We were lucky to catch up with Matthew FitzMaurice and Jennifer Moutenot recently and have shared our conversation below.
Matthew & Jennifer, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
Our core beliefs are founded in the idea that people are our greatest resource. The challenges life throws our way are unavoidable. No amount of money, fame, or stability can prepare us for the challenges we will face. Everyone will fall from these challenges, but we are choosing to Fall Forward. Our failures and struggles give us the opportunity to grow stronger as an individual, learning more about who we are.
By connecting with others who have already faced many of life’s challenges, your own journey can become significantly easier. The idea that you are alone in your struggles, feelings, or situation is devastating. However, the challenges we face are far more common than you might think. That is the Fall Forward story: the concept that people who have successfully navigated their way through life’s most challenging aspects will turn around and help the people who are still struggling.
Even though we are all different, we believe we have a shared responsibility to challenge ourselves to be better than we were yesterday. Through our personal development we build a stronger community around us. Our fast growing community is doing the same.
Matthew & Jennifer, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Physical health has always come naturally to us. Growing up, we trained to compete at the Division I level and we were able to make that dream come true. For Matthew it was tennis, for Jennifer it was soccer. Being fit and active was our favorite escape that helped us process other challenges in our life.
With life’s many challenges, a perspective shift was needed to take our mental health to where we are today.
Fall Forward Fitness embodies the things that we wish we would have heard during those most challenging moments. The idea that you are alone in the way you feel or think is crushing, but couldn’t be further from the truth. This brand is going to offer the tools for you to take a step in the right direction, gaining new perspectives on how to best manage your mental and physical health.
We launched Fall Forward Fitness in May 2021 and are rapidly growing our community and the resources to improve our community’s mental and physical health. Some of the services provide include: speaker events, private training consulting, and supplementary brand merchandise. What sets our brand apart from others is our holistic and community-driven approach to inspire and motivate.
As a team, we are most proud of our persistence to follow our passions to help others through health and wellness and our community support.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
A perfect mix of Matthew’s advertising and marketing background and Jennifer’s zest for social media helped initially drive our online presence. Before launching, we had a marketing strategy set which was all carefully thought out weeks in advance.
At first, we used an Agile tool called, Trello, to help organize how and when we would launch social media posts, and the type of posts. This ranged from Instagram reels, to community spotlight posts, and to motivational Monday quotes.
Our advice would be to post often and be genuine. From experience, companies and/or brands who post the stereotypical, surface-level posts do not garner the same type of connection with their audience as others.
Post using Instagram reels, post TikTok videos, make your audience laugh, and be yourself! And with patience, a genuine following will happen.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
The initial capital came from careful saving and planning. We decided we wanted to pursue fully incorporating after we realized that this was our passion. This is something we want to pursue for the rest of our lives, so with that in mind we saved money from each pay check we got from our day jobs to ensure we had enough to get our wheels off the ground. We are proud of the brand we are building and continue to fund it as best we can.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fallfwdfit.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fallforwardfit/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fallfwdfit/
Image Credits
Brady Nuñez