. To put into context how successful Beachbody is in the fitness and nutrition space, we need only look to a study published by the research platform Topio. Beachbody has attracted an estimated 30 million loyal customers and has generated more than $600 million for Carl Daikelere since launching in 1998, according to Topio.

Bottom Line

All in all, Carl Daikeler believes that joining a gym or buying expensive gym equipment are not the only ways to go about getting in shape.  This mindset, coupled with a fair bit of business acumen, has led to him becoming one of the biggest movers and shakers in the business world and, indeed, someone worth following.