Hidden Gems: Meet Eddie Lester of MetaGym

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eddie Lester. 

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Since I can remember, my life has always revolved around health, fitness, sport, and looking after yourself. I started out in my younger years as a professional surfer which was an interesting and exciting world to be in, but I found my passion and niche in the form of fitness tech and before you know it, I became an entrepreneur! 

I’ve always been healthy and active, but I feel like my purpose is helping others learn to love themselves through creating positive relationships with their health and fitness. 

I began my professional career as a personal trainer at Equinox and after learning the trade, I decided to set up my own personal training business. After some early success, I was then recruited to teach personal training at a local college which gave birth to a brainwave for a new concept after the school went bankrupt. 

This was the start of Fitness Mentors (www.fitnessmentors.com) – a business which provides trainers with the skill sets to provide value to clients as a personal trainer while showing them on how to monetize these aspects of their business. Fitness Mentors has gone from strength to strength over the past 8 years and now I’m venturing into the exciting world of web3.0 and blockchain technology. 

With the aim of creating a community that supports the common goal of helping the world become a healthier place, MetaGym serves its members through creating lucrative monetary opportunities through exercise, health, and community involvement. 

The primary goal of MetaGym is to foster the growth of a supportive and inclusive community that recognizes every step in each individual’s journey to make the decisions that lead to a healthier mind, body, and spirit. Through these initiatives, MetaGym aims to encourage more people into the web3.0 ecosystem. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
One of the biggest challenges was the closing of the school I thought I would build a career with. But thankfully, challenges and struggles are when my biggest growth moments have occurred. 

As much as the school closure hit me, it was also beneficial as it forced me to be creative and allow my passion for entrepreneurship to flourish. Since then, I have founded Fitness Mentors, the first online fitness study tools and test preparation company, Co-founded Surf Lakes SoCal (www.surflakessocal.com) to bring the best artificial surfing technology to Southern California, and now I’ve created MetaGym. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
With over two decades of business entrepreneurship, I’ve now founded MetaGym to break the move-to-earn monotony with biometric data integration, called “Exercise-to-Earn”. 

MetaGym is the first exercise-to-earn mobile application, complete with smartwatch and heart rate monitor integration, that uses the Polygon blockchain – the Mark Cuban-backed chain with a $13billion market cap and that is partnered with brands such as Coca-Cola, Reddit, and Starbucks – to reward users for their positive, whole-health behaviors including exercise, meditation, sleep, eating and more through gamification. 

Through the MetaGym’s in-app marketplace, members and MetaGym NFT holders have the opportunity to utilize their NFT Avatar to earn crypto for completing their fitness and health behaviors, lease their avatar to others with an earnings split, or sell their character. Users can also purchase Avatar upgrades in the form of clothing, shoes, and gear, which offer the opportunity to earn more HRT for each earning task. 

MetaGym’s exercise-to-earn platform is accessed by connecting your wallet to the MetaGym Mobile Application. Once connected, you will earn HRT based on certain health and exercise modalities and the number of MetaGym Buddy Avatars you have in your wallet. Each MetaGym buddy has a daily maximum earning potential of 100 HRT. You may have up to 50 MetaGym Buddy avatars in your wallet to maximize your earnings. 

Heart Rate Token (HRT) is the in-game utility token. The supply of HRT is unlimited, and users earn HRT through the different earning modalities. To ensure the stability of HRT, MetaGym is designed with plenty of burning mechanisms. 

As we grow, we’re looking to introduce brand partnerships to bring fitness, health, and wellbeing brands to the earning ecosystem to further incentivize healthy behaviors with physical products and unique branded utility. We also want to become the starting point for web2 companies to help bridge the gap as they look to enter the web3 world. 

We love surprises, fun facts, and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I am the proud father of four kids; Ryder, Curren, Reece, and Capri, and I’m a husband to a rockstar mom, Courtney. Building three businesses while raising four kids keeps me very busy, but I couldn’t do it without my amazing wife. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.meta-gym.io/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/metagym_io
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/metagymbuddies
• Other: https://linktr.ee/metagym