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Tobi Pearce - Co-Founder of Sweat | The Founder Who Sold for $400M Says Most Business Advice Is Worthless

Success Story with Scott D. Clary

1h 11m

Original podcast

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About this episode

➡️ Join 321,000 people who read my free weekly newsletter: https://newsletter.scottdclary.com➡️ Like The Podcast? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstoryTobi Pearce is an Australian entrepreneur and co-founder of Sweat, one of the world’s most downloaded fitness apps. He built it alongside Kayla Itsines starting in his early twenties, scaled it to tens of millions of users across 150+ countries, and sold to iFIT Health & Fitness in 2021 for roughly $400 million. Pearce did it with a lean, data-driven approach that leaned on community and digital distribution over traditional marketing. He’s known for dismissing conventional business advice as generic and context-free. Post-exit, he’s focused on investing, mentoring early-stage founders, and sharing unfiltered takes on what building and scaling actually looks like.➡️ Show Linkshttps://www.instagram.com/tobi_pearce/ https://x.com/tobi_pearce11 https://au.linkedin.com/in/tobi-pearce-251918b1 ➡️ Podcast SponsorsHubspot - https://hubspot.com/ Huel - https://huel.com/scott (Code: scott)iDigress Podcast - https://www.idigress.fm/ Odoo - https://www.odoo.com NetSuite - https://netsuite.com/scottclary/ Indeed - https://indeed.com/claryFramer - https://framer.com/design (Code: SuccessStory)LinkedIn Ads - https://linkedin.com/scottclary Priori - https://priori.life/ Mars Men - https://mengotomars.com/ Granola - https://www.granola.ai/success Upwork - https://upwork.com/ Xero - https://www.xero.com Dell - dell.com/dell-pro AutoPilot - https://www.joinautopilot.com/landing ➡️ Talking Points00:00 – Intro01:25 – Why Most Business Advice Fails03:27 – Where Real Advice Comes From07:57 – Stories Aren’t the Lesson10:45 – Why Thinking Beats Tactics23:15 – Selling a Company for $400M24:52 – Sponsor Break26:49 – How to Sell Your Company Right29:47 – Was $400M the Right Move?31:15 – Sell or Step Back?39:43 – A Founder’s Decision Framework42:29 – The Mindset Shift43:44 – Hiring A-Players51:02 – Sponsor Break53:13 – Can A-Players Hurt Culture?1:01:04 – Tobi’s Best Mental Models1:10:50 – Advice to His 20-Year-Old Self