Michael Benso is a Gym Growth Consultant and entrepreneur who has spent more than two decades building, scaling, and sustaining profitable fitness businesses. He is best known for founding FMG, a personal training company that operated inside 100+ gyms across five states, where he hired, trained, and managed more than 1,000 coaches and sales staff, directly generating $40M+ in PT revenue and leaving behind systems that continued fueling growth long after.

In 2011, Michael launched Eco Gym, the world’s first solar- and human-powered gym, pioneering features like hyperbaric therapy and red-light recovery years before they became mainstream. Earlier in his career, he served as Global Strength Product Marketing Manager for Matrix Fitness, where the product lines he launched remain among Matrix’s top-selling equipment more than a decade later.

Today, Michael is the co-founder and CEO of Buzops, the Gym Growth OS: an operating system for fitness businesses that integrates CRM pipelines, automation, payments, analytics, and AI-driven growth tools. Under his leadership, Buzops is pioneering innovations such as reverse payment processing (where gyms get paid to process transactions, a first in any industry as of 2025), AI-powered call agents that convert leads without ad spend, and crypto-enabled memberships that evolve with loyalty.

Beyond technology, Michael is recognized for his sales strategy, team development frameworks, and growth playbooks that deliver measurable results. He is also the host of the Sweat Success Podcast, with 100+ episodes featuring bestselling authors, franchise CEOs, scientists, and multi-location operators.

Michael’s career reflects a proven operator-first approach, building businesses before building audiences. Now, through speaking, coaching, and software, he shares those systems so gym owners can break through barriers, accelerate revenue, and build businesses that dominate.

Jake Shipley, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of SchoolDuels

Jake is the ideal team player. From being bred in that structure throughout his life, he continued to learn this quality playing lacrosse at Denver University under hall of fame lacrosse coach Bill Tierney. Pursuing his passion for sports, he coached high school lacrosse at Baltimore Lutheran and St. Paul’s School at the varsity and junior varsity levels, respectively. Hungry to make his scratch on this world, he achieved his undergraduate degree in economics and began his career in the technology sector. He quickly worked his way up at a large produce distributor into a management role providing guidance and leadership for the technology department. Taking this knowledge of management and fast growth, he spearheaded SchoolDuels to lead the initiative of creating a vehicle to support high schools through the fun and excitement of sports.

SchoolDuels is a community building, online playground for high school sports. Fueled by the passion that comes with sports, SchoolDuels is building a place to hold the conversation, enthusiasm, and desired content for your local high school sports. It is a place to network, share, play, trade, research, highlight, and much more.